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diff --git a/38060.txt b/38060.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4938b2a --- /dev/null +++ b/38060.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5627 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Out of the Air, by Inez Haynes Irwin + +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: Out of the Air + +Author: Inez Haynes Irwin + +Release Date: November 19, 2011 [EBook #38060] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT OF THE AIR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +OUT OF THE AIR + +BY + +INEZ HAYNES IRWIN + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK + +Made in the United States of America + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY + +METROPOLITAN PUBLICATIONS, INC. + +COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + +HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + + + +TO + +BILLY AND PHYLLIS + + + + +OUT OF THE AIR + + + + +I + + +"... so I'll answer your questions in the order you ask them. No, I +don't want ever to fly again. My last pay-hop was two Saturdays ago and +I got my discharge papers yesterday. God willing, I'll never again ride +anything more dangerous than a velocipede. I'm now a respectable +American citizen, and for the future I'm going to confine my locomotion +to the well-known earth. Get that, Spink Sparrel! The earth! In +fact...." + +David Lindsay suddenly looked up from his typewriting. Under his window, +Washington Square simmered in the premature heat of an early June day. +But he did not even glance in that direction. Instead, his eyes sought +the doorway leading from the front room to the back of the apartment. +Apparently he was not seeking inspiration; it was as though he had been +suddenly jerked out of himself. After an absent second, his eye sank to +the page and the brisk clatter of his machine began again. + +"... after the woman you recommended, Mrs. Whatever-her-name-is, +shoveled off a few tons of dust. It's great! It's the key house of New +York, isn't it? And when you look right through the Arch straight up +Fifth Avenue, you feel as though you owned the whole town. And what an +air all this chaste antique New England stuff gives it! Who'd ever +thought you'd turn out--you big rough-neck you--to be a collector of +antiques? Not that I haven't fallen myself for the sailor's chest and +the butterfly table and the glass lamps. I actually salaam to that +sampler. And these furnishings seem especially appropriate when I +remember that Jeffrey Lewis lived here once. You don't know how much +that adds to the connotation of this place." + +Again--but absently--Lindsay looked up. And again, ignoring Washington +Square, which offered an effect as of a formal garden to the long +pink-red palace on its north side--plumy treetops, geometrical grass +areas, weaving paths; elegant little summer-houses--his gaze went with a +seeking look to the doorway. + +"Question No. 2. I haven't any plans of my own at present and I am +quite eligible to the thing you suggest. You say that no one wants to +read anything about the war. I don't blame them. I wish I could fall +asleep for a month and wake up with no recollection of it. I suppose +it's that state of mind which prevents people from writing their +recollections immediately. Of course we'll all do that ultimately, I +suppose--even people who, like myself, aren't professional writers. +Don't imagine that I'm going on with the writing game. I haven't the +divine afflatus. I'm just letting myself drift along with these two +jobs until I get that _guerre_ out of my system; can look around to +find what I really want to do. I'm willing to write my experiences +within a reasonable interval; but not at once. Everything is as vivid +in my mind of course as it's possible to be; but I don't want to have +to think of it. That's why your suggestion in regard to Lutetia Murray +strikes me so favorably. I should really like to do that biography. I'm +in the mood for something gentle and pastoral. And then of course I +have a sense of proprietorship in regard to Lutetia, not alone because +she was my literary find or that it was my thesis on her which got me +my A in English 12. But, in addition, I developed a sort of platonic, +long-distance, with-the-eye-of-the-mind-only crush on her. And yet, I +don't know...." + +Again Lindsay's eyes came up from his paper. For the third time he +ignored Washington Square swarming with lumbering green busses and +dusky-haired Italian babies; puppies, perambulators, and pedestrians. +Again his glance went mechanically to the door leading to the back of +the apartment. + +"You certainly have left an atmosphere in this joint, Spink. Somehow I +feel always as if you were in the room. How it would be possible for +such a pop-eyed, freckle-faced Piute as you to pack an astral body is +more than I can understand. It's here though--that sense of your +presence. The other day I caught myself saying, 'Oh, Spink!' to the +empty air. But to return to Lutetia, I can't tell you how the prospect +tempts. Once on a _permission_ in the spring of '16, I finds myself in +Lyons. There are to be gentle acrobatic doings in the best Gallic manner +in the Park on Sunday. I gallops out to see the sports. One place, I +comes across several scores of _poilus_--on their _permissions_ +similar--squatting on the ground and doing--what do you suppose? Picking +violets. Yep--picking violets. I says to myself then, I says, 'These +frogs sure are queer guys.' But now, Spink, I understand. I don't want +to do anything more strenuous myself than picking violets, unless it's +selling baby blankets, or holding yarn for old ladies. Perhaps by an +enormous effort I might summon the energy to run a tea-room." + +Lindsay stopped his typewriting again. This time he stared fixedly at +Washington Square. His eyes followed a pink-smocked, bob-haired maiden +hurrying across the Park; but apparently she did not register. He turned +abruptly with a--"Hello, old top, what do you want?" + +The doorway, being empty, made no answer. + +Having apparently forgotten his remark the instant it was dropped, +Lindsay went on writing. + +"I admit I'm thinking over that proposition. Among my things in storage +here, I have all Lutetia's works, including those unsuccessful and very +rare pomes of hers; even that blooming thesis I wrote. The thesis would, +of course, read rotten now, but it might provide data that would save +research. When do you propose to bring out this new edition, and how do +you account for that recent demand for her? Of course it establishes me +as some swell prophet. I always said she'd bob up again, you know. Then +it looked as though she was as dead as the dodo. It isn't the work alone +that appeals to me; it's doing it in Lutetia's own town, which is +apparently the exact kind of dead little burg I'm looking for--Quinanog, +isn't it? Come to think of it, Spink, my favorite occupation at this +moment would be making daisy-chains or oak-wreaths. I'll think it..." + +He jumped spasmodically; jerked his head about; glanced over his +shoulder at the doorway-- + +"What I'd really like to do, is the biography of Lutetia for about one +month; then--for about three months--my experiences at the war which, I +understand, are to be put away in the manuscript safe of the publishing +firm of Dunbar, Cabot and Elsingham to be published when the demand for +war stuff begins again. That, I reckon, is what I should do if I'm going +to do it at all. Write it while it's fresh--as I'm not a professional. +But I can't at this moment say yes, and I can't say no. I'd like to stay +a little longer in New York. I'd like to renew acquaintance with the old +burg. I can afford to thrash round a bit, you know, if I like. There's +ten thousand dollars that my uncle left me, in the bank waiting me. When +that's spent, of course I'll have to go to work. + +"You ask me for my impressions of America--as a returned sky-warrior. Of +course I've only been here a week and I haven't talked with so very many +people yet. But everybody is remarkably omniscient. I can't tell them +anything about the late war. Sometimes they ask me a question, but they +never listen to my answer. No, I listen to them. And they're very +informing, believe me. Most of them think that the cavalry won the war +and that we went over the top to the sound of fife and drum. For +myself..." + +Again he jumped; turned his head; stared into the doorway. After an +instant of apparent expectancy, he sighed. He arose and, with an +elaborate saunter, moved over to the mirror hanging above the mantel; +looked at his reflection with the air of one longing to see something +human. The mirror was old; narrow and dim; gold framed. A gay little +picture of a ship, bellying to full sail, filled the space above the +looking-glass. The face, which contemplated him with the same unseeing +carelessness with which he contemplated it, was the face of +twenty-five--handsome; dark. It was long and lean. The continuous flying +of two years had dyed it a deep wine-red; had bronzed and burnished it. +And apparently the experiences that went with that flying had cooled and +hardened it. It was now but a smoothly handsome mask which blanked all +expression of his emotions. + +Even as his eye fixed itself on his own reflected eye, his head jerked +sideways again; he stared expectantly at the open doorway. After an +interval in which nothing appeared, he sauntered through that door; +and--with almost an effect of premeditated carelessness--through the two +little rooms, which so uselessly fill the central space of many New York +houses, to the big sunny bedroom at the back. + +The windows looked out on a paintable series of backyards: on a +sketchable huddle of old, stained, leaning wooden houses. At the +opposite window, a purple-haired, violet-eyed foreign girl in a faded +yellow blouse was making artificial nasturtiums; flame-colored velvet +petals, like a drift of burning snow, heaped the table in front of her. +A black cat sunned itself on the window ledge. On a distant roof, a boy +with a long pole was herding a flock of pigeons. They made glittering +swirls of motion and quick V-wheelings, that flashed the gray of their +wings like blades and the white of their breasts like glass. Their +sudden turns filled the air with mirrors. Lindsay watched their flight +with the critical air of a rival. Suddenly he turned as though someone +had called him; glanced inquiringly back at the doorway.... + +When, a few minutes later, he sauntered into the Rochambeau, immaculate +in the old gray suit he had put off when he donned the French uniform +four years before, he was the pink of summer coolness and the +quintessence of military calm. The little, low-ceilinged series of +rooms, just below the level of the street, were crowded; filled with +smoke, talk, and laughter. Lindsay at length found a table, looked about +him, discovered himself to be among strangers. He ordered a cocktail, +swearing at the price to the sympathetic French waiter, who made an +excited response in French and assisted him to order an elaborate +dinner. Lindsay propped his paper against his water-glass; concentrated +on it as one prepared for lonely eating. With the little-necks, however, +came diversion. From behind the waiter's crooked arm appeared the satiny +dark head of a girl. Lindsay leaped to his feet, held out his hand. + +"Good Lord, Gratia! Where in the world did you come from!" + +The girl put both her pretty hands out. "I _can_ shake hands with you, +David, now that you're in civies. I don't like that green and yellow +ribbon in your buttonhole though. I'm a pacifist, you know, and I've got +to tell you where I stand before we can talk." + +"All right," Lindsay accepted cheerfully. "You're a darn pretty +pacifist, Gratia. Of course you don't know what you're talking about. +But as long as you talk about anything, I'll listen." + +Gratia had cut her hair short, but she had introduced a style of +hair-dressing new even to Greenwich Village. She combed its sleek +abundance straight back to her neck and left it. There, following its +own devices, it turned up in the most delightful curls. Her large dark +eyes were set in a skin of pale amber and in the midst of a piquant +assortment of features. She had a way, just before speaking, of lifting +her sleek head high on the top of her slim neck. And then she was like a +beautiful young seal emerging from the water. + +"Oh, I'm perfectly serious!" the pretty pacifist asserted. "You +know I never have believed in war. Dora says you've come back +loving the French. How you can admire a people who--" After a +while she paused to take breath and then, with the characteristic +lift of her head, "Belgians--the Congo--Algeciras--Morocco-- And as +for England--Ireland--India--Egypt--" The glib, conventional patter +dripped readily from her soft lips. + +Lindsay listened, apparently entranced. "Gratia, you're too pretty for +any use!" he asserted indulgently after the next pause in which she dove +under the water and reappeared sleek-haired as ever. "I'm not going to +argue with you. I'm going to tell you one thing that will be a shock to +you, though. The French don't like war either. And the reason is--now +prepare yourself--they know more about the horrors of war in _one_ +minute than you will in a thousand years. What are you doing with +yourself, these days, Gratia?" + +"Oh, running a shop; making smocks, working on batiks, painting, writing +_vers libre_," Gratia admitted. + +"I mean, what do you do with your leisure?" Lindsay demanded, after +prolonged meditation. + +Gratia ignored this persiflage. "I'm thinking of taking up +psycho-analysis," she confided. "It interests me enormously. I think I +ought to do rather well with it." + +"I offer myself as your first victim. Why, you'll make millions! Every +man in New York will want to be psyched. What's the news, Gratia? I'm +dying for gossip." + +Gratia did her best to feed this appetite. Declining dinner, she sipped +the tall cool green drink which Lindsay ordered for her. She poured out +a flood of talk; but all the time her eyes were flitting from table to +table. And often she interrupted her comments on the absent with remarks +about the present. + +"Yes, Aussie was killed in Italy, flying. Will Arden was wounded in the +Argonne. George Jennings died of the flu in Paris--see that big blonde +over there, Dave? She's the Village dressmaker now--Dark Dale is in +Russia--can't get out. Putty Doane was taken prisoner by the Germans +at--Oh, see that gang of up-towners--aren't they snippy and patronizing +and silly? But Molly Fearing is our best war sensation. You know what a +tiny frightened mouse of a thing she was. She went into the 'Y.' She was +in the trenches the day of the Armistice--_talked_ with Germans; not +prisoners, you understand--but the retreating Germans. Her letters are +wonderful. She's crazy about it over there. I wouldn't be surprised if +she never came back-- Oh, Dave, don't look now; but as soon as you can, +get that tall red-headed girl in the corner, Marie Maroo. She does the +most marvelous drawings you ever saw. She belongs to that new Vortex +School. And then Joel-- Oh, there's Ernestine Phillips and her father. +You want to meet her father. He's a riot. Octogenarian, too! He's just +come from some remote hamlet in Vermont. Ernestine's showing him a +properly expurgated edition of the Village. Hi, Ernestine! He's a Civil +War veteran. Ernest's crazy to see you, Dave!" + +The middle-aged, rather rough-featured woman standing in the doorway +turned at Gratia's call. Her movement revealed the head and shoulders of +a tall, gaunt, very old man, a little rough-featured like his daughter; +white-haired and white-mustached. She hurried at once to Lindsay's +table. + +"Oh, Dave!" She took both Lindsay's hands. "I _am_ glad to see you! How +I have worried about you! My father, Dave. Father, this is David +Lindsay, the young aviator I was telling you about, who had such +extraordinary experiences in France. You remember the one I mean, +father. He served for two years with the French Army before we declared +war." + +Mr. Phillips extended a long arm which dangled a long hand. "Pleased to +meet you, sir! You're the first flier I've had a chance to talk with. I +expect folks make life a perfect misery to you--but if you don't mind +answering questions--" + +"Shoot!" Lindsay permitted serenely. "I'm nearly bursting with +suppressed information. How are you, Ernestine?" + +"Pretty frazzled like the rest of us," Ernestine answered. Ernestine had +one fine feature; a pair of large dark serene eyes. Now they flamed with +a troubled fire. "The war did all kinds of things to my psychology, of +course. I suppose I am the most despised woman in the Village at this +moment because I don't seem to be either a militarist or a pacifist. I +don't believe in war, but I don't see how we could have kept out of it; +or how France could have prevented it." + +"Ernestine!" Lindsay said warmly. "I just love _you_. Contrary to the +generally accepted opinion of the pacifists, France did not deliberately +bring this war on herself. Nor did she keep it up four years for her +private amusement. She hasn't enjoyed one minute of it. I don't expect +Gratia to believe me, but perhaps you will. These four years of death, +destruction, and devastation haven't entertained France a particle." + +"Well, of course--" Ernestine was beginning, "but what's the use?" Her +eyes met Lindsay's in a perplexed, comprehending stare. Lindsay shook +his handsome head gayly. "No use whatever," he said. "I'm rapidly +growing taciturn." + +"What I would like to ask you," Mr. Phillips broke in, "does war seem +such a pretty thing to you, young man, after you've seen a little of it? +I remember in '65 most of us came back thinking that Sherman hadn't used +strong enough language." + +"Mr. Phillips," Lindsay answered, "if there's ever another war, it will +take fifteen thousand dollars to send me a postcard telling me about +it." + +The talk drifted away from the war: turned to prohibition; came back to +it again. Lindsay answered Mr. Phillips's questions with enthusiastic +thoroughness. They pertained mainly to his training at Pau and Avord, +but Lindsay volunteered a detailed comparison of the American military +method with the French. "I'll always be glad though," he concluded, +"that I had that experience with the French Army. And of course when our +troops got over, I was all ready to fly." + +"Then the French uniform is so charming," Gratia put in, consciously +sarcastic. + +Lindsay slapped her slim wrist indulgently and continued to answer Mr. +Phillips's questions. Ernestine listened, the look of trouble growing in +her serene eyes. Gratia listened, diving under water after her shocked +exclamations and reappearing glistening. + +"Oh, there's Matty Packington!" Gratia broke in. "You haven't met Matty +yet, Dave. Hi, Matty! You _must_ know Matty. She's a sketch. She's one +of those people who say the things other people only dare think. You +won't believe her." She rattled one of her staccato explanations; +"society girl--first a slumming tour through the Village--perfectly +crazy about it--studio in McDougal Alley--yeowoman--becoming +uniform--Rolls-Royce--salutes--" + +Matty Packington approached the table with a composed flutter. The two +men arose. Gratia met her halfway; performed the introductions. In a +minute the conversation was out of everybody's hands and in Miss +Packington's. As Gratia prophesied, Lindsay found it difficult to +believe her. She started at an extraordinary speed and she maintained it +without break. + +"Oh, Mr. Lindsay, aren't you heartbroken now that it is all over? You +must tell me all about your experiences sometime. It must have been too +thrilling for words. But don't you think--_don't_ you think--they +stopped the war too soon? If I were Foch I wouldn't have been satisfied +until I'd occupied all Germany, devastated just as much territory as +those beasts devastated in France, and executed all those monsters who +cut off the Belgian babies' hands. Don't you think so?" + +Lindsay contemplated the lady who put this interesting question to him. +She was fair and fairy-like; a little, light-shot golden blonde; all +slim lines and opalescent colors. Her hair fluttered like whirled light +from under her piquantly cocked military cap. The stress of her emotion +added for the instant to the bigness and blueness of her eyes. + +"Well, for myself," he remarked finally, "I can do with a little peace +for a while. And then to carry out your wishes, Miss Packington, Foch +would have had to sacrifice a quarter of a million more Allied soldiers. +But I sometimes think the men at the front were a bit thoughtless of the +entertainment of the civilians. Somehow we _did_ get it into our heads +that we ought to close this war up as soon as possible. Another time +perhaps we'd know better." + +Miss Packington received this characteristically; that is to say, she +did not receive it at all. For by the time Lindsay had begun his last +sentence, she had embarked on a monologue directed this time to Gratia. +The talk flew back and forth, grew general; grew concrete; grew +abstract; grew personal. It bubbled up into monologues from Gratia and +Matty. It thinned down to questions from Ernestine and Mr. Phillips. +Drinks came; were followed by other drinks. All about them, tables +emptied and filled, uniforms predominating; and all to the accompaniment +of chatter; gay mirth; drifting smoke-films and refilled glasses. +Latecomers stopped to shake hands with Lindsay, to join the party for a +drink; to smoke a cigarette; floated away to other parties. But the +nucleus of their party remained the same. + +David answered with patience all questions, stopped patiently halfway +through his own answer to reply to other questions. At about midnight he +rose abruptly. He had just brought to the end a careful and succinct +statement in which he declared that he had seen no Belgian children with +their hands cut off; no crucified Canadians. + +"Folks," he addressed the company genially, "I'm going to admit to you +I'm tired." Inwardly he added, "I won't indicate which ones of you make +me the most tired; but almost all of you give me an awful pain." He +added aloud, "It's the hay for me this instant. Good-night!" + +Back once more in his rooms, he did not light up. Instead he sat at the +window and gazed out. Straight ahead, two lines of golden beads curving +up the Avenue seemed to connect the Arch with the distant horizon. The +deep azure of the sky was faintly powdered with stars. But for its +occasional lights, of a purplish silver, the Square would have been a +mere mystery of trees. But those lights seemed to anchor what was half +vision to earth. And they threw interlaced leaf shadows on the ceiling +above Lindsay's head. It was as though he sat in some ghostly bower. +Looking fixedly through the Arch, his face grew somber. Suddenly he +jerked about and stared through the doorway which led into the back +rooms. + +Nothing appeared-- + +After a while he lighted one gas jet--after an instant's hesitation +another-- + + * * * * * + +In the middle of the night, Lindsay suddenly found himself sitting +upright. His mouth was wide open, parched; his eyes were wide open, +staring.... A chilly prickling tingled along his scalp.... But the +strangest phenomenon was his heart, which, though swelled to an +incredible bulk, nimbly leaped, heavily pounded.... + +Lindsay recognized the motion which inundated him to be fear; +overpowering, shameless, abject fear. But of what? In the instant in +which he gave way to self-analysis, memory supplied him with a vague +impression. _Something_ had come to his bed and, leaning over, had +stared into his face-- + +That _something_ was not human. + +Lindsay fought for control. By an initial feat of courage, his fumbling +fingers lighted a candle which stood on the tiny Sheraton table at his +bedside. On a second impulse, but only after an interval in which +consciously but desperately he grasped at his vanishing manhood, he +leaped out of bed; lighted the gas. Then carrying the lighted candle, he +went from one to another of the four rooms of the apartment. In each +room he lighted every gas jet until the place blazed. He searched it +thoroughly: dark corners and darker closets; jetty strata of shadow +under couches. + +He was alone. + +After a while he went back to bed. But his courage was not equal to +darkness again. Though ultimately he fell asleep, the gas blazed all +night. + + * * * * * + +Lindsay awoke rather jaded the next morning. He wandered from room to +room submitting to one slash of his razor at this mirror and to another +at that. + +At one period of this process, "Rum nightmare I had last night!" he +remarked casually to the unresponsive air. + +He cooked his own breakfast; piled up the dishes and settled himself to +his correspondence again. "This letter is getting to be a book, Spink," +he began. "But I feel every moment as though I wanted to add more. I +slept on your proposition last night, but I don't feel any nearer a +decision. Quinanog and Lutetia tempt me; but then so does New York. By +the way, have you any pictures of Lutetia? I had one in my rooms at +Holworthy. Must be kicking around among my things. I cut it out of the +annual catalogue of your book-house. Photograph as I remember. She was +some pip. I'd like--" + +He started suddenly, turned his head toward the doorway leading to the +back rooms. The doorway was empty. Lindsay arose from his chair, +sauntered in a leisurely manner through the rooms. He investigated +closets again. "Damn it all!" he muttered. + +He resumed his letter. "You're right about writing my experiences now. I +had a long footless talk with some boobs last night, and it was curious +how things came back under their questions. I had quite forgotten them +temporarily, and of course I shall forget them for keeps if I don't +begin to put them down. I have a few scattered notes here and there. I +meant, of course, to keep a diary, but believe me, a man engaged in a +war is too busy for the pursuit of letters. But just as soon as I make +up my mind--" + +Another interval. Absently Lindsay addressed an envelope. Spinney K. +Sparrel, Esq., Park Street, Boston; attacked the list of other +long-neglected correspondents. Suddenly his head jerked upward; pivoted +again. After an instant's observation of the empty doorway, he pulled +his face forward; resumed his work. Page after page slid onto the roller +of his machine, submitted to the tattoo of its little lettered teeth, +emerged neatly inscribed. Suddenly he leaped to his feet; swung about. + +The doorway was empty. + +"Who are you?" he interrogated the empty air, "and what do you want? If +you can tell me, speak--and I'll do anything in my power to help you. +But if you can't tell me, for God's sake go away!" + + * * * * * + +That night--it happened again. There came the same sudden start, +stricken, panting, perspiring, out of deep sleep; the same frantic +search of the apartment with all the lights burning; the same late, +broken drowse; the same jaded awakening. + +As before, he set himself doggedly to work. And, as before, somewhere in +the middle of the morning, he wheeled about swiftly in his chair to +glare through the open doorway. "I wonder if I'm going nutty!" he +exclaimed aloud. + + * * * * * + +Three days went by. Lindsay's nights were so broken that he took long +naps in the afternoon. His days had turned into periods of idle revery. +The letter to Spink Sparrel was still unfinished. He worked +spasmodically at his typewriter: but he completed nothing. The third +night he started toward the Rochambeau with the intention of getting a +room. But halfway across the Park, he stopped and retraced his steps. "I +can't let you beat me!" he muttered audibly, after he arrived in the +empty apartment. + +It did not beat him that night; for he stayed in the apartment until +dawn broke. But from midnight on, he lay with every light in the place +going. At sunrise, he dressed and went out for a walk. And the moment +the sounds of everyday life began to humanize the neighborhood, he +returned; sat down to his machine. + +"Spink, old dear, my mind is made up. I accept! I'll do Lutetia for you; +and, by God, I'll do her well! I'm starting for Boston tomorrow night on +the midnight. I'll call at the office about noon and we'll go to +luncheon together. I'll dig out my thesis and books from storage, and if +you'll get all your dope and data together, I can go right to it. I'm +going to Quinanog tomorrow afternoon. I need a change. Everybody here +makes me tired. The pacifists make me wild and the militarists make me +wilder. Civilians is nuts when it comes to a war. The only person I can +talk about it with is somebody who's been there. And anybody who's been +there has the good sense not to want to talk about it. I don't ever want +to hear of that war again. Personally, I, David Lindsay, meaning me, +want to swing in a hammock on a pleasant, cool, vine-hung piazza; read +Lutetia at intervals and write some little pieces subsequent. Yours, +David." + + + + +II + + +Susannah Ayer dragged herself out of her sleepless night and started to +get up. But halfway through her first rising motion, something seemed to +leave her--to leave her spirit rather than her body. She collapsed in a +droop-shouldered huddle onto the bed. Her red hair had come out of its +thick braids; it streamed forward over her white face; streaked her +nightgown with glowing strands. She pushed it out of her eyes and sat +for a long interval with her face in her hands. Finally she rose and +went to the dresser. Haggardly she stared into the glass at her +reflection, and haggardly her reflection stared back at her. "I don't +wonder you look different, Glorious Susie," she addressed herself +wordlessly, "because you _are_ different. I wonder if you can ever wash +away that experience--" + +She poured water into the basin until it almost brimmed; and dropped her +face into it. After her sponge bath, she contemplated herself again in +the glass. Some color had crept into the pearly whiteness of her cheek. +Her dark-fringed eyes seemed a little less shadow-encircled. She turned +their turquoise glance to the picture of a woman--a miniature painted on +ivory--which hung beside the dresser. + +"Glorious Lutie," she apostrophized it, "you don't know how I wish you +were here. You don't know how much I need you now. I need you so much, +Glorious Lutie--I'm frightened!" + +The miniature, after the impersonal manner of pictures, made no response +to this call for help. Susannah sighed deeply. And for a moment she +stood a figure almost tragic, her eyes darkening as she looked into +space, her young mouth setting its soft scarlet into hard lines. In +another moment she pulled herself out of this daze and continued her +dressing. + +An hour and a half later, when, cool and lithe in her blue linen suit, +she entered the uptown skyscraper which housed the Carbonado Mining +Company, her spirits took a sudden leap. After all, here _was_ help. It +was not the help she most desired and needed--the confidence and advice +of another woman--but at least she would get instant sympathy, ultimate +understanding. + +Anyone, however depressed his mood, must have felt his spirits rise as +he stepped into the Admolian Building. It was so new that its +terra-cotta walls without, its white-enameled tiling within, seemed +always to have been freshly scrubbed and dusted. It was so high that, +with a first acrobatic impulse, it leaped twenty stories above ground; +and with a second, soared into a tower which touched the clouds. That +had not exhausted its strength. It dug in below ground, and there spread +out into rooms, eternally electric-lighted. From the eleventh story up, +its wide windows surveyed every purlieu of Manhattan. Its spacious +elevators seemed magically to defy gravitation. A touch started their +swift flight heavenward; a touch started their soft drop earthward. +Every floor housed offices where fortunes were being made--and lost--at +any rate, changing hands. There was an element of buoyancy in the air, +an atmosphere of success. People moved more quickly, talked more +briskly, from the moment they entered the Admolian Building. As always, +it raised the spirits of Susannah Ayer. The set look vanished from her +eyes; some of their normal brilliancy flowed back into them. Her mouth +relaxed-- When the elevator came to a padded halt at the eighteenth +floor, she had become almost herself again. + +She stopped before the first in a series of offices. Black-printed +letters on the ground glass of the door read: + + 46 + Carbonado Mining Company + Private. Enter No. 47 + +An accommodating hand pointed in the direction of No. 47. Susannah +unlocked the door and with a little sigh, as of relief, stepped in. + +Other offices stretched along the line of the corridor, bearing the +inscriptions, respectively, "No. 48, H. Withington Warner, President and +General Manager; No. 49, Joseph Byan, Vice-President; No. 50, Michael +O'Hearn, Secretary and Treasurer." Ultimately, Susannah's own door would +flaunt the proud motto, "No. 51, Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's +Department." + +Susannah threaded the inner corridor to her own office. She hung up her +hat and jacket; opened her mail; ran through it. Then she lifted the +cover from her typewriter and began mechanically to brush and oil it. +Her mind was not on her work; it had not been on the letters. It kept +speeding back to last night. She did not want to think of last night +again--at least not until she must. She pulled her thoughts into her +control; made them flow back over the past months. And as they sped in +those pleasant channels, involuntarily her mood went with them. Had any +girl ever been so fortunate, she wondered. She put it to herself in +simple declaratives-- + +Here she was, all alone in New York and in New York for the first time, +settled--interestingly and pleasantly settled. Eight months before, she +had stepped out of business college without a hundred dollars in the +world; her course in stenography, typewriting, and secretarial work had +taken the last of her inherited funds. Without kith or kin, she was a +working-woman, now, on her own responsibility. Two months of +apprenticeship, one stenographer among fifty, in the great offices of +the Maxwell Mills, and Barty Joyce, almost the sole remaining friend who +remembered the past glories of her family, had advised her to try New +York. + +"Susannah," he said, "now is the time to strike--now while the men are +away and while the girls are still on war jobs. Get yourself entrenched +before they come back. You've the makings of a wonderful office helper." + +Susannah, with a glorious sense of adventure once she was started, took +his advice and moved to New York. For a week, she answered +advertisements, visited offices; and she found that Barty was right. She +had the refusal of half a dozen jobs. From them she selected the offer +of the Carbonado Mining Company--partly because she liked Mr. Warner, +and partly because it seemed to offer the best future. Mr. Warner said +to her in their first interview: + +"We are looking for a clever woman whom we can specially train in the +methods of our somewhat peculiar business. If you qualify, we shall +advance you to a superior position." + +That "superior position" had fallen into her hand like a ripe peach. +Within a week, Mr. Warner had called her into the private office for a +long business talk. + +"Miss Ayer," he said, "you seem to be making good. I am going to tell +you frankly that if you continue to meet our requirements, we shall +continue to advance you and pay you accordingly. You see, our +business--" Mr. Warner's voice always swelled a little when he said "our +business"--"our business involves a great deal of letter-writing to +women investors and some personal interviews. Now we believe--both Mr. +Byan and I--that women investing money like to deal with one of their +own sex. We have been looking for just the right woman. A candidate for +the position must have tact, understanding, and clearness of written +expression. We have been trying to find such a woman; and frankly, the +search has been difficult. You know how war work--quite rightly, of +course--has monopolized the able women of the country. We have tried out +half a dozen girls; but the less said about them the better. For two +weeks we will let you try your hand at correspondence with women +investors. If your work is satisfactory, it means a permanent job at +twice your present salary." + +Her work had pleased them! It had pleased them instantly. But oh, how +she had worked to please them and to continue to please! Every letter +she sent out--and after explaining the Carbonado Company and its +attractions, Mr. Warner let her compose all the letters to women--was a +study in condensed and graceful expression. At the end of the fortnight +Mr. Warner engaged her permanently. He went even further. He said: + +"Miss Ayer, we're going to make you manager of our women's department; +and we're going to put your name with ours on the letterhead of the new +office stationery." When the day came that she first signed herself +"Susannah Ayer, Manager Women's Department," she felt as though all the +fairy tales she ever read had come true. + +Susannah, as she was assured again and again, continued to give +satisfaction. No wonder; for she liked her job. The work interested her +so much that she always longed to get to the office in the morning, +almost hated to leave it at night. It was a pleasant office, bright and +spacious. Everything was new, even to the capacious waste basket. Her +big, shiny mahogany desk stood close to the window. And from that window +she surveyed the colorful, brick-and-stone West Side of Manhattan, the +Hudson, and the city-spotted, town-dotted stretches beyond. The clouds +hung close; sometimes their white and silver argosies seemed to besiege +her. Once, she almost thought the new moon would bounce through her +window. Snow noiselessly, winds tumultuously, assailed her; but she sat +as impervious as though in an enchanted tower. Gray days made only a +suaver magic, thunderstorms a madder enchantment, about her eyrie. + +The human surroundings were just as pleasant. Though the Carbonado +Company worked only with selected clients, though they transacted most +of their business by mail, there were many visitors--some customers; +others, apparently, merely friends of Mr. Warner, Mr. Byan, and Mr. +O'Hearn--who dropped in of afternoons to chat a while. Pleasant, jolly +men most of these. Snatches of their talk, usually enigmatic, floated to +her across the tops of the partitions; it gave the office an exciting +atmosphere of something doing. And then--it happened that Susannah's way +of life had brought her into contact with but few men--everything was so +_manny_. + +She stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, president and general +manager. Mr. Warner was middle-aged and iron-gray. That last adjective +perfectly described him--iron-gray. Everything about him was gray; his +straight, thick hair; his clear, incisive eyes; even his colorless skin. +And his personality had a quality of iron. There was about him a +fascinating element of duality. Sometimes he seemed to Susannah a little +like a clergyman. And sometimes he made her think of an actor. This +histrionic aspect, she decided, was due to his hair, a bit long; to his +features, floridly classic; to his manner, frequently courtly; to his +voice, occasionally oratorical. This, however, showed only in his +lighter moments. Much of the time, of course, he was merely brisk and +businesslike. Whatever his tone, it carried you along. To Susannah, he +was always charming. + +If she stood a little in awe of H. Withington Warner, she made up by +feeling on terms of the utmost equality with Michael O'Hearn, secretary +and treasurer of the Carbonado Mining Company. Mr. O'Hearn--the others +called him "Mike"--was a little Irishman. He had a short stumpy figure +and a short stumpy face. Moreover, he looked as though someone had +delivered him a denting blow in the middle of his profile. From this +indentation jutted in one direction his long, protuberant, rounded +forehead; peaked in another his upturned nose. The rest of him was sandy +hair and sandy complexion, and an agreeable pair of long-lashed Irish +eyes. He was the wit of the office, keeping everyone in constant good +temper. Susannah felt very friendly toward Mr. O'Hearn. This was +strange, because he rarely spoke to her. But somehow, for all that, he +had the gift of seeming friendly. Susannah trusted him as she trusted +Mr. Warner, though in a different way. + +In regard to Joseph Byan, the third member of the combination, Susannah +had her unformulated reservations. Perhaps it was because Byan really +interested her more than the other two. Byan was little and slender; +perfectly formed and rather fine-featured; swift as a cat in his darting +movements. In his blue eyes shone a look of vague pathos and on his lips +floated--Susannah decided that this was the only way to express it--a +vague, a rather sweet smile. Susannah's job had not at first brought her +as much into contact with Mr. Byan as with Mr. Warner. His work, she +learned, lay mostly outside of the office. But once, during her third +week, he had come into her office and dictated a letter; had lingered, +when he had finished with the business in hand, for a little talk. The +conversation, in some curious turn, veered to the subject of firearms. +He was speaking of the various patterns of revolvers. He stood before +her, a slim, perfectly proportioned figure whose clothes, of an almost +feminine nicety and cut, seemed to follow every line of the body +beneath. Suddenly, one of his slight hands made a swift gesture. There +appeared--from where, she could not guess--a little, ugly-looking black +revolver. With it, he illustrated his point. Since, he had never passed +through the office without Susannah's glance playing over him like a +flame. Nowhere along the smooth lines of his figure could she catch the +bulge of that little toy of death. Despite his suave gentleness, there +was a believable quality about Byan; his personality carried conviction, +just as did that of the others. Susannah trusted him, too; but again in +a different way. + +On the very day when Mr. Byan showed her the revolver, she was passing +the open door of Mr. Warner's office; and she heard the full, round +voice of the Chief saying: + +"Remember, Joe, rule number one: no clients or employ--" Byan hastily +closed the door on the tail of that sentence. Sometimes she wondered how +it ended. + +A cog in the machine, Susannah had never fully understood the business. +That was not really necessary; Mr. Warner himself kept her informed on +what she needed to know. He explained in the beginning the glorious +opportunity for investors. From time to time, he added new details, as +for example the glowing reports of their chief engineer or their special +expert. Susannah knew that they were paying three per cent dividends a +month--and in April there was a special dividend of two per cent. +Besides, they were about to break into a "mother lode"--the reports of +their experts proved that--and when that happened, no one could tell +just how high the dividends might be. True, these dividend payments were +often made a little irregularly. One of the things which Susannah did +not understand, did not try to understand, was why a certain list of +preferred stockholders was now and then given an extra dividend; nor why +at times Mr. Warner would transfer a name from one list to another. + +"I'm thinking of saving my money and investing myself in Carbonado +stock!" said Susannah to Mr. Warner one day. + +"Don't," said Mr. Warner; and then with a touch of his clerical manner: +"We prefer to keep our office force and our investors entirely separate +factors for the present. We are trying to avoid the reproach of letting +our people in on the ground floor. When our ship comes in--when we open +the mother lode--you shall be taken care of!" + +So, for six months, everything went perfectly. Susannah had absorbed +herself completely in her job. This was an easy thing to do when the +business was so fascinating. She had gone for five months at this pace +when she realized that she had not taken the leisure to make friends. +Except the three partners--mere shadows to her--and the people at her +boarding-house--also mere shadows to her--she knew only Eloise. Not that +the friendship of Eloise was a thing to pass over lightly. Eloise was a +host in herself. + +They had met at the Dorothy Dorr, a semi-charitable home for young +business women, at which Susannah stayed during her first week in New +York. Eloise was an heiress, of that species known to the newspapers as +a "society girl." Pretty, piquant, gay, extravagant, she dabbled in +picturesque charities, and the Dorothy Dorr was her pet. Sometimes in +the summer, when she ran up to town, she even lodged there. By natural +affinity, she had picked Susannah out of the crowd. By the time Susannah +was established in her new job and had moved to a boarding-house, they +had become friends. But the friendship of Eloise could not be very +satisfactory. She was too busy; and, indeed, too often out of town. From +her social fastnesses, she made sudden, dashing forays on Susannah; took +her to luncheon, dinner, or the theater; then she would retreat to upper +Fifth Avenue, and Susannah would not see her for a fortnight or a month. + +Then, that terrible, perplexing yesterday. If she could only expunge +yesterday from her life--or at least from her memory! + +Of course, there were events leading up to yesterday. Chief among them +was the appearance in the office, some weeks before, of Mr. Ozias +Cowler, from Iowa. Mr. Cowler, Susannah gathered from the manner of the +office, was a customer of importance. He was middle-aged. No, why mince +matters--he was an old man who looked middle-aged. He was old, because +his hair had gone quite white, and his face had fallen into areas broken +by wrinkles. But he appeared to the first glance middle-aged, because +the skin of those areas was ruddy and warm; because his eyes were as +clear and blue as in youth. He looked--well, Susannah decided that he +looked _fatherly_. He was quiet in his step and quiet in his manner. +Though he appeared to her in the light of a customer rather than that of +an acquaintance, Susannah was inclined to like him, as she liked +everyone and everything about the Carbonado offices. + +Susannah gathered in time that Mr. Cowler had a great deal of money, and +that he had come to New York to invest it. Of course the Carbonado +Mining Company--and this included Susannah herself--saw the best of +reasons why it should be invested with them. But evidently, he was a +hard, cautious customer. He came again and again. He sat closeted for +long intervals with Mr. Warner. Sometimes Mr. Byan came into these +conferences. Mr. Cowler was always going to luncheon with the one and to +dinner with the other. He even went to a baseball game with Mr. O'Hearn. +But, although he visited the office more and more frequently, she +gathered that the investment was not forthcoming. Susannah knew how +frequently he was coming because, in spite of the little, admonitory +black hand on the ground-glass door, he always entered, not by the +reception room, but by her office. Usually, he preceded his long talk +with Mr. Warner by a little chat with her. Evidently, he had not yet +caught the quick gait of New York business; for as he left--again +through Susannah's office--he would stop for a longer talk. Once or +twice, Susannah had to excuse herself in order to go on with her work. +She had been a little afraid that Mr. Warner would comment on these +delays in office routine. But, although Mr. Warner once or twice glanced +into her office during these intervals, he never interfered. + +Then came--yesterday. + +Early in the morning, Mr. Warner said: + +"Miss Ayer, I wonder if you can do a favor for us?" He went on, without +waiting for Susannah's answer: "Cowler--you know what a helpless person +he is--wants to go to dinner and the theater tonight. It happens that +none of us can accompany him. We've all made the kind of engagement +which can't be broken--business. He feels a little self-conscious. You +know, his money came to him late, and he has never been to a big city +before. I suspect he is afraid to enter a fashionable restaurant alone. +He wants to go to Sherry's and to the theater afterward--" Mr. Warner +paused to smile genially. "He's something of a hick, you know, and +especially in regard to this Sherry and midnight cabaret stuff." Mr. +Warner rarely used slang; and when he did, his smile seemed to put it +into quotation marks. "True to type, he has bought tickets in the front +row. After the show, he wants to go to one of the midnight cabarets. +Would you be willing to steer him through all this? The show is _Let's +Beat It_." + +Susannah expressed herself as delighted; and indeed she was. To herself +she admitted that Mr. Cowler was no more of a "hick" in regard to +Broadway, Sherry's, and midnight cabarets than she herself. But about +admitting this, she had all the self-consciousness of the newly arrived +New Yorker. + +"That is very good of you, Miss Ayer," said Mr. Warner, appearing much +relieved. "You may go home this afternoon an hour earlier." Again Mr. +Warner passed from his incisive, gray-hued sobriety to an expansive +geniality. "I know that in these circumstances, ladies like to take time +over their toilettes." He smiled at Susannah, a smile more expansive +than any she had ever seen on his face; it showed to the back molars his +handsome, white, regular teeth. + +Mr. Cowler called for her in a taxicab at seven and-- + + * * * * * + +She heard Mr. Warner's door open and shut. Footsteps sounded in the +corridor--that was Mr. O'Hearn's voice. She glanced at her wrist-watch. +Half-past nine. The partners had arrived early this morning, of all +mornings. They were night birds, all three, seldom appearing before +half-past ten, and often working in the office late after she had gone. +Susannah stopped mid-sentence a letter which she was tapping out to a +widow in Iowa, rose, moved toward the door. At the threshold, she +stopped, a deep blush suffusing her face. So she paused for a moment, +irresolute. When finally she started down the corridor, Mr. Warner +emerged from the door of his own office, met her face to face. And as +his eyes rested on hers, she was puzzled by the expression on his smooth +countenance. Was it anxiety? His expression seemed to question her--then +it flowed into his cordial smile. + +Susannah was first to speak: + +"Good-morning, Mr. Warner. May I see you alone for a moment?" + +"Certainly!" With his best courtliness of manner, he bowed her into his +private office. "Won't you have a seat?" + +Susannah sat down. + +"It's about--about Mr. Cowler and last night." She paused. + +"Oh," asked Mr. Warner, carelessly, casually, "did you have a pleasant +evening?" + +"It's about that I wanted to talk with you," Susannah faltered. +Suddenly, her embarrassment broke, and she became perfectly composed. +"Mr. Warner, I dislike to tell you all this, because I know how it will +shock you to hear it. But you will understand that I have no choice in +the matter. It is very hard to speak of, and I don't know exactly how to +express it, but, Mr. Warner, Mr. Cowler insulted me grossly last evening +... so grossly that I left the table where we were eating after the +theater and ... and ... well, perhaps you can guess my state of mind +when I tell you that I was actually afraid to take a taxi. Of course, I +see now how foolish that was. But I ... I ran all the way home." + +For an instant, Mr. Warner's fine, incisive geniality did not change. +Then suddenly it broke into a look of sympathetic understanding. "I am +sorry, Miss Ayer," he declared gravely, "I am indeed sorry." His +clergyman aspect was for the moment in the ascendent. He might have been +talking from the pulpit. His voice took its oratorical tone. "It seems +incredible that men should do such things--incredible. But one must, I +suppose, make allowances. A rural type alone in a great city and +surrounded by all the intoxicating aspects of that city. It undoubtedly +unbalanced him. Moreover, Miss Ayer, I may say without flattery that you +are more than attractive. And then, he is unaccustomed to drinking--" + +"Oh, he had not drunk anything to speak of," Susannah interrupted. "A +little claret at dinner. He had ordered champagne, but this ... this +episode occurred before it came." + +"Incredible!" again murmured Mr. Warner. "Inexplicable!" he added. He +paused for a moment. "You wish me to see that he apologizes?" + +"I don't ask that. I am only telling you so that you may understand why +I can never speak to him again. For of course I don't want to see him as +long as I live. I thought perhaps ... that if he comes here again ... +you might manage so that he doesn't enter through my office." + +"We can probably manage that," Mr. Warner agreed urbanely. "Of course we +can manage that. He is, you see, a prospective client, and a very +profitable one. We must continue to do business with him as usual." + +"Oh, of course!" gasped Susannah. "Please don't think I'm trying to +interfere with your business. I understand perfectly. It is only that +I--but of course you understand. I don't want to see him again." She +rose. Her lithe figure came up to the last inch of its height; the +attitude gave her the effect of a column. Her head was like a glowing +alabaster lamp set at the top of that column. All the trouble had faded +out of her face. The set, scarlet lines in her mouth had melted to their +normal scarlet curves. The light had come back in a brilliant flood to +her turquoise eyes. In this uprush of spirit, her red hair seemed even +to bristle and to glisten. She sparkled visibly. "And now, I guess I'll +get back to work," she said. "Oh, by the way, I found in my mail this +morning a letter addressed, not to the women's department, but to the +firm. I opened it, but of course by accident." + +Mr. Warner drew the letter from its envelope, began casually running +through it. The conversation seemed now to be ended; Susannah moved +toward the door. From his perusal of the letter, Mr. Warner stabbed at +her back with one quick, alarmed glance, and: + +"Oh, Miss Ayer, don't go yet," he said. His tone was a little tense and +sharp. But he continued to peruse the letter. As he finished the last +page, he looked up. Again, his tone seemed peculiar; and he hesitated +before he spoke. + +"Er--did you make out the signature on this?" he asked. + +"No--it puzzled me," replied Susannah. + +"Sit down again, please," said Mr. Warner. Now his manner had that +accent of suavity, that velvety actor quality, which usually he reserved +solely for women clients. "I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid I shall +have to ask you to see Mr. Cowler again." + +"Mr. Warner, I ... I simply could not do that. I can never speak to him +again. You don't know.... You can't guess.... Why, I could scarcely tell +my own mother ... if I had one...." + +"It seems quite shocking to you, of course, and--Wait a moment--" Mr. +Warner rose and walked toward the door leading to Byan's office. But he +seemed suddenly to change his mind. "I know exactly how you must feel," +he said, returning. "Believe me, my dear young lady, I enter perfectly +into your emotions. Shocked susceptibilities! Wounded pride! All +perfectly natural, even exemplary. But, Miss Ayer, this is a strange +world. And in some aspects a very unsatisfactory one. We have to put up +with many things we don't like. I, for instance. You could not guess the +many disagreeable experiences to which I submit daily. I hate them as +much as anyone, but business compels me to endure them. Now you, in your +position as manager of the Women's Department--" + +"Nothing," Susannah interrupted steadily, "could induce me knowingly to +submit again to what happened last night. I would rather throw up my +job. I would rather die." + +"But, my dear Miss Ayer, you are not the only young lady in this city +who has been through such experiences. If women will invade industry, +they must take the consequences. Actresses, shopgirls, woman-buyers +accept these things as a matter of course--as all in the day's work. +Indeed, many stenographers complain of unpleasant experiences. You have +been exceedingly fortunate. Have we not in this office paid you every +possible respect?" + +"Of course you have! It is because you have been so kind that I came to +you at once, hoping ... believing ... that you would understand. It +never occurred to me that you...." + +"Of course I understand," Mr. Warner insisted, in his most soothing +tone. "It's all very dreadful. What I am trying to point out to you is +that whatever you do or wherever you go in a great city, the same thing +is likely to happen. I am trying to prove to you that you are especially +protected here. You like your work, don't you?" + +"I love it!" Susannah protested with fervor. + +"Then I think you will do well to ignore the incident. Come, my +child,"--Mr. Warner was now a combination of guiding pastor and +admonishing parent,--"forget this deplorable incident. When Mr. Cowler +comes in this afternoon, meet him as though nothing had happened. +Undoubtedly he is now bitterly regretting his mistake. Unquestionably he +will apologize. And the next time he asks you to go out with him, he +will have learned how to treat a young lady so admirable and estimable, +and you can accept his invitation with an untroubled spirit." + +"If I meet Mr. Cowler I will treat him exactly as though nothing had +happened," Susannah declared steadily. "I mean that upon meeting him I +will bow. I will even--if you ask it--give him any information he may +want about the business. But as to going anywhere with him again--I must +decline absolutely." + +"But that is one of the services which we shall have to demand from time +to time. Clients come to town. They want an attractive young lady, a +lady who will be a credit to them--a description which, I may say, +perfectly applies to you--to accompany them about the city. That will be +a part of your duties in future. Had the occasion arisen before, it +would have been a part of your duties in the past. If Mr. Cowler asks +you again to accompany him for the evening, we shall expect you to go." + +"You never told me," said Susannah after a perceptible interval, during +which directly and piercingly she met Mr. Warner's gentle gaze, "that +you expected this sort of thing." + +"My dear young lady," replied Mr. Warner with a kind of bland elegance, +"I am very sorry if I did not make that clear." + +"Then," said Susannah--so unexpectedly that it was unexpected even to +herself--"I shall have to give up my position. Please look for another +secretary. I shall consider it a favor if you get her as soon as +possible." + +Another pause; and then Mr. Warner asked: + +"Would you mind waiting here for just a few moments before you make that +decision final?" + +"I will wait," agreed Susannah. "But I will not change my decision." + +Mr. Warner did not seem at all surprised or annoyed. He arose abruptly, +started toward Byan's office. This time he entered and closed the door +behind him. A moment later, Susannah realized from the muffled sounds +which filtered through the partition that the partners were in +conference. She caught the velvety tones of Byan; O'Hearn's soft lilt. +And as she sat there, idly tapping the desk with a penholder, something +among the memories of that confused morning crept into her mind; spread +until it blotted out even the memory of Mr. Cowler. That letter--what +did it mean? In her listless, inattentive state of mind, she had opened +it carelessly, read it through before she realized that it was addressed +not to the Women's Department, but to the company. Had anyone asked her, +a moment after she laid it down, just what it said, she could not have +answered. Now, her perplexed loneliness brought it all out on the +tablets of her mind as the chemical brings out the picture from the +blankness of a photographic plate. She glanced at the desk. The letter +was not there--Mr. Warner had taken it with him. + +The man with the illegible signature wrote from Nevada. He had seen, +during a visit to Kansas City, the circulars of the Carbonado Mining +Company. After his return, he had passed through Carbonado. "I wondered, +when I saw your literature, whether there had been a new strike in that +busted camp," he wrote. "There hadn't. Carbonado now consists of one +store-keeper and a few retired prospectors who are trying to scrape +something from the corners of the old Buffalo Boy property. That camp +was worked out in the eighties--and it was never much but promises at +that." As for the photographs which decorated the Carbonado Company's +circulars, this man recognized at least one of them as a picture of a +property he knew in Utah. Finally, he asked sarcastically just how long +they expected to keep up the graft. "It's the old game, isn't it?" he +inquired, "pay three per cent for a while and then get out with the +capital." Three per cent a month--that _was_ exactly what the Carbonado +Company was paying. She wondered-- + +Conjecture for Susannah would have been certainty could she have heard +the conversation just the other side of that closed door. At the moment +when the contents of this letter flashed back into her mind, the letter +itself lay on Mr. Byan's polished mahogany table. Beside it lay a pile +of penciled memoranda through which fluttered from time to time the +nervous hand of H. Withington Warner. Susannah would scarcely have known +her genial employer. The mask of actor and clergyman had slipped from +his face. His cheeks seemed to fall flat and flabby. His eyes had lost +their benevolence. His mouth was set as hard as a trap, the corners +drooping. Across the table from him, too, sat a transformed Byan. His +smooth, regular features had sharpened to the likeness of a rat's. His +voice, however, was still velvety; even though it had just flung at +Warner a string of oaths. + +"I told you we ought to've let go and skipped six weeks ago," he said, +"that was the time for the touch-off. Secret Service still chasin' +Heinies--everythin' coming in and nothin' going out. The suckers had +already stopped biting and then you go and hand out two more monthly +dividends and settle all the bills like you intended to stay in business +forever. What did we want with this royal suite here, and ours a +correspondence game? What do we split if we stop today? Twelve hundred +dollars. Twelve hundred dollars! We land this Cowler--see!" + +Warner, unperturbed, swept his glance to O'Hearn, who sat huddled up in +his chair, searching with his glance now one of his partners, now the +other. + +"Mike," he said, "you're certain about your tip on the fly cops?" + +"Dead sure!" responded O'Hearn. "The regular bulls ain't touching mining +operations just now. It's up to the Secret Service. In two weeks more +they'll be all cleaned up on the war, and then they'll be reorganizing +their little committee on high finance. That there Inspector Laughlin +will take charge. He knows you, Boss. Then"--O'Hearn spread his hands +with a gesture of finality--"about a week more and they'll get round to +us. Three weeks is all we're safe to go. They stop our mail and +then--the pinch maybe. The tip's straight from you-know-who. The +pinch--see!" + +At the repetition of that word "pinch," Byan's countenance changed +subtly. It was as though he had winced within. But he spoke in his usual +velvety tone. + +"Less than three weeks--h'm! How much is Cowler good for?" + +"About a hundred thou'--big or nothing," replied Warner. He was drawing +stars and circles on the desk blotter. "He can't be landed without the +girl. If he'd tumbled for the Lizzies you shook at him--but he +didn't--it's this red-headed doll in our office or nothing. And I've +told you--" + +Here O'Hearn threw himself abruptly into the conversation. + +"Lave out th' girrul," he said. Usually O'Hearn's Irish showed in his +speech only by a slight twist at the turn of his tongue. Now it reverted +to a thick brogue. "I'll not have anythin' to do--" + +"We'll leave in or take out exactly what I say," put in Warner smoothly. +"Exactly what I say," he repeated. At this direct thrust, Byan lifted +his somewhat dreamy eyes. He dropped them again. Then Warner, his gaze +directly on O'Hearn's face, made a swift, sinister gesture. He drew a +forefinger round his own throat, and completed the motion by pointing +directly upward. O'Hearn, his face suddenly going a little pale, +subsided. Warner broke into the sweet, Christian smile of his office +manner. Subtly, he seemed to take command. His personality filled the +room as he leaned forward over the table and summed everything up. + +"As for your noise about quitting six weeks ago," he said, "how was I to +know that the suckers were going to stop running? We looked good for +three months then. We've got three weeks to go. All right. As for the +pinch, they won't get us unless the wad gives out. Every stage of this +game has been submitted to a lawyer. We're just a hair inside--but +inside all the same. _But_ if we can't come through liberally to him +when we're really in trouble, we might as well measure ourselves for +stripes. He's that kind of lawyer. With a hundred thousand dollars--" he +seemed to roll that phrase under his tongue--"we can stay and make +snoots at the Secret Service or beat it elsewhere, just as we please. +Ozias Cowler can furnish the hundred thou'. But he'll take only one +bait. I've tried 'em all--flies, worms, beetles, and grasshoppers--and +there's only one. And that one is trying to wriggle off the hook. I +thought last night when I sent her out with him that maybe she would +fall for him. The rest would have been easy. But she only worked up a +case of this here maidenly virtue. On top of that, she reads this +letter. Of course, she has read it, though she don't know I know. I +squeezed that out of her. + +"There," concluded Warner, "that's the layout, isn't it?" He turned to +Byan; and his smiling, office manner came over his expression. "What +would you say, Joe? You're by way of being an expert on this kind of +bait." In the Carbonado Mining Company, Warner ruled partly through his +quality of personal force, but partly through fear, the cement of +underworld society. Just as he shook at O'Hearn from time to time the +threat conveyed by that sinister gesture, he held over Byan the +knowledge of that trade and traffic, shameful even among criminals, from +which Byan had risen to be a pander of low finance. At this thrust, +however, Byan did not pale, as had O'Hearn. His expression became only +the more inscrutable. + +"You should have let me break her in when I wanted to, months ago," he +said. "I'd 'a' had her ready now. He won't fall for anyone else. I've +offered those other Molls to him, but he's crushed on her and won't look +at anybody else. So we've got to put the screws on her. They're all +cowards inside--yellow every one." + +"Meaning?" inquired Warner. + +"She's in it up to her neck with us," said Byan. "We saw to that. All +right. If we should go up against it, she'd have a hell of a time +proving to a jury that she didn't know what her letters to customers +were all about. Now wouldn't she? Ask yourself. Looked like hard luck to +me when she saw that letter just when she'd slapped the face of this +Cowler. But maybe it's a regular godsend. Put it to her straight that +this business is a graft, that we're due to go up against it in three +weeks unless something nice happens, and that she's in it as deep as any +of us. When she's so scared she can't see, let her know that she has got +one way out--fall for Cowler and help us touch him for his hundred +thousand. Make her think that it's the stir sure if she don't, and a +clean getaway if she does." + +"Suppose," continued Warner in the manner of one weighing every chance, +"she goes with her troubles to some wise guy?" + +"She's got no friends here," said Byan. "I looked into that. Runs around +with one fluff, but she don't count. If she's scared enough, I tell you, +she'll never dare peep--and she'll come round." + +"Suppose she beats it?" suggested Warner. + +"Well, Mike and I can shadow her, can't we?" replied Byan. "If she tries +to get out by rail, we can stop her and put on the screws right away. +The screws!" repeated Byan, as one who liked the idea. "And if she does +hold out a while, nothin's lost. You've got the old dope worked up to +the idea she's interested in him, haven't you? Well, if she don't fall +right away, you can take a little time explaining to him why she acted +that way last night. Maybe best to dangle her a while, anyway--get him +so anxious to see her that he'll fall for anything when you bring her +round. I'll be tightening up the screws, and when he's ripe I'll deliver +her." + +"The screws," repeated O'Hearn. "Meanin'--?" + +"Leave that to me," said Byan. "I know how." + +Warner smiled; but it was not the genial beam of his office manner. For +when the corners of his drooping mouth lifted, they showed merely a +gleam of canine teeth, which lay on his lip like fangs. + +"I suppose, when it's over, she's your personal property," he concluded. + +"Oh, sure!" responded Byan carelessly. + +"You'll not--" began O'Hearn; but this time it was Warner who +interrupted. + +"Mickey," he said, "any arrangements between this lady and Byan are +their own private affair--after the touch-off, which may stand you +twenty-five thousand shiners. Besides--" He did not make his threatening +gesture now, but merely flashed that smile of fangs and sinister +suggestion. Then he rose. + +"All right," he said. "Come on--all of you--and I'll give her that +little business talk, before she's had time to think and work up another +notion. Maybe she'll fall for it right away." + +"Not right away, she won't," Byan promulgated from the depths of his +experience, "but before I'm through, she will." + + * * * * * + +The three men came filing into the room where Susannah sat, her elbows +on the desk, her chin on her hands. She rose abruptly and faced them, +eyes wide, lips parted. Mr. Warner wore his office manner; his smile was +now benevolent. + +"I have been telling Mr. Byan and Mr. O'Hearn about your experience and +your decision, Miss Ayer," began Mr. Warner. + +Susannah blushed deeply; and for an instant her lashes swept over a +sudden stern flame in her eyes. Then she lifted them and looked with a +noncommittal openness from one face to the other. "I think I have +nothing to add," she said. + +"Yes, but perhaps we have," Mr. Warner informed her gently. "Sit down, +Miss Ayer. Sit down, boys." + +The three men seated themselves. "Thank you," said Susannah; but she +continued to stand. Byan rose thereupon, and stood lolling in the +corner, his vague smile floating on his lips. O'Hearn dropped his chin +almost to that point on his chest where his folded arms rested. His lips +drooped. Occasionally he studied the situation from under his +protuberant forehead. + +"Miss Ayer," Warner went on after a pause, "you read that letter--the +one you handed to me this morning?" + +Susannah hesitated for an almost imperceptible moment. "Yes," she +admitted, "entirely by mistake." + +"I am going to tell you something that it will surprise you to hear, +Miss Ayer. What this fellow says is all true. Carbonado is merely a--a +convenient name, let us say. In other words, we are engaged in selling +fake stocks to suckers. To be still more explicit, we are conducting a +criminal business. We could be arrested at any moment and sent to jail. +To the Federal penitentiary, in fact. I suppose that is a great surprise +to you?" + +Though she had guessed something of this ever since she recalled the +contents of the letter, the cold-blooded statement came indeed with all +the force of a surprise. Susannah's figure stiffened as though she had +touched a live wire. The crimson flush drained out of her face. And she +heard herself saying, as though in another's voice and far away, the +inadequate words: "How perfectly terrible!" + +"Exactly so!" agreed Warner. "Only you haven't the remotest idea how +terrible. Miss Ayer, this company--you as well as the rest of us--needs +money and needs it right away. Ozias Cowler has money--a great deal of +money. Somebody's bound to get it--and why not we? We use various means +to get money out of suckers. There's only one way with Cowler. He's +stuck on you. You can get it from him. We want you to do that--we expect +you to do that." + +Susannah stared at him. "Mr. Warner, I think you are crazy. I could no +more do that ... I couldn't ... I wouldn't even know how ... my +resignation goes into effect immediately. I couldn't possibly stay here +another minute." She turned to leave the office. + +"Just one moment!" Mr. Warner's words purled on. His tone was low, his +accent bland--but his voice stopped her instantly. "Miss Ayer, you don't +understand yet. Unless we get some money--a great deal of money--we +shan't last another two weeks. The situation is--but I won't take the +time to explain that. Unless we clean up that aforesaid money, we go to +jail--for a good long term. If we get the money--we don't. Never mind +the details. I assure you it's true." + +"I'm sorry," said Susannah, her lips scarcely moving as she spoke, "but +I fail to see what I have to do with that--" + +"I was about to go on to say, Miss Ayer, that you have everything to do +with it. You must be aware, if you look back over your service with us, +that you are as much involved as anyone. Your name is on our letterhead. +You have signed hundreds and perhaps thousands of letters to woman +investors. Putting a disagreeable fact rather baldly, what happens to us +happens to you. If it's the stir--if it's jail--for us, it's jail for +you." + +Susannah stared at him. She grew rigid. But she roused herself to a +trembling weak defense. + +"I'll tell them, if they arrest me ... all that has gone on here ..." +she began. + +"If you do," put in Mr. Warner smoothly, "you only create for yourself +an unfavorable impression. You put yourself in the position of going +back on your pals, and it will not get you immunity. If Mr. Cowler comes +through, you are entitled to a share of the proceeds. Whether you take +it or no is a matter for your private feelings. But the main point is +that with Cowler in, this thing will be fixed, and without him in, you +are in jail or a fugitive from justice." + +He paused now and looked at Susannah--paused not as one who pities but +as one who asks himself if he has said enough. Susannah's face proved +that he had. + +"Now of course you won't feel like working this morning. And I don't +blame you. Go home and think it over. Your first instinct, probably, +will be to see a lawyer. For your own sake, I advise you not to do that. +For ours, I hope you do. If he tells you the truth, he will show you how +deeply involved you are in this thing. No lawyer whom you can command +will handle your case. What you'd better do is lie down and take a nap. +Then at about five o'clock this afternoon, send for hot coffee and doll +yourself up--Mr. Cowler will call for you at seven." + + * * * * * + +Susannah took part of Mr. Warner's advice. She went home immediately. +But she did not take a nap. Instead, she walked up and down her bedroom +for an hour, thinking hard. She could think now; in her passage home on +the Subway, her first wild panic had beaten its desperate black wings to +quiet. What Warner had told her she now believed implicitly. She was as +much caught in the trap as any one of the three crooks with whom she had +been associated. The only difference was that she did not mean to stay +in the trap. She meant to escape. Also she did not mean to let it drive +her from the city in which she was challenging success. She meant to +stay in New York. She meant to escape. But how? + +If there were only somebody to whom she could go! She had in New York a +few acquaintances--but no real friends. Besides, she didn't want anybody +to know; all she wanted was to get away from--to vanish from their +sight. But where could she go--when--how? + +Fortunately she had plenty of money on hand, plenty at least for her +immediate purposes. She owned a few pawnable things, though only a few. +But at present what she needed, more even than money, was time. She must +get away at once. But again where? For a moment resurgent panic tore +her. Then common sense seemed to offer a solution. Here she was in the +biggest city in the country; the biggest in the world. She had heard +somewhere that a big city was the best place in the world to hide in. +She would hide in New York. Then-- + +She had forgotten one terrifying fact. Byan boarded in the same house. + +She realized why now. A fortnight before--shortly after Mr. Cowler +appeared in the office--he had come to her for advice. He had given up +one bachelor apartment, he said, and was taking another. Repairs had +become inevitable in the new apartment. He did not want to go to a +hotel. Did she know of a good boarding-house in which to spend a month? +She did, of course--her own. Byan came there the next day; although, +curiously enough, she saw but little of him. They had separate tables, +and his meal-hours and hers were different. + +Byan usually came in at about six o'clock. But today he might follow +her. She must work quickly. + +She pulled her trunk out from under the bed and began in frenzied haste +to pack it. Down came all the pictures from her walls. Into the trunk +went most of her clothes; some of her toilet articles; her half-dozen +books; her stationery; all her slender Lares and Penates. When she had +finished with her trunk, she packed her suitcase. As many thin dresses +as she could crush in--inconsequent necessities--her storm boots; her +tooth-brush-- + +Then she wrote a note to her landlady. It read: "Dear Mrs. Ray: I have +been suddenly called away from the city. Will you keep my trunk until I +send for it? Yours in great haste and some trouble, Susannah Ayer." She +put it with her board money in an envelope, addressed to Mrs. Ray, and +placed it on the trunk. + +At three o'clock, her suitcase in one hand, her bag and her umbrella in +the other, her long cape over her arm, she ventured into the hall. + +It was vacant and silent. + +She stole silently down the stairs. She met nobody. She noiselessly +opened the front door. Apparently nobody noticed her. She walked briskly +down the steps; turned toward the Avenue. At the corner something +impelled her to look back. + +Byan, his look directed downward, two fingers fumbling in his side +pocket for his key, was briskly ascending the steps. + + + + +III + + +Lindsay drove directly from the Quinanog station to the Quinanog Arms. +The Arms proved to be a tiny mid-Victorian hotel, not an inexact +replica--and by no means a discreditable one--of many small rustic +hotels that he had seen in England and France. Indeed Quinanog, as he +caught it in glimpses, might have been one part of France or one part of +England--that region which only the English Channel prevents from being +the same country. The motor, which conducted him from the station to the +Arms, drove on roads in which high wine-glass elms made Gothic arches; +between wide meadowy stretches, brilliant with buttercups, daisies, +iris; unassertive, well-proportioned houses with roomy vegetable plots +and tiny patches here and there of flower garden. He arrived at so early +an hour that the best of the long friendly day stretched before him. He +felt disposed to spend it merely in reading and smoking. He had plenty +to smoke; he had seen to that himself in New York. And he had plenty to +read; Spink Sparrel had seen to that in Boston. The bottom of one of his +trunks was covered with Lutetia Murray's works. + +But although he smoked a great deal, he did not read at all. Until +luncheon he merely followed his impulses. Those impulses took him a +little way down the main street, which ran between comfortable, white +colonial houses, set back from the road. He walked through the tiny +triangular Common. He visited the little, poster-hung post-office; +looked into the big neatly arranged general store; strolled back again. +His impulses then led him to explore the grounds of the Arms and +deposited him finally in the hammock on the side porch. After a simple +and very well-cooked luncheon, his languor broke into a sudden +restlessness. "Where is the Murray place?" he asked of the proprietor of +the Arms, whose name, the letterhead of the Arms stationery stated, was +Hyde. + +"The Murray place!" Hyde repeated inquiringly. He was a long, +noncommittal-looking person with big pale blue eyes illuminating a sandy +baldness. "Oh, the _Murray_ place! You mean the old Murray place." + +"I mean the house, whichever and wherever it is, that Lutetia Murray, +the author, used to live in." + +"Oh, sure! I get you. You see it's been empty for such a long spell that +we forget all about it. The old Murray place is on the road to West +Quinanog." + +"It isn't occupied, you say?" + +"Lord, no! Hasn't been lived in since--well, since Lutetia Murray died. +And that was--let me see--" Hyde cast a reflective eye upward. "Ten, +eleven, twelve--oh, fifteen or twenty, I should say. Yes, all of fifteen +years." + +"Does it still belong in the Murray family?" + +"Lord bless your soul, no. There hasn't been a Murray around these parts +since--well, since Lutetia Murray died." + +"Who owns it now?" + +"The Turners. They bought it when it came up for sale after Miss +Murray's death." + +"Well, weren't there any heirs?" + +"There was a niece--her brother's little girl. They had to sell the +place and everything in it. There never _was_ a sale in Quinanog like +that. Why, folks say that the mahogany would bring fancy prices in New +York nowadays." + +"Didn't they get as much as they should have?" Lindsay asked idly. + +"Oh Lord, no! And they found her estate was awful involved, and the +debts et up about all the auction brought in." + +"What became of the little girl?" + +"Some cousins took her." + +"Where is she now?" + +"Never heard tell." + +"Has anybody ever lived in the Murray place since the family left?" + +"No, I believe not." + +"Is it to let?" + +"Yes, and for sale." + +"Well, why hasn't it let or sold?" + +"Oh, I dunno exactly. It's a great big barn of a place. Kinda +ramshackle, and of course it's off the main-traveled road. You'd need a +flivver, at least, to live there nowadays. And there ain't a single +modern improvement in it. No bathroom, nor electric lights, not set +tubs, nor any of the things that women like. No garage neither." + +"Every disability you quote makes it sound all the better to me," +Lindsay commented. He meditated a moment. "I'd like to go over and look +at it this afternoon. Is there anyone here to drive me?" + +"Yes, Dick'll take you in the runabout." Hyde appeared to meditate in +his turn, and he cocked an inquiring eye in Lindsay's direction. "You +wasn't thinking of hiring the place, was you?" + +Lindsay laughed. "I should say I wasn't. No, I just wanted to look at +it." + +"I was going to say," Hyde went on, "that it's a very pleasant location. +City folks always think it's a lovely spot. If you was thinking of +hiring it, my brother's the agent." + +Lindsay laughed again. "Hiring a house is about as far from my plans at +present as returning to France." + +"Well," Hyde commented dryly, "judging from the way the Quinanog boys +feel, I guess I know just about how much you want to do that." + +"How soon can we go to the Murray place?" Lindsay inquired. + +"Now--as far as Dick's concerned." + +"By the way," Hyde dropped, as he turned toward the garage, "the Murrays +called the place Blue Medders." + +"Blue Meadows," Lindsay repeated aloud. And to himself, "Blue Meadows." +And again, though wordlessly, "Blue Meadows." It was apparent that he +liked the sound and the image the sound evoked. + +The runabout chugged to Blue Meadows in less than ten minutes. The road +branched off from the State highway at the least frequented place in its +ample stretch; ran for a long way to West Quinanog. On this side road, +houses were few and they grew fewer and fewer until they left Blue +Meadows quite by itself. Its situation, though solitary, was not lonely. +It sat near the road. Perhaps, Lindsay decided, it would have been too +near if stately wine-glass elms, feathered with leaves all along their +lissom trunks, in collaboration with a high lilac hedge now past its +blooming, had not helped to sequester it. From the street, the house +showed only a roof with two capacious chimneys, the upper story of its +gray clapboarded facade. + +Dick, a gangling freckled youth, slowed down the machine as if in +preparation for a stop. "I've got the key," he volunteered, "if you want +to go in." + +Until that moment Lindsay had entertained no idea of going in. But +Dick's words fired his imagination. "Thanks, I think I will." + +Dick handed over the long, delicately wrought key. He made no move to +follow Lindsay out of the car. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll run +down the road to see a cousin of mine. How soon before you'll want to +start back?" + +"Oh, give me half an hour or so," Lindsay decided carelessly. + +The runabout chugged into the green arch which imprisoned the distance. + +Alone, Lindsay strolled between lilac bushes and over the sunken flags +which led to the front door. Then, changing his mind, he made an +appraising tour about the outside of the place. + +Blue Meadows was a big old house: big, so it seemed to his amateur +judgment, by an incredible number of rooms; and old--and here his +judgment, though swift, was more accurate--to the time of two hundred +years. Outside, it had all the earmarks of Colonial architecture--plain +lines, stark walls, the windows, with twenty-four lights, geometrically +placed; but its lovely lines, its beautiful proportions, and the soft +plushy nap which time had laid upon its front clapboardings mitigated +all its severities. The shingles of the roof and sides were +weather-beaten and gray, the blinds a deep old blue. At one side jutted +an incongruous modern addition; into the second story of which was set a +galleried piazza. At the other side stretched an endless series of +additions, tapering in size to a tiny shed. + +"This is Lutetia's house!" Lindsay stopped to muse. "Is it true that I +spent two years with the French Army? Is it true that I served two more +with the American Army? Oh, to think you didn't live to see all that, +Lutetia!" + +A lattice arched over the doorway and on it a big climbing rose was just +coming into bud. The beautiful door showed the pointed architrave, the +leaded side panels, the fanlight, the engaged columns, of Colonial +times. It resisted the first attack of the key, but yielded finally to +Lindsay's persuasion. He stepped into the hall. + +It was a rectangular hall, running straight to the back of the house. +Pairs of doors, opposite each other, gaped on both sides. At the left +arose a slender straight stairway, mahogany-railed. Lindsay strolled +from one room to the other, opening windows and blinds. They were big +square rooms, finished in the conventional Colonial manner, with +fireplaces and fireplace cupboards. The wallpaper, faded and stained, +was of course quite bare of pictures and ornaments. He stopped to +examine the carving on the white, painted panels above the +fireplace--garlands of flowers caught with torches and masks. + +Smiling to himself, Lindsay returned to the hall. "Oh, Lutetia, I should +like to have seen you here!" he remarked wordlessly. + +Behind the stairway, at the back, appeared another door. He opened it +into darkness. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a box of matches, +lighted his way through the blackness; again opened windows and +shutters. This proved to be the long back room so common in Colonial +homes; running the entire width of the house. There were two fireplaces. +One was small, with a Franklin stove. The other--Lindsay calculated that +it would take six-foot logs. Four well-grown children, shoulder to +shoulder, could have walked into it. This room was not entirely empty. +In the center--by a miracle his stumbling progress had just avoided +it--was a long table of the refectory type. Lindsay studied the position +of the two fireplaces. He examined the ceiling. "You threw the whole lot +of little rooms together to make this big room, Lutetia. You're a lady +quite of my own architectural taste. I, too, like a lot of space." + +He continued his explorations. From one side of the long living-room +extended kitchen, laundry; servants' rooms and servants' dining-room; an +endless maze of butteries, pantries, sheds. Lindsay gave them short +shrift. At the other side, however, lay a little half-oval room, the +first floor of that Victorian addition which he had marked from the +outside. + +"Oh, Lutetia, Lutetia, how could you, how could you?" he burst out at +first glance. "To add this modern bit to that fine Colonial stateliness! +Perhaps we're not kindred souls after all." + +Hugging the wall of this room and leading to the second floor was a +stairway so narrow that only one person could mount it at a time. +Lindsay proved this to his own satisfaction by ascending it. It opened +into a big back room of the main house, the one with the galleried +piazza. Lindsay opened all the windows here; and then went rapidly from +room to room, letting in the June sunshine. + +They were all empty, of course--and yet, in a dozen plaintive +ways--faded wall spaces, which showed the exact size of pictures, nails +with carpet tufts still clinging to them, a forgotten window shade or +two--they spoke eloquently of habitation. Indeed, the whole place had a +friendly atmosphere, Lindsay reflected; there was none of the cold, dead +connotation of most long-empty houses. This old place was spiritually +warm, as though some reflection of a long-ago vivid life still hung +among its shadows. From the dust, the stains, the cobwebs, it might have +been vacant for a century. From the welcoming warmth of its quiet rooms, +it might have been vacant but for a day. + +Through the back windows, Lindsay looked down onto what must once have +been a huge rectangle of lawn; and near the house, what must once have +been an oval of flower garden. The lawn, stretching to a stone +wall--beyond which towered a chaos of trees--was now knee-deep in +timothy-grass; the garden had reverted to jungle. He studied the garden. +Close to the house, an enormous syringa bush heaped into a mountain of +fragrant snow. Near, a smoke-bush was just beginning to bubble into +rounds of blood-scarlet gauze. Strangled rosebushes showed yellow or +crimson. Afar an enormous patch of tiger lilies gave the effect of a +bizarre, orchidous tropical group. The rest was an indiscriminate +early-summer tangle of sumac; elderberry; bayberry; silver birches; wild +roses; daisies; buttercups; and what would later be Queen Anne's lace +and goldenrod. From a back corner window, it seemed to him that he +caught a glint of water; but he could not recapture it from any other +point of view. However, he lost all memory of this in a more affording +discovery. For the front windows gave him the reason of the name, Blue +Meadows. Across the road stretched a series of meadows, all bluish +purple with blooming iris. + +Lindsay contemplated this charming prospect for a long interval. + +"And now, Lutetia," he suddenly turned and addressed the empty rooms, "I +want to find _your_ room. Which of these six was it?" + +Retracing his steps, he went from room to room until, many times, he had +made a complete survey of the second floor. He crossed and recrossed his +own trail, as the excitement of the quest mounted in him. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed aloud, "here it is! You can't escape your soul-mate, +Lutetia." + +It was not because the room was so much bigger than the rest that he +made this decision; it was only because it was so much more quaint. At +one side it merged, by means of a slender doorway, with the galleried +piazza. From it, by means of that tiny flight of stairs, Lutetia could +have descended to the first floor of that mid-Victorian addition. "I +take it all back, Lutetia," he approved. "Middle of the nineteenth +century or not, it's a wonder--this combination." At the back of +Lutetia's room was a third door; as slender as the door leading to the +gallery, but much lower; not four feet high. Lindsay pushed it open, +crawled on hands and knees through it. He had of course, on his first +exploration, entered the small room into which it led. But he had gone +in and out without careful examination; it had seemed merely a +four-walled room. Coming into it, however, from Lutetia's bedroom, it +suddenly acquired character. + +The walls were papered in white. And on the mid-Victorian dado scarcely +legible now, he suddenly discovered drawings. Drawings of a curious +character and of a more curious technique. He followed their fluttery +maze from wall to wall--a flight of little beings, winged at the +shoulders and knees, with flying locks and strange finlike hands and +feet; fanciful, comic, tender. + +"Oh!" Lindsay emitted aloud. "Ah!" And in an instant: "I see! This room +belonged to that child Hyde spoke of." + +He ascended to the garret. This was of course the big storeroom of the +Colonial imagination. It too was quite empty. At one spot a +post--obviously not a roof-support--ran from floor to ceiling. Lindsay +gazed about a little unseeingly. "I wonder what that post was for?" he +questioned himself absently. After a while, "What's become of that +child?" he demanded of circumambient space. + +As though this offered food for reflection, he descended by means of the +main stairway to the lower floor; sat on the doorsteps a while. He +mused--gazing out into the green-colored, sweet-scented June afternoon. +After an interval he arose and repeated his voyage of exploration. + +Again he was struck with the friendly quality of the old place. That +physical dampness, which long vacant houses hold in solution, seemed +entirely to have disappeared before the flood of June sunshine. The +spiritual chill, which always accompanies it--that sinister quality so +connotative of congregations of evil spirits--he again observed was +completely lacking. As he emerged from one room to enter another, it +seemed to him that the one back of him filled with--_companionship_, he +described it to himself. As he continued his explorations, it seemed to +him that the room he was about to enter would offer him not ghostly but +human welcome. That human welcome did not come, of course. Instead, +there surged upon him the rich odors of the lilacs and syringas; the +staccato greetings of the birds. + +After a while he went downstairs again. Sitting in the front doorway, he +fell into a rich revery. + +This was where Lutetia Murray wrote the books which had so intrigued his +boyish fancy. Mentally he ran over the list: _The Sport of the +Goddesses_, _The Weary Time_, _Mary Towle_, _Old Age_, _Intervals_, +_With Pitfall and with Gin_, _Cynthia Ware_-- Details came up before his +mental vision which he had entirely forgotten and now only half +remembered; dramatic moments; descriptive passages; conversational +interludes; scenes; epigrams.... He tried to imagine Lutetia Murray at +Blue Meadows. The picture which, in college, he had cut from a +book-house catalogue, flashed before him; he had found it among his +papers. The figure was standing.... He had looked at it only yesterday, +but his masculine observation retained no details of the gown except +that it left her neck and arms bare. The face was in profile. The +curling hair rose to a high mass on her head. The delicate features were +_mignonne_, except for the delicious, warm, lusciously cut mouth-- Was +she blonde or brunet he wondered. She died at forty-five. To David +Lindsay at twenty-two, forty-five had seemed a respectable old age. To +David Lindsay at twenty-eight, it seemed almost young. She was dead, of +course, when he began to read her. Oh, if he could only have met her! It +was a great pity that she had died so young. Her work--he had made a +point of this in his thesis--had already swung from an erratic, highly +colored first period into a more balanced, carefully characterized +second period; was just emerging into a third period that was the union +of these two; big and rounded and satisfying. But death had cut that +development short. In the last four years Lindsay had seen a great deal +of death and often in atrocious form. He had long ago concluded that he +had thought on the end of man all the thoughts that were in him. But +now, sitting in the scented warmth of Lutetia's trellised doorway, he +found that there were still other thoughts which he could think. + + * * * * * + +The runabout chugged up the road presently. "Ben waiting long?" the +freckled Dick asked with a cheery shamelessness. + +"No, I've been looking the house over. Wonderful old place, isn't it?" + +"Don't care much for it myself," Dick answered. "I don't like anything +old--old houses or that old truck the summer folks are always buying. +Things can't be too new or up-to-date for me." + +Lindsay did not appear at first to hear this; he was still bemused from +the experiences of the afternoon. But as they approached the Arms, he +emerged from his daze with a belated reply. "Well, I suppose a lot of +people feel the way you do," he remarked vaguely. "Mr. Hyde tells me +that the Murray place hasn't been let for fifteen years. I expect the +rest of the people around here don't like old houses." + +"Oh, that ain't the reason the Murray house hasn't let," Dick explained +with the scorn of rustic omniscience. "They say it's haunted." + + * * * * * + +"What rent do they ask for the Murray house?" Lindsay asked Hyde that +evening. + +Hyde scratched the back of his head. His face contracted with that +mental agony which afflicts the Yankee when an exact statement is +demanded of him. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised if you could get it for +two hundred dollars the season," he finally brought out. + +Lindsay considered, but apparently not Hyde's answer; for presently he +came out with a different question. "Why do they say it's haunted?" + +Hyde emitted a short contemptuous laugh. "Did you ever hear of any house +in the country that's been empty for a number of years that worn't +considered haunted?" + +"No," Lindsay admitted. "I am disappointed, though. I had hoped you +would be able to tell me about the ghost." + +"Well, I can't," Hyde asserted scornfully, "nor nobody else neither." + +The two men smoked in silence. + +After a while Lindsay made the motions preliminary to rising. He knocked +the ashes out of his pipe; put his pipe in his pocket; withdrew his feet +from their comfortable elevation on the piazza rail. Finally he +assembled his full height on the floor, but not without a prolonged +stretching movement. "Well," he said, halfway through the yawn, "I guess +you can tell that brother of yours that I'm going to hire the Murray +house for the season." + +Hyde was equally if not more _degage_. He did not move; nor did he +change his expression. "All right," he commented without enthusiasm, +"I'll let him know. How soon would you like to go in, say?" + +"As soon as I can buy a bed." Lindsay disappeared through the doorway. + + * * * * * + +Two days later Lindsay found himself comfortably settled at Blue +Meadows. Upstairs--he had of course chosen Lutetia's room--was a cot and +a bureau of soft wood. Downstairs was a limited assortment of cheap +china; cheaper cutlery; the meagerest possible cooking equipment. + +But there was an atmosphere given to Lindsay's room by Lutetia's own +picture hanging above the bureau. And another to the living-room by +Lutetia's own works--a miscellaneous collection of ugly-proportioned, +ugly-colored, late-nineteenth-century volumes--ranged on the broad shelf +above the fireplace; by Lindsay's writing materials scattered over the +refectory table. Economical as he had been inside, he had exploded into +extravagance outside. A Gloucester hammock swung at the back. A +collection of garden materials which included a scythe, a spade, a +sickle, a lawn-mower, and a hose filled one corner of the barn. +Already--his back still complained of the process--he had cut the +spacious lawn. + +He was at one and the same time sanely placid and wildly happy. + +Every morning he awoke with the sun and the birds. Adapting himself with +an instant spiritual content to the fact that he was no longer in France +and would not have to fly, he turned over to take another nap. An hour +or two later, he was up and eating his self-prepared breakfast. The rest +of the day was reading Lutetia; musing on Lutetia; "scything" or +"sickling," as he called it in his letters to Spink, in the garden; +reflecting on Lutetia; exploring the neighborhood on foot; meditating on +Lutetia; reading and rereading the mass of Spink's data on Lutetia; +hosing the garden; making notes on Spink's data on Lutetia and thinking +of his notes on Spink's data on Lutetia. He awoke in the morning with +Lutetia on his mind. He fell asleep at night with Lutetia in his heart. +He had come to realize that Lutetia, the author, was even better than he +had supposed her. His college thesis had described her merely as the +Mrs. Gaskell of New England. Now, mentally, he promoted her to its Jane +Austen. His youth had risen to the lure of her color and fecundity, but +his youngness had not realized how rich she was in humor; how wise; what +a tenderness for people informed her careful, realistic detail. It was a +triumph to find her even better than the flattering dictum of his boyish +judgment. + +Exploring Lutetia's domain gave results only second in satisfaction to +exploring Lutetia's mind. It was obvious at his first inspection that +the garden had once stretched contrasting glories of color and perfume. +A careful study from the windows was even more productive than a close +survey. There, definitely, he could trace the remains of flower-plots; +pleached paths; low hedges and lichened rocks. Resurrecting that garden +would be an integral part of the joy of resurrecting Lutetia. By this +time also, he had explored the barn. There, a big roomy lower floor +sustained only part of a broken stairway. The equally roomy upper floor +seemed, from such glimpses as he could get below, to be piled with +rubbish. Some day, he promised himself, he would clean it out. Beyond, +and to the right of the barn, bounded by the stone wall, scrambled a +miniature wilderness. That wilderness evaded every effort of +exploration. Only an axe could clear a trail there. Another day he would +tackle the wilderness. But in the meantime he would devote himself to +garden and lawn; in the meantime also loaf and invite his soul. After +all, that was his main reason for coming to Quinanog. Whenever he +thought of this, he took immediately to the Gloucester hammock. + +Every morning he walked briskly over the long mile of road, shaded with +wine-glass elms, slashed with vistas of pasture, pond, and brook which +lay between Blue Meadows and the Quinanog post-office. When he had +inquired for his mail--usually he had none--he strolled over to the +general store and made his few simple purchases. He had followed this +routine for ten days before it occurred to him that he had not seen a +newspaper since he settled himself at Blue Meadows. "I'll let it go that +way, I guess," he said to himself. He noticed at first with a little +embarrassment and then with amusement that the groups in the post-office +waiting for mail, the customers at the general store, were all quietly +watching him. And one morning this floated to him from behind a pile of +cracker boxes: + +"He's the nut that's taken the Murray place. Lives all alone--batching +it. Some sort of highbrow." + +Gradually, however, he made acquaintance. Silas Turner, who owned the +next farm to Blue Meadows, offered him a ride one morning on the road. +Out of a vague conversation on the weather and real estate, Mr. Turner +dropped one interesting fact. He had known Lutetia Murray. This +revelation kept Lindsay chatting for half an hour while Mr. Turner +spilled a mass of uncorrelated details. Such as Miss Murray's +neighborliness; the time her cow ran away and Art Curtis brought it +back; how Miss Murray admired Mis' Turner's beach plum jelly so much +that Mis' Turner always made some extra just for her. As they parted he +let fall dispassionately: "She was a mighty handsome woman. Fine +figure!" He added, still dispassionately but with an effect somehow of +enthusiastic conviction, "She kept her looks to the last day of her +life." + +Useless, all this, for a biography, Lindsay reflected; but it gave him +an idea. He bought that day a second-hand bicycle at the Quinanog +garage; and thereafter, when the devil of restlessness stirred in his +young muscles, he trundled about the countryside in search of those +families mentioned in Lutetia's letters. Some were utterly gone from +Quinanog, some were not affording, and some added useful detail; as when +old Mrs. Apperson produced a dozen letters written from Europe during +Lutetia's first trip abroad. "I'd have admired to go to Europe, but it +never came so's I could," said Mrs. Apperson. "When Miss Murray went, +she wrote me from every city, telling me all about it. I read 'em over a +lot--makes me feel as though I'd been there too. And every Decoration +Day," she added inconsequently, "I put a bunch of heliotrope on her +grave. She just loved the smell of heliotrope." + +Somehow, Lindsay had never even thought of Lutetia's grave. The next day +he made that pilgrimage. The graveyard lay near the town center, +overtopped by the pine-covered hill which bore three austere white +buildings--church, town-hall, and grange. The grave itself was in a +patch of modern tombstones, surrounded by the flaking slabs of two +centuries ago. The stone was featureless, ill-proportioned; the +inscription recorded nothing but her name and the dates of her birth and +death. + +The note which most often came out of these wayside gossipings was a +high one--of the gaiety and the brilliancy of the Blue Meadows +hospitality. Apparently people were coming and going all the time; some +distinguished; some undiscovered: but all with personality. When Lindsay +returned from such a talk, the old house glowed like an opal--so full +did it seem of the colors of those vivacious days. + +But he was not quite content to be long away from his own fireside. The +friendly atmosphere of the Murray house continued to exercise its +enchanting sway. He always felt that one room became occupied the +instant he left it, that the one he was about to enter was already +occupied--and this feeling grew day by day, augmented. It brought him +back to the house always with a sense of expectancy. "Lutetia's house is +my hotel-lobby, my movie, my theater, my grand opera, my cabaret," he +wrote Spink. "There's a strange fascination about it--a fascination with +an element of eternal promise." + +At times, when he entered the trellised doorway, he found himself +expecting someone to come forward to greet him. It kept occurring to him +that a neighbor had stopped to call, was waiting inside for him. +Sometimes in the middle of the night he would drift slowly out of a +delicious sleep to a sense, equally delicious, of being most gently and +lovingly companioned in the room; sometimes in the morning he would wake +up with a snap, as though the house were full of company. For a moment +the whole place would seem brilliant and gay, and then--it was as though +a bubble burst in the air--he was alone. "It's almost as good," he wrote +Spink, "as though you were here yourself, you goggle-eyed hick, you!" +Once or twice he caught himself talking aloud; addressing the empty air. +He stifled this impulse, however. "People always have a tendency to get +bughouse," he explained to Spink, "when they live alone. I used to do +that in your rooms. I'm going to try to keep sane as long as possible." + +Ten days increased rather than diminished this impression. By this time +he had burned his thesis and was now making notes that were part the +direct product of Spink's data and part the byproduct of Lutetia's own +works. The syringas were beginning to run down; but the roses were +coming out in great numbers. The hollyhocks had opened flares of color +under the living-room window. The lawn was as close to plush as constant +care could make it. The garden was not yet quite cleaned out. He was +glad, for he liked working there. It was not a whit less friendly than +the house. Indeed, he felt so companioned there that sometimes he looked +up suddenly to see who was watching his efforts to resurrect a neglected +rosebush; or to uproot a flourishing patch of poison ivy. The evenings +were long, and as--consciously girlish and in quotation marks he wrote +Spink--"lovely." His big lamp made a spot of golden color in the shadowy +long room. One northeaster, which lasted three days, gave him dark and +damp excuse for three days of roaring fire. Much of that time he sat +opposite the blazing logs in the big, rush-bottomed piazza chair which +he had purchased, smoking and reading Lutetia. Now and then, he looked +up at Lutetia's picture, which he had finally brought down from his +bedroom. + +Perhaps it was the picture which made him feel more companioned here +than anywhere in the house or out. The living-room was peculiarly rich +with presence, so rich that he left it reluctantly at night and returned +to it as quickly as possible in the morning; so rich that often he +smiled, though why he could not have said; so rich that in the evening +he often looked up suddenly from his book and stared into its shadowy +length for a long, moveless--and breathlessly expectant--interval. + +Indeed that sensation so concretely, so steadily, so persistently +augmented that one evening-- + +He had been reading ever since dark; and it was getting late. Finally he +arose; closed the door and windows. He came back to the table and stood +leaning against it, idly whistling the _Sambre et Meuse_ through his +teeth, while he looked at Lutetia's portrait. + +He took up _The Sport of the Goddesses_ just to look it over ... turned +a page or two ... became immersed.... Suddenly ... he realized that he +was not alone.... + +He was not alone. That was conclusive. That he suddenly and absolutely +knew; though how he knew it he could not guess. His eyes stopped, in the +midst of Lutetia's single grim murder, fixed on the printed line. He +could not move them along that line. He did not mind that. But he could +not move them off the page. And he did mind that; for he wanted--most +intensely wanted--to lift his gaze. After lifting it, he presently +discovered, he would want to project it to the left. Whoever his visitor +was, it sat at the left. That he knew, completely, absolutely, and +conclusively; but again, how he knew it, he did not know. + +An immeasurable interval passed. + +He tried to raise his eyes. He could not accomplish it. The air grew +thick; his hands, still holding the book, turned cold and hard as clamps +of iron. His eyes smarted from their unwinking immobility. This was +absurd. Breaking this deathly ossification was just a matter of will. He +made himself turn a page. Five lines down he decided; he would look up. +But he did not look up. He could not. He wanted to see ... but something +stronger than desire and will withheld him. He read; turned another +page. Five lines down.... + +Ah ... the paralysing chill was moving off.... In a moment ... he was +going to be able.... In a moment.... + +He lifted his eyes.... He gazed steadily to the left.... + + + + +IV + + +Before night Susannah had found a room which exactly suited her purpose. +This was as much a matter of design as of luck. She had heard of the +place before. It was a large building in the West Twenties which had +formerly been the imposing parsonage of an imposing and very important +church. The church had long ago gone the way of all old Manhattan +buildings. But the parsonage, divided into an infinite number of +cubby-hole rooms, had become a lodging-house. A lodging-house with a +difference, however. For whereas in the ordinary establishment of this +kind, one paid rent to a landlady who lived on the spot, here one paid +it to an agent who came from somewhere, promptly every Monday morning, +for the purpose of collection. It was a perfect hiding-place. You did +not know your neighbor. Your neighbor did not know you. With due care, +one could plan his life so that he met nobody. + +Susannah, except for a choice of rooms, did not for an interval plan her +life at all. She made that choice instantly, however. Of two rooms +situated exactly opposite each other at the back of the second floor, +she chose one because it overlooked a yard containing a tree. It was a +tiny room, whitewashed; meagerly and nondescriptly furnished. But the +door-frame and window-frame offered decoration. Following the +ecclesiastical design of the whole house, they peaked into triangles of +carved wood. + +Susannah gave scant observation to any of these things. Once alone in +her room, she locked the door. Then she removed two things from her +suitcase--a nightgown and the miniature of Glorious Lutie. The latter +she suspended by a thumbtack beside the mirror of her bureau. Then she +undressed and went to bed. She slept fitfully all the rest of that day +and all that night. Early in the morning she crept out, bought herself, +at a Seventh Avenue delicatessen shop, a jar of milk and a loaf of +bread. She lunched and dined in her room. She breakfasted next morning +on the remains. + +Her sleep was deep and dreamless; but in her waking moments her thoughts +pursued the same treadmill. + +"Glorious Lutie," she began one of the wordless monologues which she was +always addressing to the miniature, "I ought to have known long ago that +they were a gang of crooks! Why don't we trust our intuitions? I suppose +it's because our intuitions are not always right. I can't quite go with +anything so magic, so irrational as intuition! And then again I'm afraid +I'm too logical. But I'm always having the same thing happen to me. +Perhaps I'm talking with somebody I have met for the first time. +Suddenly that person makes a statement. Instantly--it's like a little +hammer knocking on my mind--something inside me says: 'That is a lie. He +is lying deliberately and he knows he lies.' Now you would think that I +would trust that lead, that I would follow it implicitly. But do I? No! +Never! I pay no more attention to it than as though it never happened. +And generally my intuition is right. But always I find it out too late. +Now that little hammer has been knocking its warnings about the +Warner-Byan-O'Hearn bunch ever since I started to work for them. But I +could not _make_ myself pay any attention to it. I did not want to +believe it, for one thing. And then of course the work was awfully +interesting. I kept calling myself all kinds of names for thinking-- And +they _were_ kind. I _wouldn't_ believe it. But my intuition kept telling +me that Warner was a hypocrite. And as for Byan--" + +Perhaps Susannah could not voice, even to Glorious Lutie, the thoughts +that flooded her mind when she conjured up the image of Byan. For in her +heart Susannah knew that Byan admired her overmuch, that he would have +liked to flirt with her, that he had started-- But Warner had called him +off. The enigmatic phrase, which had come to her from Warner's office +and in Warner's voice, recurred. "Keep off clients and office employ--" +Susannah knew the end of it now--"employees" of course. Warner's rule +for his fellow crooks was that they must not flirt with clients or the +office force. Again and again in her fitful wakefulness she saw Byan +standing before her; slim, blade-like; his smartly cut suit adhering, as +though pasted there, to the lithe lines of his active body. And then +suddenly that revolver which came from--where? Byan was of course the +most attractive of them all. That floating, pathetic smile revealed such +white teeth! That deep look came from eyes so long-lashed! Warner with +his pseudo-clergyman, pseudo-actor oratory, deep-voiced and vibrant, was +the most obvious. O'Hearn, his lids perpetually down, except when they +lifted swiftly to let his glance lick up detail, was the most +mysterious. But Byan was the most attractive-- + +"Yes, Glorious Lutie, I was always receiving letters which started that +little hammer of intuition knocking. I was always overhearing bits of +conversation which started it; although often I could not understand a +word. I was always trying to piece things together--wondering-- Well, +the next time I'll know better. I've learned my lesson. But oh--think, +think, _think_ what I've helped to do. They robbed widows and orphans +and all kinds of helpless people. Of course I didn't know I was doing +it. But that's going to haunt me for a long, long time. I wish there +were some way I could make up. I've come out of it safe. But they--oh, I +mustn't think of this. I _mustn't_. I can't stand it if I do. Oh, +Glorious Lutie, believe me, my guardian angel was certainly on _that_ +job. Otherwise I don't know what would have become of me. Are you my +guardian angel, I wonder?" + +When Susannah finally arose for good, she discovered, naturally enough, +that she was hungry. She went out immediately and, in the nearest +Child's restaurant, ordered a dinner which she afterward described to +Glorious Lutie as "magnanimously, munificently, magnificently +masculine." It consisted mainly of sirloin steak and boiled potatoes, +"and I certainly ate my fill of them both." Then she took a little +aimless, circumscribed walk; returned to her room. She unpacked her +tightly stratified suitcase; hung her clothes in her little closet; +ranged her small articles in the bureau drawer. As though she were going +to start clean in her new career, she bathed and washed her hair in the +public bathroom on the second floor. Coming back into her room, she sat +for a long time before the window while her dripping locks dried. She +sat there through the dusk. + +"After all, Glorious Lutie," she reflected contentedly, "why do I ever +live in anything bigger than a hall bedroom? All a girl needs is a bed, +a bureau, one chair and a closet, and that is exactly what I've got. And +for full measure they have thrown in all those ducky little backyards +and a tree. I don't expect you to believe it, but I tell you true. A +tree in Manhattan. How do you suppose it got by the censor! And just +now, if you please, a tiny new moon all tangled up in its branches. It's +trying its best to get out, but it can't make it. I never saw a new moon +struggle so hard. Honest, I can hear it pant for breath. It looks like a +silver fish that tried to leap out of this window and got caught in a +green net. I suppose your Glorious Susie must be thinking of annexing a +job sometime, Glorious Lutie. Or else we'll cease to eat. But for a few +days I won't, if you don't mind; I'm fed up on jobs. And I've lost my +taste for offices. No, I think I'll take those few days off and do a +rubberneck trip around Manhattan. I feel like looking on innocent +objects that can't speak or think. And for a time I don't want to go any +place where I'd be likely to see my friends of the Carbonado Mining +Company. After a while the thought of them won't bother me so. Probably +by this time they have hired some other poor girl. Perhaps she won't +mind Mr. Cowler though. Anyway, I'm free of them." + +When Susannah awoke the next morning, which was the third of her +occupancy of the little room, some of her normal vitality had flowed +back, her spirits began to mount. She sang--she even whistled--as she +bathed and dressed; and she indulged in no more than the usual number of +exasperated exclamations over the uncoilableness of her freshly +shampooed, sparkling hair. "Why do we launder our tresses, I ask you, +Glorious Lutie?" she questioned once. "And oh, why didn't I have regular +gold hair like yours instead of this garnet mane? I look like--I look +like--Azinnia! But oh, I ought never to complain when I reflect that +I've escaped the curse of white eyelashes." + +A consideration first of the shimmery day outside, and next of the +clothes hanging in her closet, deflected her attention from this +grievance. She chose from her closet a salmon-colored linen gown, +slightly faded to a delicate golden rose. It was a long, slim dress and +it made as much as possible of every inch of Susannah's long slimness. +Moreover, it was notably successful in bringing out the blue of her +brilliant eyes, the red of her brilliant hair, the contrasting white of +her smooth warm skin. That face now so shone and smelled of soap that, +the instant she caught sight of it in the glass, she pulled open the top +drawer of her bureau and powdered it frantically. + +"I always shine, Glorious Lutie, as though I had washed with brass +polish. I don't remember that you ever glistened. But I do remember that +you always smelled as sweet as--roses, or new-mown hay, or heliotrope. I +wonder what powder you did use? And it was a very foxy move on your +part, to have yourself painted in just that soft swirl of blue tulle. +You look as though you were rising from a cloud. I wonder what your +dresses were like? I seem to remember pale blues and pinks; very +delicate yellows and the most silvery grays. It seems to me that tulle +and tarlatan and maline were your dope. Do you think, Glorious Lutie, +when I reach your age, I shall be as good-looking as you?" + +Glorious Lutie, with that reticence which distinguishes the inhabitants +of portraits, made no answer. But an observer might have said that the +young face, staring alternately at the mirror and at the miniature, +would some day mature to a face very like the one which stared back at +it from the gold frame. Both were blonde. But where Glorious Lutie's +eyes were a misty brown-lashed azure, Glorious Susie's were a spirited +dark-lashed turquoise. Glorious Lutie's hair was like a golden crown, +beautifully carved and burnished. Glorious Susie's turbulent mane was +red, and it made a rumpled, coppery bunch in her neck. However, family +resemblances peered from every angle of the two faces, although +differences of temperament made sharp contrast of their expressions. +Glorious Lutie was all soft, dreamy tenderness; Susannah, all spirit, +active charm, resolution. + +Susannah spent three days--almost carefree--of of what she described to +the miniature as "touristing." She had very little time to converse with +Glorious Lutie; for the little room saw her only at morning and night. +But she gave her confidante a detailed account of the day's adventures. +"It was the Bronx Zoo this morning, Glorious Lutie," she would say. +"Have you ever noticed how satisfactory little beasties are? They don't +lay traps for you and try to put you in a tortured position that you +can't wriggle out of?" Though her question was humorous in spirit, +Susannah's eyes grew black, as with a sudden terror. "No, _we_ lay traps +for _them_. I guess I've never before even tried to guess what it means +to be trapped?" Or, "It was the Art Museum this afternoon, Glorious +Lutie. I've looked at everything from a pretty nearly life-size replica +of the Parthenon to a needle used by a little Egyptian girl ten million +years ago. I'm so full of information and dope and facts that, if an +autopsy were to be held over me at this moment, it would be found that +my brain had turned into an Encyclopaedia Britannica. In fact, I will +modestly admit that I know everything." Or, "It was the Aquarium this +morning, Glorious Lutie. Why didn't you tell me that fish were +interesting? I've always hated a fish. They won't roll over or jump +through for you and practically none of them bark or sing--or anything. +I have always thought of them only as something you eat unwillingly on +Fridays. But some of them are really beautiful; and interesting. I +stayed there three hours; and I suppose if it hadn't been for the horrid +stenchy smell I'd be there yet." + +But in spite of these vivacious, wordless monologues, her spirits were a +long time rising to their normal height. The frightened look had not +completely left her eyes; and often on her long, lonely walks, she would +stop short suddenly, trembling like a spirited horse, as though some +inner consideration harassed her. Then she would take up her walk at a +frantic pace. Ultimately, however, she succeeded in leaving those +terrifying considerations behind. And inevitably in the end, the +resilience of youth conquered. The day came when Susannah leaped out of +bed as lightly as though it were her first morning in New York. + +"Glorious Lutie," began her ante-breakfast address, "we are not a +millionairess; ergo, today we buy all the morning papers and read them +at breakfast in order to hunt for a job via the ads. And perhaps the +next time your Glorious Susie begins to earn money, you might advise her +to save a little against an unexpected situation. Of course I shouldn't +have squandered my money the way I did. But I never had had so much +before in my life--and oh, the joy of having cut-steel buckles and a +perfectly beautiful raincoat--and my first set of furs--and perfumery +and everything." + +The advertising columns were not, she found (and attributed it to the +return of so many men from France), very fecund. Each newspaper offered +only from two to six chances worth considering. One, which appeared in +all of them, seemed to afford the best opening. It read: + + "_Wanted_: A stenographer, lady-like appearance and address, + with some executive experience. Steady job and quick advancement + to right woman. Apply between 9 and 11, room 1009, Carman + Building." + +"I am requested to apply for this spectacular job at the office itself, +Glorious Lutie," she confided on her return to her room, "and I'm going +out immediately after it. It's a romantic thing, getting a job through +an advertisement. I hope I float up to the forty-sixth floor of a +skyscraper, sail into a suite of offices which fill the entire top +story; all Turkish rugs on the highly polished floor; all expensive +paintings on the delicately tinted walls; all cut flowers with yard-long +stems in the finely cut crystal vases. I should like to find there a new +employer; tall, young, handsome, and dark. Dark he must be, Glorious +Lutie. I cannot marry a blond; our children would be albinos. He would +address me thus: 'Most Beauteous Blonde--you arrive at a moment when we +are so much in need of a secretary that if you don't immediately seat +yourself at yon machine, we shall go out of business. Your salary is one +hundred dollars a week. This exquisite rose-lined boudoir is for your +private use. You will find a bunch of fresh violets on your desk every +morning. May I offer you my Rolls-Royce to bring you back and forth to +work? And,' having fallen in love with me instantly, 'how soon may I ask +you to marry me?'" + +Susannah took the Subway to Wall Street; walked through that busy +city-canyon to the Carman Building. She strode into the elevator, almost +empty in the hour which followed the morning rush; started to emerge, as +directed by the elevator-man, at the tenth floor. But she did not +emerge. Instead, her face as white as paper, she leaped back into the +elevator; ascended with it to the top floor; descended with it; +hurriedly left the building. + +That first casual glance down the corridor had given her a glimpse of H. +Withington Warner sauntering slowly away from the elevator. + +"Say, Eloise," she said late that afternoon over the telephone to the +friend she had made at the Dorothy Dorr Home. "When can I see you?... +Yes.... No.... Well, you see I'm out of a job at present.... No, I can't +tell you about it. This is a rooming-house. There is no telephone in my +room. I am telephoning from the hall. And so I'd rather wait until I see +you. But in brief, I'm eating at Child's, soda-fountains and even peanut +stands. I'm really getting back my girlish figure. Only I think I'm +going to be a regular O. Henry story. Headlines as follows: _Beautiful +Titian-haired_ (mark that _Titian-haired_, Eloise) _Blonde Dead of +Starvation. Drops Dead on Fifth Avenue. Too Proud to Beg._ I hope that +none of those wicked reporters will guess that my new shoes with the +cut-steel buckles cost thirty-five dollars. All right! All right.... The +'Attic' at seven. I'll be there promptly as usual and you'll get there +late as usual.... Oh yes, you will! Thanks awfully, Eloise. I feel just +like going out to dinner." + +Eloise, living up to her promise, made so noble an effort that she was +only ten minutes late. Then, as usual, she came dashing and sparkling +into the room; a slim brown girl, much browner than usual, for her coat +of seashore tan; with narrow topaz eyes and deep dimples; very smart in +embroidered linen and summer furs. The Attic restaurant occupied the +whole top floor of a very high, downtown West Side skyscraper. Its main +business came at luncheon, so the girls sat almost alone in its long, +cool quiet. They found a table in a little stall whose window overhung +the gray, fog-swathed river which seamlessly joined gray fog-misted sky. +A moon, opaque as a scarlet wafer, seemed to be pasted at a spot that +could be either river or sky. The girls ordered their inconsequent +dinner. They talked their inconsequent girl chatter. They drank each a +glass of May wine. + +Susannah had quite recovered her poise and her spirit. She described her +new room with great detail. She suggested that Eloise, whom she +invariably addressed as, "you pampered minion of millions, you!" should +call on her in that scrubby hall bedroom. In fact, her narrative went +from joke to joke in a vein so steadily and so augmentingly gay that, +when Eloise had paid the bill and they sat dawdling over their coffee, +suddenly she found herself on the verge of breaking her vow of secrecy, +of relating the horrors of the last week. + +"Eloise," she began, "I'm going to tell you something that I don't want +you ever to--" + +And then the words dried on her lips. Her tongue seemed to turn to wood. +She paled. She froze. Her eyes set on-- + +O'Hearn was walking into the Attic. + +He did not perceive that instant terror of petrification; for it +happened he did not even glance in their direction. He walked, +self-absorbed apparently, to the other end of the room. But his +face--Susannah got it clearly--was stony too. It had the look somehow of +a man about to perform a deed repugnant to him. + +"What's the matter, Sue?" Eloise asked in alarm. "You look awfully ill +all of a sudden." + +"The fact is," Susannah answered with instant composure, "I feel a +little faint, Eloise. Do you mind if we go now? I really should like to +have a little air." + +"Not at all," Eloise answered. "Any time you say. Come on!" + +They made rapidly for the elevator. Susannah did not glance back. But +inwardly she thanked her guardian-angel for the fortuitous miracle by +which intervening waiters formed a screen. Not until they had walked +block after block, turning and twisting at her own suggestion, did +Susannah feel safe. + +"Oh, what was it you were going to tell me, Susannah," Eloise +interrupted suddenly, "just before we left the Attic?" + +"I don't seem to remember at this moment," Susannah evaded. "Perhaps it +will come to me later." + + * * * * * + +Susannah did not sleep very well that night. But by morning she had +recovered her poise. "Glorious Lutie," she said wordlessly from her bed, +"I think I'll go seriously to the business of getting a job. It'll take +my mind off--things. I'm going to ignore that little _rencontre_ of +yesterday. Don't you despair. The handsome young employer with his +romantic eyes and movie-star eyelashes awaits me somewhere. And just as +soon as we're married, you shall be hung in a manner befitting your +birth and station in a drawing-room as big as Central Park. I wish it +weren't so darn hot. Somehow too, I don't feel so strong about answering +ads in _person_ as I did two days ago." + +On her way to breakfast she bought all the newspapers. She spent her +morning answering advertisements by letter. She received no replies to +this first batch; but she pursued the same course for three days. + +"Glorious Lutie," she addressed the miniature a few days later, "this is +beginning to get serious. I am now almost within sight of the end bill +in my wad. In point of fact I will not conceal from you that today I +pawned my one and only jewel--my jade ring. You don't know how naked I +feel without it. It will keep us for--perhaps it will last three weeks. +And after that-- However, I don't think we'll either of us starve. You +don't take any sustenance and I take very little these days. I wish this +weather would change. You are so cool living in that blue cloud, +Glorious Lutie, that you don't appreciate what it's like when it's +ninety in the shade and still going up. I'm getting pretty sick of it. I +guess," she concluded, smiling, "I'll make out a list of the friends I +can appeal to in case of need." + +The idea seemed to raise her spirits. She sat down and turned to the +unused memorandum portion of her diary. Her list ran something like +this: + +New York-- + +No. 1--First and foremost--Eloise, who, being an heiress and the owner +of a check-book, never has any real cash and always borrows from me. + +Providence-- + +No. 2--Barty Joyce--Always has money because he's prudent--and the salt +of the earth-- + +P.S. Eloise never pays the money back that she borrows from me-- + +"Will you tell me, Glorious Lutie, why I don't fall in love with Barty +and why he doesn't fall in love with me? There's something awfully out +about me. I don't think I've been in love more than six times; and the +only serious one was the policeman on the beat who had a wife and five +children." + +Providence again-- + +No. 3--The Coburns--nice, comfy, middle-aged folks; not rich; the best +friends a girl could possibly have. + +No. 4-- + +But here she yawned loudly and relinquished the whole proceeding. + +That afternoon Susannah visited several employment agencies which dealt +with office help. She answered all the inquiries that their +questionnaires put to her; omitting any reference to the Carbonado +Mining Company. It was late in the afternoon when she finished. She +walked slowly homeward down the Avenue. Outside of her own door, she +tried to decide whether she would go immediately to dinner or lie down +first. A sudden fatigue forced decision in favor of a nap. She walked +wearily up the first flight of stairs. Ahead, someone was ascending the +second flight--a man. He turned down the hall. She followed. He stopped +at the room opposite hers; fumbled unsuccessfully with the key. As she +approached, she glanced casually in his direction. + +It was Byan. + + + + +V + + +Dear Spink: + +This is the kind of letter one never writes. But if you knew my mental +chaos.... And I've got to tell somebody about the thing that I can speak +about to nobody. If I don't.... What do you suppose I've done? I've +bought a house. Yep-- I'm a property owner now. Of course you guess! Or +do you guess? It's the Murray place. I could just make it and have +enough left over for a year or two or three. But after that, Spink, I'm +going to work because I'll have to. + +I suppose you're wondering why I did it. You're not puzzled half as much +as I am; although in one way I know exactly why I did it. Perhaps I +didn't do it at all. Anyway, I didn't do it of my own volition. Somebody +made me. I'm going to tell you about that presently. + +Yes, it's all mine: beautiful old square-roomed house with its carved +panelings and its generous Colonial fireplaces; its slender doors and +amusing door-latches; an upstairs of ample bedrooms; an old garret with +slave quarters; the downstairs with that little, charmingly incongruous, +galleried, mid-Victorian addition; barn; lawn; flower-garden. And how +beautiful I'm making that flower-garden you'll never suspect till you +see it. But you won't see it for quite a while--I withdraw all my +invitations to visit me. I don't want you now, Spink; although I never +wanted you so much in my life. I'll want you later, I think. Of course +it isn't from you personally--you beetle-eyed old scout--that I'm +withdrawing my invitation; it's from any flesh-and-blood being. If you +had an astral self-- I don't want anybody. I never wanted to be alone so +much in my life. In a moment I'm going to tell you why. + +And the wine-glass elms are mine; and the lilacs and syringas and the +smoke-bush and the hollyhocks; and all the things I've planted; my +Canterbury bells (if they come up); my deep, rich dahlias and my +flame-colored phlox (if ditto). All mine! Gee, Spink, I never felt so +rich in my life, because what I've enumerated isn't twenty-five per cent +of what I own. In a minute I'm going to tell you what the remaining +seventy-five per cent is. + +This place is full of birds and bees. I watch them from the house. +Spink, we flying-men are boobs. Have you ever watched a bee fly? I spend +hours, it seems to me, just studying them--trying to crab their act. And +the other day there was an air-fight just over my roof. A chicken-hawk +attacked by the whole bird population. It was a reproduction in +miniature of a bombing-machine pursued by a dozen combat-planes. Spink, +it was the best flying I've ever seen. You should have seen the sparrows +keeping on his tail! The little birds relied on their quickness of +attack, just as combat planes do. They attacked from all angles with +such rapidity that the hawk could do nothing but run for his life. The +little birds circled about, waiting for the moment to dive. A +combat-plane dives; its machines go ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta and it turns off +before the gunner can swing his guns over. The birds dived, picked +furiously at his eyes while the hawk turned bewildered from one attack +to another. But the little birds did something that planes can't even +attempt--they hovered over him almost motionless, waiting their moment +to attack. Here I am talking of flying! Flying! Did I ever fly? When I +got to New York, Greenwich Village seemed strange and unnatural, just a +pasteboard dream. Pau--Avord--Verdun--were the only real things in my +life. Now _they're_ shadows like Greenwich Village. Quinanog--the Murray +place--and Lutetia--seem the only real things. + +I'm going to tell you all about it in a moment. I sure am. The world +seems to be full of landing-places, but for some reason I can't land. +Every time, I seem to come short on the field; or overshoot it. Perhaps +it's because I feel it ought not to be told-- Perhaps it's because I +feel you won't believe me-- + +But I've got to do it. So here goes! + +Spink, the remaining seventy-five per cent that I own in this place is-- +This place is haunted. Not by a ghost, but by _ghosts_! There are not +one of them, but four. Three I see occasionally. But one of the +quartet--I see her all the time. She is Lutetia. + +It began-- Well, it all goes back to your rooms in New York. They're +haunted too, but you don't know it, you wall-eyed old grave-digger, you. +Not because you're inept or unsensitive or anything stupid-- It's +because there's something they want to say to _me_--a message they want +to give to me alone. But I can't stop to go into that now. To return to +your apartment, _something_ ... used to come ... to my bed at night ... +and bend over me ... I don't know who it was or what it was, except that +it was masculine. And how I knew that, I dunno. + +It bothered me. One reason why I came down here was that I thought I was +going crazy. Perhaps I have gone crazy. Anyway, if I have I like it. But +here I am again! It's as though the world slipped out from under me. I +can fly on and on or climb, but it's the coming down that baffles me. +When I cut the motor off and the noise dies away, I feel sick and +afraid; the bus seems to take its own head. Now for a landing--even if I +do smash. + +From the moment I entered this house, I felt as though there were others +here. Not specifically, you understand. At first, it was only a +sensation of warmth in the atmosphere that grew to a feeling of +friendliness that deepened to a sense of companionship until-- Well, I +found myself in a mood of eternal expectancy. Something was going to +happen but I didn't know what or how or when.... Oh yes, in a _way_ I +knew what. I was going to see something. Some time--I felt dimly--when I +should enter one of these rooms, so stark and yet so occupied, somebody +would be there to greet me ... or some day turning a corner I should +come suddenly on.... I did not dread that experience, Spink, I give you +my word. I reveled in the expectancy of it. It was beautiful; it was +rich. I wasn't anything of what you call _afraid_. I wanted it to +happen. + +And it did happen. + +One evening, as usual, I was reading Lutetia. I was sitting in my big +chair beside the refectory table. Outside, it was a perfect night I +remember; dark and still, and the stars so big that they seemed to spill +out of the heavens. Inside, the lamp was bright. My eyes were on my +book. Suddenly.... I was not alone. Don't ask me how I knew it. Only +take it from me that I did. I knew it all right. For--_oh, Spink_--(I've +underlined that just like a girl) all in a flash I didn't want--to look +up. I wanted to go away from this place and to go with considerable +speed, not glancing back. It was the worst sensation that I have ever +known--worse even than a night raid. After a while something came back; +courage I suppose you'd call it; a kind of calm, a poise. Anyway, I +found that I was going to be able to look up presently and not mind +it.... + +Of course I knew whom I was going to see.... + +I did look up. And I did see-- It was Lutetia. Spink, if you try to say +those things that people always say--that it was imagination, that I was +overwrought, that my mind, moving all the day among the facts and +realities of Lutetia's life, suddenly projected a picture--I'll never +speak to you again. There she sat, her elbow resting on the arm of her +chair, her chin in her hand, looking at me. I can't tell you how long +she stayed. But all the time she was there she looked at me. And all +that time I looked at her. I don't think, Spink, I have ever guessed how +much eyes can say. Her eyes said so much that I think I could write the +whole rest of the night about them. Except that I'm not quite sure what +they said. It was all entreaty; oh, blazing, blasting, blinding +entreaty.... Of that I am sure. But what she asked of me I haven't the +remotest idea. After a while ... something impelled me to look down at +my book again. When I lifted my eyes Lutetia was gone. + +That wasn't all, Spink; for that night, or the next day-- But I'm going +to try to keep to a consecutive story. I didn't go to bed immediately. I +didn't feel like sleeping. You can understand it was considerable of a +shock. And very thrilling. Literally thrilling! I shook. It didn't +bother me an atom after it was over. I wasn't the least afraid. But I +vibrated for hours. I walked four or five miles--where, I don't know. I +must have passed the Fallows place, because I recall the scent of +honeysuckle. But I assure you I seemed to be walking through the +stars.... She is beautiful. I can't tell you how beautiful because I +have no colors to give you; no flesh to go by. Perhaps she is not +beautiful, but lovely. What queer things words are! I have called +females _pretty_ and _stunning_ and even _fascinating_ and _beautiful_. +I think I never called any woman _lovely_ before. I've been that young. +But I'm not as young as I was yesterday. I'm a century, an age, an aeon +older. I was obsessed though. If you believe it, when I went to bed, I +had only one idea in my mind--a hope that she would come back soon. + +She didn't come back soon--at least not that night. But somebody else +did.... + +In the middle of the night, I suddenly found myself, wide-eyed and +clear-minded, sitting upright in bed and listening to something. I don't +know what I had heard, but I remember with perfect clearness--Spink, you +tell me this is a dream and I'll murder you--what I immediately did and +what I subsequently saw. I got up quite calmly and lighted a candle. +Then I opened the door. + +Do you remember my writing you that the chamber, just back of the one I +occupy, must have been the room of a child--Lutetia's little niece? The +door of that room, of course, leads into the hall as mine does. As I +stood there, shading my candle from the draft, that door opened and +there emerged from the room--what do you suppose? + +A little girl. + +I say--a little girl. She wasn't, you understand, a real little girl. +Nor was she a dead little girl. Instantly I knew that--just as instantly +as I had known that Lutetia _was_ dead. I mean, and I hope this +phraseology is technically correct, that Lutetia, as I saw her, was the +ghost of someone who had once lived. This little girl was an apparition; +an appearance projected through space of some one who now lives. That +or--oh, how difficult this is, Spink--a sloughed-off, astral self left +in this old place; or--but I won't go into that. + +I stood there, as I said, shading my candle. The little girl closed her +door with a meticulous care. Did I hear the ghost of a click? Perhaps my +ear supplied that. By one hand she was dragging a big doll--one of those +rag-dolls children have. I couldn't tell you anything about +Lutetia--except that she was lovely--ineffably lovely. But I can tell +you all about this little girl. She was pigtailed and freckled. The +pigtails were short, very thick, so tight that their ends snapped +upwards, like hundreds of little-girl pigtails that I have seen. There +was a row of tangled little ringlets on her forehead. She didn't look at +me. She didn't know that I was there. She proceeded straight across the +hall, busily stub-toeing her way like any freckled, pigtailed little +girl, the doll dragging on the floor behind her, until she reached the +garret stairs. She opened the garret door, closed it with the same +meticulous care. The last I got was a little white glimpse of her +down-dropped face, as she pulled the rag-doll's leg away from the +shutting door. + +I waited there a long time--until my candle guttered to nothing. She did +not return. I did not see her or anybody else again that night. + +I went back to bed and fell immediately into a perfectly quiet, +dreamless sleep. The next morning early, I went over to Hyde's +brother--his name is Corning--and bought this house. Perhaps you can +tell me why I did it. I don't exactly know myself; for of course I +couldn't afford it. I realized only that I could not--I simply and +absolutely could _not_--let anybody else buy Lutetia. + +You think, of course, that I've finished now, Spink. But that isn't all. +Not by a million Persian parasangs--all. She has come again. I mean +Lutetia. For that matter, they both have come again. But I'll try to +tell my story categorically. + +It was a night or two later; another dewy, placid large-starred night-- +Strange how this beautiful weather keeps up! I had been reading as +usual; but my mind was as vacant as a glass bell from which you have +exhausted the air. I was rereading, I remember, Lutetia's _The Sport of +the Goddesses_. Spink, how that woman could write! And.... Again I +became aware that I wasn't alone. Just as definitely, I knew that it was +not Lutetia this time; nor even Little Pigtails. This time, and perhaps +it's because I'm getting used to this sort of thing, I had a sense +of--not _fear_--but only of what I'll call a _spiritual diffidence_. + +Yet instantly I looked up. + +He--it was a _he_ this time--was standing in the doorway, which leads +from this big living-room into the front hall. We were +vis-a-vis--tete-a-tete one might say. He was looking straight at me and +I--I assure you, Spink--I looked straight at him. + +Spink, you have never heard of a jovial ghost, have you? I'm sure I +haven't. But this was or could have been a jovial ghost. He was big--not +fat but ample--middle-aged, more than middle-aged. He wore an enormous +beard cut square like the men in Assyrian mural tablets. Hair a little +long. I assure you he was the handsomest old beggar that I have ever +seen. He looked like a portrait by Titian. I got--it's like holding a +photographic negative up to the light and trying to get the figures on +it--that he wore a sort of flowing gown; it made him stately. And one of +those little round caps that conceal or protect baldness. I can't +describe him. How the devil _can_ you describe a ghost? I mean an +apparition. For he isn't dead either--any more than the little girls is. +He's alive somewhere. + +Well, our steady exchange of looks went on and on and on. If I could +have said anything it would have been: "What do you want of me, you +handsome old beggar?" What he would have said to me I don't know; +although he was trying with all his ghostly strength to put some message +over. How he was trying! It was that effort that kept him from being +what he was--_is_--jovial. God, how that gaze burned--tore--ate. It grew +insupportable after a while--it was melting me to nothingness. I dropped +my eyes. Suddenly I could lift them, for I knew he was gone. Somehow I +had the feeling that a monstrous bomb had noiselessly exploded in the +room. His going troubled me no more than his coming. I remember I said +aloud: "I'm sorry I couldn't get you, old top! Better luck next time!" + +I got up from my chair after a few minutes to take my usual +before-going-to-bed walk. I walked about the room; absent-mindedly +putting things to rights--the way women do. My mind--and I suspect my +eyes too--were still so full of him that when, on stepping outside, I +came across another--I was conscious of some shock. Again not of fear, +but of a terrific surprise. + +Are you getting all this, Spink? Oh, of course you're not, because you +don't believe it. But try to believe it. Put yourself in my place! Try +to get the wonder, the magic, the terror, the touch now and then of +horror, but above all the fierce thrill--of living with a family of +ghosts? + +This one--the fourth--was a man too. About thirty, I should say. And +awfully charming. Yes, you spaniel-eyed fish, you, one man is saying +this of another man. He was awfully charming. Short, dark. He +wore--again it is like holding a negative up to the light--he wore white +ducks or flannels. He stood very easily, his weight--listen to me, his +_weight_--mainly on one foot and one hand curved against his hip. In the +other hand, he carried his pipe. He looked at me--God, how he looked at +me! How, for that matter, they all look at me! They want something, +Spink. Of me. They're trying to tell me. I can't get it, though. But, +believe me, I'm trying. This was worse than the old fellow. For this +one, like Lutetia, was dead. And he, like her, was trying to put his +message across a world, whereas the old fellow had only to pierce a +dimension. How he looked at me; held me; bored into me. It was like +sustaining visual vitriol.... How he looked at me! It became +horrible.... Pretty soon I realized I wasn't going to be able to stand +it.... + +Yet I stayed with it as long as he did, and of course we continued to +glare at each other. I don't exactly know what the etiquette of these +meetings is; but I seem to feel vaguely that it's up to me to stay with +them as long as they're here. This time, it must have been all of five +minutes, although it seemed longer ... much longer ... and I, all the +time, trying to hold on. Then suddenly something happened. I don't know +what it was, but one instant he was there, and another he wasn't. Don't +ask me how he went away. I don't know. He simply ceased to be; and yet +so swifter-than-instantly, so exquisitely, so subtly that my only +question was--even though my mind was still stinging from his gaze--had +he been there at all. It was as though the tree back of him had +instantaneously absorbed him. It was a shock too--that disappearance. + +Well, again I went out for a hike. I walked anywhere--everywhere. How +far I don't know. But half the night. Again it was as though I marched +through the stars.... + +I haven't seen the old painter again--I call him painter simply because +he wore that long robe. And I haven't seen the young guy again. But I +see Lutetia all the time. She comes and goes. Sometimes when I enter the +living-room, I find her already there.... Sometimes when I leave it, I +know she enters by another door.... We spend long evenings together.... +I can't write when she's about; but curiously enough I can sometimes +read; that is to say, I can read Lutetia. I try to read because moments +come when I realize that she prefers me not to look at her. It's when +she's exhausted from trying to give me her message. Or when she's +girding herself up for another go. At those moments, the room is full of +a frightful struggle; a gigantic spiritual concentration. It seems to me +I could not look even if she wanted me. Oh, how she tries, Spink! It +wrings my heart. She's so helpless, so hopeless--so gentle, so tender, +so lovely! It's all my own stupidity. The iron-wall stupidity of flesh +and blood. Perhaps, if I were to kill myself--and I think I could do +that for her.... Only she doesn't want me to do that.... But what does +she want me to do? If I could only.... + + * * * * * + +Lindsay had written steadily the whole evening; written at a violent +speed and with a fierce intensity. Now his speed died down. His hands +dropped from the typewriter. That mental intensity evaporated. He became +aware.... + +He was not alone. + +The long living-room was doubly cheerful that night. The inevitable +tracks of living had begun to humanize it. A big old bean-pot full of +purple iris sat on one end of the refectory table. Lindsay's books and +notebooks; his paper and envelopes; his pens and pencils sprawled over +the length of table between him and the iris. That the night was a +little cool, Lindsay had seized as pretext to build a huge fire. The +high, jagged flames conspired with the steady glow of the big lamp to +rout the shadows from everywhere but the extreme corners. + +No more than--after her coming--he was alone was Lutetia alone. It was, +Lindsay reflected, a picture almost as posed as for a camera. Lutetia +sat; and leaning against her, close to her knee, stood a pigtailed +little girl. She might have been listening to a story; for her little +ear was cocked in Lutetia's direction. That attitude brought to +Lindsay's observation a delicious, snub-nosed child profile. She gazed +unseeingly over her shoulder to a far corner. And Lutetia gazed straight +over the child's head at Lindsay-- + +They sat for a long time--a long long time--thus. The little girl's +vague eyes still fixed themselves on the shadows as on magic realms that +were being constantly unrolled to her. Lutetia's eyes still sought +Lindsay's. And Lindsay's eyes remained on Lutetia's; held there by the +agony of her effort and the exquisite torture of his own bewilderment. + +After a while he arose. With slow, precise movements, he gathered up the +pages of his letter to Spink. He arranged them carefully according to +their numbers--twelve typewritten pages. He walked leisurely with them +over to the fireplace and deposited them in the flames. + +When he turned, the room was empty. + +The next day brought storm again. + + * * * * * + +The coolness of the night vanished finally before the sparkling sunshine +of a wind-swept day. Lindsay wrote for an hour or two. Then he gave +himself up to what he called the "chores." He washed his few dishes. He +toiled on the lawn and in the garden. He finished the work of repairing +the broken stairway in the barn. At the close of this last effort, he +even cast a longing look in the direction of the rubbish collection in +the second story of the barn. But his digestion apprised him that this +voyage of discovery must be put off until after luncheon. He emerged +from the back entrance of the barn, made his way, contrary to his usual +custom, by a circuitous route to the front of the house. He stopped to +tack up a trail of rosebush which had pulled loose from the trellis +there. He felt unaccountably tired. When he entered the house he was +conscious for the first time of a kind of loneliness.... + +He had not seen Lutetia, nor any of her companions, for three days. He +admitted to himself that he missed the tremendous excitement of the last +fortnight. But particularly he missed Lutetia. He paused absently to +glance into the two front rooms, still as empty as on the day he had +first seen them. He wandered upstairs into his bedroom. From there, he +journeyed to the child's room beyond; examined again the dim drawings on +the wall. It occurred to him that, by going over them with crayons, he +could restore some of their lost vividness. The idea brought a little +spurt of exhilaration to his jaded spirit. He returned to his own room, +just for the sake of descending Lutetia's little private stairway to +what must have been her private living-room below. He walked absently +and a little slowly; still conscious of loneliness. He did not pause +long in the living-room, although he made a tentative move in the +direction of the kitchen. Still absently and quite mechanically he +opened the back door; started to step out onto the broad flat stone +which made the step.... + +Most unexpectedly--and shockingly, he was not alone. A tiny figure ... +black ... sat on the doorstep; sat so close to the door that, as it +rose, his curdling flesh warned him he had almost touched it. A curious +thing happened. Lindsay swayed, pitched; fell backwards, white and +moveless. + + + + +VI + + +"How did they find me, Glorious Lutie?" Susannah asked next morning. +"How _did_ they find me? If I could only teach myself to listen to the +warning of those little hammers. Something told me when I saw Warner +walking along the corridor of the Carman Building that he was not there +by accident. Something told me when I ran into O'Hearn at the Attic the +other night that _he_ was not _there_ by accident. They have been +following me all the time. They've known what I've been doing every +moment. Just as Byan knows where I am now. How did they do it? I've +never suspected it for a moment. I've never seen anybody. I'm +frightened, Glorious Lutie; I'm dreadfully frightened. I don't know +where to turn. If I only had a real friend-- But perhaps that wouldn't +help as much as I think. For I'm afraid--I'm too afraid to tell +_anybody_--" + +All this, she said as usual, wordlessly. But she said it from her bed, +her eyes fixed in a lackluster stare on the little oval gleam of the +miniature. + +"I don't know what I'd do without you, Glorious Lutie, to tell my +troubles to. You're a great deal more than a picture to me. You're a +real presence-- Oh, if you could only see for me now. I wonder if Byan +is still in his room? I wonder what he's going to do. I mean--what is +the next move? Oh, of course he's there! He wants to talk with me. But I +won't let him talk with me. I'll stay in this room until I starve! And +he can't telephone. How can he put over what he wants to say?" + +That question answered itself automatically when she dragged herself up +from bed. A white square glimmered beside her door. She pounced upon it. + + "Dear Miss Ayer: + + "Of course we have known where you were and what you were doing + every instant since you left the office. We did not interfere + with your quitting your boarding-house because we preferred to + give you a few days to think things over. I hope you've been + enjoying your little excursions to the Museum and the Aquarium. + We knew you'd come to your senses after a while and be ready to + talk business. That is why you've had those little, accidental + meetings from time to time. That advertisement for a job in the + Carman Building was a decoy ad. It is useless for you to try to + get away from us. + + "And in the meantime the situation is getting more and more + desperate. You know why. Now listen. We can clean up on that + little business deal in three days. Do you know what that means? + Maybe a hundred thousand dollars. We'll let you in. Your share + would be twelve thousand five hundred. Don't that sound pretty + good to you? You can avoid any trouble by going away with us. Or + you can go alone and nobody will bother you. We'll give you the + dope on that; for believe me, we know how. And you wouldn't have + to do a thing you don't want to do. We've got grandpa tamed now + in regard to you. We've told him that you're a lady, and won't + stand for that rough stuff. He's wild about you, and crazy to + see you, and make it all right again. Now why not use a little + sense? Slip a note under my door across the way and tell me that + you'll doll yourself up and be ready to go to dinner with him + tonight at seven." + + A postscript added: "This is unsigned and typewritten on your + own typewriter and so couldn't be used by anyone who didn't like + our way of doing business. For your own safety though, I advise + you to burn it." + +This last was the one bit of advice in the letter which Susannah +followed. She lighted a match and burned it over her water basin. Then +she forced her protesting throat to swallow a glass of milk. She ate +some crackers. After that she went to bed. + +What to do and where to go! Over and over again, she turned the meager +possibilities of her situation. Nothing offered escape. A hackneyed +phrase floated into her mind--"woman's wit." From time immemorial it had +been a bromidiom that any woman, however stupid, could outwit any man, +however clever. Was it true? Perhaps not all the time, and perhaps +sometimes. That was the only way though--she must pit her nimble, +inexperienced woman's wit against their heavier but trained man's wit. +Her problem was to get out of this house, unseen. But how? All kinds of +fantastic schemes floated through her tired mind. If she could only +disguise herself-- But she would have to go out first to get the +disguise. And Byan was across the hall, waiting for just that move. If +there were only a convenient fire-escape! But of course he would +anticipate that. If she could only summon a taxi, leap into it and drive +for an hour! But she would have to telephone for the taxi in the outside +hall, where Byan could hear her. On and on, she drove her tired mind; +inventing schemes more and more impracticable. For a long time, that +woman's wit spawned nothing-- + +Then suddenly a curious idea came to her. It was so ridiculous that she +rejected it instantly. Ridiculous--and it stood ninety-nine per cent +chance of failure; offered but one per cent chance of success. +Nevertheless it recurred. It offered more and more suggestion, more and +more temptation. True, it was a thing barely possible; true also, that +it was the only thing possible. But could she put it through? Had she +the nerve? Had she the strength? + +She must find both the nerve and the strength. + +She bathed and dressed quickly and with a growing steadiness. She packed +her belongings into her suitcase, put Glorious Lutie's miniature in her +handbag. + +She sat down at her bureau and wrote a note: + +"If you will come to my room, after you have had your breakfast, I will +talk the matter over with you. I will not leave the building before you +return. I will be ready to see you at ten o'clock." + +She opened her door, walked across the corridor; slipped the note under +the door of Byan's room. Then she hurried back; locked her door; sat +down and waited, her hands clasped. Her hands grew colder and colder +until they seemed like marble, but all the time her mind seemed to +steady and clarify. + +After a long while she heard Byan's door open. She heard his steps +retreating down the hall and over the stairs. + +Ten minutes later, Susannah appeared, suitcase in hand, at the janitor's +office on the first floor. "I'm Miss Ayer in No. 9, second floor," she +said. "May I leave this suitcase here? I've just thought that I wanted +to go to a friend's room on the fifth floor and I don't want to lug it +up all those stairs." + +The janitor considered her for a puzzled second. Of course he was in +Byan's pay, Susannah reflected. + +"Sure," he answered uncertainly after a while. + +"I'm expecting a gentleman to call on me," Susannah went on steadily. +"Tell him I'll be on the fifth floor at No. 9. My friend is out," she +ended in glib explanation, "but she's left her key with me. There's a +little work that I wanted to do on her typewriter." The janitor--she had +worked this out in advance--must know that Room 9, fifth floor--was +occupied by a woman who owned a typewriter. Susannah established that +when, a few days before, she had restored to its owner a letter shoved +by mistake under her own door. + +Susannah deposited her bag on the floor in the janitor's office. She +walked steadily up the stairs to the second floor. She felt the +janitor's gaze on the first flight of her progress. She stopped just +before she reached her own room, glanced back. She was alone there. The +janitor had not followed her. Perhaps Byan's instructions to him were +only to watch the door. With a swift pounce, she ran to Byan's door, +turned the knob. + +It opened. + +She ran to the closet; opened that. As she suspected, it was empty. +Indeed, her swift glance had discovered no signs of occupancy in the +room. Even the bed was undisturbed. Byan had hired it, of course, just +for the purpose of being there that one night. Susannah closed the +closet door after her, so that the merest crack let in the air she +should demand--and waited. In that desperate hour when she lay thinking, +the idea had suddenly flashed into her mind that there was only one +place in the house where Byan would not look for her. That place was his +own room. But it would not have occurred to her to take refuge there if +she had not noted, even in her taut terror of the night before, that +when Byan entered his own room he had omitted to lock the door after +him. As indeed, why should he? There was nothing to steal in it but +Byan. Moreover, of course Byan had sat up all night--his door +unlocked--ready to forestall any effort of hers to escape. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Susannah heard a padded, rather brisk step ascending the +stairs, coming along the hall. It was Byan, of course--no one could +mistake his pace. He knocked on the door of her room; at first gently, +then insistently. A pause. Then he tried the knob, again at first +gently, then insistently. His steps retreated down the hall and the +stairs. He must have got a pass-key from the janitor, for when, a long +minute later, she heard his steps return, the scraping of a lock sounded +from across the hall. She heard her somewhat rusty door-hinges creak. +There followed a low whistle as of surprise, then an irregular +succession of steps and creaks proving that he was looking under the +bed, was inspecting the closet. She heard him retreat again down the +stairs, and braced herself to endure a longer wait. At last, two pairs +of feet sounded on the stairs. Had her ruse fully succeeded--would they +mount at once to Room 9, fifth floor? No--they were coming again along +the second-floor corridor. With a tingle of nerves in her temples and +cheeks, she realized that she had reached the supreme moment of peril. +They began knocking at every door on the second-floor corridors. Once +she heard a muffled colloquy--the impatient tones of some strange man, +the apologetic voice of the janitor. At other doors she heard, shortly +after the knock, the scraping of the pass-key. Now they were in the room +just beyond the wall of the closet where she was crouching. She heard +them enter and emerge--the moment had come! But their footsteps passed +her door; an instant later, she heard the pass-key grate in the door of +the room on the other side. Then--one hand shaking convulsively on the +knob of Byan's closet door--she heard them go flying up the stairs to +the third story--the fourth-- + + * * * * * + +Before noon of that haunted, hunted morning, Susannah found a room in a +curious way. When she escaped from the house in the West Twenties, she +had walked westward almost to the river. In a little den of a restaurant +just off the docks, she ordered breakfast and the morning newspapers. +But when she tried to look over the advertising columns with a view to +finding a room, she had a violent fit of trembling. The members of the +Carbonado Mining Company, she recalled to herself, were studying those +advertisements just as closely as she; and perhaps at that very moment. + +Hiding in a great city! Why, she thought to herself, it's the only place +where you can't hide! + +Susannah dawdled over breakfast as long as she dared. She found herself +wincing as she emerged onto the busy dingy street of docks. She stopped +under the shade of an awning and controlled the abnormal fluttering of +her heart while she thought out her situation. She dared no longer walk +the streets. She dared not go to a real-estate agent. How, then, might +she find a room and a hiding-place? + +Then a Salvation Army girl came picking her way across the crowded, +cluttered dock-pavement toward her awning. And Susannah had a sudden +impulse which she afterwards described to Glorious Lutie as a stroke of +genius. She came out to the edge of the pavement and accosted the Blue +Bonnet. + +"Do you know of any place where a girl who's a stranger in New York may +find a cheap and respectable lodging?" she asked. + +The Salvation Army girl gave her a long, steady scrutiny from under the +scoop of her bonnet. + +"My sister keeps a rooming-house up on Eighth Avenue," she said finally. +"She always has an extra room, and she will take you in, I guess. Have +you a bit of paper? I'll write her a note." + +Susannah flew, swift as a homing dove, to the address. The landlady, a +shapeless, featureless, middle-aged blonde, read the note; herself gave +a long glance of scrutiny, and showed the room. Susannah's examination +was merely perfunctory. In fact, she looked with eyes which saw not. +Probably never before did a shabby, battered bedchamber, stained as to +ceiling, peeling as to wallpaper, carelessly patched as to carpet, +indescribably broken-down and nondescript as to furniture, seem a very +paradise to the eyes of twenty-five. + +The bed was humpy, but it was a double bed; and clean. Susannah sank on +to it. She did not rise for a long time. Then, true to her accepted +etiquette on occasions of this kind, she drew the miniature from her +handbag and pinned it on to the wall beside her bureau. + +"Glorious Lutie," her thoughts ran, "I'm as weak as a sick cat. If there +was ever a girl more terrified, more friendless, more worn-out than I +feel at this moment, I'd like to know how she got that way. I want to +crawl into that bed and stay there for a week just reveling in the +thought that I'm safe. Safe, Glorious Lutie. Safe! Alone with you. And +nobody to be afraid of. Our funds are running low of course. I've +nothing to pawn except you. But don't be afraid--I'll never pawn you. If +we have to go down, we'll go down together and with all sails set. I've +got an awful hate and fear on this job-hunting business now. Heaven +knows I don't want much money; only enough to live on. I guess I won't +try to be a high-class queen of secretaries any longer--or at least for +the present. My lay is to lie low for a month or two. I'll rest for a +few days. Then I'll go into--what? What, Glorious Lutie, tell me what? +I've got it! Domestic service. That's my escape. I've certainly got +brains enough to be a second girl and they never could find me tucked +away in somebody's house, especially if I never take my afternoons out. +Which, believe me, Glorious Lutie, I won't. I'll spend them all with +you. Oh, what an idea that is! I'll wait around here for about a week +and then I'll tackle one of the domestic service agencies. If I know +anything about after-the-war conditions, I'll be snapped up like hot +cakes." + +Keeping her promise to herself, Susannah stayed as much as possible +indoors. The landlady consented to give her breakfast, but she would do +no more--even that was an accommodation. In gratitude, Susannah took +care of her own room. She kept it in spotless order; she even pottered +with repairs. With breakfast at home, she had no need to leave the house +of mornings. She went without luncheon; and late in the afternoon, +before the home-going flood from the offices, she had dinner in a +Child's restaurant round the corner. For the rest of the time, she read +the landlady's books--few, and mostly cheap. But they included a set of +Dickens; and she renewed acquaintance with a novelist whom she loved for +himself and who called up memories of her happiest times. But her mood +with Dickens was curiously capricious. His deaths and persecutions and +poignant tragedies she could no longer endure--they swept her into a +gulf of black melancholy. On the second day of her voluntary +imprisonment, she glanced through _Bleak House_; stumbled into the +wanderings of Little Jo through the streets of London. Suddenly she +surprised herself by a fit of hysterical, trembling tears. This +explosion cleared her mental airs; but afterward she skipped through +Dickens, picking and choosing his humors, his love-passages, his +gargantuan feasts in wayside inns. + +When her eyes grew weary with reading, or when she ran into one of those +passages which brought the black cloud, Susannah gazed vacantly out of +the window. + +Her lodging-house stood on a corner; she had a back, corner room on the +third floor. The house next door, on the side street, finished to the +rear in a two-story shed. Its roof lay almost under her window. The +landlady, upon showing the room, had called her attention to this shed. +"We've got no regular fire escapes, dearie," she said, "but in case of +trouble, you're all right. You just step out here and if the skylight +ain't open, somebody'll get you down with a ladder. A person can't be +too careful about fires!" Across the skylight lay a few scanty +backyards--treeless, grassless, uninteresting. This city area of yards +and sheds seemed to be the club, the Rialto for all the stray cats of +Eighth Avenue. Susannah named them, endowed them with personalities. +Their squabbles, their amours, their melodramatic stalking, gave her a +kind of apathetic interest. + +The interest lessened as three days went by, and the apathy deepened. +"It's my state of mind, Glorious Lutie," she apprised the miniature. +"It's this weight that's on my spirit. It's fear. Just as soon as I can +get my mind off--I mean just as soon as I become convinced that I'm +never going to be bothered again, it will go, I'm sure. Of course I +can't help feeling as I do. But I ought not to. I'm perfectly safe now. +In a few days those crooks won't trouble about me any more. It will be +too late. And I know it." + +She reiterated those last two sentences as though Glorious Lutie were a +difficult person to convince. The next morning, however, came diversion. +Work--roofing--began on the shed just under her window. Susannah watched +the workmen with an interest that held, at first, an element of +determined concentration. The roofers, an elderly man and a younger one, +incredibly dirty in their blackened overalls, which were soon matched by +face and hands, were very conscious at first of the brilliant tawny head +just above. Once, muffled by the window, she caught an allusion to white +horses. But Susannah ignored this; continued to watch them disappearing +and emerging through the open skylight, setting up their melting-pot, +arranging their sheets of tin. + +Before she was out of bed next morning they were making a metallic +clatter with their hammers. In her normal state, Susannah was a creature +almost without nerves. She even retained a little of the child's +enjoyment of a racket for its own sake. But now--the din annoyed her, +annoyed her unspeakably. She crept languidly out of bed, peeped through +the edge of the curtain. They were just beginning work. It would keep up +all day. + +"I can't stand this!" said Susannah aloud; and then began one of her +wordless addresses to the miniature. + +"I guess the time has come, anyhow, to strike into pastures new. Behold, +Glorious Lutie, your Glorious Susie descending from the high and mighty +position of pampered secretary to that of driven slave. Tomorrow morn I +apply for a job as second girl. If it weren't for this headache, I'd do +it today." + +However, the hammering only intensified her headache; she must get +outside. So when the landlady arrived with her breakfast, Susannah +inquired for the address of the nearest employment office. She dressed, +and descended to the street. As always, of late, she had a shrinking as +she stepped out into the open world of men and women. When she had +controlled this, she moved with a curious apathy to the old, battered +ground-floor office with yellow signs over its front windows, where +girls found work at domestic service. Presently, she was registered, was +sitting on a long bench with a row of women ranging from slatternly to +cheaply smart. She scarcely observed them. That apathy was settling +deeper about her spirits; her only sensation was her dull headache. +Somehow, when she sat still it was not wholly an unpleasant headache. +Then the voice of the sharp-faced woman at the desk in the corner called +her name. It tore the veil, woke her as though from sleep. She rose, to +face her first chance--a thin, severe woman with a mouth like a steel +trap. + +This first chance furnished no opening, however; neither, as the morning +wore away, did several other chances. The process of getting a second +maid's job was at the same time more difficult and less difficult than +she had thought. Susannah had forgotten that people always ask servants +for references. She had supposed her carefully worked out explanation +would cover that situation--that she had been a stenographer in +Providence; that she had come to New York soon after the Armistice was +signed, hoping for a bigger outlook; that the returning soldiers were +snapping up all the jobs; that she had tried again and again for a +position; that her money was fast going; that she had been advised to +enter domestic service. Housekeepers from rich establishments and the +mistresses of small ones interviewed her; but the lack of references +laid an impassable barrier. In the afternoon, however, luck changed. A +suburbanite from Jamaica, a round, grizzled, middle-aged woman, +desperately in need of a second girl, cut through all the red-tape that +had held the others up. "You're perfectly honest," she said +meditatively, "about admitting you've had no experience, and you _look_ +trustworthy." + +"I assure you, madam,"--Susannah was eager, but wary; not too eager. She +even laughed a little--"I am honest--so honest that it hurts." + +"The only thing is," her interlocutor went on hesitatingly; "you must +pardon me for putting it so bluntly; but we might as well be open with +each other. I'm afraid you'll feel a little above your position." + +"Well," Susannah responded honestly, "to be straightforward with _you_, +I suppose I shall. But I give you my word, I'll never _show_ it. And +that's the only thing that counts, isn't it?" + +The woman smiled. + +"I must confess I like you," she burst out impulsively. "But how am I +going to know that you're--all right?" + +Susannah sighed. "I understand your situation perfectly. I don't know +how you're to know I'm all right--morally or just in the matter of mere +honesty. For there's nobody but me to tell you that I'm moral and +honest. And of course I'm prejudiced." + +"Well, anyway I'm going to risk it. I'm engaging you now. It is +understood--ten dollars a week; and alternate Thursdays and Sundays out. +I don't want you until tomorrow because I want my former maid out of the +house before you come. Now will you promise me that you'll take the nine +train tomorrow?" + +"I promise," Susannah agreed. + +"But that reminds me," the woman came on another difficulty, "what's to +guarantee that you'll stay with me?" + +"I guarantee," Susannah said steadily, "that if you keep to your end of +the agreement, I'll stay with you at least three months." + +The woman sparkled. "All right, I'll expect you tomorrow on the nine +train. I'll be there with the Ford to meet you. Here are the +directions." She scribbled busily on a card. + +Susannah walked home as one who treads on air. The veil of apathy had +broken. And in spite of her headache, which caught her by fits and +starts, her mood broke into a joy so wild that it sent her pirouetting +about the room. "Glorious Lutie, I never felt so happy in my life. So +gayly, grandly, gorgeously, gor-gloriously happy! All my troubles are +over. I'm safe." And on the strength of that security, she washed and +ironed her lavender linen suit. Her headache was better again. Perhaps +if she went out now to an early dinner, it might disappear altogether. +But how languorous she felt, how indisposed to effort. She would sit and +read a while. She opened _Pickwick Papers_ on its last pages. She had +almost finished the book. + +"I suppose it will be a long time before I have a chance to do any more +reading," she meditated. "So I think I'll finish this. You've helped me +through a hard passage in my life, Charles Dickens, and I thank you with +all my heart." + +But she could not read. As soon as she sat down by the window and +settled her eyes on the book, the headache returned. The men were still +at work on the roof, hammering away at one corner. Every blow seemed to +strike her skull. Midway of the roof, the skylight yawned open; their +extra tools were laid out beside it. At five o'clock they would quit for +the day. Usually she disliked to have them go. In spite of their noise, +she felt that still. They gave her a kind of warm, human sense of +companionship. And they had become accustomed to her appearances at the +window. Their flirtatious first glances had ceased for want of +encouragement. They scarcely seemed to see her when they looked up. But +now--that hammering at her skull! Susannah suddenly rose and closed the +window, hot though the day was, against this torrent of sound. As though +its futile shield would give added protection, she drew the curtain. In +the dimmed light she sat rocking, her head in her hands. Her face was +fire-hot--why, she wondered-- The hammering stopped. They were soldering +now. They were always doing that; beating the tin sheets into place and +stopping to solder them. There would be silence for a time. In a moment, +she would open the window for a breath of air on her burning face.... + +She started at a knock on her door, low, quick, but abrupt. Before she +could answer, it opened. His face shadowed in the three-quarters light, +but his form perfectly outlined, instantly recognizable--stood Warner. +Behind Warner was Byan, and behind Byan, O'Hearn. + +All the blood of her heart seemed to strike in one wave on Susannah's +aching head, and then to recede. She knew both the tingling of terror +and the numbness of horror. Prickling, stinging darts volleyed her face, +her hands, her feet; and yet she seemed to be freezing to stone. + +They came into the room before anyone spoke--Warner first. Byan lolled +to a place in the corner; the three-quarters light, filtering through +the thin fabric of the flimsy, yellow curtain, revealed his clean +profile, his mysterious half-smile. O'Hearn stood just at the entrance. +He did not continue to look at her. His eyes sought the floor. + +Warner was speaking now: + +"Good-evening, Miss Ayer. We have come to finish up that little piece of +business with you. It has been delayed as long as it can be. Pardon us +for breaking in upon you like this. Your landlady tried to prevent us, +but we assured her that you would want to see us. As I think you will +when you come to your senses and hear what I have to say." + +He stopped, as though awaiting her reply. But Susannah made no answer. +She had dropped her eyes now; her hands lay limp in her lap. And in this +pause, a curious piece of byplay passed between Warner and O'Hearn. The +master of this trio caught the glance of his assistant and, with a swift +motion of three fingers toward the lapel of his coat, gave him that +"office" in the underworld sign manual--which means "look things over." +O'Hearn, moving so lightly that Susannah scarcely noted his passage, +stepped to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain. He took a swift, +intent look outside and returned to Warner. His back to Susannah, he +spoke with his lips, scarcely vocalizing the words. + +"No getaway there, Boss--straight drop--" he said. + +Warner was speaking again. + +"Your landlady says we may have her parlor for our conference. Wouldn't +you prefer to make yourself presentable for the street and then join us +there--in about ten minutes, say?" + +Ten minutes--this gave her a chance to play for time--the only chance +she had. She looked up. Nothing on the clean-cut, pearl-white exterior +of her face gave a clue to the anarchy within; nothing, even, in her +black-fringed, blue gaze the tautly-held scarlet lips. Her fire-bright +head lifted a little higher and she gazed steadily into Warner's eyes, +as she spoke in a voice which seemed to her to belong to someone else: + +"I can give you a few minutes, but I have not changed my determination." + +"But I think you will," said Warner. "I really think you will. Before we +go, I might remind you that we have been extremely gentle and patient +with you, Miss Ayer. I might also remind you that you have never +succeeded in giving us the slip. You were very clever when you escaped +from your last lodging. We don't know yet exactly how you did it. +Perhaps you will tell us in the course of our little talk this +afternoon. But you were not quite clever enough. You did not figure that +with such important matters pending, we would have the outside of the +house watched as well as the inside. So that you may not think our +meeting this afternoon is accidental, let me remind you that you have an +engagement for tomorrow afternoon in Jamaica--to take a job as second +maid. What we have to offer you this afternoon will probably be so +attractive that you will overlook that engagement." + +He paused. + +"I will be with you in ten minutes," said Susannah. She was conscious of +no emotion now--only that her head ached, and that the faded roses in +the old carpet were entwined with forget-me-nots--a thing she had never +noticed before. + +"Thank you." Warner made her a gallant little bow. "Mr. Byan and I will +wait in the parlor. Until we come to an understanding, we shall have to +continue the old arrangement. It will therefore be necessary for Mr. +O'Hearn to watch in the hall. If you do not arrive in ten minutes--this +room will probably do as well as the parlor. Until then, Miss Ayer!" + +He opened the door, passed out. Byan retreated after him, flashing one +of his pathetically sweet, floating smiles. Susannah looked up now, +followed their movements as the felon must follow the movements of the +man with the rope. O'Hearn had been standing close to Susannah, his +veiling lashes down. He fell in behind the other two. But before he +joined the file, those lashes came up in a quick glance which stabbed +Susannah. His hand came up too. He was pointing to the window. And then +he spoke two words in a whisper so low that they carried only to the +ears of Susannah, scarce three feet away--so low that she could not have +made them out but for the exaggerated, expressive movement of his lips. + +"Skylight--quick--" he said. He made for the door in the wake of the +other two. + +For the fraction of an instant Susannah did not comprehend. And then +suddenly one of those little intuitive blows which she was always +receiving and ignoring gave, on the hard surface of her mind, a faint +tap. This time, she was conscious of it. This time, she trusted it +instantly. This time, it told her what to do. + +"I'll be with you as soon as I get dolled up," she called. + +"That's right," came the suave voice of Warner from the hall. + +She closed the door. She listened while two sets of footsteps descended +the stairs. She heard a third set, which must be O'Hearn's, retreat for +a few paces and then stop. She fell swiftly to work. She put on her hat +and cape. She took the miniature, thumbtack and all, from the wall, and +put it in her wrist bag. "Help me, Glorious Lutie," she called from the +depths of her soul. "Help me! Help me! Help me! I'm lost if you don't +help me! I can't do it any more alone." + + + + +VII + + +When Lindsay pulled back from the quiet gray void which had enshrouded +him, he was lying on the grass. Far, far away, as though pasted against +the brilliant blue sky, was a face. Gradually the sky receded. The face +came nearer. It topped, he gradually gathered, the tiny slender +black-silk figure of a little old lady. "Do you feel all right now?" it +asked. + +Lindsay wished that she would not question him. He was immensely +preoccupied with what seemed essentially private matters. But the +instinct of courtesy prodded him. "Very much, thank you," he answered +weakly. He closed his eyes again. He became conscious of a wet cloth +sopping his forehead and cheeks. A breeze tingled on the bare flesh of +his neck and chest. He opened his eyes again; sat up. "Do you mean to +tell me I fainted?" he demanded with his customary vigor. + +"That's exactly what you did, young man," the old lady answered. "The +instant you looked at me! I was setting with my back to the door. You +could have knocked me down with a feather, when you fell over +backwards." + +"Have I been out long?" + +"Not more'n a moment. I flaxed around and got some water and brought you +to in a jiffy. You ain't an invalid, are you?" + +"Far from it," Lindsay reassured her. "I'm afraid, though, I've been +working too long in the hot sun this morning." + +"Like as not!" the little old lady agreed briskly. "I guess you're +hungry too," she hazarded. "Now you just get up and lay in the hammock +and I'm going to make you some lunch. I see there was some eggs there +and milk and tea. I'll have you some scrambled eggs fixed in no time. My +name is Spash--Mrs. Spash." + +"My name is Lindsay--David Lindsay." + +Lindsay found himself submitting without a murmur to the little old +lady's program. He lay quiescent in the hammock and let the tides of +vitality flow back.... Mrs. Spash's prophecy, if anything, +underestimated her energy. In an incredibly short time she had produced, +in collaboration with the oil stove, eggs scrambled on bread deliciously +toasted, tea of a revivifying heat and strength. + +"Gee, that tastes good!" Lindsay applauded. He sighed. "It certainly +takes a woman!" + +"What are you doing here?" Mrs. Spash inquired. "Batching it?" + +"Yes, I think that describes the process," Lindsay admitted. After an +instant, "How did you happen to be on the doorstep?" + +"Well, I don't wonder you ask," Mrs. Spash declared. "I didn't know the +Murray place was let and--well, I was making one of my regular visits. +You see, I come here often. I'm pretty fond of this old house. I lived +here once for years." + +Lindsay sat upright. "Did you by chance live here when Lutetia Murray +was alive?" + +"Well, I should say I did!" Mrs. Spash answered. "I lived here the last +twenty years of Lutetia Murray's life. I was her housekeeper, as you +might say." + +Lindsay stared at her. He started to speak. It was obvious that +conflicting comments fought for expression, but all he managed to +say--and ineptly enough--was: "Oh, you knew her, then?" + +"Knew her!" Mrs. Spash seemed to search among her vocabulary for words. +Or perhaps it was her soul for emotions. "Yes, I knew her," she +concluded with a feeble breathlessness. + +"You've lived in this house, then, for twenty years," Lindsay repeated, +musing. + +"Yes, all of that." Mrs. Spash appeared to muse also. For an instant the +two followed their own preoccupations. Then as though they led them to +the same _impasse_, their eyes lifted simultaneously; met. They smiled. + +"I've bought this house, Mrs. Spash," Lindsay confided. "And you never +can guess why." + +Mrs. Spash started what appeared to be a comment. It deteriorated into a +little inarticulate murmur. + +"I bought it," Lindsay went on, "because when I was in college, I fell +in love with Lutetia Murray." And then, at Mrs. Spash's wide-eyed, faded +stare, "Not with Miss Murray herself--I never saw her--but with her +books. I read everything she wrote and I wrote in college what we call a +thesis on her." + +"Sort of essay or composition," Mrs. Spash defined thesis to herself. + +"Exactly," Lindsay permitted. + +"She was--she was--" Mrs. Spash began in a dispassionate sort of way. +She concluded in a kind of frenzy. "She was an angel." + +"Oh yes, she's that all right. I have never seen anybody so lovely." + +Mrs. Spash made a swift conversational pounce. "I thought you said you'd +never seen her." + +Lindsay flushed abjectly. "No," he admitted. "But you see I have a +picture of her." He pointed to the mantel. + +"Yes, I noticed that when I came in to get some water." Strangely enough +Mrs. Spash did not, for a moment, look at the picture. Instead she +stared at Lindsay. Lindsay submitted easily enough to this examination. +After a while Mrs. Spash appeared to abandon her scrutiny of him. She +trotted over to the fireplace; studied Lutetia's likeness. + +"I don't know as I ever see that one--it don't half do her justice--I +hate a profile picture--" She pronounced "profile" to rhyme with +"wood-pile." "None of her pictures ever did do her justice. Her beauty +was mostly in her hair and her eyes. She had a beautiful skin too, +though she never took no care of it. Never wore a hat--no matter how hot +the sun was. And then her expression-- Well, it was just +beautiful--changing all the time." + +Lindsay was only half listening. He was, with an amused glint in his +eyes, studying Mrs. Spash's spare, erect black-silk figure. She was a +relic perfectly preserved, he reflected, of mid-Victorianism. Her black +was of the kind that is accurately described by the word decent. And she +wore fittingly a little black, beaded cape with a black shade-hat that +tilted forward over her face at a decided slant. Her straight, white, +abundant hair was apparently parted in the middle under her hat. At any +rate, the neat white parting continued over the crown of her head to her +very neck, where it concealed itself under a flat black-silk bow. Her +gnarled, blue-veined hands had been covered with the lace mitts that now +lay on the table. Her little wrinkled face was neat-featured. The irises +of her eyes were a faded blue and the whites were blue also; and this +put a note of youthful color among her wrinkles. + +But Lindsay lost interest in these details; for, obviously, a new idea +caught him in its instant clutch. "Oh, Mrs. Spash," he suggested, "would +you be so good as to take me through this house? I want you to tell me +who occupied the rooms. This is not mere idle curiosity on my part. You +see Miss Murray's publishers have decided to bring out a new edition of +her works. They want me to write a life of Miss Murray. I'm asking +everybody who knows anything about her all kinds of questions." + +Mrs. Spash received all this with that unstirred composure which +indicates non-comprehension of the main issue. + +"Of course I'm interested on my own account too," Lindsay went on. +"She's such a wonderful creature, so charming and so beautiful, so +sweet, so unbearably poignant and sad. I can't understand," he concluded +absently, "why she is so sad." + +Mrs. Spash seemed to comprehend instantly. "It's the way she died," she +explained vaguely, "and how everything was left!" She walked in little +swift pattering steps, and with the accustomed air of one who knows her +way, through the side door into the addition. "This was Miss Murray's +own living-room," she told Lindsay. "She had that little bit of a +stairway made, she _said_, so's too many folks couldn't come up to her +room at once. Not that that made any difference. Wherever she was, the +whole household went." + +With little nipping steps Mrs. Spash ascended the stairway. Lindsay +followed. + +"Did Miss Murray die in her room?" Lindsay asked. + +"How did you know this was her room?" Mrs. Spash demanded. + +"I don't know exactly. I just guessed it," Lindsay answered. "I sleep +here myself," he hurriedly threw off. + +"Yes. She died here. She was all alone when she died. You see--" Mrs. +Spash sat down on the one chair and, instantly sensing her mood, Lindsay +sat down on the bed. + +"You see, things hadn't gone very well for Miss Murray the last years of +her life. Her books didn't sell-- And she spent money like water. She +was allus the most open-hearted, open-handed creature you can imagine. +She allus had the house full of company! And then there was the little +girl--Cherry--who lived with her. At the end, things were bad. No money +coming in. And Miss Murray sick all the time." + +"You say she was alone when she died," Lindsay gently brought her back +to the track. + +"Yes--except for little Cherry, who slept right through +everything--childlike. Cherry had that room." Mrs. Spash jerked an +angular thumb back. + +Lindsay nodded. "Yes, I guessed that--with all the drawings--" + +"The Weejubs! Mr. Gale drew them pictures for Cherry. He was an artist. +He used to paint pictures out in the backyard there. I didn't fancy them +very much myself--too dauby. You had to stand way off from them 'fore +they'd look like anything _a-tall_. But he used to get as high as five +hundred dollars for them. Oh, what excitement there was in this house +while he was decorating Cherry's room! And little Cherry chattering like +a magpie! Mr. Gale made up a whole long story about the Weejubs on her +walls. Lord, I've forgotten half of it; but Cherry could rattle it all +off as _fast_. Miss Murray had that door between her room and Cherry's +made small on purpose. She said Cherry could come into her room whenever +she wanted to, as long as she was a little girl. But when Cherry grew +up, she was going to make it hard for her. But she promised when Cherry +was sixteen years old she shouldn't have to call her auntie any +more--she could call her jess Lutetia. Queer idea, worn't it?" + +Mrs. Spash's old eyes so narrowed before an oncoming flood of +reminiscence that they seemed to retreat to the back of her head, where +they diminished to blue sparks. For a moment the room was silent. Then +"Let me show you something! You'd oughter know it, seein' it's your +house. There's some, though, I wouldn't show it to." + +She pattered with her surprising quickness to the back wall. She pressed +a spot in the paneling and a small square of the wood moved slowly back. + +"You see, Miss Murray's bed ran along that wall, just as Cherry's did in +the other room. Mornings and evenings they used to open this panel and +talk to each other." + +Lindsay's eyes filmed even as Mrs. Spash's had. Mentally he saw the two +faces bending toward the opening.... + +"But you was asking about Miss Murray's death-- As I say, things didn't +go well with her. I didn't understand how it all happened. Folks stopped +buying her books, I guess. Anyway, when she died, there was nothing +left. And there was debts. The house and everything in it was sold--at +auction. It was awful to see Miss Murray's things all out on the lawn. +And a great crowd of gawks--riff-raff from everywhere--looking at 'em +and making fun of 'em-- She had beautiful things, but they went for +nothing a-tall. They jess about paid her debts." + +Lindsay groaned. "But her death--" + +"Oh yes, as I was sayin'. You see, Miss Murray worn't ever the same +after Mr. Lewis died. You know about that?" + +Lindsay nodded. "He was drowned." + +Mrs. Spash nodded confirmatively. "Yes, in Spy Pond--over South Quinanog +way. He was swimming all alone. He was taken with cramps way out in the +middle of the Pond. Finally somebody saw him struggling and they put out +in a boat, but they were too late. Miss Murray was in the garden when +they brought him back on a shutter. I was with her. I can see the way +her face looked now. She didn't say anything. Not a word! She turned to +stone. And it didn't seem to me that she ever came back to flesh again. +They was to be married in October. He was a splendid man. He came from +New York." + +"Yes. Curiously enough I spent a few days in what used to be his rooms," +Lindsay informed her. + +"That so?" But it was quite apparent that nothing outside the radius of +Quinanog interested Mrs. Spash deeply. She made no further comment. + +"Was she very much in love with Lewis?" Lindsay ventured. + +"In love! I wish you could see their eyes when they looked at each +other. They'd met late. Miss Murray had always had lots of attention. +But she never seemed to care for anybody--though she'd flirt a +little--until she met Mr. Lewis. It was love at first sight with them." + +She proceeded. + +"Well, Miss Murray died five years after Mr. Lewis. She died--well, I +don't know exactly what it was. But she had _attacks_. She was a +terrible sufferer. And she was worried--money matters worried her. You +see, little Cherry's mother died when she was born and her father soon +after. Miss Murray'd always had Cherry and felt responsible for her. I +know, because she told me. 'It ain't myself, Eunice Spash,' she said to +me more'n once. 'It's little Cherry.' Anyway, she was alone when her +last attack came. She'd sent for a cousin--I forget the name--to be with +her, and she was up in Boston getting a nurse, and I was in the other +side of the house. I never heard a sound. We found her dead in the +middle of the floor--there." Her crooked forefinger indicated the spot. +"Seemed she'd got up and tried to get to the door to call. But she +dropped and died halfway. She was all contorted. Her face looked--Not so +much suffering of the body as-- Well, you could see it in her face that +it come to her that she was going, and Cherry was left with nothing." + +"What became of that cousin?" Lindsay inquired. "I have asked everybody +in the neighborhood, but nobody seems to know." + +"And I don't know. She went to Boston, taking Cherry with her. For a +time we heard from Cherry now and then--she'd write letters to the +children. Then we lost sight of her. I don't know whether Miss Murray's +cousin's living or dead; Cherry either." + +Lindsay felt that he could have assured her that Cherry was alive; but +his conclusion rested on premises too gauzy for him to hazard the +statement. + +Mrs. Spash sighed. She arose, led the way into the hall. "This was Mr. +Monroe's room; and Mr. Gale's room was back of his. He liked the room +that overlooked the garden. Mr. Monroe--" + +"That's the big man, the sculptor," Lindsay hazarded. + +"How'd you know?" Mrs. Spash pounced on him again. + +"Oh, I've talked with a lot of people in the neighborhood," Lindsay +returned evasively. + +"That Mr. Monroe," Mrs. Spash glided on easily, "was a case and a half. +Nothing but talk and laugh every moment he was in the house. I used to +admire to have him come." + +"Where is he?" Lindsay asked easily. He hoped Mrs. Spash did not guess +how, mentally, he hung upon her answer. + +"He went to Italy--to Florence--after Miss Murray died." Mrs. Spash +stopped. "He was in love with Miss Murray. Had been for years. She +wouldn't have him though. He was an awful nice man. Sometimes I thought +she would have him. But after Mr. Lewis came-- Queer, worn't it? I don't +know whether Mr. Monroe's alive or dead." + +Again Lindsay felt that he could have assured her that he was alive, but +again gauzy premises inhibited exact conclusions. + +"The last I heard of him he was in Rome. 'Tain't likely he's alive now. +_Land_, no! He'd be well over seventy--close onto seventy-five. Mr. Gale +was in love with her too. He was younger. I don't think he ever told +Miss Murray, I never _did_ know if she knew. You couldn't fool me +though. Well, I started out to show you this house. I must be gitting +on. You've seen the slave quarters and the whipping-post upstairs?" + +"Yes. _Everybody_ could tell me about the whipping-post and the slave +quarters. But the things I wanted to know--" + +"Well, it's natural enough that folks shouldn't know much about her. +Miss Murray was a lady that didn't talk about her own affairs and she +kept sort of to herself, as you might say. She wasn't the kind that ran +in on folks. She wrote by fits and starts. Sometimes she'd stay up late +at night. She _allus_ wrote new-moon time. She said the light of the +crescent moon inspired her. How they used to make fun of her about that! +But she'd write with all of them about, laughing and talking and playing +the piano or singing--and dancing even. The house was so lively those +days--they was all great trainers. And yet she could fall asleep right +in the midst of all that confusion. Well--so you see she wasn't given to +making calls. And then there was always so much to do and so many folks +around at home. Have you been upstairs in the barn?" + +"No--not yet. The stairs were all broken away. I had just finished +mending them when I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance." + +They both smiled reminiscently. + +"Let's go up there now--there must be a lot of things--" She ended her +sentence a little vaguely as the old sometimes do. But the movement with +which she arose from her chair and trotted toward the stairs was full of +an anticipation almost youthful. + +"The garden used to be so pretty," she sighed as they started on the +well-worn trail to the barn. "Miss Murray worn't what you might call +practical, but she could make flowers grow. She never cooked, nor sewed, +nor anything sensible, but she'd work in that garden till-- There was +certain combinations of flowers that she used to like; hollyhocks, +especially the garnet ones so dark they was almost black, surrounded by +them blue Canterbury bells; and then phlox in all colors, white and pink +and magenta and lavender and purple. I think there was some things put +out here," she interrupted herself vaguely, "that nobody wanted at the +auction. There wasn't even a bid on them." + +She trotted up the stairs like a pony that has suddenly become aged. +Lindsay followed, two steps at a time. The upper story of the barn was +the confused mass of objects that the lumber room of any large household +inevitably collects. Broken chairs; tables, bureaux; rejected pieces of +china; kitchen furnishings; a rusty stove, old boxes; bandboxes; broken +trunks; torn bags. + +"There! That's the table Miss Murray used to do her writing at. She said +there never had been a table built big enough for her. I expect that's +why nobody bought it at the auction. 'Twas too big for mortal use, you +might say. The same reason I expect is why the dining-room table didn't +sell either." + +"Where did she write?" Lindsay asked, measuring the table with his eye. + +"All summer in the south living-room. But when it come winter, she'd +often take her things and set right in front of the fire in the +living-room. Then she'd write at that long table you're writing on." + +"This table goes back to the south living-room tomorrow," Lindsay +decided almost inaudibly. "Can you tell me the exact spot?" + +"I guess I _can_. Lord knows I've got down on my hands and knees and +dusted the legs often enough. Miss Murray said, though it was soft wood, +it was the oldest piece in the house. She bought it at some old tavern +where they was having a sale. She said it dated back--long before +Revolutionary times--to Colonial days." + +"Could you tell me, I wonder, about the rest of Miss Murray's +furniture?" Lindsay came suddenly from out a deep revery. "Do you +remember who bought it? I would like to buy back all that I can get. I'd +like to make the old place look, as much as possible, as it used to +look." + +Mrs. Spash flashed him a quick intent look. Then she meditated. "I think +I could probably tell you where most every piece went. The Drakes got +the Field bed and the ivory-keyhole bureau and the ivory-keyhole desk; +and Miss Garnet got the elephant and Mis' Manson got the gazelles--" + +"Elephant! Gazelles!" Lindsay interrupted. + +"The gazelles," Mrs. Spash smiled indulgently. "Well, it does sound +queer, but Miss Murray used to call those little thin-legged candle +tables that folks use, _gazelles_. The elephant was a great high chest +of drawers. Mis' Manson got the maple gazelles--" She proceeded in what +promised to be an indefinite category. + +"Do you think I could buy any of those things back?" Lindsay asked after +listening patiently to the end. + +"Some of them, I guess. I have a few things in my attic I'll sell +you--and some I'll give you. I'd admire to see them in the old place +once more." + +"You must let me buy them all," Lindsay protested. + +"Well, we'll see about that," Mrs. Spash disposed of this disagreement +easily. "Have you seen the Dew Pond yet?" + +"The Dew Pond!" Lindsay echoed. + +"The little pond beyond the barn," Mrs. Spash explained. Then, as though +a great light dawned, "Oh, of course it's all so growed up round it +you'd never notice it. Come and I'll show it to you." + +Lindsay followed her out of the barn. This was all like a dream, he +reflected--but then everything was like a dream nowadays. He had lived +in a dream for two months now. Mrs. Spash struck into a path which led +beyond the barn. + +The trail grew narrower and narrower; threatened after a while to +disappear. Lindsay finally took the lead, broke a path. They came +presently on a pond so tiny that it was not a pond at all; it was a +pool. Water-lilies choked it; forget-me-nots bordered it; high wild +roses screened it. + +Lindsay stood looking for a long time into it. "It's the Merry Mere of +_Mary Towle_," he meditated aloud. Mrs. Spash received this in the +uninterrogative silence with which she had received other of his +confidences. She apparently fell back easily into the ways of literary +folk. + +"I remember now I got a glint of water from one of the upstairs +bedrooms," Lindsay went on, "the first time I came into the house. But I +forgot it instantly; and I've never noticed it since." + +"Wait a moment!" Mrs. Spash seemed afraid that he would leave. "There's +something else." She attempted to push her way through the jungle in the +direction of the house. For an instant her progress was easy, then +bushes and vines caught her. Lindsay sprang to her assistance. + +"There's something here--that was left," she panted. "Folks have +forgotten all about--" She dropped explanatory phrases. + +Heedless of tearing thorns and piercing prickers, Lindsay crashed on. +Mrs. Spash watched expectantly. + +"There!" she called with satisfaction. + +On a cairn of rocks, filmed over by years of exposure to the weather, +stood what Lindsay immediately recognized to be a large old rum-jar. The +sun found exposed spots on its surface, brought out its rich olive +color. + +"After Mr. Lewis died," Mrs. Spash explained, "Miss Murray went abroad +for a year. She went to Egypt. She put this here when she came home. +Then you could see it from the house. The sun shone on it something +handsome. She told me once she went into a temple on the Nile cut out of +the living-rock, where there was room after room, one right back of the +other. In the last one, there was an altar; and once a year, the first +ray of the rising sun would strike through all the rooms and lay on that +altar. Worn't that cute? I allus thought she had that in mind when she +put this here." + +Lindsay contemplated the old rum-jar. Mrs. Spash contemplated him. And +suddenly it was as though she were looking at Lindsay from a new point +of view. + +Lindsay's face had changed subtly in the last two months. The sun of +Quinanog had added but little to the tan and burn with which three years +of flying had crusted it. He was still very handsome. It was not, +however, this comeliness that Mrs. Spash seemed to be examining. The +experiences at Quinanog had softened the deliberate stoicism of his +look. Rather they had fed some inner softness; had fired it. His air was +now one of perpetual question. Yet dreams often invaded his eyes; +blurred them; drooped his lips. + +"It's all unbelievable," Lindsay suddenly commented, "I don't believe +it. I don't believe you. I don't believe myself." + +Mrs. Spash still kept her eyes fixed on the young man's face. Her look +had grown piercing. + +"Have you a shovel handy?" she surprisingly asked. + +"Yes, why?" + +Mrs. Spash did not answer immediately. He turned and looked at her. She +was still gazing at him hard; but the light from some long-harbored +emotion of her dulled old soul was shining bluely in her dulled old +eyes. + +"I want you should get it," she ordered briefly. "There's something +right here," she pointed, "that I want you to dig up." + + + + +VIII + + +Susannah let herself lightly down on the tin roof; it was scarcely a +step from her window. With deliberate caution, she turned and drew the +shade. Then she tiptoed toward the skylight. The workmen were still +soldering; the older man, with the air of one performing a delicate +operation, lay stretched out flat, holding some kind of receptacle; the +younger was pouring molten lead from a ladle. Try as she might, she +could not prevent her feet from making a slight tapping on the tin. The +older man glanced sharply up. "Look out!" called the younger, and he +bent again to his work. Almost running now, she stepped into the gaping +hole of the skylight. The stairs were very steep--practically a ladder. +As she disappeared from view, she heard a quick "What the hell!" from +the roof above her. + +Susannah hurried forward along a dark passage, looking for stairs. The +passage jutted, became lighter, went forward again. This must be the +point where the shed-addition joined the main building. She was in the +hallway of a dingy, conventional flat-house, with doors to right and +left. One of these doors opened; a woman in a faded calico dress looked +her over, the glance including the traveling-bag; then picked up a +letter from the hall-floor, and closed it again. Susannah found herself +controlling an impulse to run. But no steps sounded behind her--she was +not as yet pursued. And there was the stairway--at the very front of the +house! She descended the two flights to the entrance. There, for a +moment, she paused. As soon as Warner discovered her flight, they would +be after her. The workmen would point the way. The street--and +quick--was the only chance. Noiselessly she opened the door. At the head +of the steps leading to the street, she stopped long enough for a look +to right and left. Only a scattered afternoon crowd--no Warner, no Byan. +An Eighth Avenue tram-car was ringing its gong violently. On a sudden +impulse of safety, she shot down the steps, ran past her own door to the +corner. An open southbound car had drawn up, was taking on passengers. +She reached it just as the conductor was about to give the forward +signal, and was almost jerked off her feet as she stepped onto the +platform. Steadying herself, she looked, in the brief moment afforded by +the bumpy crossing of the car, down the side street. + +The entrances of her own house at the corner, the entrances to the house +she had just left, were blank and undisturbed; no one was following her. +She paid her fare, and settled down on the end of a cross-seat. + +And now she was aware not of relief or reaction or fear, but solely of +her headache. It had changed in character. It had become a furious +internal bombardment of her brows. If she turned her eyes to right or +left, she seemed to be dragging weights across the front of her brain. +Yet this headache did not seem quite a part of herself. It was as though +she knew, by a supernormal sensitiveness, the symptoms of someone else. +It was as though suddenly she had become two people. Anyway, it had +ceased to be personal. And somewhere else within her head was growing a +delicious feeling of freedom, of lightness, of escape from a wheel. Her +evasion of the Carbonado Mining Company did not account for all that; +she felt free from everything. "I'm not going to take any more rooms," +she said to herself. "I'm going to sleep out of doors now, like the +birds. People find you when you take rooms. Where shall I begin?" She +considered; and then one of those little hammers of intuition seemed to +tap on her brain. Again, she did not resist. "Why, Washington Square of +course!" she said to herself. + +The car was threading now the narrow ways of Greenwich Village. It +stopped; Susannah stepped off. The rest seemed for a long time to be +just wandering. But that curious sense of duality had vanished. She was +one person again. She did not find Washington Square easily; but then, +it made no difference whether she ever found it. For New York and the +world were so amusing when once you were free! You could laugh at +everything--the passing crowds, surging as though business really +mattered; the Carbonado Mining Company; the grisly old fool in their +toils, and Susannah Ayer. You could laugh even at the climate--for +sometimes it seemed very hot, which was right in summer, and sometimes +cold, which wasn't right at all. You could laugh at the headache, when +it tied ridiculous knots in your forehead. There was the +Arch--Washington Square at last. + +But it wasn't time to sleep in Washington Square yet. The birds hadn't +gone to bed. Sparrows were still pecking and squabbling along the +borders of the flower-beds. Besides, New York was still flowing, on its +homeward surge from office and workshop, down the paths. Susannah sat +down on a bench and considered. She had a disposition to stay there--why +was she so weak? Oh, of course she hadn't eaten. People always had +dinner before going to bed. She must eat--and she had money. She shook +out her pocketbook into her lap. A ten-dollar bill, a one-dollar bill, +and some small change. She must dine gloriously--free creatures always +did that when they had money. Besides, she was never going to pay any +more room rent. Susannah rose, strolled up Fifth Avenue. The crowd was +thinning out. That was pleasant, too. She disliked to get out of the way +of people. She was crossing Twenty-third Street now; and now she was +before the correct, white facade of the Hague House. A proper and +expensive place for dinner. + +Susannah found it very hard to speak to the waiter. It was like talking +to someone through a partition. It seemed difficult even to move her +lips; they felt wooden. + +"A petite marmite, please; then I'll see what more I want," she heard +herself saying at last. + +But when the petite marmite came, steaming in its big, red casserole, +she found herself quite disinclined to eat--almost unable to eat. She +managed only two or three mouthfuls of the broth; then dallied with the +beef. Perhaps it was because instantly--and for no reason whatever--she +had become two people again. Perhaps it was because she had been +drinking so much ice-water. It couldn't be because H. Withington Warner +was sitting at the next table to the right. It couldn't be that--because +she had told him, when first she saw him sitting there, that she was no +longer afraid of the Carbonado Company. And indeed, when she turned to +the left and saw him sitting there also--when by degrees she discovered +that there was one of him at every table in the room, she thought of +Alice in the Trial Scene in Wonderland, and became as contemptuous as +Alice. "After all," she said, "you're only a pack of cards." + +With a flourish, the waiter set the dinner-card before her, asking: +"What will you have next, Madame?" Oh yes, she was dining! + +"I think I can't eat any more--the bill, please," she heard one of her +selves saying. That self, she discovered, took calm cognizance of +everything about her; listened to conversation. As the waiter turned his +back, that half of her saw that Mr. Warner wasn't there any more; +neither at the table on her right, nor anywhere. But when she had paid +the bill, tipped, and risen to go, the other self discovered that he was +back again at every table; and that with every Warner was a Byan and an +O'Hearn. "I am snapping my fingers at them, though nobody sees it," she +said to both her selves. "I can't imagine how they ever troubled me so +much. They don't know what I'm doing! I'm sleeping out of doors; they +can find me only in rooms!" As though staggered by her complete +composure, not one of this triplicate multitude of enemies followed her +outside. + +"Now I'll go to Washington Square," she said, realizing that her +personalities had merged again. "The birds must be in bed." She took a +bus; and sank into languor and that curious, impersonal headache until +the conductor, calling "All out," at the south terminus, recalled to her +that she was going somewhere. "I must have been asleep," she thought. +"Isn't this a wonderful world?" + +The long, early summer twilight was just beginning to draw about the +world. The day lingered though--in an exquisite luminousness. All around +her the city was grappling tentatively with oncoming dusk. On a few of +the passing limousines, the front lamps struck a garish note. Near, the +Fifth Avenue lights were like slowly burning bonfires in the trees; in +the distance, seemingly suspended by chains so delicate that they were +invisible, they diminished to pots of gold. The six-o'clock rush had +long ago ceased. Now everyone sauntered; for everyone was freshly +caparisoned for the wonderful night glories of midsummer Manhattan. + +Susannah sat down on a bench in Washington Square and surveyed this free +world. Though her eyes burned, they saw crystal-clear. All about her +Italian-town mixed democratically with Greenwich Village; made +contrasting color and noise. Fat Italian mothers, snatching the +post-sunset breezes, chattered from bench to bench while they nursed +babies. On other benches, lovers clasped hands. Children played over the +grass. The birds twittered and the trees murmured. Every color darted +pricklingly distinct to Susannah's avid eyes, burning and heavy though +it was. Every sound came distinct to her avid ears, though it sounded +through a ringing. + +The Fifth Avenue busses were clumping and lumbering in swift succession +to their stopping-places. How much, Susannah thought, they looked like +prehistoric beetles; colossally big; armored to an incredible hardness +and polish. And, already, roped-off crowds of people were patiently +waiting upstairs seats. As each bus stopped, there came momentary +scramble and confusion until inside and out they filled up. She watched +this process for a long, long time. + +"I can't go to sleep yet," she said to herself finally, "the people +won't let me. One can't sleep in this wonderful world. Where does one go +after dinner? Oh, to the theater, of course! On Broadway!" She found +herself drifting, happily though languorously, through the arch and +northward. + +Twilight had settled down; had become dusk; had become night. New York +was so brilliant that it almost hurt. It was deep dusk and yet the +atmosphere was like a purple river flowing between stiff canyon-like +buildings. Everywhere in that purple river glittered golden lights. And, +floating through it, were mermaids and mermen of an extreme beauty. +Susannah passed from Fifth Avenue to Broadway. She stopped under one of +the most brilliant palace-fronts of light, and bought a ticket in the +front row. The curtain was just rising on the second act of a musical +comedy. Susannah would have been hazy about the plot anyway, for the +simple reason that there was no plot. But tonight she was peculiarly +hazy, because she enjoyed the dancing so much that she became oblivious +to everything else. Indeed, at times she seemed to be dancing with the +dancers. The illusion was so complete that she grew dizzy; and clung to +the arm of her seat. She did not want to divide into two people again. + +After a while, though, this sensation disappeared in a more intriguing +one. For suddenly she discovered that the audience consisted entirely of +her and the Carbonado Mining Company. H. Withington Warners, by the +hundred, filled the orchestra seats. Byans, by the score, filled the +balcony. O'Hearns, by the dozen, filled the gallery. But this did not +perturb her. "You're only a pack of cards," she accused them mentally. +And she stayed to the very end. + +"I thought so," she remarked contemptuously as she turned to go out. For +the Carbonado Mining Company had vanished into thin air. She was the +only real person who left the theater. + +When she came out on the street again, her headache had stopped and the +languor was over. There was a beautiful lightness to her whole body. +That lightness impelled her to walk with the crowd. But--she suddenly +discovered--she was not walking. She was _floating_. She even flew--only +she did not rise very high. She kept an even level, about a foot above +the pavement; but at that height she was like a feather. And in a +wink--how this extraordinary division happened, she could not guess--she +was two people once more. + +New York was again blooming; but this time with its transient, vivacious +after-the-theater vividness. Crowds were pouring up; pouring down, +deflecting into side streets; emerging from side streets. Everywhere was +light. Taxicabs and motors raced and spun and backed and turned; they +churned, sizzled, spluttered, and foamed--scattering light. Tram-cars, +the low-set, armored cruisers of Broadway, flashed smoothly past, +overbrimming with light. The tops of the buildings held great +congregations of dancing stars. Light poured down their sides. + +Susannah floated with the strong main current of the crowd up Broadway +and then, with a side current, a little down Broadway. Eddies took her +into Forty-second Street, and whirled her back. And all the time she was +in the crowd, but not of it--she was above it. She was looking down on +people--she could see the tops of their heads. Susannah kept chuckling +over an extraordinary truth she discovered. + +"I must remember to tell Glorious Lutie," she said to herself, "how few +people ever brush their hats." + +While one self was noting this amusing fact, however, the other was +listening to conversations; the snatches of talk that drifted up to her. + +"Let's go to a midnight show somewhere," a peevish wife-voice suggested. + +"No, _sir_!" a gruff husband-voice answered. "Li'l' ole beddo looks +pretty good to muh. I can't hit the hay too soon." + +"What's Broadway got on Market Street?" a blithe boy's voice demanded. +"Take the view from Twin Peaks at night. Why, it has Broadway beat forty +ways from the jack." + +"I'll say so!" a girl's voice agreed. + +Theaters were empty now, but restaurants were filling. In an incredibly +short time, this phantasmagoria of movement, this kaleidoscope of color, +this hurly-burly of sound had shattered, melted, fallen to silence. +People disappeared as though by magic from the street; now there were +great gaps of sidewalk where nobody appeared. Susannah--both of her, +because now she seemed to have become two people permanently--felt +lonely. She quickened her pace, her floating rather, to catch up with a +figure ahead. It was a girl, just an everyday girl, in a white linen +suit and a white sailor hat topping a mass of black hair. She carried a +handbag. Susannah found herself following, step by step, behind this +girl whose face she had as yet not seen. She was floating; yet every +time she tried to see the top of that sailor hat her vision became +blurred. It was annoying; but this stealthy pursuit was pleasant, +somehow--satisfying. + +"They've been shadowing me," said Susannah to herself. "Now I'm +shadowing. I've helped the Carbonado Company to rob orphans. I'm going +to break my promise to go to Jamaica tomorrow. Isn't it glorious to +float and be a criminal!" + +So she followed westward on Forty-second Street and reached the Public +Library corner of Fifth Avenue, which stretched now deserted except +where knots of people awaited the omnibusses. Such a knot had gathered +on that corner. Suddenly the girl in white raised her hand, waved; a +woman in a light-blue summer evening gown answered her signal from the +crowd; they ran toward each other. They were going to have a talk. +Susannah floated toward them. The air-currents made her a little +wabbly--but wasn't it fun, eavesdropping and caring not the least bit +about manners! + +"My train doesn't start until one," said the white linen suit. "It's no +use going back to my room--the night is so hot. I've been to the Summer +Garden, and I'm killing time." + +"Oh," asked blue dress, "did you sublet your room?" + +"No," said the white linen suit, "I'll be gone for only a month, and I +decided it wasn't worth while. I'll have it all ready when I get back. +I've even left the key under the rug in the hall." + +"I wouldn't ever do that!" came the voice of the blue dress. + +"Well," said the linen suit, "you know _me_! I always lose keys. I'm +convinced that when I get to Boston, I shan't have my trunk key! And +there isn't much to steal." + +"Still, I'd feel nervous if I were you." + +"I don't see why. Nobody stays up on the top floor, where I am--that is, +in the summer. All the other rooms are in one apartment, and the young +man who lives there has been away for ages. The people on the ground +floor own the house. I get the room for almost nothing by taking care of +it and the hall. I haven't seen anyone else on the floor since the man +in the apartment went away. That's why I love the place--you feel so +independent!" + +"I think I know the house," said blue dress. "The old house with the +fanlight entrance, isn't it? Mary Merle used to have a ducky little flat +on the second floor, didn't she?" + +"Yes--Number Fifty-seven and a Half--" + +Susannah was floating down the Avenue now. But floating with more +difficulty. Why was there effort about floating? And why did she keep +repeating, "Number Fifty-seven and a Half, Washington Square, top floor, +key under the rug?" + +She met few people. A policeman stared at her for a moment, then turned +indifferently away. How surprising that her floating made no impression +upon him! But then, there was no law against floating! Once she drifted +past H. Withington Warner, who was staring into a shop window. He did +not see her. Susannah had to inhibit her chuckles when, floating a foot +above his head, she realized for the first time that he dyed his hair. +Why could she see that? He should have his hat on--or was she seeing +through his hat? + +She was passing under the arch into Washington Square. But she wasn't +floating any longer. She was dragging weights; she was wading through +something like tar, which clung to her feet. She was coughing violently. +She had been coughing for a long time. Night in New York was no longer +beautiful; glorious. Tragic horrors were rasping in her head. There was +Warner. And there was Byan. She could not snap her fingers at them +now.... But she knew how to get away from them ... she must rest.... + +She cut off a segment of Washington Square, looking for a number. There +was a fanlight; and, plain in the street lamps, seeming for a moment the +only object in the world, the number "Fifty-seven and a Half." The outer +door gave to her touch. A dim point of gaslight burned in the hall. She +floated again for a minute as she mounted the stairs.... She was before +a door.... She was on her hands and knees fumbling under the rug.... She +was dragging herself up by the door-knob.... + +The key opened the door. + +Light, streaming from somewhere in the backyard areas, illuminated a +wide white bed. + +"I am sick, Glorious Lutie--I think I am very sick," said Susannah. +"Watch me, won't you? Keep Warner out!" Fumbling in the bag, she drew +out the miniature, set it up against the mirror on the bureau beside the +bed--just where she could see it plainly in the shaft of light. + +She locked the door. She lay down. + + + + +IX + + +Lindsay sat in the big living-room beside the refectory table. Mrs. +Spash moved about the room dusting; setting its scanty furnishings to +rights. On the long table before him was set out a series of tiny +villages, some Chinese, some Japanese: little pink or green-edged houses +in white porcelain; little thatched-roofed houses in brown adobe; +pagodas; bridges; pavilions. Dozens of tiny figures, some on mules, +others on foot, and many loaded with burdens walked the streets. A bit +of looking-glass, here and there, made ponds. Ducks floated on them, and +boats; queer Oriental-looking skiffs, manned by tiny, half-clad sailors; +Chinese junks. In neighboring pastures, domestic animals grazed. +Roosters, hens, chickens grouped in back areas. + +"That's just what Miss Murray used to do," Mrs. Spash observed. "She'd +play with them toys for hours at a time. And of course Cherry loved them +more than anything in the house. That's the reason I stole them and +buried them." + +"How did you manage that exactly?" Lindsay asked. + +"Oh, that was easy enough," Mrs. Spash confessed cheerfully. "Between +Miss Murray's death and the auction, I was here a lot, fixing up. They +all trusted me, of course. Those toys was all set out in little villages +by the Dew Pond. Nobody knew that they were there. So I just did them up +in tissue paper and put them in that big tin box and hid them in the +bushes. One night late I came back and buried them. Folks didn't think +of them for a long time after the auction. You see, nobody had touched +them during Miss Murray's illness. And when they did remember them, they +thought they had disappeared during the sale." Mrs. Spash paused a +moment. Her face assumed an expression of extreme disapproval. "Other +things disappeared during the sale," she accused, lowering her voice. + +"Who took them?" Lindsay asked. + +All the caution of the Yankee appeared in Mrs. Spash's voice. "I don't +know as I'd like to say, because it isn't a thing anybody can prove. I +have my suspicions though." + +Lindsay did not continue these inquiries. + +"Where did Miss Murray get all these toys?" + +"Well, a lot of 'em came from China. Miss Murray had a great-uncle who +was a sea-captain. He used to go on them long whaling voyages. He +brought them to her different times. Miss Murray had played with them +when she was a child, and so she liked to have little Cherry play with +them. Sometimes they'd all go out to the Dew Pond--Miss Murray, Mr. +Monroe, Mr. Gale, Mr. Lewis, and spend a whole afternoon laying them out +in little towns--jess about as you've got 'em there. There was two +little places on the shore that Miss Murray had all cut down, so's the +bushes wouldn't be too tall. They useter call the pond the Pacific +Ocean. One of them cleared places was the China coast and the other the +Japanese coast. They'd stay there for hours, floating little boats back +and forth from China to Japan. And how they'd laugh! I useter listen to +their voices coming through the window. But then, the house was always +full of laughter. It began at seven o'clock in the morning, when they +got up, and it never stopped until--after midnight sometimes--when they +went to bed. Oh, it was such a gay place in those days." + +Lindsay arose and stretched. But the stretching did not seem so much an +expression of fatigue or drowsiness as the demand of his spirit for +immediate activity of some sort. He sat down again instantly. Under his +downcast lids, his eyes were bright. "These walls are soaked with +laughter," he remarked. + +"Yes," Mrs. Spash seemed to understand. "But there was tears too and +plenty of them--in the last years." + +"I suppose there were," Lindsay agreed. He did not speak for a moment; +nor did Mrs. Spash. There came a silence so concentrated that the +sunlight poured into it tangible gold. Then, outside a thick white cloud +caught the sun in its woolly net. The world gloomed again. + +"She's sad still," Lindsay dropped in absent comment. + +"Yes," Mrs. Spash agreed. + +"I wonder what she wants?" Lindsay addressed this to himself. His voice +was so low that perhaps Mrs. Spash did not hear it. At any rate she made +no answer. + +Another silence came. + +Mrs. Spash finished her dusting. But she lingered. Lindsay still sat at +the table; but his eyes had left the little villages arranged there. +They went through the door and gazed out into the brilliant patch of +sunlight on the grass. There spread under his eyes a narrow stretch of +lawn, all sun-touched velvet; beyond a big crescent of garden. +Low-growing zinnias in futuristic colors, high phlox in pastel colors; +higher, Canterbury bells, deep blue; highest of all, hollyhocks, wine +red. Beyond stretched further expanses of lawn. One tall, wide +wine-glass elm spread a perfect circle of emerald shade. One low, thick +copper-beech dropped an irregular splotch of luminous shadow. Beyond all +this ran the gray, lichened stone wall. And beyond the stone wall came +unredeemed jungle. Mrs. Spash began, all over again, to dust and to +arrange the scanty furniture. After a while she spoke. + +"Mr. Lindsay--" + +Lindsay started abruptly. + +"Mr. Lindsay--that time you fainted when you first saw me, setting out +there on the door-stone, you remember--?" + +Lindsay nodded. + +"Well, who was you expecting to see?" + +Lindsay, alert now as a wire spring, turned on her, not his eyes alone, +nor his head; but his whole body. Mrs. Spash was looking straight at +him. Their glances met midway. The old eyes pierced the young eyes with +an intent scrutiny. The young eyes stabbed the old eyes with an intense +interrogation. Lindsay did not answer her question directly. Instead he +laughed. + +"I guess I don't have to answer you," he declared. "I had seen her often +then.... I had seen the others too.... I don't know why _you_ should +have frightened me when _they_ didn't.... I think it was that I wasn't +expecting anything human.... I've seen them since.... They never +frighten me." + +Mrs. Spash's reply was simple enough. "I see them all the time." She +added, with a delicate lilt of triumph, "I've seen them for years--" + +Lindsay continued to look at her--and now his gaze was somber; even a +little despairing. "What do they want? What does _she_ want?" + +Mrs. Spash's reply came instantly, although there were pauses in her +words. "I don't know. I've tried.... I can't make out." She accompanied +these simple statements with a reinforcing decisive nod of her little +head. + +"I can't guess either--I can't conjecture-- There's something she wants +me to do. She can't tell me. And they're trying to help her tell me. All +except the little girl--" + +"Do you see the little girl?" Mrs. Spash demanded. "Well, I declare! +That's very queer, I must say. I never see Cherry." + +"I wish I saw her oftener," Lindsay laughed ruefully. "_She_ doesn't ask +anything of me. She's just herself. But the others--Gale--Monroe-- My +God! It's killing me!" He laughed again, and this time with a real +amusement. + +Mrs. Spash interrupted his laughter. "Do you see Mr. Monroe?" she asked +in a pleased tone. "Well, I declare! Aren't you the fortunate creature. +I never see _him_!" + +"All the time," Lindsay answered shortly. "If I could only get it. I +feel so stupid, so incredibly gross and lumbering and heavy. I'd do +anything--" + +He arose and walked over to the picture of Lutetia Murray which still +hung above the fireplace. He stared at her hard. "I'd do anything for +her, if I could only find out what it was." + +"Yes," Mrs. Spash admitted dispassionately, "that's the thing everybody +felt about her, they'd do anything for her. Not that she ever asked them +to do anything--" + +Lindsay began to pace the length of the long room. "What is happening? +Has the old ramshackle time-machine finally broken a spring so that, in +this last revolution, it hauls, out of the past, these pictures of two +decades ago? Or is it that there are superimposed one on the other two +revolving worlds--theirs and ours--and _theirs_ or _ours_ has stopped an +instant, so that I can glance into _theirs_? I feel as though I were in +the dark of a camera obscura gazing into their brightness. Or have those +two years in the air permanently broken my psychology; so that through +that rift I shall always have the power to look into strange worlds? Or +am I just piercing another dimension?" + +Mrs. Spash had been following him with her faded, calm old eyes. +Apparently she guessed these questions were not addressed to her. She +kept silence. + +"I've racked my brain. I lie awake nights and tear the universe to +pieces. I outguess guessing and outconjecture conjecture. My thoughts +fly to the end of space. My wonder invades the very citadel of fancy. My +surmises storm the last outpost of reality. But it beats me. I can't get +it." Lindsay stopped. Mrs. Spash made no comment. Apparently her twenty +years' training among artists had prepared her for monologues of this +sort. She listened; but it was obvious that she did not understand; did +not expect to understand. + +"Does she want me to stay _here_ or go _there_?" Lindsay demanded of the +air. "If _here_, what does she want me to do? If _there_--where is +_there_? If _there_, what does she want me to do _there_? Is her errand +concerned with the living or the dead? If the living, who? If the dead, +who? Where to find them? How to find them?" He turned his glowing eyes +on Mrs. Spash. "I only know two things. She wants me to do something. +She wants me to do it soon. Oh, I suppose I know another thing-- If I +don't do it soon, it will be too late." + +Mrs. Spash was still following him with her placid, blue, old gaze. +"There, there!" she said soothingly. "Now don't you get too excited, Mr. +Lindsay. It'll all come to you." + +"But how--" Lindsay objected. "And when--" + +"I don't know--but she'll tell you somehow. She's cute-- She's awful +cute. You mark my words, she'll find a way." + +"That's the reason I don't have you in the house yet, Mrs. Spash," +Lindsay explained. + +"Oh, you don't have to tell me that," Mrs. Spash announced, triumphant +because of her own perspicuity. + +"It's only that I have a feeling that she can do it more easily if we're +alone. That's why I send you home at night. She comes oftenest in the +evening when I'm alone. They all do. Oh, it's quite a procession some +nights. They come one after another, all trying--" He paused. "Sometimes +this room is so full of their torture that I-- You know, it all began +before I came here. It began in an apartment in New York. It was in +Jeffrey Lewis' old rooms. He tried to tell me first, you see." + +"Did you see Mr. Lewis there?" Mrs. Spash asked this as casually as +though she had said, "Has the postman been here this morning?" She +added, "I see him here." + +"No, I didn't see him," Lindsay explained grimly, "but I felt him. And, +believe me, I knew he was there. He was the only one of the lot that +frightened me. I wouldn't have been frightened if I had seen him. It was +he, really, who sent me here. I work it out that he couldn't get it over +and he sent me to Lutetia because he thought she could. I wonder--" he +stopped short. This explanation came as though something had flashed +electrically through his mind. But he did not pursue that wonder. + +"Well, don't you get discouraged," Mrs. Spash reiterated. "You mark my +words, she'll manage to say what she's got to say." + +"Well, it's time I went to work," Lindsay remarked a little listlessly. +"After all, the life of Lutetia Murray must get finished. Oh, by the +way, Mrs. Spash," Lindsay veered as though remembering suddenly +something he had forgotten, "do other people see them?" + +"No--at least I never heard tell that they did." + +"How did the rumor get about that the place was haunted, then?" + +"I spread it," Mrs. Spash explained. "I didn't want folks breaking in to +see if there was anything to steal. And I didn't want them poking about +the place." + +"How did you spread it?" + +"I told children," Mrs. Spash said simply. "Less than a month, folks +were seeing all kinds of ridic'lous ghosts here. Nobody likes to go by +alone at night." + +"It's a curious thing," Lindsay reverted to his main theme, "that I know +her message has nothing to do with this biography. I don't know how I +know it; but I do. Of course, that would be the first thing a man would +think of. It is something more instant, more acute. It beats me +altogether. All I can do is wait." + +"Now don't you think any more about it, Mr. Lindsay," Mrs. Spash +advised. "You go upstairs and set to work. I'm going to get you up the +best lunch today you've had yet." + +"That's the dope," Lindsay agreed. "The only way to take a man's mind +off his troubles is to give him a good dinner. You'll have to work hard, +though, Eunice Spash, to beat your own record." + +Lindsay arose and sauntered into the front hall and up the stairs. He +turned into the room at the right which he had reserved for work, now +that Mrs. Spash was on the premises. At this moment, it was flooded with +sunlight.... A faint odor of the honeysuckle vine at the corner seemed +to emanate from the light itself.... + +Instantly ... he realized ... that the room was not empty. + +Lindsay became feverishly active. Eyes down, he mechanically shuffled +his papers. He collected yesterday's written manuscript, brought the +edges down on the table in successive clicks, until they made an even, +rectangular pile. He laid his pencils out in a row. He changed the point +in his penholder. He moved the ink-bottle. But this availed his spirit +nothing. "I am incredibly stupid," he said aloud. His voice was low, but +it rang as hollowly as though he were from another world. "If you could +only speak to me. Can't you speak to me?" + +He did not raise his eyes. But he waited for a long interval, during +which the silence in the room became so heavy and cold that it almost +blotted out the sunlight. + +"But have patience with me. I want to serve you. Oh, you don't know how +I want to serve you. I give you my word, I'll get it sometime and I +think not too late. I'll kill myself if I don't. I'm putting all I am +and all I have into trying to understand. Don't give me up. It's only +because I'm flesh and blood." + +He stopped and raised his eyes. + +The room was empty. + +That afternoon Lindsay took a walk so long, so devil-driven that he came +back streaming perspiration from every pore. Mrs. Spash regarded him +with a glance in which disapproval struggled with sympathy. "I don't +know as you'd ought to wear yourself out like that, Mr. Lindsay. Later, +perhaps you'll need all your strength--" + +"Very likely you're right, Mrs. Spash," Lindsay agreed. "But I've been +trying to work it out." + +Mrs. Spash left as usual at about seven. By nine, the last remnant of +the long twilight, a collaboration of midsummer with daylight-saving, +had disappeared. Lindsay lighted his lamp and sat down with Lutetia's +poems. The room was peculiarly cheerful. The beautiful Murray sideboard, +recently discovered and recovered, held its accustomed place between the +two windows. The old Murray clock, a little ship swinging back and forth +above its brass face, ticked in the corner. The old whale-oil lamps had +resumed their stand, one at either end of the mantel. Old pieces, old +though not Lutetia's--they were gone irretrievably--bits picked up here +and there, made the deep sea-shell corner cabinet brilliant with the +color of old china, glimmery with the shine of old pewter, sparkly with +the glitter of old glass. Many chairs--windsors, comb-backs, a Boston +rocker--filled the empty spaces with an old-time flavor. In traditional +places, high old glasses held flowers. The single anachronism was the +big, nickel, green-shaded student lamp. + +Lindsay needed rest, but he could not go to bed. He knew perfectly well +that he was exhausted, but he knew equally well that he was not drowsy. +His state of mind was abnormal. Perhaps the three large cups of +jet-black coffee that he had drunk at dinner helped in this matter. But +whatever the cause, he was conscious of every atom of this exaggerated +spiritual alertness; of the speed with which his thoughts drove; of the +almost insupportable mental clarity through which they shot. + +"If this keeps up," he meditated, "it's no use my going to bed at all +tonight. I could not possibly sleep." + +He found Lutetia's poems agreeable solace at this moment. They contained +no anodyne for his restlessness; but at least they did not increase it. +Her poetry had not been considered successful, but Lindsay liked it. It +was erratic in meter; irregular in rhythm. But at times it astounded him +with a delicate precision of expression; at moments it surprised him +with an opulence of fancy. He read on and on-- + +Suddenly that mental indicator--was it a flutter of his spirit or merely +a lowering of the spiritual temperature?--apprised him that he was not +alone.... But as usual, after he realized that his privacy had been +invaded, he continued to read; his gaze caught, as though actually tied, +by the print.... After a while he shut the book.... But he still sat +with his hand clutching it, one finger marking the place.... He did not +lift his eyes when he spoke.... + +"Tell the others to go," he demanded. + + * * * * * + +After a while he arose. He did not move to the other end of the room nor +did he glance once in that direction. But on his side, he paced up and +down with a stern, long-strided prowl. He spoke aloud. + +"Listen to me!" His tone was peremptory. "We've got to understand each +other tonight. I can't endure it any longer; for I know as well as you +that the time is getting short. You can't speak to me. But I can speak +to you. Lutetia, you've got to outdo yourself tonight. You must give me +a sign. Do you understand? You _must_ show me. Now summon all that you +have of strength, whatever it is, to give me that sign--do you +understand, _all you have_. Listen! Whatever it is that you want me to +do, it isn't here. I know that now. I know it because I've been here two +months-- Whatever it is, it must be put through somewhere else. An idea +came to me this morning. I spent all the afternoon thinking it out. +Maybe I've got a clue. It all started in New York. _He_ tried to get it +to me there. Listen! Tell me! Quick! Quick! Quick! Do you want me to go +to New York?" + +The answer was instantaneous. As though some giant hand had seized the +house in its grip, it shook. Shook for an infinitesimal fraction of an +instant. Almost, it seemed to Lindsay, walls quivered; panes rattled; +shutters banged, doors slammed. And yet in the next infinitesimal +fraction of that instant he knew that he had heard no tangible sound. +Something more exquisite than sound had filled that unmeasurable +interval with shattering, deafening confusion. + +Lindsay turned with a sharp wheel; glared into the dark of the other +side of the room. + + * * * * * + +Lindsay dashed upstairs to his desk. There he found a time-table. The +ten-fifteen from Quinanog would give him ample time to catch the +midnight to New York. He might not be able to get a sleeping berth; but +the thing he needed least, at that moment, was sleep. In fact, he would +rather sit up all night. He flung a few things into his suitcase; dashed +off a note to Mrs. Spash. In an incredibly short time, he was striding +over the two miles of road which led to the station. + +There happened to be an unreserved upper berth. It was a superfluous +luxury as far as Lindsay was concerned. He lay in it during what +remained of the night, his eyes shut but his spirit more wakeful than he +had ever known it. "Every revolution of these wheels," he said once to +himself, "brings me nearer to it, whatever it is." He arose early; was +the first to invade the washroom; the first to step off the train; the +first to leap into a taxicab. He gave the address of Spink's apartments +to the driver. "Get there faster than you can!" he ordered briefly. The +man looked at him--and then proceeded to break the speed law. + +Washington Square was hardly awake when they churned up to the sidewalk. +Lindsay let himself in the door; bounded lightly up the two flights of +stairs; unlocked the door of Spink's apartment. Everything was silent +there. The dust of two months of vacancy lay on the furnishings. Lindsay +stood in the center of the room, contemplating the door which led +backward into the rest of the apartment. + +"Well, old top, _you're_ not going to trouble me any longer. I get that +with my first breath. I've done what _she_ wanted and what _you_ wanted +so far. Now what in the name of heaven is the next move?" + +He stood in the center of the room waiting, listening. + +And then into his hearing, stretched to its final capacity, came sound. +Just _sound_ at first; then a dull murmur. Lindsay's hair rose with a +prickling progress from his scalp. But that murmur was human. It +continued. + +Lindsay went to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hall. The +murmur grew louder. It was a woman's voice; a girl's voice; unmistakably +the voice of youth. It came from the little room next to Spink's +apartment. + +Again Lindsay listened. The monotone broke; grew jagged; grew shrill; +became monotonous again. Suddenly the truth dawned on him. It was the +voice of madness or of delirium. + +He advanced to the door and knocked. Nobody answered. The monotone +continued. He knocked again. Nobody answered. The monotone continued. He +tried the knob. The door was locked. With his hand still on the knob, he +put his shoulder to the door; gave it a slow resistless pressure. It +burst open. + +It was a small room and furnished with the conventional furnishings of a +bedroom. Lindsay saw but two things in it. One was a girl, sitting up in +the bed in the corner; a beautiful slim creature with streaming loose +red hair; her cheeks vivid with fever spots; her eyes brilliant with +fever-light. It was she who emitted the monotone. + +The other thing was a miniature, standing against the glass on the +bureau. A miniature of a beautiful woman in the full lusciousness of a +golden blonde maturity. + +The woman of the miniature was Lutetia Murray. + +The girl-- + + + + +X + + +She felt that the room was full of sunshine. Even through her glued-down +lids she caught the darting dazzle of it. She knew that the air was full +of bird voices. Even through her drowse-filmed ears, she caught the +singing sound of them. She would like to lift her lids. She would like +to wake up. But after all it was a little too easy to sleep. The impulse +with which she sank back to slumber was so soft that it was scarcely +impulse. It dropped her slowly into an enormous dark, a colossal quiet. + +Presently she drifted to the top of that dark quiet. Again the sunlight +flowed into the channels of seeing. Again the birds picked on the +strings of hearing. By an enormous effort she opened her eyes. + +She stared from her bed straight at a window. A big vine stretched films +of green leaf across it. It seemed to color the sunshine that poured +onto the floor--green. She looked at the window for a long time. +Presently she discovered among the leaves a crimson, vase-like flower. + +"Why, how thick the trumpet-vine has grown!" she said aloud. + +It seemed to her that there was a movement at her side. But that +movement did not interest her. She did not fall into a well this time. +She drifted off on a tide of sleep. Presently--perhaps it was an hour +later, perhaps five minutes--she opened her eyes. Again she stared at +the window. Again the wonder of growth absorbed her thought; passed out +of it. She looked about the room. Her little bedroom set, painted a soft +creamy yellow with long tendrils of golden vine, stood out softly +against the faded green cartridge paper. + +"Why! Why have they put the bureau over there?" she demanded aloud of +the miniature of Glorious Lutie which hung beside the bureau. With a +vague alarm, her eyes sped from point to point. The dado of Weejubs +stood out as though freshly restored. But all her pictures were gone; +the four colored prints, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter--each the head +of a little girl, decked with buds or flowers, fruit or furs, had +vanished. The faded squares where they had hung showed on the walls. Oh, +woe, her favorite of all, "My Little White Kittens," had disappeared +too. On the other hand--on table, on bureau, and on commode-top--crowded +the little Chinese toys. + +"Why, when did they bring them in from the Dew Pond?" she asked herself, +again aloud. + +With a sudden stab of memory, she reached her hand up on the wall. How +curious! Only yesterday she could scarcely touch the spring; now her +hand went far beyond it. She pressed. The little panel opened slowly. +She raised herself in bed and looked through the aperture. + +Glorious Lutie's room was stark--bare, save for a bed and her long +wooden writing-table. + +Her thoughts flew madly ... suddenly her whole acceptance of things +crumbled. Why! She wasn't Cherie and eight. She was Susannah and +twenty-five; and the last time she had been anywhere she had been in New +York.... Lightnings of memory tore at her ... the Carbonado Mining +Company ... Eloise ... a Salvation Army woman on the street ... roofers. +Yet this was Blue Meadows. She did not have to pinch herself or press on +her sleepy eyelids. It _was_ Blue Meadows. The trumpet-vine, though as +gigantic as Jack's beanstalk, proved it. The painted furniture proved +it. The Chinese toys proved it. Yes, and if she wanted the final touch +that clinched all argument, there beside the head of the bed was the +maple gazelle. This really was not the final proof. The final proof was +human and it entered the room at that moment in the person of Mrs. +Spash. And Mrs. Spash--in her old, quaint inaccurate way--was calling +her as Cherry. + +Susannah burst into tears. + + * * * * * + +"Oh, I feel so much better now," Susannah said after a little talk; more +sleep; then talk again. "I'm going to be perfectly well in a little +while. I want to get up. And oh, dear Mrs. Spash--do you remember how +sometimes I used to call you Mrs. Splash? I do want as soon as possible +to see Mr. Lindsay and his cousin--Miss Stockbridge, did you say? I want +to thank them, of course. How can I ever thank them enough? And I want +to talk to him about the biography. Oh, I'm sure I can give him so much. +And I can make out a list of people who can tell him all the things you +and I don't remember; or never knew. And then, in my trunk in New York, +is a package of all Glorious Lutie's letters to me. I think he will want +to publish some of them; they are so lovely, so full of our games--and +jingles, and even drawings. Couldn't I sit up now?" + +"I don't see why not," Mrs. Spash said. "You've slept for nearly +twenty-six hours, Cherry. You waked up once--or half-waked up. We gave +you some hot milk and you went right to sleep again." + +"It's going to make me well--just being at Blue Meadows," Susannah +prophesied. "If I could only stay-- But I'm grateful for a day, an +hour." + + * * * * * + +Later, she came slowly down the stairs--one hand on the rail, the other +holding Mrs. Spash's arm. She wore her faded creamy-pink, creamy-yellow +Japanese kimono, held in prim plaits by the broad sash, a big obi bow at +the back. Her red hair lay forward in two long glittering braids. Her +face was still pale, but her eyes overran with a lucent blue excitement. +It caught on her eyelashes and made stars there. + +A slim young man in flannels; tall with a muscular litheness; dark with +a burnished tan; handsome; arose from his work at the long refectory +table. He came forward smiling--his hand outstretched. "My cousin, Miss +Stockbridge, has run in to Boston to do some shopping," he explained. "I +can't tell you how glad I am to see you up, or how glad she will be." He +took her disengaged arm and reinforced Mrs. Spash's efforts. They guided +her into a big wing chair. The young man found a footstool for her. + +"I suppose I'm not dreaming, Mr. Lindsay," Susannah apprised him +tremulously. "And yet how can it be anything but a dream? I left this +place fifteen years ago and I have never seen it since. How did I get +back here? How did you find me? How did you know who I was? And what +made you so heavenly good as to bring me here? I remember fragments here +and there-- Mrs. Spash tells me I've had the flu." + +Lindsay laughed. "That's all easily explained," he said with a +smoothness almost meretricious. "I happened to go to New York on +business. As usual I went to my friend Sparrel's apartment. You were ill +and delirious in the next room. I heard you; forced the door open and +sent at once for a doctor. He pronounced it a belated case of flu. So I +telephoned for Miss Stockbridge; we moved you into my apartment and +after you passed the crisis--thank God, you escaped pneumonia!--I asked +the doctor if I could bring you over here. He agreed that the country +air would be the very best thing for you, and yet would not advise me to +do it. He thought it was taking too great a risk. But I felt--I can't +tell you how strongly I felt it--that it would be the best thing for +you. My cousin stood by me, and I took the chance. Sometimes now, +though, I shudder at my own foolhardiness. You don't remember--or do +you?--that I went through the formality of asking your consent." + +"I do remember now--vaguely," Susannah laughed. "Isn't it lucky I +didn't--in my weakness--say no?" + +Lindsay laughed again. "I shouldn't have paid any attention to it, if +you had. I knew that this was what you needed. You were sleeping then +about twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four. So one night we brought +you in a taxi to the boat and took the night trip to Boston. The boat +was making its return trip that night, but I bribed them to let you stay +on it all day until it was almost ready to sail. Late in the afternoon, +we brought you in an automobile to Quinanog. You slept all the way. That +was yesterday afternoon. It was dark when we got here. You didn't even +open your eyes when I carried you into the house. In the meantime I had +wired Mrs. Spash--and she fixed up your room, as much like the way it +used to be when you were a child, as she could remember." + +"It's all too marvelous," Susannah murmured. New brilliancies were +welling up into her turquoise eyes, the deep dark fringes of lash could +not hold them; the stars kept dropping off their tips. Fresh spurts of +color invaded her face. Nervously her long white hands pulled at her +coppery braids. + +"There are so many questions I shall ask you," she went on, "when I'm +strong enough. But some I must ask you now. How did you happen to come +here? And when did the idea of writing Glorious Lutie's--my +aunt's--biography occur to you? And how did you come to know Mrs. Spash? +Where did you find the little Chinese toys? And my painted bedroom set? +And the sideboard there? And the six-legged highboy? Oh dear, a hundred, +thousand, million things. But first of all, how did you know that, now +being Susannah Ayer, I was formerly Susannah Delano?" + +"There was the miniature of Miss Murray hanging on your wall. That made +me sure--in--in some inexplicable way--that you were the little lost +Cherry. And of course we went through your handbag to make sure. We +found some letters addressed to Susannah Delano Ayer. But will you tell +me how you _do_ happen to be Susannah Ayer, when you were formerly +Susannah Delano, alias Cherry--or Cherie?" + +"I went from here to Providence to live with a large family of cousins. +Their name was Ayer, and I was so often called Ayer that finally I took +the name." Susannah paused, and then with a sudden impulse toward +confidence, she went on. "I grew up with my cousins. I was the youngest +of them all. The two oldest girls married, one a Californian, the other +a Canadian. I haven't seen them for years. The three boys are scattered +all over everywhere, by the war. My uncle died first; then my aunt. She +left me the five hundred dollars with which I got my business training." + +The look of one who is absorbing passionately all that is being said to +him was on Lindsay's face. But a little perplexity troubled it. +"Glorious Lutie?" he repeated interrogatively. + +"Oh, of course," Susannah murmured. "I always called her Glorious Lutie. +She always called me Glorious Susie--that is when she didn't call me +_Cherie_. And we had a game--the Abracadabra game. When she was telling +me a story--her stories were _marvels_; they went on for days and +days--and she got tired, she could always stop it by saying, +Abracadabra! If I didn't reply instantly with Abracadabra, the story +stopped. Of course she always caught my little wits napping--I was so +absorbed in the story that I could only stutter and pant, trying to +remember that long word." + +"That's a Peter Ibbetson trick," Lindsay commented. + + * * * * * + +The talk, thus begun, lasted for the three hours which elapsed before +Miss Stockbridge's return. Two narratives ran through their talk; +Lindsay's, which dealt with superficial matters, began with his return +to America from France; Susannah's, which began with that sad day, +fifteen years ago, when she saw Blue Meadows for the last time. But +neither narrative went straight. They zig-zagged; they curved, they +circled. Those deviations were the result of racing up squirrel tracks +of opinion and theory; of little excursions into the allied experiences +of youth; even of talks on books. Once it was interrupted by the +noiseless entry of Mrs. Spash, who deposited a tray which contained a +glass of milk, a pair of dropped eggs, a little mound of buttered toast. +Susannah suddenly found herself hungry. She drained her glass, ate both +eggs, devoured the last crumb of toast. + +After this, she felt so vigorous that she fell in with Lindsay's +suggestion that she walk to the door. There she stood on the door-stone +for a preoccupied, half-joyful, half-melancholy interval studying the +garden. Then, leaning on his arm, she ventured as far as the seat under +the copper-beech. Later, even, she went to the barn and the Dew Pond. +Before she could get tired, Lindsay brought her back, reestablishing her +in the chair. Then--and not till then--and following another impulse to +confide in Lindsay, Susannah told him the whole story of the Carbonado +Mining Company. Perhaps his point of view on that matter gave her her +second accession of vitality. He paced up and down the room during her +narrative; his hands, fists. But he laughed their threats to scorn. "Now +don't give another thought to that gang of crooks!" he adjured her. "I +know a man in New York--a lawyer. I'll have him look up that crowd and +put the fear of God into them. They'll probably be flown by that time, +however. Undoubtedly they were making ready for their getaway. Don't +think of it again. They can't hurt you half as much as that bee that's +trying to get in the door." He was silent for a moment, staring fixedly +down at his own manuscript on the table. "By God!" he burst out +suddenly, "I've half a mind to beat it on to New York. I'd like to be +present. I'd have some things to say--and do." + +Somewhere toward the end of this long talk, "I've not said a word yet, +Mr. Lindsay," Susannah interpolated timidly, "of how grateful I am to +you--and your cousin. But it's mainly because I've not had the strength +yet. I don't know how I'm going to repay you. I don't know how I'm even +going to tell you. What I owe you--just in money--let alone eternal +gratitude." + +"Now, that's all arranged," Lindsay said smoothly. "You don't know what +a find you were. You're an angel from heaven. You're a Christmas present +in July. For a long time I've realized that I needed a secretary. +Somebody's got to help me on Lutetia's life or I'll never get it done. +Who better qualified than Lutetia's own niece? In fact you will not only +be secretary but collaborator. As soon as you're well enough, we'll go +to work every morning and we'll work together until it's done." + +Susannah leaned back, snuggled into the soft recess of the comfortable +chair. She dropped her lids over the dazzling brilliancy of her eyes. "I +suppose I ought to say no. I suppose I ought to have some proper pride +about accepting so much kindness. I suppose I ought to show some +firmness of mind, pawn all my possessions and get back to work in New +York or Boston. Girls in novels always do those things. But I know I +shall do none of them. I shall say yes. For I haven't been so happy +since Glorious Lutie died." + +"Oh," Lindsay exclaimed quickly as though glad to reduce this dangerous +emotional excitement. "There comes the lost Anna Sophia Stockbridge. +She's a dandy. I think you'll like her. It's awfully hard not to." + + * * * * * + +The instant Susannah had disappeared with Miss Stockbridge up the +stairs, Mrs. Spash appeared in the Long Room. Apparently, she came with +a definite object--an object in no way connected with the futile dusting +movements she began to emit. + +Lindsay watched her. + +Suddenly Mrs. Spash's eyes came up; met his. They gazed at each other a +long moment; a gaze that was luminous with question and answer. + +"She's gone," Lindsay announced after a while. + +Mrs. Spash nodded briskly. + +"She'll never come back," Lindsay added. + +Again Mrs. Spash nodded briskly. + +"They've all gone," Lindsay stated. + +For the third time Mrs. Spash briskly nodded. + +"When Cherie came, _they_ left," Lindsay concluded. + +"They'd done what they wanted to do," Mrs. Spash vouchsafed. "Brought +you and Cherry together. So there was no need. She took them away. She'd +admire to stay. That's like her. But she don't want to make the place +seem--well, _queer_. So, as she allus did, she gives up her wish." + +"Mrs. Spash," Lindsay exploded suddenly after a long pause, "we've +_never_ seen them. You understand we've never seen them; either of us. +They never were here." + +Mrs. Spash nodded for the fourth time. + + * * * * * + +That night after his cousin and his guest had gone to bed, Lindsay +wandered about the place. The moon was big enough to turn his paths into +streams of light. He walked through the flower garden; into the barn; +about the Dew Pond. The tallest hollyhocks scarcely moved, so quiet was +the night. The little pond showed no ripple except a flash of the +moonlight. The barn was a cavern of gloom. Lindsay gazed at everything +as though from a new point of view. + +An immeasurable content filled him. + +After a while he returned to the house. His picture of Lutetia Murray +still hung over the mantel in the living-room. He gazed at it for a long +while. Then he turned away. As he looked down the length of the +living-room, there was in his face a whimsical expression, half of an +achieved happiness, half of a lurking regret. "This house has never been +so full of people since I've been here," he mused, "and yet never was it +so empty. My beloved ghosts, I miss you. But you've not all gone after +all. You've left one little ghost behind. Lutetia, I thank you for her. +How I wish you could come again to see.... But you're right. Don't come! +Not that I'm afraid. You're too lovely--" + +His thoughts broke halfway. They took another turn. "I wonder if it ever +happened to any other man before in the history of the world to see the +little-girl ghost of the woman--" + + * * * * * + +Blue Meadows had for several weeks now been projecting pictures from its +storied past into the light of everyday. Could it have projected into +that everyday one picture from the future, it would have been something +like this. + + * * * * * + +Susannah came into the south living-room. Her husband was standing +between the two windows. + +"Davy," she exclaimed joyfully, "I've located the lowboy. A Mrs. Norton +in West Hassett owns it. Of course she's asking a perfectly prohibitive +price, but of course we've got to have it." + +"Yes," Lindsay answered absently, "we've got to have it." + +"I'm glad we found things so slowly," Susannah dreamily. "It adds to the +wonder and magic of it all. It makes the dream last longer. It keeps our +romance always at the boiling point." + +She put one arm about her husband's neck and kissed him. Lindsay turned; +kissed her. + +"At least we have the major pieces back," Susannah said contentedly. +"And little Lutetia Murray Lindsay will grow up in almost the same +surroundings that Susannah Ayer enjoyed. Oh--today--when I carried her +over to the wall of the nursery, she noticed the Weejubs; she actually +put her hand out to touch them." + +"Oh, there's something here for you--from Rome--just came in the mail," +Lindsay exclaimed. "It's addressed to Susannah Delano too." + +"From Rome!" Susannah ejaculated. "Susannah Delano!" She cut the strings +of the package. Under the wrappings appeared--swathed in tissue paper--a +picture. A letter dropped from the envelope. Susannah seized it; turned +to the signature. + +"Garrison Monroe!" she ejaculated. "Oh, dear dear Uncle Garry, he's +alive after all!" She read the letter aloud, the tears welling in her +eyes. + +"How wonderful!" she commented when she finished. "You see, he's +apparently specialized in tomb-sculpture." + +She pulled the tissue paper from the picture. Their heads met, examining +it. + +"Oh, how lovely!" Susannah exclaimed in a hushed voice. And "It's +beautiful!" Lindsay agreed in a low tone. + +It was the photograph of a bit of sculptured marble; a woman swathed in +rippling draperies lying, at ease, on her side. One hand, palm upward, +fingers a little curled, lay by her cheek; the other fell across her +breast. A veil partially obscured the delicate profile. But from every +veiled feature, from every line of the figure, from every fold in the +drapery, exuded rest. + +"It's perfect!" Susannah said, still in a low tone. "Perfect. Many a +time she's fallen asleep just like than when we've all been talking and +laughing. When she slept, her hand always lay close to her face as it is +here. She always wore long floating scarves. You see he had to do her +face from photographs ... and memory.... He's used that scarf device to +conceal.... How beautiful! How beautiful!" + +There came silence. + +"Mrs. Spash says he was in love with her," Susannah went on. "Of course +I was too young. I didn't realize it. But it's all here, I think. Did +you notice that part of the letter where he says that for the last year +or two his mind has been full of her? And of all his life here? That's +very pathetic, isn't it? Now there will be a fitting monument over +her.... He says it will be here in a few months. We must send him +pictures when it's put on her grave. How happy it makes me! He says he's +nearly eighty.... How beautiful.... You're not listening to me," she +accused her husband with sudden indignation. But her indignation +tempered itself by a flurry of little kisses when, following the +direction of his piercing gaze, she saw it ended on the miniature which +hung beside the secretary. "Looking at Glorious Lutie!" she mocked +tenderly. "How that miniature fascinates you! Sometimes," she added, +obviously inventing whimsical cause for grievance, "sometimes I think +you're as much in love with her as you are with me." + +"If I am," Lindsay agreed, "it's because there's so much of you in her." + +THE END + + + + +"_The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay_" + +_There Are Two Sides to Everything_-- + +--including the wrapper which covers every Grosset & Dunlap book. 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