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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40316 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 40316-h.htm or 40316-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40316/40316-h/40316-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40316/40316-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://archive.org/details/atageofeve00shariala
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document
+      have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been
+      corrected.
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+
+
+
+
+AT THE AGE OF EVE
+
+[Illustration: "I--I wondered who you were, too"]
+
+
+AT THE AGE OF EVE
+
+by
+
+KATE TRIMBLE SHARBER
+
+Author of The Annals of Ann
+
+With Illustrations by Paul Meylan
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Indianapolis
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+Publishers
+
+Copyright 1911
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+
+Press of
+Braunworth & Co.
+Bookbinders and Printers
+Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+     TO
+     ANN'S GOD-PARENTS
+     LILLIAN BYRN HARRISON
+     AND
+     JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     CHAPTER                          PAGE
+
+        I ANN                            1
+
+       II THE NEW NEIGHBORS             16
+
+      III THE BOOKWORM TURNS            35
+
+       IV A NEW GAME                    49
+
+        V PRINCE CHARMING               67
+
+       VI NEVA'S BEAU BRUMMEL           97
+
+      VII ALFRED                       123
+
+     VIII ALFRED COLLECTS A DEBT       136
+
+       IX A SHOPPING EXPEDITION        157
+
+        X ANN RECEIVES A CALLER        179
+
+       XI A DRAWN BATTLE               205
+
+      XII SHADOWS                      225
+
+     XIII THANKSGIVING DAY             243
+
+      XIV SOPHIE'S STORY               262
+
+       XV THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL      287
+
+      XVI THE IDES OF MARCH            313
+
+     XVII MAY DAY                      347
+
+
+
+
+     AT THE AGE OF EVE
+
+
+
+
+AT THE AGE OF EVE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANN
+
+
+In beginning this record I find that it is no easy matter to feel at
+home with a clean, blank journal. The possibilities of these spotless
+pages seem to oppress me, and I am weighted down with the idea that my
+opening sentences ought to sound brilliant and promising.
+
+With this thought I have started three or four entries on scraps of
+paper lying here about my desk, but I find that not one of them is the
+kind of thing which would make you bend over close and knit your
+brows, thinking you had picked up Plato by mistake.
+
+No matter what lofty sentiments I have in my mind you can always hear
+the swish of petticoats through my paragraphs and I regret this, for
+all my life I have longed to write something that would sound like
+George Eliot. In the world of books she is my idol--my lady idol, I
+mean, for of course the dearest idols of all are the poets, and they
+are always men.
+
+"George Eliot is my lady idol and my man one, too," some one said to
+me once when I mentioned my preference, and this exactly expresses it.
+When you read what she has written you never stop to think whether it
+was written by a man or by a woman. Even in these days the women who
+write anything worth reading do it so cleverly that you never for a
+moment suspect they clean out their fountain-pen with a hair-pin.
+
+How _do_ they manage it, I wonder, when one adjective too many would
+brand them as a female?
+
+Yet if the sex does not show in the writing, the writing always shows
+in the sex. If the most masculine man on earth takes a notion to
+become a writer his friends all begin strange mutterings behind his
+back, and before long some one has whispered "Sissy." Ah, and if a
+woman by any chance decides to use her pen a while, so her tongue can
+rest, her associates are quick to pronounce that she has grown so
+_masculine_ since she started this writing business! Verily the pen is
+mightier than the sword if it can influence sex in a manner that
+would turn a court physician green with envy.
+
+I should be willing to cut off my hair and call myself George, Henry
+or even Sam, if I thought it would help me to be a great writer, for,
+in my soul, I have always longed to write something so great and
+unfeminine that it would not harm a Trappist monk.
+
+Still, the setting forth of these wishes of mine does not help me to
+get started comfortably on this new record. Do you notice that I call
+it a _record_, and not a diary? This is because I expect to write in
+it only occasionally--skim the cream of events, as it were, instead of
+boring you with the details of the daily milking.
+
+If it were January first, now, I could think up any number of
+inspiring New Year sentiments to get started off with; sermons based
+on the three R's to be met with most often at this season--Regrets,
+Resolves and Reforms. Sometimes there is a fourth R which follows
+quickly on the heels of these--Returns, to the old habits.
+
+Here it is, though, midsummer; and I am sure it would seem to any one
+looking on that I have no visible means of support for any kind of
+journal, tucked away as I am in this little town where a girl has not
+inspiration enough to keep her shirt-waist pulled down in the back.
+
+So, with this remark about my shirt-waist, I put aside my longing to
+write something like George Eliot and make a frank acknowledgment of
+my skirts. Right glad I ought to be that I have them, too, for I
+believe that if data were plentiful on the subject we should find that
+the "mantle of charity" was originally a skirt. "Just like a fool
+woman," people say leniently, and are willing to let it pass.
+
+I am a girl, then, as you will readily gather from the foregoing,
+simply by putting one and one together--the shirt-waist and the skirt.
+I live near a little country town, and am vastly dissatisfied with the
+cramped stage and meager audience, else why should I be keeping a
+journal? A journal is not nearly so much a book in which you tell what
+you do as one in which you tell what you would like to do.
+
+Pray do not imagine from the above that I am longing for a crowded,
+noisy stage, with lights glittering over tinsel. No, I am not that
+kind of girl. I like a play of few actors, but where the things
+happening make _the veins of the neck_ stand out!
+
+In admitting that I do not love the village near which I live I know I
+run the risk of being considered ill-natured. It would be sweeter of
+me to make it out a cheery little Cranford of a place, where the
+tea-kettle steams cozily and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
+These things do happen, after a modern, American fashion; and the
+people who own the tea-kettles and the folds are the same as other
+people all over the world. I have no quarrel with them. Still, I am
+forced to admit that time hangs so heavy on my hands I wash my hair
+every other day. Have you ever noticed how often a woman, who has
+nothing better to do, will wash her hair?
+
+Here, then, is a brief description of the village, with malice toward
+none, although at times it may sound malicious:
+
+The surrounding country is so beautiful that if you are coming into
+the town on the train you are ill-prepared for the hideous little
+railway station, which is the first shock you receive. The floor of
+this "depot" is dirtier than anything else on earth could be, save the
+post-office floor, and there is a rusty little stove in the middle of
+the room close to the box of sand, around which tobacco juice is
+being eternally spit, spat, or whatever is the correct form of that
+unlovely verb.
+
+Close to the station are the livery stables, but we shall pass by as
+quickly as possible; and farther up the street is the Racket Store.
+Sometimes this place has a very handsome clerk from the city; it is
+then a busy market. Across the street from the hotel is the millinery
+establishment, and, if you are on good terms with the milliner, she
+invites you to come and sit at her front window some mornings just
+after the eleven-o'clock train has come, so you can get a good view of
+the interesting drummers.
+
+Most of the local attractions in the way of young men are sturdy
+farmers, who, like June-bugs, appear for only a few months every
+summer. The others, dry goods clerks, bookkeepers and professional
+whittlers, usually line up on the back benches at church on Sunday
+evenings and cause mild panics in the breasts of the unescorted girls
+present, whose hearts palpitate painfully during the benediction.
+
+But here I have set forth the doings of Sunday evening before
+mentioning the events of the afternoon, which, while not exciting, are
+in a way more characteristic than those of any other time. If the day
+is fine the country roads blossom forth at irregular intervals with
+young couples out driving or walking, close to Nature's heart, yet
+caring far less for her beauties than for the sight of each other,
+which, after all, _is_ nature. If there is any one in the town sick
+enough for his neighbors to be really concerned about him, on Sunday
+afternoon the sick one's house is swarming with a crowd sufficient to
+furnish forth a funeral. This is not _called_ "profaning the Sabbath,"
+but it ought to be.
+
+On rainy days, or even on fine ones, the inhabitants who are too old
+to be a-lovering usually sit around and go to sleep in their chairs,
+with their mouths wide open. Besides being ungraceful, this is an
+invitation to tonsilitis. Dear me! I have misspelled that word again,
+for Doctor Osler says there are two l's in it, and I am sure there
+are--in the kind I had last Christmas!
+
+Somewhere in the early fall, about the time for green tomatoes to be
+made up into pickle, there is the excitement of seeing the new public
+school teachers file into town, and if you happen to be buying a hat
+at the millinery store any time within the next few weeks you can hear
+a complete description of each teacher. One paints her face until it's
+mottled, you are told; another has blond hair and brunette eyebrows,
+so she must have been on the stage; a third evidently has seen "better
+days," for she wears a diamond ring on her little finger! There is
+only _one_ more astonishing thing than the way the women of the
+village talk about these teachers, and that is the way the men marry
+them!
+
+Again I find that I have anticipated and reached the autumn before I
+have finished with the summer, in the very hottest part of which,
+usually August, comes an "evangelist" to hold a protracted meeting.
+The sound of words always meant so much to me when I was a child, and
+when I first heard that word, evangelist, I pictured a great, radiant
+figure, with spreading white wings growing out from a somber suit of
+black clothes, and holding to his lips a long, graceful trumpet.
+Naturally, this was some time ago, when I was quite young, and wanted
+to be good, so that when I died I could go to heaven, where my chief
+delight was going to be tending a garden full of silver bells and
+cockle-shells and pretty maids all in a row. Oh, those silver bells!
+In point of beauty they had no rivals in my childish imagination,
+except Cinderella's glass slippers and Aaron's golden calf! A lovely
+heaven it was going to be, of light pastel shades, and a great way
+off from God! You see I was brought up in such an orthodox atmosphere
+that I imagined God was like the principal of a school I once
+attended, always looking out for offenders with a rod up his sleeve.
+
+It was a distinct disappointment to me when I found that an evangelist
+is like any ordinary preacher, except that he perspires more.
+Sometimes he is sensational and preaches about lace yokes and dancing;
+and on Sunday afternoon holds a meeting for men only, where he tells
+them what a terribly bad man _he_ used to be! Again he is "burdened"
+with the souls of the whole congregation and preaches hell and
+damnation in a voice that sounds like pitchforks clanging against iron
+chains. Now, city preachers seldom do anything like this. In the city
+pulpits, of recent years, hell is like smallpox; it is still _there_,
+but in a much milder form.
+
+During the revivals there are always one or more abusive sermons
+directed at the other churches of the town, and, of course, the
+Episcopalians are ever in a class with "the Turk and the comet."
+Catholics are unmentionable.
+
+This usually causes much "hard feeling" among the good wives of the
+town, at an inconvenient time, too, for the season for swapping sweet
+peach pickle recipes is close at hand. The only people who can
+maintain a placid spirit during these revivals are those who stay
+away, and I usually try this plan, unless the evangelist happens to be
+young and good-looking.
+
+Young and good-looking, ay, there's the rub! Herein is my lack of
+material for an interesting journal, so long as I stay here at home.
+Notwithstanding these barriers, Cousin Eunice, who was the instigator
+of my childhood's diary, has again suggested that I keep a book here
+by me to "tell off" to occasionally when I feel the need of a mental
+clearing-house. She says a journal has two points of advantage over
+the bosom friend a girl of my age usually has; one is, that you can
+shut it up when you want to go to sleep at night, and the other is
+that you can burn it when you grow ashamed of the secrets it contains,
+neither of which you can do to your bosom friend, no matter how badly
+you may wish to.
+
+The diary which I kept for several years while I was at the gawky age
+was intended to be secreted between two pieces of board in the attic
+and discovered by my grandchildren amid tumultuous applause, years
+hence. But I am far too grown-up for these grandchildren now. The
+knowledge of my years is ever with me, a sort of binding torment, like
+an armhole that is too tight, so I shall have to leave the little
+dears behind, with the fairies and the freckles that I have long since
+outgrown. They, or the thought of them, used to make me feel that I
+was on actual speaking terms with my other diary, but perhaps after a
+while, I may feel on the same terms with you, even without their
+presence.
+
+In the first place, as a reason for this book's being, I have always
+liked the notion of keeping a written account of my thoughts and
+feelings, especially of my feelings, for they are usually all jumbled
+up in my mind, like ribbons on a remnant counter, but after I have set
+them down in black and white where I can stand off and look at them
+they are no more complicated than sardines in a box. Another reason is
+that in the diaries, correspondence and love-letters of interesting
+people (great people, I mean) which I have read, I have found there is
+a sort of interest which is lacking in their stiff-standing-collar and
+high-heeled-shoes productions. In this class I have read Amiel and Sam
+Pepys, and the love-letters of Sophie Dorothea, poor dear! How her
+portrait must have lied! No woman with that much fat on her neck
+could really love! I adore Amiel and am fond of Pepys, although I wish
+he had left out about a ton of that venison pasty which his
+"she-cozen" was usually preparing for his entertainment. It always
+gets in your line of vision, somehow, whenever you are craning your
+neck to catch a glimpse of that naughty but nice Charlie Stuart!
+
+Then there was a girl in _Pendennis_ who kept a book of
+heart-outpourings and called it "Mes Larmes." And my Lord Byron's dear
+friend, Lady Blessington, called hers "My Night Book."
+
+Well, mine is not going to be a night book, for that is not my
+favorite time for mental surveying. I am still a regular lizard in my
+love for the sunshine, and, if the prospect sounds alluring, I'll
+promise that much of this book shall be written in the clear light of
+day. A good part of my other diary was written up in the old pear tree
+by the orchard gate, but now I am grown up, so, of course--
+
+"Mes Larmes" would be even worse for a title than the one I have just
+mentioned. Some tears will, of course, be mixed in to make the
+rainbows of happiness shine through, but I fancy that mine will be
+principally a record of work and play. Work that is play and play
+that is work, mother says, as I sit on the shady porch in the mornings
+working flowers on my shirt-waist front, and spend the afternoons
+playing tennis in the hot sun. Work and play, then, for the present;
+later, maybe, smiles and sighs; while a long, long way in the future,
+perhaps on the last few pages, there _may_ be--shall I say it? No, I
+am not well enough acquainted with you yet.
+
+Although I have kept back this one little thought from you in the
+above, I promise that in the narration of all things which have
+actually happened this journal is going to be unexpurgated! First, I
+love truth; and I think that a whole truth is nearly always better
+than a half. For instance, d----n in print always looked worse to me
+than damn. Then, in the diaries and love-letters I have mentioned
+above, I have often found that at the very places where matters were
+getting _so_ interesting you straighten up somewhat and begin to
+breathe very softly, the narrative breaks suddenly into a row of
+beastly little dots--and you are left to imagine what you will! Maybe
+the truth would not have been half so bad as your imaginings--maybe it
+would have been much worse. It all depends upon the condition of your
+circulation!
+
+For my part, I like a book to tell the whole truth about what it
+starts out to tell; yet this does not mean that every detail is to be
+described, even to setting forth whether the heroine wears
+hose-supporters or round garters. Now, in case this journal _should_
+be secreted in the attic and found years hence by a mixed audience
+which is inclined to take offense at my mention of garters, I shall
+say simply, "Evil to him who evil thinketh."
+
+So I am going to have you for my confidential friend and adviser. I
+say adviser advisedly, for I know of nothing which preaches a better
+sermon sometimes than for a person to look over certain back pages of
+his diary; especially _her_ diary.
+
+When I am wicked enough to make your leaves curl up in horror, all you
+can do is to listen to my story and not look at me as if you thought I
+needed the prayers of the congregation. People who pray don't talk
+about it anyway! And, if by chance, my right hand should do something
+handsome that it is fairly itching to tell about we can recite it all
+to you, knowing that you will never let it come to the ears of my left
+hand.
+
+Good I may occasionally be; wicked I shall certainly be, for are not
+we all born in iniquity? But I hope that in after years when I read
+over these pages I shall not discover that it takes a sextant, a
+compass and an alarm clock to find out where my heart is!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE NEW NEIGHBORS
+
+
+"You mus' be mighty clean, or mighty dirty, _one_," Mammy Lou called
+out to me this morning as she looked up from the kitchen door and
+espied me at the bath-room window with my robe wrapped around me
+toga-fashion.
+
+"Oh, excuse _me_," she continued with exaggerated politeness after a
+moment in which I did not speak. "Of course you ain't to be spoke to
+when you're breathin' like a heathen!"
+
+I finished the prescribed number of breaths laid down in the rules for
+Yogi breathing, which I am trying just now because I am so tired of
+breathing the same old way, then looked down at mammy.
+
+"A girl who can take a cold bath every morning and bait a fish-hook
+can take care of herself in this life!" I answered. "You ought to be
+proud of my courage."
+
+"'Tain't no Christian notion for no girl to be wantin' to take care of
+herself," she began to argue, but rather than get into a debate and
+be routed, as she sometimes is, she suddenly assumed an air of
+excitement and cried: "Listen! Wasn't that the thing hollerin'?"
+
+"The thing" here referred to is the new inter-urban line which now
+runs past our house, much to the chagrin of Mammy Lou, who calls it
+the "interruption line," because it is "always drappin' somebody off
+here right in the midst o' dinner time, when there ain't nothin' lef'
+but backs and wings."
+
+This very disconcerting thing has happened so many times that mother
+found she would have to carry a full line of emergency tins in her
+pantry, all bearing on their labels the comforting assurance that they
+could be served hot in three minutes. These were ever small
+consolation to Mammy Lou, however, and she always serves them with as
+much humiliation as if the "Yankee beans" and "het-over peas" were the
+proverbial dinner of herbs.
+
+This morning, though, the lid was shut fast on the tinned diet
+department and there was as much beautiful fried chicken sizzling
+drowsily on the back of the stove as northern people always give us
+Southerners credit for having. The best white and gold china was on
+the table, and a tall vase of Paul Neron roses on the mantelpiece,
+hiding father's bottle of rheumatism cure.
+
+At mammy's suggestion that she heard the "thing" hollering I had
+thrown on my clothes without waiting to wipe all the water out of my
+ears, and had run down-stairs to see if mother needed me to pin her
+collar down in the back, for I knew she would be wanting to look her
+best this morning. We were all a little excited (things so seldom
+happen here) and I noticed that father was using his most rheumatic
+hand and arm every few minutes to take his watch out of his pocket;
+yet he forgot to frown.
+
+The Claybornes were coming, Waterloo, Rufe and Cousin Eunice. We were
+feeling particularly anxious about the outcome of their visit, for
+mother and I had conspired together that a few political talks with
+Rufe _had_ to cure father of his rheumatism. So we were watching every
+movement on his part with eager interest.
+
+You must not imagine that we are unsympathetic with father when he
+actually has an attack. We rub him and put hot things to his shoulder,
+and I have actually gone so far as to let him explain the _primary
+plan_ to me in words of one syllable that a child could understand,
+just to get his mind diverted.
+
+Like most high-spirited men, when father does get down into the depths
+he tries to burrow clear on through to China. I wonder why this is?
+Possibly it is on the same principle that effervescent drugs are kept
+in blue bottles. I do not blame him, certainly, for rheumatism is
+enough to get on anybody's nerves. The poor man has to try as many
+different positions to get any ease sometimes as a worn-out alarm
+clock that will run only on a certain side. So the summer has been a
+hard one for us all, father waxing so melancholy here lately that if
+he has a gum-boil he gives us directions for his cremation.
+
+It was during one of these outbursts of pessimism that father took it
+into his head to disfigure the landscape across the road from our
+house with a row of smart cottages, which were to rent for so much a
+month that they would prove a get-rich-quick scheme and so save us
+from the humiliation of being cared for by the Masons in our old age,
+which was another one of the notions in the train of rheumatic gloom.
+
+Fortunately the first cottage cost so much more than it was worth that
+the project for the rest was abandoned; and, after it was duly
+insured, mother and I were secretly burning candles to our patron
+saint for its incineration when it was rented to a family named
+Sullivan. This Sullivan family consists of a father who drinks, just a
+little, enough to keep him jolly all the time; a mother who is of such
+a despondent nature that you wish she would drink; a daughter who
+wears crimson silk gowns and jeweled combs to the post-office when she
+goes for her mail every morning, yet withal has more beaus than any
+other girl in the village, as is attested by the candy boxes piled
+piano-high in her parlor; and a maiden aunt, Miss Delia Badger, who
+dyes her hair. Now, this term, "maiden aunt," is usually employed to
+denote a condition of hopelessness, but you will understand from the
+dyed hair that, in this case, the condition is far from being
+hopeless--else why the dye?
+
+The pristine blackness of Miss Delia's crown of glory was beginning to
+wear off, and in the stress of moving had not been replaced as soon as
+it should have been, so, on the day that I made her acquaintance, her
+hair displayed an iridescent sheen, shading from light tan to deep
+purple. This made me so angry with father for having built the cottage
+that I ran past him without a word of sympathy when I reached home,
+although he was sitting on the front porch reading the paper and
+making horrible faces every time he had to move his arm.
+
+The next day, which was the second after their moving, when I turned
+in at our gate after my morning tramp, I found that the Sullivans were
+presenting a much more homelike view from the front of their house,
+elaborate curtains showing at the parlor windows, and at the front
+door a white panel of lace, a most lifelike affair, representing
+Andrew Jackson mounted upon his fiery steed and lifting his high white
+hat to an imaginary, though evidently enthusiastic, throng.
+
+"_Now_, I reckon you're satisfied," I exclaimed to father as I came
+into the house and found him cleaning his gun, one end of it resting
+on the piano, and a pile of greasy rags perilously close to my
+limp-backed copy of Gray's _Elegy_.
+
+He quickly moved the gun and rags, but seeing that this offense was
+not the cause of my wrath, he meekly inquired: "What?"
+
+Mother came in at this juncture and I explained to them my indignation
+over the Andrew Jackson.
+
+"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, thus admitting his horrified
+surprise, but after a moment he parried.
+
+"It may be Napoleon, or Frederick the Great."
+
+"What difference would that make?" I demanded. "A warrior has no place
+on a door-panel. Besides, it's 'Old Hickory.' I'd know that high white
+hat anywhere! Wasn't I born and _raised_ in the shadow of it?"
+
+"Dear me! But maybe you are mistaken," mother interposed gently. "It
+is quite a distance across the road--it may be a peculiar pattern of
+Batten--"
+
+Before she had finished I darted up the steps and scrambled around in
+the bureau drawer for my opera-glasses.
+
+"Take these out to the porch and _look_," I begged, as I came down
+again and found the two still facing each other with a quizzical
+smile. She carried out my suggestion and presently came back, still
+smiling.
+
+"It's Andrew," she reported, reaching out for my opera-bag and
+slipping the glasses into it; "it's Andrew beyond a doubt; but,
+dearie, it _can't_ outlast two washings."
+
+This assurance comforted me somewhat every time I had to look at the
+military door-panel, but on cleaning days when the parlor curtains at
+the cottage were tucked up and I discerned the large, colored portrait
+of Mr. Roosevelt which smiled sunnily down from the space above the
+mantelpiece there was no such consoling reflection.
+
+About this time it was that I grew to know Neva, the daughter of the
+house. Her family called her "Nevar," most nasally, after the manner
+of "ordinary" people in the South; but I soon found qualities in her
+that made me forgive the silk gowns and jeweled combs, aye, even the
+Andrew Jackson.
+
+In the first place I discovered that she entertained a most profound
+admiration for me, especially for my pronunciation and finger-nails.
+Of these she at once set about a frank imitation which later extended
+to things more impersonal. Once, after I had shown her my books and
+she had breathed a long, ecstatic sigh over the pictures in the
+library I found that the hero of San Juan was falling into disfavor as
+a parlor ornament. Neva had been especially impressed with a small
+oval portrait of my childhood's hero, Lord Byron, which mother had
+found once in a curio-shop in New Orleans and brought home to me.
+
+"Who is he?" she asked, her eyes fixed admiringly on the matchless
+face. I explained to her.
+
+"Is he dead?" she inquired softly.
+
+"Alas, yes!"
+
+"But it certainly is swell to have his picture here," she volunteered.
+"I reckon it's because he's dead that it is more quiet and elegant,
+somehow, than a president's picture. Now Mr. Roosevelt looks so horrid
+and _lively_!"
+
+From this I gathered that the ex-president would sooner or later be
+deposed, but I was surprised to find that it had happened much sooner
+than I had expected, for the next time I visited the Sullivan home I
+found Mr. Roosevelt's jolly face gone; and in its stead the gentle
+features of William McKinley looked down on the candy-boxes and
+pink-flowered cuspidors. That he was dead was evidenced by the black
+border running mournfully around the print; and Neva called my
+attention to the fact as soon as I came into the room.
+
+"You see he looks quieter than Roosevelt because he's dead," she
+elucidated, "although he isn't a poet! Papa said he'd buy me a poet
+the next time he went up to the city--and oh, a green leather copy of
+Gray's 'Prodigy!'--like yours!"
+
+So, in trying to teach Neva the difference between presidents and
+poets, I have been able to enliven some of the dull days; and she is
+such a sweet little thing at heart that, if she never gets the
+difference clear, my time is not ill-spent anyway.
+
+But ah, _this_ morning the Claybornes were coming! And we were all out
+at the gate in a twinkling when we finally did hear the shrill whistle
+of the car! The first sight of Waterloo's sparkling little face
+rewarded me for dressing while my ears were still wet. He had on a
+Buster Brown suit of white linen, with red anchors embroidered in
+their usual places, and a brave red badge setting forth his political
+inclinations. Father's lame hand had already reached out for him.
+
+"Hello, Uncle Dan!" he said cordially, paying no attention to the
+feminine portion of the crowd. "Are you for it or 'ginst it?"
+
+"I'm 'ginst it, too," father answered, drawing from his pocket a
+similar badge.
+
+"That's right! Now show me the mules!"
+
+He and father led the way up the walk, followed by the rest of us,
+with Grapefruit, escorted by a hilarious Lares and Penates, bringing
+up the rear.
+
+Grapefruit, be it known, is Waterloo's nurse, or, more properly
+speaking, is a kind of jester to His Majesty. Her genuine name is
+Gertrude, but she came to him when he was at such a tender age that
+he corrupted it to Grapefruit, and Rufe says that if he had named her
+Fragrant Pomegranate Vine it would not be any too good for her. She is
+an ethereal little darky with wonderful powers of diversion. Cousin
+Eunice tells about how she found her out in the side yard playing with
+Waterloo one May morning long ago, and how his soul so clave unto her
+soul that he refused to give her up.
+
+Automobiles, red wagons, fire-engines, boxes of candy--all were
+suggested in vain. "I want my little Grapefruit," he tearfully
+insisted, over and over again, until the attractive one modestly
+announced that she might be engaged to stay and amuse him by the week
+for "seventy-five or fifty cents, or I'll stay for nothing if you'll
+let me play on the piano."
+
+Cousin Eunice joyfully agreed to the highest figure asked, with the
+use of the piano thrown in, yea and the telephone, the type-writer, in
+short, everything in the house except her tooth-brush. So Grapefruit
+stayed, and at this period of their lives is as necessary a part of
+the Claybornes' traveling outfit as their collapsible drinking-cup.
+
+After breakfast was over we lingered in the dining-room a while, as is
+our custom when we have interesting guests; and we women rested our
+elbows on the table and talked, while the men lit their cigars and
+pounded the table-cloth until the spoons jumped out of the saucers, so
+vehement were their expressions about "that blackguard of a governor."
+
+We women talked about Waterloo, of course.
+
+"He's at the loveliest age, right now, I think," mother said, as our
+three pairs of eyes wandered out in his direction to the long back
+porch, where Grapefruit and Lares were making him a pack-saddle, so
+they could "tote 'im" down to the lot. He was entirely too good to
+walk that first morning.
+
+"Yes, I rather dislike the thought of his growing into a great, rough,
+short-haired boy," Cousin Eunice assented, looking at him fondly.
+"That terrible age when they always smell like their puppies! But,
+that's quite a while off. He is still a baby."
+
+"I find that they are always more or less babies," mother said,
+looking toward me, "--no matter what their age may be."
+
+"Oh, this talk about ages reminds me of a book I brought for Ann to
+read," Cousin Eunice said, rising from the table and starting toward
+the front hall where their bags had been hastily dropped that we might
+not delay Mammy Lou's hot breakfast. "Stay here, all of you, and wait
+until I get it. It contains an interesting thought."
+
+"Then it's that much ahead of most new books," Rufe remarked, his
+attention having been attracted from his own line of talk by Cousin
+Eunice starting to leave the dining-room.
+
+"It isn't strictly new," she commented, returning in a few moments
+with the book in her hand. "It was written several years ago. It's
+nothing out of the ordinary in plot, and the thought which impressed
+some of us in the 'Scribblers' Club' was concerning the age of Eve
+when she was created. The heroine of the story is named Eve and is
+young and fair, so the hero, a gallant soldier, remarks to her one day
+as they are walking by the river bank at a stolen tryst, that he
+fancies the first mother was at his sweetheart's identical age when
+she was created. You see, it is quite a poetic fancy."
+
+"More poetic than true. Soldiers don't talk that way," father said
+drily. "How old did the book say this Eve was?"
+
+"The author was too wise to tell in plain figures," she answered, "but
+it was somewhere under the twenties--in the early flush of youth."
+
+"Well, Adam was the first man who ever had the chance of a wife made
+to order," father kept on. "Surely he had more sense than to take a
+seventeen-year-old girl."
+
+"No, you're wrong," Rufe disagreed. "I believe that Adam was too much
+of a gentleman to look a gift wife in the mouth."
+
+"I'll get the Concordance and see if there's any record of her age,"
+mother said, bustling off toward her bedroom and returning in a moment
+with her well-worn book, but she was unable to find any definite facts
+about Eve on the morning of that first surgical operation.
+
+"What difference does it make about the actual number of years?" Rufe
+inquired, with an air of dismissing the subject. "The age of Eve is
+that picturesque period which comes to a girl after her elbows are
+rounded out."
+
+My bared arms happened to be resting again on the table during this
+discussion, and, as Rufe spoke, Cousin Eunice's eyes wandered in their
+direction. "Then Ann's at it," she concluded triumphantly, and they
+all stared at me curiously, as if the age of Eve were showing on me
+like pock-marks!
+
+"Ann doesn't seem nearly so old as she really is," mother began with a
+kind of uneasy look. "You see, she has never been to school very
+much, so her education--"
+
+"Now, please don't begin about my education," I begged, for it is a
+mooted question in my family whether or not I have any, father and I
+maintaining that I have all that is necessary, mother wishing that it
+had been more carefully directed along the conventional lines. "If I
+should go to school until I'm as old as Halley's comet I couldn't
+learn the things I don't like. And I know all the rest without going!
+Don't people call me up for miles around to ask who wrote _Prometheus
+Bound_ and how to spell 'candidacy?'"
+
+"So you're satisfied with yourself?" Rufe teased.
+
+"Far from it," I denied, "but I am certainly satisfied with the amount
+of schooling _in schools_ I've had. Ugh, I hate the thought of it!"
+
+"But how can you ever amount to anything without an education?" mother
+persisted.
+
+"Never fear," I assured her easily. "I'll amount to my destiny, no
+matter whether I've ever seen inside a school or not. When I was a
+child I always imagined I was cut out to be Somebody; and even now I
+occasionally have a notion that Fate is watching me through her
+lorgnette!"
+
+"You and Jean Everett used to have such queer ideas about
+yourselves--with your notions of marrying dukes and living in castles,
+and all that kind of thing," Cousin Eunice said, after a moment of
+amused thought.
+
+"Jean still has her notions," Rufe broke in. "Our city editor is out
+of his depth in love with her and I met her on the street the other
+day and tried to bespeak her pity for the poor fellow. She assured me
+that the man _she_ married would be so important the papers would all
+get out an extra every time his assassination was attempted!"
+
+"Well, she'd better decide to take Guilford then," I said warmly, for
+it is a source of great satisfaction to me that my old friend, Jean
+(still my best friend), is half-engaged to Guilford Houghton, a grave
+young lawyer who is already making people take notice. He is a very
+quiet, dignified young man, so tall and thin and straight that he
+reminds me of a silk umbrella carefully rolled.
+
+For a long time Jean seemed not to care much about him, but he kept
+paying his court as persistently as a fly in wet weather until she was
+finally won--half-way. He has very methodical ways, and calls to see
+her only on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, but she devotes so much
+time and care to her toilet for hours and hours preceding these visits
+that we call them her "days of purification."
+
+"Guilford is not so showy, maybe," she said to me one time, in
+explanation of her fondness for him, which she tries hard to conceal,
+"but he's so _dependable_. That's worth a lot to a girl who has been
+engaged to four or five Apollos, all of them about as reliable as
+drop-stitch stockings!"
+
+"For my part, I admire Jean's ambition," father spoke up, although
+none of us suspected that he was listening to our rambling talk. "I'd
+rather see a girl with an ambition like that than one with none at
+all--one of these little empty-headed gigglers whose age of Eve
+announces its arrival by all the i's in her name being changed into
+y's."
+
+Waterloo came in at this point and demanded again that the mules be
+shown him, so father and Rufe set out for the stables.
+
+"Shall we walk around and look at things, too?" I asked Cousin Eunice
+as we filed out on to the back porch. It is a habit with us two to
+steal away for a quiet little talk the first few hours we are together
+and take stock of each other's happenings since we met last.
+
+"No," she answered, looking at me steadily. "The orchard and vineyard
+are more beautiful in the afternoon. We'll walk all over the place
+then. Besides, I have a notion that you'll want to tell me things
+which will sound better in the afternoon sunshine."
+
+"Not a thing," I denied, and wondered how a discussion of poetic
+fancies at the breakfast table could make her so sentimental.
+
+"Then you are wasting some mighty valuable time," she replied. "Most
+normal girls of your age are brimful of plans and ideas." She would
+have said secrets, as she intended to, but Mammy Lou hove in sight
+just then with a big pan of butter-beans for me to shell for dinner.
+
+Rufe had stopped her at the kitchen door with the usual query, "Well,
+Mammy, you're not married again?"
+
+"Naw, sir," she had admitted, with a self-conscious smile, "although I
+did have a _boa'der_ all the spring."
+
+Waterloo protested against even this slight pause in their progress
+toward the stables, so with an amused smile Rufe forbore to continue
+the conversation, but passed on and Mammy Lou ambled in our direction
+just in time to hear part of Cousin Eunice's remark to me.
+
+"Law, Miss Eunice, you can't git nothin' out o' _her_," she said
+disgustedly, as she set the pan of beans down and began to fan herself
+with her apron. "She's plen'y old enough, the Lord knows, to be takin'
+notice, _although_ Mis' Mary don't think so. I heerd you-all talkin'
+'bout certain ages at the breakfas' table, but I can tell you _she_
+ain't at it. She don't look at nary one of 'em twicet; an' when the
+shore-nuff age of Eve has come to a girl she begins eyin' ever' man
+she meets to see if he's got a missin' rib that'll match with hern!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BOOKWORM TURNS
+
+
+"'Tis ill work trying to ride Pegasus on a side-saddle," Cousin Eunice
+said this morning as she hurriedly threw aside her pencil and paper
+and ran to tell Dilsey about not putting any starch in the legs of
+Waterloo's rompers. "He's not a lady's horse anyhow," she continued as
+she came back and sat down on the grass again, "especially after a
+man, a baby and a gas stove have come into the lady's life."
+
+"Gas stove?" I questioned, looking up from my book, a heavy old French
+book, it was, for mother's remark about my neglected education had
+made me feel a little uneasy after all. Cousin Eunice is not the kind
+of woman to fill her letters full of household matters, hence my
+surprised question.
+
+"A good cook, with me, is only a memory," she said with a sadly
+reminiscent air. "I have a girl whose name is Pearl, but alas it is a
+lie! Even the day I learned that my book had found a publisher I had
+to get up out of my trance and peel potatoes for luncheon."
+
+"Surely not!"
+
+"Yes. I peeled them, but they were never cooked, for when Rufe came
+home and heard the news he hustled us all off to town and we had
+luncheon in Beauregard's privatest dining-room. We ordered all the
+things that disagree with us most--by way of reckless indulgence."
+
+"How did you feel when you heard that news?" I asked with interest,
+for the book manuscript which Cousin Eunice had been working on since
+the days of her single blessedness had grown to be like a member of
+the family with us all, especially of late years, after a certain
+critic had pronounced it good. It suddenly grew so valuable after that
+that she kept it in a little brown leather bag all the time and would
+never leave the house without telling somebody where that bag was (in
+case of fire) and making them promise to play Casabianca to those
+precious sheets until they should be rescued.
+
+"Just dazed!" she answered simply. "Pretty much as I felt when I found
+that Rufe was going to be mine--only a great deal less so, you know."
+
+"I wonder if you are ever going to be really great?" I pursued, for
+since I have grown so old I share all her hopes and fears, just as if
+we were sisters. "With a trip around the world as a starter, and a
+quiet little castle on the Italian coast as a next step. Then you can
+sign checks for a thousand dollars and get your pictures taken for
+nothing."
+
+"Well, not at the rate I'm going now," she replied with a rueful smile
+toward her book and pencil lying inert on the grass; yet she made no
+effort to resume her work. Evidently the starch in Waterloo's rompers
+had driven away romance.
+
+"But everything has its compensation," she continued after a moment.
+"If I never get my great trip around the world with a ten-days'
+stop-over in Japan I can never write a book about that long-suffering
+country, so I shall still have something to be thankful for."
+
+"The public is the one to be thankful," I added.
+
+"That's true, too," she agreed. "It may have cause to be thankful if
+this second book of mine is never finished, but nevertheless you don't
+know what a fever of impatience I'm in to see it all smoothly laid out
+between two pieces of paste-board and ready for the express label to
+be put on."
+
+"Yes, I believe I do know, though certainly not about a _book_. I am
+sure I know what fever of impatience means." But she was so absorbed
+in her own troubles that she did not notice this indirect
+acknowledgment of mine.
+
+"I had imagined that I could get my mind into a state of at least
+comparative tranquillity down here," she kept on. We were out in our
+favorite lair, a screened-off grassy spot in the side yard, where a
+double row of althea bushes furnishes a sense of security against
+intrusion, yet we were close enough to Waterloo to hear him every time
+he bumped his head or skinned his knee.
+
+"This place is almost unearthly in its quiet beauty," she said after a
+moment, looking up through the green vista toward the house. The
+passion flowers were clambering up on the garden fence and running
+riot over the yellowing cornstalks. Back of the kitchen the well-house
+lay asleep in the sun, the star-like blossoms of white clematis which
+covered the roof of the old building were still untouched by that
+feathery change which forecasts their coming blight.
+
+"It _is_ beautiful--and it certainly is quiet," I coincided with her
+emphatically.
+
+"Sometimes at home when the telephone bell and the door-bell and the
+club meetings and the butcher boys and the laundry men have all made a
+throbbing pain come in my head I steal away up-stairs to my little den
+where I lock the door and lie down to try to ease that nervous pain.
+Then I close my eyes and try to project my astral body down here into
+all this still, summer loveliness. I come up the gravel walk and on to
+the front porch--oh, those cedar porches! And I go through the shady
+hall to the back gallery where I find myself face to face with a great
+cold watermelon that has just been cut."
+
+"And the library is full of roses, and there is a tray of fragrant
+peaches that Dilsey gathered early in the morning."
+
+"Ah! I see that you feel its beauty just as much as if it were not an
+every-day affair to you," she said, looking at me with another one of
+those searching glances which she has treated me to several times
+lately. "No wonder you have grown to look like the place."
+
+"To look like it!" I encouraged her to go on, for a compliment is more
+food for my soul than all the white hyacinths in a florist's window.
+
+"Surely you look like it," she continued. "You are as patrician
+looking as the house--and as vivid as the flowers in the yard."
+
+"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "Then I am _good-looking_?"
+
+"Ann, don't be an idiot! If Aunt Mary had longed for a child as white
+as snow and as red as blood and as black as the ebony of her
+embroidery frame, she couldn't have produced anything more exotic than
+you."
+
+There was a moment of silence in which I thought of the vivid beauty
+of Lady Caroline Lamb. Of course I am not anything to compare with
+her! Of _course_ not! But how these vivid beauties _care_--for some
+one--when the time comes! Yes; when the time comes. But, dear me, it
+seems that it is never coming!
+
+"Well, what good does it all do me?" I demanded at length, the
+long-pent-up storm of restlessness thundering to make itself heard.
+"Granted that I look as well as you say, and that I live in an earthly
+paradise--can't you see that there is no--that it is _lonesome_?"
+
+"You are bored?" she asked sympathetically.
+
+"Bored! I am stifling!"
+
+"Yet the summer here is a joy--with oceans of morning-glories and
+miles of horseback riding!"
+
+"It is a joy, I admit, and a thousand times better than being a summer
+girl at a noisy watering-place."
+
+"What is a summer girl?" she asked with a smile, but I was not
+smiling. I was pessimistic.
+
+"A sleepy-headed female with trunks full of soiled clothes! That's
+what I always am when I get back from a trip."
+
+"Of course the winters here are dull." She had picked up her tablet
+and was writing her initials over and over again on the back.
+
+"They are. Dull gray," I agreed. "The days are a weary succession of
+that uninteresting color; but, dreary as they are, you want them to
+last. When the daylight is fading and night coming on, but while it is
+still too early to light the lamps--then is the worst time of all!
+There is no sound on earth save a few lonely little calf bleats from
+down in the lot, until the woodchop echoes begin--and they are
+lonelier still."
+
+"It's awful, I know!"
+
+"Do you know what I do on such nights as this? I get out my
+opera-glasses and long gloves and a lace handkerchief, and lay them on
+my table as if I were about to dress for a beautiful opera. Then I
+read _Aux Italiens_; think a while--and go to bed."
+
+"Poor child!"
+
+"I used never to feel this way," I kept on. "Always--until lately--I
+have loved winter. It has meant only great roaring fires and _barrels_
+of apples. Even the absorbing books which used always to accompany the
+apples and big fires are not absorbing any more."
+
+"Of course not. A girl with as much _go_ in her as you have needs to
+lose herself entirely in something."
+
+"And that something will never be bound in three-quarters morocco," I
+replied, flinging away my book impatiently.
+
+"No, indeed! The bookworm has turned. The 'something' will be bound in
+an English tweed suit of clothes through the day's business hours,
+and--"
+
+"And a long gray overcoat, and a soft gray hat."
+
+She looked at me in surprise.
+
+"Then you've seen him?"
+
+"I have seen--the type."
+
+She understood, but she still looked at me wonderingly.
+
+"Alfred?" she ventured.
+
+"No. He is my friend, but if I were in love with Alfred I'd have
+palpitations every time I passed the red cross on an ambulance. That's
+the way _I'm_ going to love."
+
+"I should think you could find an outlet for all the pent-up ambition
+you complain of, if you loved Alfred," she insisted, although she
+imagined that she was not insisting. "I have never met a more
+ambitious man, nor one of such singleness of purpose. Naturally
+success seems to gravitate toward him, as the crow flies."
+
+"And still it seems such a short while ago that Doctor Gordon took a
+liking to him, when he was a raw medical student," I said
+thoughtfully, my mind going back to the day I first saw Alfred Morgan,
+big, broad and bronzed, with his hair too long and his sleeves too
+short. There have been many days since then; days of a delightful
+comradeship when I was in the city. I would look after him with
+sisterly authority, bidding him wear his rubbers on rainy mornings, or
+give me his gloves to mend whenever I happened to be spending the day
+at the Gordons' and we sat down for a quiet chat after luncheon. Ann
+Lisbeth and Doctor Gordon still live so close to the Claybornes that
+we are like one big family when I am with them. Alfred soon began to
+tell me that I was his best friend, but he never called me the
+"guiding star of his existence." He tried to teach me the bones of the
+face, instead, and explained the barbarism of corsets.
+
+When he was out in practice the first year, but still lived with the
+Gordons, because Doctor Gordon would not let him go, I used to drive
+around with him to see his patients, sitting out in the runabout,
+which he had bought at half-price because it was a last year's model,
+and reading a magazine while he went in to make his calls. Often these
+calls were made in crowded little factory settlements, where the whirr
+of the cotton-mills sounded through the long periods of waiting; and
+the houses were built so close on the street that I could hear the
+click of the lock as he unfastened his instrument case.
+
+"I admit that Alfred's career generates thrills up and down the
+backbones of his admiring friends," I said after the pause which had
+been filled in by my busy thoughts. She was still writing her initials
+over the back of her tablet. "Who knows this better than I? Haven't I
+been a mother to the boy ever since that time I read surgical anatomy
+to him when he had tonsillitis? One of the most dramatic moments of
+my life was the night I stabbed--"
+
+I caught myself, but not in time, for Cousin Eunice had looked up from
+her book with a horrified stare. "_What?_" she demanded.
+
+"Oh, it was only that detestable Burke's automobile tire," I had to
+explain then, but I had kept the occurrence a secret hitherto, and I
+was not keen on telling it now.
+
+"It was during the year of Alfred's internship and you remember that
+Burke was always doing him an ill turn? One drippy night that fall
+when I was in Doctor Gordon's car in front of the hospital and they
+didn't see me, I overheard Burke and another intern plotting to beat
+Alfred out of a surgical case that was coming in on the train that
+night and belonged, by rights, to him. They had arranged to hurry on
+over to the station first, in Burke's new car that his fond mamma had
+given him, but when they went back into the house to get their
+raincoats I was out of that machine like a Nemesis and had stuck my
+hat-pin into the two tires on Burke's car which were most in the
+shadow; so, when they started off, they had gone only about a block
+and were down in the mud swearing--when Alfred dashed grandly by on
+the ambulance."
+
+"You little tiger!"
+
+"Burke ought to have had the hat-pin stuck in _him_," I added
+savagely.
+
+"Aren't we _still_ barbarians--at heart?" she demanded, throwing her
+tablet aside and straightening up so suddenly that I knew her thoughts
+had already strayed away from my recital. "Now, that's the way I have
+always felt about Appleton since he's been governor. Lots of times
+when I have been helping Rufe write those violent attacks against him
+I would almost choke with rage. I actually wanted to kill him."
+
+"You _helped_ Rufe?" I asked with envy. "He admitted that you had
+sense enough to?"
+
+"Some of the _meanest_ things the _Times_ has ever printed about him
+were my thoughts," she said proudly. "But it has never printed a lie!"
+
+"Ah, that must be something worth while," I commented admiringly, for
+my ideas concerning women and their possible achievements are strictly
+modern. "I should like to be the power behind the revolving-chair."
+
+I see already that the above paragraph contradicts itself, for being
+the power _behind_ things is as old as Eve; but then, the prerogative
+of contradicting oneself belongs by rights to her daughters.
+
+"Do you care for politics any more than you used to?" Cousin Eunice
+asked hopefully.
+
+"Politics and mathematics were ever of equal interest to me," I was
+bound to acknowledge. "But I have been able to understand a little
+about the primary plan this summer--father's taught me. And I know
+that the 'machine gang' is _always_ the other fellows!"
+
+"Well, that's a brilliant start," said a sarcastic male voice from the
+other side of the hedge, and Rufe's amused face rose up to our
+confusion. Without waiting for invitation he came through and sat down
+on the grass beside us.
+
+"Well, she'd enjoy some of _our_ politicians, wouldn't she?" Cousin
+Eunice asked Rufe as she moved over farther to give him more room, for
+the althea branches were wide and thick, and entangled themselves in
+our hair persistently. "Whether she cares for politics or no, eh?"
+
+"Oh, she'd lose her head over Chalmers," Rufe acquiesced as
+indifferently as the male relative of a girl always shows in
+discussing "possible" men. "Lord Byron is as a comic valentine
+compared with him in looks."
+
+"Richard Chalmers," I repeated. "I've seen his name in the paper
+often, but I don't know exactly what he is."
+
+"Neither does any one else," Rufe answered meaningly. "He's a rich
+young lawyer--inherited his money--and so shrewd that he's not going
+to join the Appleton forces, no matter what pretentions they make to
+get him on their side." He spoke as if he were arguing the question.
+
+"Of course he isn't," Cousin Eunice added stoutly.
+
+"But what _is_ he?" I asked, fearful lest they get into a discussion
+and forget to satisfy my curiosity, which was--strange to
+say--considerably aroused.
+
+"Well, if he would declare himself definitely upon the liquor
+question," Rufe explained concisely, "he would be about the most
+promising piece of gubernatorial timber that we have."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A NEW GAME
+
+
+     "If we knew when walking thoughtless
+       Through some crowded, noisy way,
+     That a pearl of wondrous whiteness,
+       Close beside our pathway lay;
+     We would pause, where now we hasten,
+       We would often look around,
+     Lest our careless feet should trample
+       Some rare jewel in the ground."
+
+It was like my extravagant nature to quote this verse of "speech day"
+poetry while engaged in such a commonplace pursuit, but then the age
+of Eve is an extravagant age.
+
+I was in a tight little cell of a room back of the pantry, a hot
+enough place on an August morning; a little den where we store old
+magazines, last summer hats, pictures and bric-à-brac that we have
+outgrown, and piles of newspapers.
+
+It was the last named species of junk that was absorbing my earnest
+attention, to say naught of perspiration, on the day I have in mind,
+which is by no means a distant one. My forehead was wet and my hair
+was sticking to it in damp little slabs, but I was unaware of this
+until afterward, when my family called my attention to it, and
+inquired where I had been and what I had been doing. Then I was in no
+mood to tell them.
+
+"It ought to be somewhere in the June lot," I mused, as I stretched my
+arm across a bundle of worn-out bedroom curtains and dragged a batch
+of dusty papers over into my lap.
+
+I have been very idle and lonely for the last few days, else I doubt
+if I should have been driven to such occupation as this. I knew it was
+foolish, even as I did it, but the Claybornes have been away, staying
+with the elder Claybornes a while, only returning this morning early,
+and Cousin Eunice has been so busy since then repairing the damage
+done Waterloo's clothes that she has been uninteresting to me. The
+Sullivans spent last week down in the country at a tiny town named
+Bayville, where there is no sign of a bay; and I have missed the
+workings of Neva sadly.
+
+It denoted the recent trend of my mind that, as I thought of Neva,
+upon this occasion, I immediately remembered that her father is a
+strict anti-Appleton man. Anti-Appleton! How much the term means to me
+now! A week ago I cared no more for its sound than I cared for the
+nouns of the fifth declension.
+
+I picked up the paper lying on top and began to fan with it a while
+before wading into the mazes of the stack. In the few papers which I
+had already looked over I found, _not_ the object of my search, it is
+true, but wood-cuts and cartoons of men whose names have been familiar
+to me for months in a vague, unreal sort of way, making a sound to my
+ears, but meaning nothing--like the ringing of the telephone bell in
+the next room when you are fast asleep. Yet the telephone bell will
+finally awaken you if you are not dead--even _so_ it might, if it is a
+doctor's telephone--and with what a start do you come to your senses
+as you reproach yourself for not recognizing its important voice
+sooner! I have felt this way many times lately, since I have taken up
+the study of politics; and have found it vastly more interesting than
+geometry.
+
+The first mighty political name which ever forced itself upon my
+understanding was Cleveland, and it is not surprising to me now that I
+was mixed up as to its significance and imagined that, instead of a
+surname, it was a title of nobility. It sounded like such a swelling
+note of praise to me, for I was only a few years old, and the
+torchlight procession on the night of his election filled me with a
+strange delight.
+
+Since then I have always had a good memory for oft-repeated names,
+although I have frequently held as hazy impressions concerning them as
+I did of Mr. Cleveland's honored cognomen. The politicians of my
+native state have all gone by names that were as sounding brass and
+tinkling cymbals to my untutored ears until the last few days, when I
+have turned in and studied them as most girls study new embroidery
+stitches.
+
+This is, in part, what I have learned: Appleton is our governor and is
+said to be everything that Charles I. of England was beheaded
+for--"tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy to his country." I know
+this is true because the paper we take says so; and if you are going
+to doubt what your favorite newspaper says, why, then, do you take it?
+I believe in loyalty above everything, and I think if the paper which
+supports the other side of the question should, by mistake, be thrown
+into your yard, you ought to run and kick the horrid sheet over the
+fence into the gutter. That is, if you are a man. If you are a lady I
+advise you to use the tongs for the purpose, especially if there is
+any one passing by at the time.
+
+Personally, I do not know Mr. Appleton, but I heard one fat, motherly
+woman, whose son held a job under him, say that he was such a
+kind-hearted governor because he set free so many poor prisoners! This
+remark impressed me, and I was beginning to think well of him, when
+here came that paper again (Rufe's paper) saying that the governor was
+turning them loose at so much per, a murderer being a little higher in
+price than a "pistol-toter," who, in turn, is more expensive than a
+boot-legger, the last really being a kind of bargain-day leader,
+inasmuch as he is such a help to the administration!
+
+Well, I dare say no governor is a hero to all the papers in his state!
+
+This is quite enough penmanship wasted on Mr. Appleton anyway; for he
+is as dead as Philadelphia on Sunday, and the public, with its
+handkerchief held to its nose, is only waiting until next election,
+when quicklime will be poured over the remains by the young and
+gallant Richard Chalmers.
+
+Of course, you understand the cause of the political unrest? It is the
+whisky question, and everything in our state has been turned upside
+down by it; that is, everything except the whisky. It is turned upside
+down only when there is a glass under the bottle. Mr. Appleton favors
+this phase of the whisky agitation.
+
+Next in importance after the governor is a man named Blake, Jim Blake,
+whom nobody ever calls James, and who is so much like a big fat worm
+that I never pass him in the streets without wanting to mash him. He
+is like one of those soft, white worms, you know, which I am sure I
+have eaten dozens of on nights when I used to take a handful of
+chestnuts to bed with me.
+
+In the mountainous regions during his campaigns, they say, to make
+himself solid with the boys, Jim Blake uses bad English and good
+whisky; in the cities he uses good English and better whisky. All in
+all, he is the most popular man in the state--a fact which makes you
+wish you had anticipated Carlyle's remark about the population of his
+country being mainly fools.
+
+Major Blake was a power in politics a few years back, then he went
+into obscurity for a while, on account of an ailing daughter, it was
+said, who had to live in the West if she would live at all. The story
+goes the rounds that at one time he gave up a senatorship for the sake
+of staying with this daughter; and, if this is true, I beg his pardon
+for calling him a worm!
+
+Her name is Berenice Blake, which sounds so beautiful to me that I
+feel sure her mother must have been the one who named her. I suppose
+she improved somewhat in health from her outdoor life in the West, for
+her father came back after a while, and at this present time she makes
+frequent vibrations between her home and Denver, every one of which
+causes prolonged paroxysms in the society columns.
+
+In his political affiliations Jim Blake is like--like--my kingdom for
+a simile! I might with truth say that he is like a chameleon, but I
+have already likened him to a worm, and I do not care about getting
+reptiles on the brain, especially this late at night. Also I might say
+that he is like a lake of quicksilver, except that such a body would
+resemble a stagnant, green-scummed pool compared with the surface
+spring of his opinions--opinions which vary with the tinkle of silvery
+sounds.
+
+Yet the fact is there, and as immovable as a window-sash in wet
+weather, that he is the most popular man in the state. And, while what
+I have repeated about him is truth, or as near truth as anything is
+supposed to be in politics, it is disloyal gossip coming from me
+_now_, for Jim Blake is at home at present, he is unpledged, and we
+are hoping high hopes that he will come out on our side. The spectacle
+is pretty much like a body of priests which might be standing by
+watching for the devil to shed horn, hoofs and tail and put on a clean
+collar, buttoned behind.
+
+With their zest for canonizing their leaders I wonder what the
+temperance workers _will_ do with a man as handsome as Richard
+Chalmers is said to be? How the "popular young ladies" of the towns
+will fall over one another in trying to present him with a great sheaf
+of roses at the close of his speech! I hate that bouquet-presenting
+worse than anything else done by the women who mix up with candidates!
+Men hate it, too, and when I sounded Rufe on the subject he just
+frowned and said: "Oh, it's _awful_, but what are you going to do?" I
+suggested that he have the candidate say "Please omit flowers," or "I
+will not look upon the roses while they are red," or words to that
+effect, at the close of his speech.
+
+But Rufe shook his head sadly.
+
+"There are three things in this life that a woman is a fool about," he
+explained to me, "the surgeon who removes her appendix, the minister
+who saves her soul, and the politician who lets her 'take on' over him
+in public!"
+
+"But the candidate _hates_ the flowers and the praying at the polls and
+the general patting on the back like 'he's-mamma's-good-little-boy'
+that they inflict upon him, doesn't he?"
+
+"I should _think_ so," Rufe admitted.
+
+I was studying over this phase of the next year's campaign when I
+attacked the pile of papers in my lap and was wondering if Richard
+Chalmers would hate the fuss they would inevitably make over him.
+
+June 14, 15, 16, I glanced through without finding anything of
+interest, and it was tiresome work. Oh, why did I not realize at the
+time these papers were fresh and new that they held a "pearl of
+wondrous whiteness?" It would have saved all this trouble. But likely
+Mammy Lou had used the _very_ one to kindle the fire with. That would
+be worse than tramping the rare jewel in the ground! Ah!
+
+Was it prophetic that just as I was thinking over the words "rare
+jewel" the object of my search met my eyes? Of course, you are not
+stupid, my journal, and you have long ago seen that I was looking
+diligently for all the news, but _mostly_ the picture of Richard
+Chalmers, the good-looking young David who might slay the monster
+Goliath, if he would take his smooth pebble from a _brook_ and not
+from a brewery!
+
+Well, it was the picture I found, and his name was in big letters
+beneath. I looked at the face first, then quickly at the name, but I
+put the two together with difficulty.
+
+"So Richard Chalmers is _you_!" I said aloud in my surprise. Then I
+stared at the picture as steadfastly as Ahmed Al Kamel must have
+looked at the portrait of the princess, the first woman's face he had
+ever seen. A feeling of superstition came stealing over me and daring
+me to say that this was only a happen-so.
+
+"So it's _you_," I repeated without moving my eyes from the picture,
+"and that must be why I felt such a curious interest in this political
+business."
+
+The stuffy heat of the tight little room, the piles of dusty old
+papers, the politics and rumors of politics were all forgotten in a
+twinkling as my memory bounded back and even took in the details of
+the landscape that dull day last November when I saw him first. Alfred
+Morgan had asked me to drive with him out one of the pikes where he
+had a call to make. I was at Cousin Eunice's and he had called me by
+telephone to ask me to go; Cousin Eunice and Ann Lisbeth were
+wrestling over an intricate shirt-waist pattern, but they both stopped
+long enough to insist that it was too cold for me to go so far out
+just for the fun of going. But I insisted equally as firmly upon
+going, so Ann Lisbeth made me wear her motor bonnet and long fur coat,
+which were very becoming.
+
+Our route lay out one of the pikes which I like most, a beautiful
+driveway, with a lovely little Jewish cemetery about three miles out.
+I found that it _was_ cold, and when we reached the cemetery I asked
+Alfred to put me out so that I could walk around a bit and try to get
+warm--while he made his call just a short distance farther up the
+road. He could honk-honk for me if I had wandered out of sight by the
+time he came back. We frequently did that way.
+
+Then it was that I first saw Richard Chalmers, coming out of the
+little red lodge house at the gates of the cemetery. He was dressed in
+gray, with a long gray overcoat and a soft gray hat; and his fairness
+made no break in the dull monochrome of the surroundings. The
+brilliant-hued lodge, with the Oriental dome, made the only warm spot
+of color in my line of vision, but he was looking at me, too, and I am
+sure he saw other spots of color, for my face flushed somewhat as I
+recognized him as being the first man I had ever seen in my life whom
+I cared about looking at.
+
+He must be tall, for the coat he wore that day was quite long, but I
+do not remember taking in any details except his face. This was
+natural, for it appeared to me then as being a very good face to look
+at, even aside from the peculiar charm which afterward made me
+remember it so. Cameo-like in its distinctness, with steel-gray eyes,
+it reminded me of the face I used to tell Jean about years ago when we
+each had an Ideal. "Cold-blooded and lean as Dante," my description
+had been in those bygone days, and Richard Chalmers' face strangely
+fitted it, though by no means so cold nor so lean as I had formerly
+thought necessary for perfect charm. It was only lean enough to be
+intellectual-looking, and, if the keen gray eyes were cold, they were
+also strong. His hair was short and of a very light-brown color; I
+remembered this distinctly, for he had taken off his hat as he bade
+good-by to whoever was inside the lodge, and he had stood a moment
+bareheaded as he saw me, and looked at me with a degree of well-bred
+surprise. There was nothing unusual in this, for, in driving out the
+country roads with Alfred and Doctor Gordon, I have often observed
+that when two well-dressed people pass each other they usually look.
+Each one is likely wondering what the other is doing so far from the
+madding crowd.
+
+I was wondering what he was doing, Anglo-Saxon that he so evidently
+was, coming from a Hebrew cemetery; then he untied the hitch-rein of a
+horse that was restlessly twitching its head at a post near by, jumped
+into the light buggy and drove off. Alfred and I passed him a little
+later on, for he had been driving slowly, evidently to the distaste of
+the horse. The creature was just the kind of animal you would expect a
+man of his appearance to drive--slim and satiny and fast. Alfred
+slowed up as we were passing, for the horse had drawn quickly to one
+side of the road and was trembling with fright. The man in the buggy
+held a tight rein and spoke a soothing word to her, then turned and
+regarded us again. My heart bounded as our eyes met, and I wondered
+why he had driven back to town so slowly.
+
+The marked look of intellect which his face bore gave it an appearance
+of asceticism, which his handsome clothes and general make-up belied.
+He looked almost as unworldly as a monk--a monk fashionably dressed
+and driving a race-horse!
+
+We passed each other again the very next week, in the lobby of the
+city hall this time, where I had gone with Ann Lisbeth to pay the
+water-tax. He was talking with two men, and, as he recognized me, he
+drew both of these men slightly to one side that Ann Lisbeth and I
+might make our way to the elevator without being crowded. This time I
+had passed so close to him that I could see the tiny lines around his
+eyes, left there by the warring elements of his character, I imagined
+afterward, when I was trying to recall every feature with its own
+expression and thereby piece out, to my own satisfaction, a nature for
+my impressive Unknown.
+
+"He may do bad things sometimes," I finally concluded triumphantly,
+"but he never enjoys doing them, because he has a conscience that
+will not let him."
+
+Once again I saw him, some time afterward, at the entrance of a
+theater one crowded night when the most popular actress on the
+American stage was playing. An emotional little actress she is, whose
+feelings seem to be stationed largely in her finger-tips, for she uses
+them as if she were talking to deaf mutes with them. I criticized the
+play, pronounced the leading man a "plumber," made remarks about the
+extravagant finger-play and otherwise spoiled my pleasure to such an
+extent that I realized for the first time what a hold upon my
+imagination the face of this Unknown had taken. He had passed quite
+close, but he had not seen me!
+
+After this I had thought about him very often, and, while he was not
+exactly only a "type" to me, as I had been careful to explain to
+Cousin Eunice, still, as the weeks slipped by and I had not seen him
+again, his face became a kind of pleasant picture that I might draw
+out sometimes and look at. A miniature, it must have been, for I
+carried it with me everywhere I went; and it always seemed to bring
+with it a sudden radiance, like a burst of sunshine at the close of a
+dreary day.
+
+A burst of sunshine at the close of a dreary day! The words were
+lingering pleasantly in my memory when I was called back to earth by
+the united voices of my family.
+
+"Ann!" mother called. "_Ann!_"
+
+"I've looked all over the place for her," I heard Cousin Eunice say,
+and the sound of hurrying feet toward the dining-room gave me a
+suggestion that it was time to eat again.
+
+I ducked through the pantry door and made my way up-stairs without
+being seen by any one. I bathed my face in cold water, which helped a
+little, then I came on back down-stairs and faced them. They all
+looked up at me. It was awful!
+
+"Where you been at?" Mammy Lou inquired in a low but penetrating voice
+as I passed her at the dining-room door; and the question was repeated
+in other degrees of sound and grammatical precision. They were all
+looking at my damp forehead.
+
+"I tried to find you an hour ago," Cousin Eunice said, "I wanted to
+tell you the news."
+
+"And I wanted you to polish the silver on the sideboard," mother said
+in an injured voice.
+
+"Ann, we looked evvywhere fer you," Waterloo chimed in, with his mouth
+so full that Cousin Eunice's attention was attracted to it and she
+made him unload the portions of nourishment that were visible
+externally. "Me and Grapefruit found a little _tarrypin_. Aunt Mary
+said you wasn't scared of 'em!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad it was nothing more important than a 'tarrypin' that
+needed my ministrations," I began, thankful for a topic so entirely
+earthly, but there was a hue and cry.
+
+"Important!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed. "There are three mighty
+politicians coming here to dinner to-night!"
+
+"And the silver needs polishing," mother supplemented.
+
+"Rufe was talking with them over the telephone this morning," father
+explained. "They are in Bayville at a temperance rally and will have
+to come here to-night to catch a car back to the city. Mother and I
+thought it would be a shame to let them go to the hotel for
+dinner--they're such friends of Rufe's."
+
+"Now, you needn't lay it on Rufe," mother said, smiling at him. "You
+know that if an Englishman dearly loves a lord, an American dearly
+loves a lion. It's _you_ who want to hear them roar."
+
+"Richard Chalmers is the only lion, so don't look so startled, Ann,"
+Rufe said, as he began passing me things to eat; but I was not hungry.
+
+"The other two likely eat with their knives," Cousin Eunice added
+soothingly, as she still used her endeavors toward having Waterloo
+feed himself like an anthropoid being.
+
+"Oh, Ann doesn't worry over company," mother said, as she glanced at
+me again. "She's been asleep. That's what makes her look--startled."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PRINCE CHARMING
+
+
+I had not been asleep, but I had been in a dream; a dream from which I
+had awakened to a state of greater unreality.
+
+After the meal was over and the family had all left the dining-room I
+was still in a dream as I rolled my sleeves up high and began giving
+hasty dabs with the metal polish to the ancient silver on the
+sideboard. How delightful it is to have heirloom silver! I failed even
+to grow cross over the long, hot search for flannel cloths and the
+gritty feeling which this distasteful task always leaves around my
+finger-tips.
+
+Still in a dream, I stood at the back kitchen door and watched Dilsey
+decapitate the plumpest fowls the poultry yard boasted. I saw Lares
+and Penates flying up and down the cellar steps, and to the garden,
+orchard and vineyard--all at the same time. Later on in the afternoon
+I was still dazed when I saw the ominous black signs of a
+thunder-storm coming up darkly from the southwest; and I heard father
+out in the hall using strong language at the telephone when he learned
+that the liveryman had sent Bob Hall, the town idiot, to Bayville to
+bring the lions back.
+
+Now Bob Hall is a kind-hearted, narrow-eyed lad, whose mind has never
+been right because his mother drove twenty miles to a circus just
+before he was born, so the villagers explained; but, be that as it
+may, Bob has never been able to learn much beyond when to say "Whoa"
+and "Git up," but the joy of his life lies in saying these, so that
+the liverymen of the town are glad to have him hang around the stables
+and help with the horses at feeding and watering-time. Because the
+regular driver was a little drunker than usual to-day Bob had been
+sent to Bayville on that delicate commission!
+
+"He's just as likely as not to dump 'em out in a mud-hole," father
+said wrathfully, as he hung up the receiver when mother implored him
+to leave off swearing over the telephone during an electrical storm.
+"He'll make some kind of mess of it--you see if he doesn't."
+
+I shuddered as I pictured that elegant gray overcoat all disfigured
+with mud; then I shuddered again at being such an idiot as to imagine
+he would have on an overcoat in August. And I wondered how he would
+look without it, and decided that he would look grand, of course!
+
+About five o'clock the storm burst in good earnest, the rain coming
+down in heavy sheets at first and later settling into a lively drizzle
+that promised to be good for all night.
+
+With the rain came a noticeable effort on the part of father's
+rheumatism to attract attention to itself; and Mammy Lou began
+clapping her hand over her right side in an alarming manner.
+
+Ever since an attack of gall-stones which she suffered over a year
+ago, and through which she was safely steered by Alfred Morgan--which,
+of course, placed him upon an Alfred-the-Great pinnacle in the
+affections of the whole family--we have all turned in and helped Mammy
+Lou with her work. Especially when company is coming we agitate our
+minds over the actual meat and bread part of the entertainment, which
+I abominate, for personally I am domesticated only so far as frothy
+desserts and embroidered napkins go; and I am now able to understand
+the decline of hospitality in the South.
+
+Why, since mammy's spell I have actually learned how to "do up" my
+best blouses, which is a joy so long as I am working on the front,
+where the embroidery stands out in satisfying bas-relief, but I am
+ready to weep and long for father's vocabulary by the time I reach the
+gathers of the sleeves. I should certainly let these go unironed if
+mammy did not always come to the rescue with a few deft strokes of the
+Gothic-shaped end of the iron.
+
+I must say, though, that she accepts our help with an exalted
+indifference, for, since that awful pain in her side, things temporal
+have been of small moment with her. She has turned to the comforts, or
+discomforts, of a deeply Calvinistic religion, and is so keen-scented
+after sin that when I darn stockings on Sunday morning I have to lock
+my door and pull down the window-shades.
+
+The only symptom of remaining worldliness which I have noted since her
+belated conversion, besides her overwhelming desire to get me married
+off to Alfred (my only rival in her affections) was exhibited early
+this last spring, when her above-mentioned "boarder" was a new-comer
+in our neighborhood and father had engaged his services to "break up"
+the garden.
+
+Sam, the homesick stranger, made strong appeal to mammy's hospitality,
+quite aside, as we thought, from the natural susceptibility of her
+affections. The man was big and _yellow_, mammy's favorite color in
+husbands, and I scented danger one night soon after he came when I
+happened to see her place before him on the table in the kitchen a
+mighty dish of "greens" flanked on all sides with poached eggs.
+
+He was busily plying her with questions, between mouthfuls, and when
+he asked her point-blank "what aged 'oman she was" she threw her head
+so coquettishly to one side that she splashed half a plateful of "pot
+liquor" on the floor, as she responded airily: "Oh, I don't rickollect
+exactly! I'm forty-five, or fifty-five, or sixty-five--somewhere in
+the _fives_!"
+
+We held our breath for the next few weeks, expecting at any moment to
+hear that mammy had decided to out-Henry Henry Eighth, but her
+religion was too fresh and too enjoyable for her to resign it and
+marry the seventh time, which she realized would be a bad example for
+her progeny. Still, there was Sam, in dangerous propinquity, three
+times a day; and he was broad-shouldered and _enchantingly_ yellow!
+She withstood, as long as it was in her poor, affectionate heart to
+withstand; then she compromised and took him as a boarder! After
+searching about for a means of easing her conscience for this
+concession she lit upon Lares and Penates as brands to be snatched
+from the burning; and she taught them such doleful facts about the
+uncertainty of their salvation that the last time Alfred was down here
+we persuaded him to threaten her with nervous prostration for Lares if
+she persisted in her gloomy preachments.
+
+"A boy or girl's responsible for they sins as soon as the bumps breaks
+out on they faces," she was telling them this afternoon, when the
+storm was at its worst, and the two sat huddled with Grapefruit behind
+the stove, like poor little frightened chickens in a fence corner.
+
+Mother, who had not seen the meaning gestures that mammy had been
+making toward her volcanic right side, was inclined to make light of
+the sins of the twins, and suggested that they come out from behind
+the stove, so that the minute the rain held up a little they could run
+on down to the ice-factory and tell the man to hurry with the ice. We
+were going to have our favorite caramel cream that night.
+
+But with mother's advent into the kitchen the pains in mammy's side
+grew much worse, and she began suggestions that she didn't know but
+what the Lord was going to strike her with another spell, "for the old
+dominecker rooster had been crowin' sad all day!"
+
+The rain kept on, and late in the afternoon the ice-man telephoned
+that some of the machinery at the factory was broken, so there would
+be no ice! Then father's rheumatism suddenly grew so bad that we had
+to stop our preparations for the feast, and spent half an hour
+searching for the stopper to the hot-water bag. He must have that bag
+put to his shoulder, he declared, but after we gathered all the
+essentials together and put it there he could not stand it on account
+of the heat!
+
+Upon going back to the kitchen to temper the water down a little I was
+astounded at mammy's declaration that, if Dilsey would go down to the
+cabin and bring up her easy chair, while I held an umbrella over it,
+she would _try_ to stay up long enough to direct _us_ about finishing
+that dinner! Did ever a girl have such dreams and such nightmares
+mixed up together?
+
+Night descended rapidly, as night has ever had a way of doing when you
+are in a fearful hurry, and mother was distractedly searching through
+her recipe book for a dessert that could be quickly made, yet when
+finished would be grand enough to set before gubernatorial timber!
+
+Her maternal love had caused her steadily to refuse my help with the
+dessert, and she made me run on up-stairs for a final bath and a few
+minutes of manicuring before time to dress. "Be sure to dress
+carefully," she had bidden me, as she always does, for sometimes I am
+inclined to be a little absent-minded in the matter of hooks and eyes;
+but her warning was superfluous to-night.
+
+"Make yourself beautiful--an' _skase_," is Mammy Lou's favorite slogan
+in the campaign after masculine admiration, and I had prepared to
+carry it out so far as nature and instinct would permit. I had
+carefully pressed my prettiest white gown, a filmy, ruffled thing, and
+spread it out on my bed, with a petticoat that was long enough, but
+_not_ too long, lying conveniently near. Where is the woman who has
+not shed tears and used feminine profanity because she could not find
+exactly the right petticoat at an eleventh-hour dressing?
+
+As I came into my room I glanced toward the bed with a feeling of
+complacency, then I turned on the lights and looked more closely. My
+hopes fell and I saw that the gown had shared in the general
+determination of everything on the place to go wrong that afternoon
+because we were so particularly anxious that all should go right. A
+window near the bed had been left open, in the hurry and confusion,
+and the dress had seemed to drink in every bit of dampness that it
+could find lying around loose. It looked as limp and dejected as if it
+had slept in an upper berth the night before. I had no other thin
+dress that was available, with all its attachments, at that hour, so I
+laid aside my ambition to look romantic and slipped on a
+shirt-waist--with a collar so stiff that it scratched my neck until I
+looked as if I bore the marks of the guillotine.
+
+Toward eight o'clock, after it was inky dark, and mother had got her
+dessert safely stored away in the refrigerator to cool, she and I were
+taking a breathing spell in the dining-room, although we were holding
+our breath every other minute, listening for the approach of wheels,
+when the night began to be made hideous by the sounds of the most
+violent calf distress down in the lot.
+
+"Ba-a-a-h! _Ba-a-a-a-ah!_" came in hoarse, hollow bellows to our
+already overstrained ears.
+
+"It's that hateful little Jersey," mother said, starting up and going
+toward the kitchen. "He has his head caught in the fence again!"
+
+"You sit still," I said, drawing her back toward her chair, "I'll go
+and send Penates to unfasten him."
+
+There were savory odors in the kitchen, and mammy was so interested in
+the final outcome of the meal that she had abandoned her temporary
+throne and was stirring around the stove as usual. The three little
+negroes were gathered at the window, looking out into the blackness
+and listening with enjoyable horror at the turbulent sounds from the
+cow-lot.
+
+"Go and unfasten him, Penates," I said. "He'll kill himself and us,
+too, with that noise!"
+
+But Penates looked at me to see if I could be in earnest. When he saw
+that I was he began to whine.
+
+"I's a-skeered to!" he half whimpered.
+
+"The idea! A great big boy like you! What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Granny's done tol' us the devil's gwiner ketch us," he began, and, as
+he saw mother coming in at the kitchen door, he looked appealingly
+toward her; but the nerve-racking strain of the afternoon had done
+its work with her--and the calf voice was something frightful!
+
+"Your granny's an old idiot," she said forcefully, looking with wrath
+toward the stove, where mammy was peering into the oven in an entirely
+detached fashion. "You go straight and unfasten that calf!"
+
+"Mis' Mary, I declare he'll ketch me ef I so much as step outside the
+do' there in the dark! Granny's jus' now tol' us he's watchin' ever'
+minute to ketch us--"
+
+"Lou, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to stuff these children's
+minds full of lies!" mother said, exasperated out of all semblance of
+her gentle, even-tempered self by the piled-up mishaps of the
+afternoon and the anguish of the present moment.
+
+In case you have never heard a calf with his head caught in the fence
+I will state, under oath, that the diabolical sounds of the Brocken
+scene in Faust are dulcet music compared with the cry for help that
+the terrified creature sends forth. It usually brings the neighbors
+for miles around to find out the cause of the trouble, or rather _why_
+the trouble is permitted to continue--for every one who has ever heard
+it once knows its sound for ever. What an unlovely salute for Prince
+Charming when he should drive up in the rainy, black night, I was
+thinking in agony!
+
+Mammy straightened up and looked at mother as steadfastly as she had
+looked the day she announced her determination of marrying Bill
+Williams, the "Yankee nigger."
+
+"It's a _sin_ to teach children about the devil!" Mother's voice was a
+challenge.
+
+"_Sin?_ Why, Mis' Mary!" Mammy's tones were husky with horror. "An'
+you been a church member for thirty years!"
+
+"Well, the devil has never entered into my calculations in all those
+thirty years," mother responded hotly, not observing that father had
+slipped up close behind her and was listening to the theological
+controversy with an amusement which had routed his rheumatism.
+
+"Well--that's between you an' your Maker," mammy argued stoutly. "I'm
+goin' to treat _my_ devil with some respeck, if white folks _don't_
+mention theirs no mo' than if he was a po' relation that lived in
+Arkansas!"
+
+Father was smiling almost audibly, but mother was not looking in his
+direction--and the little Jersey had evidently found no balm in Gilead
+for his afflicted head!
+
+"I don't believe there's any _such_ thing as a devil!" mother finally
+broke out with vehemence; and she had turned quickly around as if she
+would go to the cow-lot herself, when she beheld father standing
+there, a look of amazement upon his face.
+
+"_Mary!_ Have I lived to hear you deny the faith of your fathers?"
+
+But mother was in no mood for banter.
+
+"Don't _you_ talk to me about the devil, Dan Fielding!" she said,
+facing him squarely, and reluctantly unfolding her daintiest linen
+handkerchief to wipe the little beads of perspiration from across her
+upper lip. "I've had enough to make me believe in him this day, with
+three politicians coming, and a thunder-storm, and a broken
+ice-factory, and rheumatism and gall-stones!"
+
+"Well, you know _you_ were the one who suggested inviting them here,"
+father defended himself, Adam-like.
+
+"Well, maybe I was, but I should never have dreamed of such a thing if
+you hadn't said, with that woebegone look of yours that you wished
+you could see them and hear them talk about the latest phases of the
+situation! Then, just to please you, I suggested that it was too bad
+to let them go to that dreadful hotel for dinner, when it would be no
+trouble for Mammy Lou to prepare one of her delightful meals!"
+
+"Of course, neither one of us could know beforehand how deucedly
+contrary everything was going to turn out to-day, else I should have
+told you _not_ to invite them"--father was reiterating in what he
+intended for a soothing tone, when all of a sudden I heard the tramp
+of feet upon the front porch, for my ears all the time had been
+straining in that direction, else I should never have heard them, far
+away as the kitchen is, and with that hideous noise.
+
+"_Hush!_" I implored, as the footfalls grew quite distinct and I
+pulled down my cuffs, settled my belt, fluffed my hair out a little
+more at the sides, and flicked a tiny feather off the toe of my shoe.
+"They've come!"
+
+"And Ann in a shirt-waist suit," mother sent after father as a final
+shot when he started toward the front part of the house, "and that
+bovine orchestra!"
+
+She hurried into her bedroom and made a motion with her powder-puff
+before she followed father, while I stopped in the dining-room and
+gave a glance of satisfaction at the shaded lights, the old-fashioned
+good taste of the furnishings, and the quantities of roses. The table
+was perfect, and I knew mammy too well to doubt that the dinner, too,
+would be everything that palate or eye could desire; then I glanced
+into the great old gold-framed mirror hung above the mantelpiece.
+
+"I believe he'll enjoy his dinner," I decided, nodding in a friendly
+fashion toward the reflection in the glass; and, hearing the voices
+still coming from the direction of the porch, I hurried on out there.
+
+They had come! In truth they had come, but alas it was not Richard
+Chalmers and satellites! It was Miss Delia Badger, Mrs. Sullivan and
+Neva, drenched and bewildered, that Bob Hall, the fool, had brought
+from Bayville!
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Fielding," poor Mrs. Sullivan was saying beseechingly, as
+she looked at mother's startled face, "_do_ you know what's happened
+to Tim? We was to stay another week at maw's, but when Bob Hall drove
+into Bayville at dinner-time to-day and said he'd come after somebody
+that wanted to get took back here to Mr. Fielding's house, I knew it
+must a-been Tim took sick and sent for me! So we all piled right in
+without waitin' for me to belt down my Mother-Hubbard!"
+
+"Jumping Jerusalem!" said father, and the calf bellowed dismally.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Investigation had shown the Sullivan cottage to be locked and barred,
+and the supposition was that Tim, although not already sick, was in a
+fair way to be so in the morning, as persistent telephoning on my part
+finally located him at the drug store with a crowd of friends whose
+company was both cheering and inebriating.
+
+"I better git Bob to drive down there an' git 'im," Mrs. Sullivan
+suggested forlornly, looking at Bob, who was leaning against one of
+the big, white columns and twirling his cap around on one finger.
+
+"For heaven's sake, _don't_," father objected. "He'll be just as
+likely to drive up with the county undertaker as with Tim Sullivan!
+I'll go myself."
+
+"But who'll get the calf out of the fence corner?" mother asked
+anxiously, as father walked to the hat-rack for an umbrella.
+
+"_Me!_" cried Bob, speaking for the first time, but to so much purpose
+that we all beamed gratitude upon him.
+
+So, after being "much tossed about by land and on the deep," the calf
+was finally loosed from his pillory, the Sullivans were settled in the
+sanctuary of their own home, the lovely dinner was eaten in silence,
+and our family went grumpily to bed.
+
+Then this morning early the three belated dinner guests drove in from
+Bayville. The two lesser lights caught the nine-o'clock car into the
+city, but Mr. Chalmers drove on to the little hotel in the village and
+later presented himself, in due calling season, at our house, with
+apologies for the catastrophe of last evening. Mother said he had
+spoken of it as catastrophe before I came into the room, but when he
+mentioned the accident to me later on in the day, as we two sat quite
+apart from the others, he referred to it as _calamity_.
+
+Father and Rufe urged him to spend the day, an invitation which mother
+warmly seconded after a moment's quick recollection of how many of the
+dainties left over from last night's feast could be creamed and pâted
+and souffled.
+
+He said it was rather necessary for him to be in town that day, but he
+stayed; and father and Rufe both remembered during the course of the
+forenoon that they had some matters to attend to which, if he would
+excuse them for half an hour or so, they would despatch with all
+possible haste and rejoin him before the ladies had quite had time to
+talk him to death!
+
+Rufe really did have some telephoning to the city to get through with;
+it is his regular morning duty; and father had to drive across part of
+our place to give directions about some fences which had been washed
+away last night. Of course, mother was needed about the dining-room,
+but Cousin Eunice, bless her, unselfishly betook herself off up-stairs
+out of pure kindness of heart!
+
+Even the day was one of those golden days which come at the very end
+of summer, when the cool morning air mounts to the head like old wine,
+and the rich afternoon sunshine seems to hover lovingly over the earth
+and rejoice in having fulfilled the summer's glorious promise. All
+through the morning the birds caroled as happily as if they thought it
+was winter instead of summer a-dying; then later, they settled down
+like the rest of the world in the hushed silence of the hot afternoon,
+when the heat causes a brilliant haze over the fields around; and it
+seems as if all nature rests.
+
+All my life this hour of summer afternoons has held a strange,
+undefinable sadness. When I was a little girl and used to spend long
+hours out under the trees reading, my book would always drop from my
+hand as this period of stillness came on, and my eyes would wander
+away to the intense blue of the sky and the dazzling whiteness of the
+distant clouds, while a small but persistent voice seemed to keep
+mocking my memory with the query: "_Can't_ you remember what used to
+happen on days like this?"
+
+And my memory would grope longingly away after the lead of that
+tormenting voice, and it would visit all the far-away lands of
+Romance, summer lands of sunshine always, Italy, India, Egypt--but it
+never would remember exactly. "Where Tasso's spirit soars and sings,"
+I used to repeat in a mystified wonder, for the beauties of his land
+were as familiar to me as my own fields and meadows.
+
+Then I grew older and learned about reincarnation of the spirit.
+"That's it!" I cried exultantly, hugging the beautiful mysticism to my
+heart. "That is _bound_ to be it!"
+
+Life took on a new significance, and then for months I felt myself one
+with the initiated! I was radiantly happy and achingly miserable with
+this new, intangible philosophy; then Alfred Morgan came along and
+told me that my vague memories were imagination; and that my restless
+longings came from a perpetual idleness. And I believed him, because I
+could not hear any statement from Alfred Morgan's lips without
+believing it.
+
+"I'd rather have tuberculosis than an imagination like yours, Ann," he
+had said, and he advised me to learn to cook.
+
+Perhaps it was the extraordinary beauty of the day and the
+surroundings that led our talk into unusual channels as Richard
+Chalmers and I walked out together through the golden afternoon haze.
+Yes, we had our hour alone again, as in the morning; but not by
+accident this time. He had graciously demanded it.
+
+"Can't you rescue me from Clayborne's relentless newspaper spirit?" he
+had asked in a low tone while we were at the table. I smiled assent,
+whereupon he looked at me gratefully and a few minutes later announced
+that I had promised to show him the orchard where those magnificent
+peaches grew.
+
+So it happened that when the rest of the family dispersed in different
+directions, early in the afternoon, I pinned on a big, flat hat--a
+white embroidered affair, with a great bow of black velvet
+ribbon--and walked with him out into the glow. Down the avenue of
+cedars we went and up the broad road, for the orchard can be reached
+through a big gate opening off the pike, and the distance is much
+longer around that way. We soon gained the desired shade of its
+luxuriant leafiness, and I pointed out to him our most noteworthy
+trees. He admired their beauty without looking at them.
+
+After walking around the orchard a bit we finally sat down on a
+fragment of stone wall, a prehistoric structure, which still protects
+a portion of the grounds; and he took off his hat and began to fan
+with it. His forehead was a little damp, and, as he wiped away the
+perspiration, I observed again the exceeding fairness of his skin. His
+hair, too, is so nearly light that the sprinkling of gray is almost
+unnoticed, save by the closest scrutiny.
+
+My survey of him, while at close range, was quite brief, for, after a
+remark or two about the heat at this time of day, he turned to me
+suddenly and asked with disconcerting straightforwardness:
+
+"What were you doing that day at the gates of the little cemetery?"
+
+"Oh! Why, I was walking around--trying to get warm."
+
+I longed to ask him what he was doing there.
+
+"I figured that day that you were a faithful little soul, going out to
+visit some hallowed spot. You looked so strikingly dark and _vivid_
+against the colorless background of the sky that I quite thought you
+were Oriental. Then the next time I saw you, in the lobby of the city
+hall--do you remember?--Well, you were with a tall, foreign-looking
+woman, a Russian, I imagined; so that convinced me--"
+
+"She is a Pole," I corrected, "but she's the wife of Doctor Gordon, a
+great friend of ours."
+
+"--and that convinced me," he went on, as if Ann Lisbeth's nationality
+were of no more moment to him than one of the bits of stone which I
+had gathered up from fragments scattered over the top of the wall, and
+was making white marks upon the solid rock sides with these tiny
+splinters, "that you were foreign." Then, in a lower tone, and with
+little hesitation in his delightful, drawling voice, he added: "I
+called you Rebecca--because I had to call you something."
+
+"How disappointing to find me a plain American girl!"
+
+"When I found this morning that you are an American girl--I deny the
+'plain'--I gave a start which I know was noticed by everybody in the
+room! It isn't often that I lose my self-possession, but I was
+_amazed_ to find you here, in this little town--and my friend,
+Clayborne's, niece."
+
+"His wife's cousin," I explained, but again he paid no attention to my
+interruption.
+
+"I had haunted the theaters and shopping districts for weeks last
+winter--looking for Rebecca," he finished up. "No wonder I was
+surprised to find that you are _you_!"
+
+He paused, waiting for me to say something, and, just because it was
+the last thing I wished to say, and because I would not, for the
+world, have had him suspect such a thing, I stammered out the truth!
+
+"I--I wondered who _you_ were, too," I faltered. "You are so entirely
+Anglo-Saxon-looking; and the place is Hebrew! Besides, it was such a
+very cold day to visit a cemetery!"
+
+He smiled a little, but politely caught at my bait.
+
+"I had been to see old man Cohen, the sexton. He is interested in
+politics."
+
+Then we fell to talking about foreign types of faces, a subject which
+he discussed extremely well, having traveled everywhere, as I felt
+sure he had when I first laid eyes on him; and from the types of
+beauty, we fell to discussing the various countries. He looked
+surprised at what he termed the "wistful" note in my voice when I
+asked him questions about my favorite lands; and he smiled when I
+explained to him that I have never been anywhere.
+
+"So much the better for your enthusiasm," he said with the provoking
+air of a person who has been everywhere and done everything--and found
+it all a bore. "I judge that you are a very enthusiastic young woman."
+
+"My daily life is punctuated with exclamation points," I admitted, but
+I longed to ask him how he knew I was enthusiastic. Still, it has
+always seemed in bad taste to me for a girl to try to draw a man into
+a long discussion of her personality--a new acquaintance, I mean.
+Mammy Lou's slogan, "Make yourself beautiful, and _skase_," can be
+applied in devious ways that she wotted not of when she handed it down
+to me.
+
+"I suppose that is partly on account of your age?" he said, still
+looking at me with his amused smile.
+
+My age! His tone and smile awoke a kind of resentment. He must feel
+himself infinitely older and wiser, else he would never assume that
+superior air.
+
+"Age has nothing to do with it! It is entirely a matter of
+temperament," I contradicted, with a little show of feeling. He smiled
+more broadly, and a hot flush of shame spread over my face as I
+recalled my dreams of this man. I had thought of him for months, had
+imagined him in every great and heroic rôle; had made a hero of him.
+Worse still, I fancied that he--perhaps--had thought of me; had stayed
+here to-day because he had found me! And here he was smiling down at
+me as he made playful remarks about my age!
+
+"Why should you look distressed over a mention of your age?" he
+suddenly broke in, so gently that I looked up in surprise and found
+his face grave. He had been reading my thoughts--at least in part.
+"Now, if you were as old as I--that would be something worth troubling
+over."
+
+"You? Yet the papers always speak of your youth. They will call you
+the 'boy governor' when you're elected."
+
+He was pleased at my words.
+
+"Or the boy who also ran--perhaps! But age is only a relative
+condition. My political friends call me a boy because I am only
+thirty-seven years old. Yet, to _you_ that age may seem patriarchal.
+Doesn't it?"
+
+I thrilled at the look of earnestness in his eyes. He was the one now
+who was concerned over what I thought of his age.
+
+"Rufe is thirty-seven," I answered, trying to make my tone
+non-committal.
+
+"And yet you call him Rufe!"
+
+"I've known him always. He's like my brother."
+
+"Well, if you should some day grow to know me 'always,' could
+you--even if I am thirty-seven--could you call me Richard?"
+
+I made several violent white marks upon the old rock wall with the bit
+of stone in my hand before I attempted to answer this, the most
+intimate question ever put to me by a man in my life. Except for
+Alfred I had never known any other man well, and had certainly never
+cared about sitting with one upon an old stone wall while the glorious
+summer afternoon slipped by. All I knew of even incipient love-making
+I had read in books, so that I could not tell whether his question
+meant much or little. I had told him earlier in the afternoon that I
+was booked for a long visit in the city this fall, whereon he had
+congratulated himself on his friendly footing with the Claybornes. It
+was possible he meant--
+
+"Could you?" he repeated softly.
+
+I stopped making marks and threw away the bits of stone. I had opened
+my lips to reply, although I do not know what I had intended saying,
+when there was an Indian yell close behind us.
+
+"Whoopee! Here he is again!" came an exultant voice, and, glancing
+around, we beheld a freshly bathed and dressed Waterloo, digging his
+white linen knees and elbows into the soft black earth, as he raised a
+radiant face and announced his second discovery of the "little
+tarrypin." Grapefruit followed him at a respectful distance, while
+Lares and Penates lingered shyly in the background when they espied
+us.
+
+"And here's _Ann_," Waterloo explained, in great triumph, waving his
+hand in my direction. "We can make her tote 'im back to the house for
+us. She ain't skeered of 'em!"
+
+"Quick! Tell me!" Richard Chalmers insisted, and his seriousness made
+me flippant.
+
+"Age has nothing to do with it! It is entirely a matter of
+temperament!"
+
+He laughed, quite like a boy, as he sprang down from the wall and
+extended both hands to help me. I grasped only one of his hands, and
+that very lightly, as I stepped to the ground.
+
+We joined the little band of hunters and thus formed a funny
+procession home. Mr. Chalmers and I were in the lead, his right hand
+gingerly clutching a most disinterested-looking mud-turtle, while,
+with the left, he attempted to help me over the rough places in the
+road. Waterloo was close at our heels, while the three little negroes,
+struggling with their giggles, tagged along behind.
+
+The task of "toting" a mud-turtle fitted so ill with his immaculate
+clothes and intense dignity that I laughed every time I looked up at
+him. And he laughed. Perhaps we should have done this, even if nothing
+funny had happened, for the late afternoon was so beautiful, and
+everything seemed so happy. The birds were all making a cheerful fuss
+over going to bed, and the tinklings that lulled the distant folds
+seemed to me, for the first time in my life, joyous.
+
+"I shall think of this scene the day you are inaugurated," I said,
+still laughing, after the mud-turtle had been deposited in an empty
+lard bucket and borne away by Waterloo and his retainers. We had
+found ourselves alone for a moment in the shaded, deserted library.
+
+"You'll be there?" he asked, turning toward me as I stood on the
+hearth rug and leaned my elbow against the white marble mantelpiece.
+As he had carefully wiped from his finger-tips the imaginary dust from
+the mud-turtle I had been studying his profile in the mirror. It was
+the most perfect face I had ever seen--unless--
+
+My eyes quickly traveled to the little oval portrait of Lord Byron,
+the old-time idol of my beauty-loving soul. I used to kiss his picture
+good night when I was twelve years old!
+
+I glanced back again to the living presence of beauty equally as
+perfect. His gray eyes were upon me.
+
+"You'll be there--if I am ever inaugurated?" he asked again.
+
+"Of course. But you'll never see _me_."
+
+Outside there was a glorious sunset, red and yellow and orange. It was
+like a sea of blood and a sea of gold, with a wonderful blending of
+the two. The radiance was trying to steal in at the shaded window, and
+I started across the room to open the blinds to its flood of glory.
+He put out his hand and stopped me.
+
+"If you were there," he said slowly in his deep, rich voice--which is,
+in itself, attraction enough for any _one_ man--"if you were there, I
+should be far more conscious of _that_ than of the inauguration."
+
+And the quick look which followed these words made a feeling of having
+been born again run in little zigzag streaks of joy to my finger-tips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+NEVA'S BEAU BRUMMEL
+
+
+Many days have passed since Neva and her mother made their dramatic
+return from Bayville.
+
+These days have seemed long to me, but short to Neva, for protracted
+meeting has been in progress--and she has had a beau swarm. The swell
+young clerk at the Racket Store, who says "_passé_," most Frenchily,
+and manicures his nails; a fat drummer who sells lard and sings bass;
+a "wild" young man who drives a fast horse, which the villagers all
+discuss above their breath, and who also does some other things which
+they take care to discuss--but in whispers; all these have been
+Neva's, besides Hiram Ellis, a young farmer whom she cares for most,
+but makes the most fun of behind his back.
+
+I know that she cares for him, else she would never have counterfeited
+a swoon one hot night in church when the service held on an
+unconscionable time and she feared that Hiram would become impatient
+and start on his five-mile drive to his farm, without waiting to
+escort her home, as was his custom when she happened to be
+unaccompanied by any of the "town fellows."
+
+From her point of vantage in the choir she could see that Hiram was
+restlessly moving his hands and feet about, although he was seated on
+the back bench and there was the church full of perspiring humanity
+between her and the gawky object of her secret love.
+
+The minister continued to exhort and to perspire, as he drank glass
+after glass of water; and, as the time for mourners seemed to draw no
+nearer, Neva took that night's destiny into her own hands and
+fainted--a stiff, peculiar faint.
+
+Fortunately she was sitting close by a small door which opens directly
+out into the cool night air, so that her carrying-out could be
+accomplished without any ungraceful display of uplifted feet and
+sagging petticoats. Neva's artistic temperament could never have
+endured that!
+
+The performance created small notice outside the choir.
+
+Hiram was around at that little back entrance in a twinkling, his
+good-natured, sunburnt face a picture of devoted anxiety. Neva was
+sitting on the steps shaking with a considerable degree of suppressed
+emotion, but not looking particularly ill, and insisting that her
+mother and Aunt Delia should go on back and hear the sermon to its
+end, if, indeed, it had an end. This they did, after seeing Hiram
+place Neva carefully in his buggy and start off home; but they failed
+to reach the choir in time to see the whisperings which had passed
+between two of Neva's rivals who sat there, and who were not
+unobservant of the peculiar nature of her fainting-spell.
+
+"It wasn't like any faint _I_ ever saw before," some one openly
+declared to Mrs. Sullivan after the service was over, whereupon the
+whisperings between the rivals were renewed; and several days
+thereafter the townspeople were frankly discussing Neva Sullivan's
+"spell."
+
+In less than a week after the incident which I have just related,
+because there is absolutely nothing of my _own_ happening that is
+worth relating, Neva ran over one day in a great flurry of excitement
+to consult my expert judgment as to what she should wear that night,
+as a young gentleman from the city had come down to see her and was
+coming out that evening to call.
+
+"A young gentleman from the city! How exciting!" I congratulated her.
+"But I didn't know you knew any of the Beau Brummels up there!"
+
+"That's the curious part of it," she explained as she sat down and
+panted a little, for she had run across the road and up our long walk.
+"I don't know him--never heard of him before. But he telephoned me
+from the hotel this afternoon that he had heard of me and had come
+down to see me on business. His name is Doctor Simmons, and he said he
+was very anxious to see me at once and give me some professional
+literature."
+
+"Some professional _what_?" I asked, for she was talking very fast,
+and her enunciation at best is not like a normal school teacher's.
+
+"Professional literature," she repeated, lingering over the words this
+time as if they were chocolate creams. "I told mamma maybe he is a
+poet. It sounded kinder like it, you know--him saying 'literature.'"
+
+"I don't believe that poets carry around _professional_ literature," I
+said, trying to let her down easy, for she is a sad little
+visionary--and somehow I have a sympathy for visionaries. But he was a
+_man_, a new man, even though he might not be a poet, so Neva's
+solicitude concerning him was in nowise dampened.
+
+"Well, that's what he said--'professional literature,'" she kept on
+flutteringly--inconstant little minx, when only a week ago she had
+disturbed "public worship" for the sake of driving home in Hiram
+Ellis' buggy!--"So mamma said I better come on over and ask you how I
+ought to dress to see him; and _oh_, how I ought to have the parlor
+fixed! You go up to the city so often, of course you know all the
+swell ways."
+
+"I reckon I _do_," I said confidently, for I could see the chance that
+my hands had been itching for ever since I took the education of Neva
+in charge. "First, you must empty the room of candy-boxes, for if he
+is a prospective suitor, you see, all those boxes would frighten him
+away. He would think you are entirely too popular already."
+
+"There ain't a girl in this town got half as many," she said rather
+wistfully, and I saw that the loss of the boxes meant bereavement to
+her. "Mine comes up to the top of the piano on _both_ sides, while
+Stella Hampton's don't more than fill in under the bottom of the
+center-table!"
+
+"But you must remember that he is a doctor," I reminded her
+soothingly, "and they are awfully queer about _germs_. He might get it
+into his head that those empty boxes were regular nests for them--and
+they may be, for all we know."
+
+"All right--if you say so," the poor child said sorrowfully, and I
+knew that her affection for me had been put to a fiery test.
+
+"Then the McKinley picture! It ought to come down. It is dismal,
+somehow--it might cast a damper over his feelings."
+
+"All right," she agreed again, much more willingly this time. "I know
+that Mr. Roosevelt _does_ look more cheerful, so, if you say so--"
+
+"But I _don't_," I almost shrieked. "We can put a tall vase of roses
+in the space so that no picture will be needed."
+
+"Oh, that will be lovely," she exclaimed gratefully; "and I'll wear
+flowers in my hair."
+
+"I believe black velvet ribbon will be prettier--just a band, you
+understand--no combs or fancy pins. Your hair is too pretty to be
+disfigured with ornaments."
+
+Her eyes showed slow, but gratified, comprehension.
+
+"And my dress--" she hurried on.
+
+"A rather plain white one," I suggested fearfully, for I apprehended
+trouble there as with the candy-boxes. "You see, he'll not like to
+find you with a dress which has lace all twisted and _tortured_ across
+the front--doctors are such humane creatures."
+
+"I'm just dying to see what he looks like!" she exclaimed, her eyes
+dancing. "And I'm so much obliged to you."
+
+"I hope you'll have a pleasant time with him," I started, when she
+looked at me in dismay.
+
+"Oh, surely I'll see you again before he comes! Can't you come over a
+little later on, or maybe after I'm dressed--to see if I am fixed all
+right, and if the parlor looks swell?" Her big dark eyes held a
+flattering appeal.
+
+"Why, of course! I'll be glad to get mother to run over there with
+me--just before time for him to come," and she gave my arm a gratified
+little squeeze and went away filled with charming anticipations.
+
+As the mystic hour approached, mother and I threw crocheted things
+over our heads and started across the wide road which lay between the
+houses.
+
+Drawing near the cottage we noticed a dim light bobbing about queerly
+just off the front porch, and mother clutched my arm in agony.
+
+"Surely--_surely_ they're not hanging Japanese lanterns out in honor
+of his coming!"
+
+"Oh, I hope not," I responded, feeling not at all certain as to the
+course which Neva's enthusiasm might take. But as we clicked the gate
+and passed on into the yard we discerned the generous outlines of Mr.
+Tim Sullivan rising from a rickety, three-legged chair, which he had
+placed directly in front of Mrs. Sullivan's nasturtium frame. This
+frame was but a poor skeleton affair, having been built in the yard
+early in the summer for the flowers to clamber up on, but the fall of
+the leaf was approaching, and the flowers had refused to clamber.
+
+In one hand Mr. Sullivan held a small, smoky lamp, the flame of which
+was entirely a one-sided affair; and in the other he brandished a
+paint brush. We knew it was a paint brush because it out-smelt the
+lamp.
+
+"Come in! Come right in," he invited us hospitably, and as he
+gallantly approached to light us on our way up the walk, we caught a
+whiff of his breath; and the paint brush and the lamp faded into
+insignificance in the smelling line.
+
+"Why, what are you doing, Mr. Sullivan?" mother inquired as she
+strained her eyes toward the nasturtium frame and saw big splotches
+of green paint smeared about at intervals upon its wooden gauntness.
+
+"I'm painting," he explained politely, as he held the lamp high above
+his head that it might cast its doubtful rays over the dark walk.
+"Just painting."
+
+"But why paint to-night?" she persisted, doubtless wondering if this
+was being done in honor of the "city beau."
+
+"Why, there ain't no time like the present, as I've always been told,
+you know, Mrs. Fielding," he further elucidated, his voice growing
+louder and louder as the distance between us increased, and as we
+gained the freshly-scoured front steps he moved back toward his field
+of operation and resumed his work. The wild sweeps of his brush gave,
+in the dim light of the unsteady lamp, the impression of some weird
+acrobatic performance.
+
+We went into the house and found the feminine portion of the family in
+a state of conflicting emotions. Mrs. Sullivan was perfectly limp with
+rage over the misfortune of having Tim even mildly drunk and
+disorderly on the night when Neva's destiny might be hanging in the
+balance. Neva herself was perturbed, but radiant, and was praying
+cheerfully that something might happen to check her father's artistic
+endeavors before the arrival of her beau. That Doctor Simmons was a
+suitor for her hand, impressed by her beauty in some mysterious and
+romantic manner, it had not entered into Neva's silly little head to
+doubt; and since one of her friends had seen the young gentleman at
+the hotel in the afternoon and had telephoned her that he was the
+swellest-est dressed man to enter that town since Heck was a pup, her
+expectations were soaring at dizzy heights.
+
+I found that fortunately she had spent the force of her own swell
+longings upon the attire of her mother this time, inasmuch as I had so
+urgently recommended simplicity for herself. The glittering combs and
+bandeau were adorning Mrs. Sullivan's head, rising resplendent from
+divers unaccustomed puffs and braids and curls. Mrs. Sullivan's hair
+ordinarily wore a look of conventual severity, as did her hat, but
+there was never any congeniality between the two. In fact they were
+never on speaking terms.
+
+"I done it to please Nevar," she confessed to me, smiling wanly at her
+reflection in the mirror, "but if I had a-had my way I wouldn't a-done
+it. I don't like it. If I had a tubful o' wet clo'es on my head it
+couldn't feel no heavier!"
+
+We were so cordially invited to remain and view the stranger from a
+speechless distance that we finally consented to do so, occupying
+straight chairs that would not creak and betray our presence as we sat
+at the front window of the room opposite the parlor and breathlessly
+awaited his arrival.
+
+Presently he came and we were repaid for waiting. When I had mentioned
+him in the afternoon as being a possible Beau Brummel I little
+realized what an inadequate term I had employed. Beau Brummel with all
+his diamond-studded snuff-boxes was never rigged up to compare with
+Doctor Simmons. In stature he was tall, in demeanor grave, in color
+red-headed. His trousers were very light and his shirt was very pink,
+while a large diamond stud gleamed from his glossy bosom. Two other
+great stones were set in rings. His shoes were tan, but his hosiery
+was not; and his broad straw hat had birds embroidered in the band.
+
+Neva received him nervously, her voice high-pitched and unnatural.
+Mrs. Sullivan bade us sit still while she tiptoed around through the
+back hall and up close to the parlor door, where she could overhear
+the announcement of his mission. Her maternal anxiety justified this.
+
+We sat an interminable time, it seemed, listening to Miss Delia
+Badger's low-toned conversation, which she felt must for politeness'
+sake be kept up; but there was no light in the room, and we were thus
+saved the pain of looking at her parti-colored hair, so it might have
+been worse.
+
+After a long time Mrs. Sullivan came in. We could not see her face,
+but her voice had the most doleful droop I had ever detected in its
+depths, and she collapsed into the nearest chair.
+
+"He's a fit doctor," she announced briefly, after a moment's strained
+silence.
+
+"A _what_?"
+
+"A fit doctor. He cures fits up at his hospital in the city. Somebody
+from here wrote him that Nevar had done had one. He'll give a
+gold-trimmed fountain pen for ever' name of a fitified person you'll
+send him."
+
+"How unkind of the one who wrote him about Neva!" mother exclaimed in
+an indignant whisper, but I was unable to speak.
+
+"'Twas some of them mean girls in the choir," Mrs. Sullivan pronounced
+lifelessly. "They're always so jealous of Nevar having the most beaus
+and the prettiest dresses."
+
+"Well, it's a shame!" mother repeated wrathfully.
+
+"What I'm worrying about _now_ is how to git 'im off without Tim
+killing 'im," Neva's mother continued, still in an apathetic whisper.
+"If he could catch the nine o'clock car out o' town to-night he would
+be safe, but it's mighty near that time now. If he was to leave this
+early and Tim out there painting he would stop 'im and ask 'im his
+business. Then there would be a killing on the spot."
+
+It was not clear whether Tim would kill Doctor Simmons for curing fits
+or Doctor Simmons would kill Tim for painting the nasturtium frame.
+But mother was all anxiety to avert either tragedy.
+
+"Well, we'll run right on home this minute," she said, rising
+hurriedly, and her inspiration was so sudden and so happy that she
+forgot to whisper, "and ask Mr. Sullivan to go with us. Then Mr.
+Fielding shall make him a mint julep--while you explain to the fit
+doctor that he would better make haste back to his hospital."
+
+There were grateful whisperings from Mrs. Sullivan and her sister.
+
+"And you'll have to use a lantern to wave the car down," mother
+turned back a moment to caution them, "for it's so dark they'll never
+see you if you don't."
+
+But Mrs. Sullivan did not wait to tamper with the chimney of a
+lantern. The smoky little lamp had been placed, still lighted, upon
+the edge of the porch when mother had mentioned mint julep to Mr.
+Sullivan. His wife caught it up and bore it along bravely after we had
+crossed the road and entered the thick shade of our walk. She was
+closely followed by a very homesick physician, whose one desire was to
+leave this quiet little town, and an outraged but still admiring Neva.
+
+As we gained our front porch mother whispered a quick word into
+father's ear and he hospitably bade Mr. Sullivan follow him into the
+dining-room, while she and I quickly turned and fled back down the
+walk to the front gate.
+
+Yes, they had him safely down at the car track, and in a very brief
+while the car came along. Mrs. Sullivan made spasmodic little signals
+with the lamp, which brought the car to a standstill, and also brought
+forth a thousand rainbow gleams from the jewels in her hair. Doctor
+Simmons stepped upon that running-board with all the alacrity of a
+newsboy with a bundle of "extras." He deposited his package of
+professional literature upon the seat in front of him, then turned and
+gravely lifted his hat to the ladies.
+
+"Thank goodness!" mother said with a sigh of genuine relief as we
+watched the car pull out. Then she turned to me and for the first time
+that evening I could discern a smile in her voice.
+
+"Ann," she said, trying to speak seriously, "when I see other women's
+daughters I know that I have much to be thankful for. You _are_ a
+star-gazer and a poor cook, but, oh dear--you don't have beaus from
+the city."
+
+"Touch wood before you boast," but she stopped and caught me by the
+arm.
+
+"What do you mean, honey?" she questioned. "Has Alfred--"
+
+"No, indeed. I don't mean anything except that I am at the age of Eve
+and--very hopeful."
+
+"Well, you _know_ what we all think of Alfred," she said, then stopped
+still at the lower step and broke off a dead twig from a rosebush near
+by. A shaft of light was shining from the hall and I could see that
+her face was very earnest. It was the first time in my life she had
+ever spoken to me of lovers.
+
+"And I think everything of Alfred that you do--and more," I assured
+her, "but I am not in love with him. I might be--if--under other
+circumstances----I might be, but not now!"
+
+She deliberately lingered at the steps, and we heard pleasant sounds
+coming from the dining-room.
+
+"Eunice and I fancied that Mr. Chalmers looked at you--er, rather
+attentively the other day," she ventured timidly, as if to try to draw
+me out, yet dreading a little the answer I might make.
+
+"That might have been imagination," I parried.
+
+"But--we also imagined that _you_ looked at him."
+
+"Well," I answered with a laugh which I hoped would sound light,
+"haven't you just said that I am a _star_-gazer?"
+
+With this admission I ran away up-stairs.
+
+Yes, I had looked at him. And since then it seemed that there had been
+nothing for my eyes to rest upon that did not bear the impress of his
+face.
+
+He had stayed through that long, perfect day, and had left when the
+cool, white night was at the zenith of its beauty. The cool, white
+night which, alas, had to be followed by a morning after! I had never,
+until then, felt this way about the morning, for it has always been my
+favorite time of day, my only thought upon arising being an eager
+craving for the sunshine. But then, I had never known until that time
+just what an exquisite thing night could be.
+
+There is a little sepia copy of the Sistine Madonna hanging across the
+room from my bed where I can see it the first thing when I awake every
+morning; and, on bright days there is a golden bar of sunlight which
+comes traveling in and across the ceiling until it falls upon the
+picture. I lie still and watch it until it has reached the Virgin's
+heart, then I get up and open all the windows to the light. It serves
+me in place of a clock, and much better, for it is true as to time,
+and it has no unpleasant way of striking a sudden and disenchanting
+note which breaks in upon my dreams.
+
+My warning little ray of sunshine was casting a spot of intense light
+directly upon the Mother's heart as I turned and glanced toward it for
+the first time on the morning after Richard Chalmers' visit, but I was
+so tired that I lay still until it had traversed the entire length of
+the wall and settled for a moment upon the floor. I was not enjoying
+that stretching, smiling, lazy luxuriance which I sometimes indulge in
+after a too brief sleep. That is a pleasant sort of lingering upon the
+threshold of the day, but this other feeling of mine was the
+deadening reaction which comes after a period of over-tension.
+
+"You are a nervous freak," I said disgustedly as I finally jumped out
+of bed after a soft suggestion from Dilsey that I should find my bath
+prepared if I could only be induced to get up and go seek it. I
+crossed the convent-like little apartment which it has pleased my
+fancy to fix up as a sleeping-chamber and made for a mirror in the
+adjoining room, for there is "some little luxury there"--flowered
+curtains and Battenburg table-covers and punched score-cards. I wished
+to see if there were outward and visible signs of the change which was
+causing such inward tumult.
+
+"You are a freak," I repeated as I looked in the mirror and noticed that
+my eyes appeared heavy and tired; and my tongue felt as thick as a
+Sunday morning newspaper. "It's a pity you can't keep your emotions
+stopped up in a vial and portion them out with a medicine-dropper--instead
+of _soaking_ yourself in them!"
+
+Dilsey had left the water running, as she has learned to do on
+mornings when I am unusually lazy, for no woman who has a domestic
+heart in her bosom can lie abed and run the risk of the tub
+overflowing and making a mess of the bath-room floor. I slipped my
+feet into some flip-flop Turkish slippers--if Turkish women have to
+wear such footgear as this I don't blame them for sitting still most
+of the time; but then they have the comfort of trousers, poor
+dears!--and went to turn off the water.
+
+"Of course he thinks you are an absurd young person who openly tried
+to make eyes at him," I mused, as I gave a savage twist that stopped
+that provoking sound of water wasting.
+
+When I had imagined, upon first seeing him, that Richard Chalmers had
+warring elements in his character I was only saying about him the
+things I knew to be true of myself. "He does bad things sometimes, but
+he never enjoys doing them, because he has a conscience that will not
+let him." This is my own disposition, and I fancied that it might be
+his, because his eyes bear a dissatisfied look, as if he did not come
+up to his own ideal of himself.
+
+Alfred Morgan is entirely different. I do not believe that he ever had
+a morbid regret in his life. In his work he is fanatically
+conscientious, doing the best he can and knowing that his best is as
+good as any other man's, for he does not attempt anything unless he is
+sure of his qualifications. This does not imply any lack of grief and
+worry when a patient "goes to the bad." He _does_ grieve, sitting with
+his head between his hands, while his black hair is ruffled up like a
+shoe-brush straight across his forehead. Sometimes he softly repeats,
+"Well, I'll swear! Well, I'll _swear_!"--in a baffled, helpless sort
+of way, but you know that he has not been helpless where any other man
+would have been potent. And he never has the soul-eating remorse which
+follows the knowledge that one might have done better.
+
+As to Alfred's _life_, I imagine that it is kept in the same condition
+of fitness that his body is--clean and wholesome, yet full-blooded and
+entirely normal. If he should meet red-robed Folly on a pleasant
+highway he would undoubtedly linger a while, taking off his hat
+politely and addressing her as Human Nature. He would shake hands
+good-temperedly as he left her and promise to come again some time
+when his business engagements would permit. But he would never give
+the matter another thought probably.
+
+Richard Chalmers' cold face proclaims an asceticism that would call
+the prettily dressed little Folly "Sin," yet I fancy that he would
+linger--much longer than Alfred, no doubt--and leave the gay fairy
+with a frown on his face, which would remain until the next morning,
+when he would throw his bootjack at his valet.
+
+Where was I? Oh, yes, I had just turned the water off! It's a good
+thing I did, too, before this digression, or the house would have been
+flooded.
+
+Again, what I have said of Richard Chalmers is also true of myself. I
+had lingered on the pleasant highways with a delightful Folly all day
+yesterday, which seemed to me in the cold light of day this morning a
+sort of Sin. A sin against good sense, I concluded, or against good
+taste, _especially_ if he noticed.
+
+"A horrid _young_ idiot! Of course that's what he considered you
+were." I kept torturing myself with these thoughts until others more
+agonizing still came to torment me. Suppose he had not thought of me
+at all!
+
+The dash of the cold water restored me to something much more nearly
+like my normal self, and by the time I had combed the tangles out of
+my hair and spoken to a pair of redbirds which live in a tree right by
+my window I was feeling poetry again. A shower of scattered cigar
+ashes, which Dilsey had not yet swept off the front porch, with two or
+three red-and-gold bands which I had noticed on his cigars, set me
+singing.
+
+"You're not an idiot at all, Ann," I commented, as I looked about to
+make sure that no one was near, then grabbed up one of these
+red-and-gold bands. "No _wonder_ you have lost your head over him, for
+he is perfectly beautiful, and you always did get intoxicated on
+beautiful things.--And if _he_ wasn't impressed too, his eyes were
+lying! No, they could not lie, because they are too lovely!"
+
+I knew that the family would all be talking about him at the
+breakfast-table, which I found to be true, and they were so absorbed
+in their talk that they all, except mother, gave me a perfunctory
+greeting as I came in. Strange to say, they were not talking about his
+good looks.
+
+"Well, he's had occasion to study the question in all its phases,"
+Rufe kept on with the subject at hand as I slid into my chair and gave
+myself up to the charms of a breakfast food. "He's studied it in
+nearly every land. He spent a part of last year in--"
+
+"I think one of the delights of wide travel is to be able to pronounce
+names of obscure places in such a way that stay-at-homes won't know
+what you're talking about," Cousin Eunice said, looking toward mother
+and me. She had not intended interrupting the masculine conversation,
+but Rufe stopped and listened to what she had to say, which proves
+that he is a model husband, I think--"Did you notice how he called
+Peru 'Payrhu' last night? Of course he's been there."
+
+"I noticed the new-fangled way he had with several of his words,"
+father said, a bit drily. "He differentiated between 'egoist' and
+'egotist.' He seems to have been _there_, too."
+
+"Surely," Rufe coincided so willingly that I was amazed. "But the
+quality of egotism possessed by this fellow is not the cheap,
+objectionable kind. He simply has unlimited faith in himself, and an
+unlimited ability of making other people do what he wants them to do."
+
+"A tyrant, then?" father inquired with a half-smile at Rufe's
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Not at all--a governor."
+
+"Well, who is he and where did he come from?" mother asked, coming
+into the discussion in an abstracted sort of fashion. "I never heard
+of him until the last few months."
+
+Then followed a long discourse concerning Richard Chalmers' past
+life, and his qualifications for the office which he might be called
+upon to fill--all of which fell like diamonds and rubies from their
+lips, for it was all creditable to him.
+
+The look of strength, which had told its own story the first time I
+had ever seen him, and which had since then held me in the spell of a
+fascinated memory--it was all true, then! As I listened to the story
+of how the man had, by sheer strength and personality, raised himself
+from being simply a well-thought-of young lawyer, with a good deal of
+inherited wealth, to his present position in the minds of the state's
+best politicians, I felt that he must possess that steel-clad,
+relentless, yet necessary attribute--power.
+
+Now, I revere power, whether in man, or beast, or automobile.
+
+"Next to marrying it, the worst way on earth for a man to get money is
+to inherit it," father said, apropos of the story we had just heard.
+"It's bad for the man, and it's bad for the money."
+
+We all laughed a little and agreed with father, then Rufe became aware
+of my presence for the first time.
+
+"And Mistress Ann has not had a word to say upon this interesting
+subject," he said chaffingly, looking around as if he had not seen me
+before, which in truth he had not, for he had been so absorbed when I
+came in that he merely nodded a "good morning" without detaching his
+mind from his discussion. "He was so visibly impressed, too."
+
+"Shut up, Rufe--teasing her," Cousin Eunice commanded after she had
+looked at my face.
+
+"I swear I wasn't teasing," he insisted more soberly. "I don't believe
+Chalmers looks at a woman once a year--he hasn't time for them, and
+besides, he's a cold-blooded devil--but he looked at Ann many times
+throughout the course of the day, to say naught of 'toting' home a
+mud-turtle for her dear sake. Then when he was leaving last night he
+asked me again whether the Fieldings were related to me or to my
+wife."
+
+"Did you tell him the truth or did you take the credit to yourself?" I
+inquired sarcastically.
+
+"No, I confessed that the beauteous blossom springs from the same tree
+that produced that perfect flower, Mrs. Clayborne. But I told him that
+the fact of my having 'raised' you invested you with a 'dearness not
+your due'--from blood ties alone."
+
+"Well, she will have the honor of being looked at by him a great many
+times this fall, when she goes home with us," Cousin Eunice said, then
+turning to mother she added: "And she will need a _bushel_ of pretty
+clothes, Aunt Mary."
+
+"I want one black dress, with a spangled yoke," I hastily put in, but
+was interrupted by little shrieks of disapproval from the two.
+"I--thought I'd have to look kind of _old_," I wound up, as they
+regarded me with amused surprise.
+
+After breakfast was over Cousin Eunice gathered up her tablet and
+pencil and nodded for me to come with her.
+
+"I want to look at your face as I write," she explained with a
+sympathetic smile, "for I am hopelessly stupid and commonplace. I
+can't even think of a surname for my hero that isn't already the name
+of an automobile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ALFRED
+
+
+Cousin Eunice's new house in the city, which is really a very old
+house with the addition of all the wires and pipes and hardwood
+trimmings which we think we can't live without these days, is a love
+of a place. They bought it for the height of the ceilings and the size
+of the rooms, where every member of the family can spread out like a
+fried egg. But its especial glory is the drawing-room, a long, stately
+apartment all tricked out in the deepest, wild-woodiest green.
+
+The walls and hangings are of the hue that our Mother Nature loves
+best, while the antique furniture is the color of chestnuts at
+Hallowe'en. There are dark-toned pedestals at intervals, holding jars
+of ferns, and the entire room presents such a perfect reproduction of
+a shady nook in the woods that Rufe declared at first he dared not
+venture into it, for fear of being snake-bitten.
+
+There is a big leather chair over in one secluded corner, a chair
+which will easily hold the entire Clayborne family, and, on nights
+when there is no company and they are in a sentimental mood, the
+married lovers pretend that the room is the ravine in which they did
+their courting, and that the big chair is the old gray rock they were
+sitting on when he proposed to her.
+
+This is a delightful make-believe--for them. Usually Waterloo and I
+are thrown upon each other for companionship, if it is late in the
+evening and Grapefruit has gone home.
+
+He often begs for music, which I am always glad to furnish, or would
+be if his taste were not so very pronounced and so limited, and does
+not by any means include my favorite classics.
+
+"You play 'Ditsie,' and I'll play 'Little Ditsie,'" his baby voice
+suggests, as he finds his French harp and blows a violent
+accompaniment. But if I tire of this and my fingers wander off into
+the mournful notes of the _Miserere_ from _Il Trovatore_ (another
+love of my youth) his harp and the corners of his mouth drop
+simultaneously, and he implores me not to play that "poor song."
+
+This has not happened very many times, however, for there is nearly
+always somebody here. The Gordons frequently, and sometimes Alfred.
+They never come together, for whenever Doctor Gordon goes out anywhere
+at night Alfred has to stay at home and attend to the calls that come
+in. This is what a "cub" is for; then, too, it gives the Gordons a
+better chance to talk about him, which they take as much pleasure in
+doing as if he were their own dear son.
+
+It is amazing how much they all think of Alfred. Not amazing,
+certainly, in any sense that he is not worthy of all the affection
+they bestow upon him, but I believe that it is seldom a girl has a
+young man thrown at her head so _unanimously_ as I have Alfred thrown
+at me by our loving friends.
+
+If he threw himself I should die, but he never does.
+
+He is frank, and loyal, and sober-sided; just a little merry with me
+now and then, but for the most part going his even-tenored way and
+doing his work without any more fuss and splutter than--a fireless
+cooker. He never talks about what he is going to do, although his eyes
+are so deep and brown that I feel sure he is a dreamer.
+
+He is the kind of man who seems to walk, with deliberate yet sure
+step, into the things he wants. This denotes, of course, that he has
+sat up late many nights, smoothing out rough places in the road, so
+that his course might be dignified and steady when he gets ready to
+run it.
+
+And, if Solomon--or whoever it was--told the truth about silence being
+golden, then Alfred Morgan is sinfully rich. He is timid, too, around
+women--_well_ women, I mean; and I don't believe he would ever have
+grown so fond of me if he had not first known me at an age when I wore
+such plain linen blouses and soft silk ties you couldn't tell whether
+I was a boy or girl.
+
+Even after my dresses began to sweep the ground I think he still
+thought of me as a boy. "You're a good little chap," he would say to
+me occasionally when I had done something for his comfort or pleasure;
+and I so entirely considered _him_ a boy in spite of those six years
+between us that I seldom felt to see how my hair was arranged when I
+would hear his footsteps approaching.
+
+Then, one day I had a rude shock about Alfred's degree of manhood.
+
+Ann Lisbeth and I were in his private office waiting for Doctor Gordon
+to get through with a string of patients which was overflowing the
+reception-room, and write out a check for her to take on a shopping
+excursion. (Things have changed with them since the days of their
+early married life, when Ann Lisbeth got a new dress only once a year;
+and then had to have it made by somebody who was owing her husband for
+a baby or a spell of measles.)
+
+There was plenty of space in Alfred's room, poor boy, and I was
+sitting in front of his desk, idly fingering some papers and journals
+lying around in scattered confusion.
+
+My attention was arrested presently by a small, oblong blotting-pad,
+with his name, Doctor Alfred Morgan, printed on the celluloid cover.
+The drug firms of the city sent such things out to all the doctors
+occasionally, but this was a particularly pretty one, with a little
+raised medallion on it--a picture of a stately stork approaching a
+cheery little cottage, with the fat, rosy, inevitable burden in his
+bill. The moon and stars were shining as they never shone on sea nor
+land, and there was a comfortable glow coming from the cottage
+windows, a glow of welcome, it seemed.
+
+It was a happy-looking little picture, but it brought a curious
+feeling of uneasiness to my mind.
+
+"Ann Lisbeth," I called, loud enough to cause her to look up from the
+magazine she was reading, yet not so loud as to be heard by Alfred,
+who was in the next room making a blood count. "Do you suppose they
+let anybody as young as Alfred do _this_?" I held up the picture.
+
+"Oh, my goodness," she laughed, looking not so much at the picture as
+at my horrified face. "_Young!_ Why, he has two pairs of twins _named_
+for him, besides a little girl whose happy parents are so fond of him
+that they made him name her. Her name is Ann Morgan."
+
+"The Ann is for _you_," I cried, my face flushing.
+
+"Nay, for you," she insisted, still laughing so that Alfred heard her
+and came in to see what it was that was so funny.
+
+"Some of Ann's nonsense," she explained, and I slapped the blotter
+into my purse before he turned and looked at me.
+
+After that I naturally began to treat Alfred with a good deal more
+respect, which he never seemed to notice.
+
+It was about this time that he began finding a "good class" of
+patients who were trusting enough or reckless enough to let him
+operate on them; patients who remembered his work at the hospital, or
+who were willing to take Doctor Gordon's word for it when he assured
+them that Morgan could do the job as well as he himself. Of course
+this last happened only when there was an emergency case that Doctor
+Gordon could not attend to, or an out-of-town call that promised to
+have so little compensation that the elder doctor felt that he would
+not be justified in leaving the city for it.
+
+And then it was that perhaps some old six-cylinder surgeon who
+happened to see the operation would go away and remark that he always
+knew Morgan was going to make good, for, by George! the fellow handled
+the knife like a veteran!
+
+These stories never failed to bring a thrill of satisfaction to my
+breast, for Alfred is my old chum, and I have already mentioned in
+here my reverence for power.
+
+Jean Everett likes Alfred almost as much as I do, and reads me long
+lectures upon the idiocy of my course. She religiously invites him out
+to her house when I am spending the week-end there and makes me dress
+up in absurdly coquettish things, in view of the fact that he has
+possibly seen me for the past seven days in the plainest of tailored
+clothes.
+
+Jean has not grown up to be a beauty, that is, not a beauty that could
+be marked off by rule, but she has that indefinable something about
+her exquisite get-up which makes you suspect that all her lingerie is
+stitched with thread number 120. So dainty is she in her pretty blue
+frocks that a poetic he-cozen of hers calls her a Wedgwood girl, but
+Guilford calls her his twenty-two carat girl, because her heart is as
+golden as her hair.
+
+I have been in the city only a little while--if I take the calendar's
+word for it; but it has seemed long to me, for the season of the year
+is that when everything is very dull. All the people who have country
+homes are reluctantly bidding them good-by and the signs of fall
+cleaning are disfiguring all the city homes. The theaters are
+publishing long lists of attractions which are coming later on, but
+now there is nothing.
+
+The only politicians I have seen I have met accidentally up at the
+_Times_ office--and they are all old, and wear long frock coats,--and
+look as if they chewed tobacco.
+
+So, as I promised in the first chapter that I was not going to bother
+you with daily details and venison pasties, I suppose I shall have to
+close this chapter without recording _one_ thing of interest. I can
+assure you, however, that you do not regret the dullness of it _half_
+so much as I do.
+
+But hold! Shall I forget Neva? Self-centered thing that I am! Because
+the last three weeks have been dreary and barren to me shall I not
+rejoice in the happiness of some one else?
+
+Among the other unimportant things which I have done since coming up
+to the city I have helped Neva get installed in a boarding-school for
+young ladies. An expensive place, it is, where for a certain
+unnaturally large sum each year they teach you to broaden your a's,
+sharpen your eyes, and loath your home surroundings for ever
+afterward.
+
+The matter had been under discussion for some days before I left home,
+and I set forth the pros and especially the _cons_ to Mrs. Sullivan.
+But the humiliation of the fit doctor's visit was fresh and galling;
+and Neva's boarding-school experience would more than turn her rival's
+triumph into Dead Sea fruit. She must be entered as a student at the
+beautifully named college.
+
+They came up together a week before time for the school to open, Neva
+and her mother, so that they could learn their way about the city a
+little and also buy Neva some new music and a supply of winter
+clothes.
+
+Now, Neva's songs, while new and silly, are sung in her buoyant young
+voice with so much gusto on the caressing words that they are a kind
+of actual music; a joyous sort of wholesome music, like the sound of
+the postman's whistle on a sunshiny morning, when you know that he is
+bringing you a love-letter! There goes my imagination again, for I
+never had a love-letter in my life! Not even a post-card, and it's
+been _three weeks_. Possibly dignified people do not write post-cards!
+Especially gubernatorial timber!
+
+Now, what started this digression? Oh, yes, Neva's silly songs which
+she bought while she was up here those few days before school
+commenced. I started out to say that they did not seem at all silly to
+me this time. I actually caught myself singing them over and over
+again and found considerable beauty in one that was a plea to some
+hardhearted beloved to make "ev'ry dream come true."
+
+Yes, I was delighted with Neva's new songs, and Neva was delighted
+with everything she saw in the city: with the pure linen shirt-waists
+marked down to one dollar; with the vast, dim cathedral which we
+would drop into to enjoy its solemn beauty nearly every time we were
+near it, after I found that Neva responded to its appeal; she admired
+the Egyptian mummies in the museum--the terrified delight of my early
+years; but she found the greatest joy in watching the fire-engines at
+work.
+
+Mrs. Sullivan remained strictly at home after her first day of
+tramping the city streets, which she declared "was the death o' her
+feet," so that Neva's bubbling accounts of the sights seen, when she
+would return to their hotel at night and try to cheer her mother up
+with her lively recitals, were by no means the least enjoyable part of
+the day's program.
+
+"Oh, mamma, the cathedral's just _grand_," she declared with
+enthusiasm, after her first visit. "I told Miss Ann that I _wished_
+papa had stayed a Catholic and had raised me that way."
+
+Mrs. Sullivan's Baptist eyebrows flew up in horror, then her entire
+face settled into its normal look of hopelessness.
+
+"Maybe you won't be so glib to wish it at the Great Day of Judgment,"
+she said warningly, and the capital letters I have used were all in
+her voice.
+
+"--And the mummies!" Neva hastened on, seeing that she had struck the
+wrong key, and her tones were as light and frolicksome as her
+mother's were lugubrious. "I just love mummies!"
+
+Mrs. Sullivan still refused to show a smiling interest.
+
+"Well, I reckon they're all right, if Miss Ann recommends 'em," she
+said grudgingly, but with a little wonder depicted on her face;
+"still, I make it a rule not to fill _my_ stomach too full of strange
+vittles!"
+
+"Oh, mamma! They ain't things to eat," Neva corrected, struggling
+between her shame and amusement, then she launched forth into a brief
+explanation of embalming "after the manner of the Egyptians."
+
+At the word "Egyptians" quick comprehension dawned in Mrs. Sullivan's
+disapproving eyes. Certainly she had read her Bible.
+
+"Shucks! Is _them_ what you're talking about? Well, I can tell you,
+miss, I knew all about mummies before _you_ was ever borned! But you
+talked about 'em so gushing that I thought of course they was some
+kind o' new-fangled ice-cream."
+
+"When I said that I _loved_ them I meant that they are _so_
+interesting, you know," Neva said, hoping to mollify her, but her
+explanation proved a poor quality of oil poured upon the troubled
+waters of maternal understanding.
+
+"Them's strange things for a girl to be going to see," she commented
+with pointed brevity. "--Men, women and children layin' there without
+_no_ clo'es on--and nobody not knowing what they died with!"
+
+But the fires! I don't know whether there was an unusually large
+number of such calamities during this period or not, but I had never
+had my attention so attracted to them before.
+
+We happened to find ourselves almost in the thick of one the very
+first day we were up in the shopping district, and the excitement so
+appealed to Neva that after that no member of the fire department
+could have taken a more lively interest in the clang of the bell than
+she did.
+
+On the last night of Mrs. Sullivan's stay, when she was already
+weeping over having to leave her only born, there was such a sudden
+and close clang of the alarm as would furnish Edgar Allan Poe with
+inspiration enough for four more stanzas of "bells, bells, bells."
+
+Neva listened, counted the strokes, then scrambled around distractedly
+for the alarm card. The fire might be near enough for her to see!
+
+"Well, Nevar," her mother said, wiping her eyes and looking at her
+motions with reproach, "it is poorly worth while trying to educate
+_you_! You've been here a whole week and _ain't learned the fire-alarm
+card yet_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ALFRED COLLECTS A DEBT
+
+
+Alfred Morgan is one of those men whose backbone is built out of
+seasoned hickory.
+
+I wish some of the poets would start the fashion of writing epics
+about the hero who goes through college without getting any money from
+home. To me he seems vastly greater than he who taketh a city.
+
+Alfred did this, selling his pretty saddle mare for money enough to
+start in on, then borrowing some from the banks and winning
+scholarships the rest of the way. Incidentally, he has a very handsome
+chin.
+
+Now there are two things that are an abomination to me, yea
+three--white eyelashes, a receding chin, and negro dialect written by
+a northern writer. The white eyelashes I admit are a misfortune, not a
+fault; the receding chin--well, I have wondered if that defect might
+be remedied by a little crinoline infused into the character, for
+without a doubt it is a visible sign of a weakness that will sooner
+or later become visible. The negro dialect allusion has no business
+here, but I had written it down once in a note-book in a list of my
+pet abominations, and I wanted to work it in somewhere, so this seemed
+as good a place as any. However, the question of chin is the only one
+with which we have to deal to-night.
+
+As I have above intimated, Alfred is dark-lashed and well-chinned,
+else we could never have been the friends that we are. That we are
+good friends is proved by the fact that whenever I want to go anywhere
+with him I ask him to take me along, and if there is any reason why I
+should not go, all he ever says by way of explanation is a brief, "No,
+I can't be bothered with you to-day, my dear."
+
+It happened pretty much after that fashion yesterday afternoon, when I
+had lunched with Ann Lisbeth and he had mentioned that he had a long
+country drive to take. The sun was shining alluringly, and I had been
+feeling very dull.
+
+"I believe I'll go with you," I volunteered, as we congregated around
+him at the front door and he began looking about for his black leather
+bag.
+
+"I wish I could take you, for it's a beautiful drive," he responded,
+looking down at me with a smile in his brown eyes, "but I couldn't be
+sure of getting you home before very late."
+
+"Is the trip such a long one?"
+
+"No; but I have some urgent business in the city afterward. I've
+brought suit for a medical bill, and am expecting at any moment to be
+summoned to the magistrate's court."
+
+"How exciting! But I could come home on the car if you are detained
+very late."
+
+"How disgusting rather!" he answered, ignoring the suggestion of mine
+about the street-car, but I saw him pick up a lap-robe lying near and
+brush a little dust from it. This was a sign that he expected me to
+go, for he scorns the comforts of a lap-robe for himself, even on the
+coldest days.
+
+"It's hateful business," he continued, dropping the robe and searching
+around for the little broom which Ann Lisbeth keeps tied to the
+hat-rack, for both her doctors consider that cleanliness is godliness.
+"There will be a pack of lies sworn to in heathen jargon and hours
+wasted trying to make the scoundrels come to terms."
+
+"Heathen? Literally or figuratively?"
+
+"Both. The man who owes the money is that Hindoo I operated on last
+year for appendicitis, but the circus he travels with is really
+responsible for the debt; so I'm going to attach a few of their lions
+and tigers and snake-charmers to make them settle up while they're in
+town this time."
+
+"Why, Alfred! I don't know of anything this side of African jungles so
+thrilling. I believe I'll go with you anyway, even if I have to walk
+back. If the circus men should decide to pay you in lions instead of
+money you might need me to help herd them home."
+
+He smiled as I reached for my hat.
+
+"There's something in that," he said, "for they would willingly follow
+_you_." Then, coming a step nearer so that he could not be heard by
+Ann Lisbeth, who stood near by, he kept on, "I would trust you to
+charm anything that has eyes."
+
+The telephone rang just as he spoke, and Ann Lisbeth went to answer
+it. I was surprised at the tone of his voice, for Alfred very rarely
+pays me compliments, and never one anything like this before. I was
+surprised still more at myself as I caught at this opportunity for a
+sincere, _masculine_ compliment.
+
+"Alfred," I said quickly, half afraid that Ann Lisbeth would come back
+before I could make him say what I longed to hear, "Alfred, do you
+think I'm good-looking?"
+
+I had the grace to blush as I said it, but the blush was not for
+Alfred. I felt that he knew the real question in my mind was, "Do you
+suppose Richard Chalmers thought I was good-looking that day we sat on
+the old stone wall by the orchard gate?"
+
+But Alfred was simple and sincere always, and he saw in my question
+only the query any vain girl might put to a close friend. And into his
+eyes darted a quick look of pain and confusion. I wondered if my
+vanity lowered his ideal of me.
+
+"You evidently have no knowledge of what I _do_ think of you--else you
+wouldn't ask such a silly question," he answered gravely.
+
+"I beg your pardon if--if I have offended you by my foolish talk, but
+I was only trying to make you say something pretty to me--you never
+do, you know." I was genuinely confused, myself, now.
+
+"I thought 'pretty things' were unnecessary between you and me, Ann,"
+he answered again, more gravely still.
+
+"Every woman likes them," I said, trying to relieve the tension by my
+tone of lightness.
+
+"Then I can gratify you--if that's what you want. I think--that is,
+to me you are the most beautiful woman in the world!"
+
+I was so stunned at his unexpected reply and the entirely _new_ look
+on his face as he made it that I should have betrayed the thoughts
+which came surging to my mind if Ann Lisbeth had not rejoined us then
+with a commonplace remark about my taking a heavy coat along with me
+if I decided to go with Alfred.
+
+"You're going, aren't you?" he asked casually, as if the matter were
+of no moment with him, but I saw how he reached for my coat as I
+nodded my head, and he bade Ann Lisbeth not to take up so much of his
+valuable time as she fussed a little over the careless way I fixed my
+veil, and insisted on my letting her pin it on properly.
+
+The woods were beautiful, but I saw their beauty only in a vague,
+fantastic way. My thoughts were in a sad tumult, partly on my own
+account, partly on Alfred's, for I felt that his strange words spoken
+at the hall door would be followed up by something far more manifest.
+
+I knew him so well that there was no need for me to agitate my mind
+over whether his words and looks meant anything, as I had done in the
+case of Richard Chalmers that day in the orchard when he had said
+"pretty things." Ah, he had said them so prettily!
+
+How could I let Alfred know, without wounding him and spoiling our
+comradeship? Or would it be better _not_ to let him know? To ignore
+his words and avoid such dangerous ground in the future--until he had
+forgotten them himself. Even the strongest, staunchest lovers cease to
+love after a while, when there is nothing for the flame to feed upon,
+I argued, and I set about steering away from any reference that might
+lead back to the perilous line of talk which had been so mercifully
+interrupted.
+
+I espied a redbird--belated little wanderer--sitting on the fence by
+the side of the road, and I began telling Alfred of Mammy Lou's
+superstitions concerning redbirds and other little creatures too happy
+and bright to have even a tinge of superstition attached to them. But
+as I laughed at the notion I made a wish, and saw with joy that the
+bird flew away out of view.
+
+There is a queer admixture of the fatalist in my make-up and, as the
+redbird flew away, carrying my wish with him, I had a feeling that
+that wish would come to pass. It was a very simple, fervid,
+all-embracing affair--that I should see Richard Chalmers again very
+soon--and that he should _love_ me.
+
+The first time I had looked at that man's face I felt as if I had
+turned a leaf in the book of my destiny. When Rufe mentioned his name
+to me and I later learned that he was the same man whose face had
+formed the centerpiece of all my mental pictures, I fancied that Fate
+was about to keep her promise; and when he had lingered over saying
+good-by that night at home I felt as if my fancies might have a chance
+of coming true.
+
+Then I had come up to the city and stayed for days and days, without
+hearing one word from him. This humiliated me until I was angry with
+myself for having ever given him a thought. I am of a proud nature
+which would demand far more of a man than he should ever _see_ that I
+gave.
+
+I was certainly not in love with Richard Chalmers as I drove with
+Alfred out that country road, but I was intensely fascinated, so much
+so that my thoughts flew to him with the flight of the redbird, and
+for a while I forgot that I was neglecting my task of keeping Alfred's
+mind diverted.
+
+From the country we drove back to Alfred's office and I stayed in the
+reception-room and looked at magazines while he was busy with some
+patients in his private office. It was getting well toward evening and
+the stenographer was beginning to arrange her desk in readiness to
+leave when Alfred came into the room and began to fume about the delay
+in being summoned to court. He suggested that I telephone Cousin
+Eunice that I would be late, which I did, but I found that my absence
+was going to make small difference to them, as she and Rufe were going
+out to a lecture, and I should be thrown on the society of Waterloo
+for the evening.
+
+"Make Alfred take you on to Ann Lisbeth's, and Rufe and I will come by
+for you after the lecture," she suggested, which was an easy solution
+and would not cause Alfred to feel that he must hurry on my account.
+
+He smiled when I told him of this arrangement.
+
+"So you are going to be left entirely to me this one evening, it
+seems," he said. "The Gordons are dining out and bade me satisfy my
+hunger before I came home. I propose that we go on up to Beauregard's
+now and have dinner, then I'll take you home and let you tell tales to
+Waterloo until he goes to sleep."
+
+"I'm not dressed to go to Beauregard's," I began, looking down sadly
+at my tailored clothes and linen blouse. I was very hungry, and
+Beauregard's is a delicious place. But my longings were cut short by a
+ring at the telephone, and I knew from the answers he made that Alfred
+was at last summoned to the magistrate's court.
+
+"Jump in and go with me," he directed, as he began giving the colored
+boy and stenographer directions for closing up the office. "Likely I
+sha'n't be long; and we'll go to dinner as soon as they get through
+with me."
+
+We drove to the magistrate's court and I sat in the car and waited for
+him. I waited while the darkness came on and the street lights flared
+up; I waited while everybody else was crowding into the homeward-bound
+electric cars--and I was still waiting long after the throngs had
+thinned out and the cars were carrying their scant loads, which means
+that all the world is at its evening meal.
+
+Finally he came out, looking tired and disgusted, but he told me that
+the case had been adjusted satisfactorily to him, although the final
+settlement was not to be made until after the circus performance that
+night, when the business manager of the mighty show could be freed
+from his duties and so present himself at the pleasant little affair.
+
+"The mischief of it is that my lawyer and I have to go out to the show
+grounds and keep an eye on the manager," he explained, with a slightly
+worried look.
+
+"And don't you know what to do with me?"
+
+"Exactly! It's too late to send you home in a cab by yourself, and I
+can't go and take you now. What shall I do with you?"
+
+"Why, take me to the circus."
+
+He looked at me a moment, then looked at his watch and hesitated. "I
+hate to," he said, "but I don't see anything else to be done." So we
+started off again.
+
+Fortunately the performance was nearly over when we got there, for it
+was the last night and everything was cut delightfully short, so I
+decided that I would rather stay out in the machine for that length of
+time, and watch the crowds swarm out to the street-cars than to be
+mixed up more closely with them.
+
+Alfred drove up under a big arc-light and halted at the end of a long
+string of automobiles and carriages.
+
+"You'll not be afraid here--and I'll be back as soon as I can," he
+said as he left me.
+
+I pulled the rug up over me and reached back for a magazine I had
+brought, but the unsteady light on the printed pages soon caused my
+eyes to hurt, so I laid the book down again and gave myself up to the
+misery of just plain waiting.
+
+After what seemed hours to me Alfred sent a little negro boy to the
+car with the message that I was to empty out his largest instrument
+case and send it to him.
+
+"Maybe they have compromised on part money and a few baby lions," I
+mused, as I leaned back and gave myself up to another period of
+waiting.
+
+I once heard Ann Lisbeth say that the only medical attention a
+doctor's wife ever gets is a sample bottle of iron tonic hastily
+handed her from a desk drawer once in a while, if she happens to be
+sitting near by and looking pale. I should not object to this, being
+healthy and seldom needing an iron tonic, but I do think the long
+waiting spells which any one who goes out with a doctor has to be
+subjected to would eventually make a woman so nervous that she would
+have to have some kind of tonic. I have registered a vow that
+hereafter, even if I start out somewhere with Alfred in August, I
+shall take my furs along, not knowing but that it will be winter when
+I get back.
+
+He finally came, however, and in looking at him I forgot the
+tediousness of my long wait. His eyes were flashing and his face was
+flushed. He looked very angry--and very handsome. Evidently he had not
+been suffering from cold as I had.
+
+He had on his long overcoat, which seemed almost to drag him down, big
+as he is, with its weight; and the pockets were bulging
+dropsically--if there is such a word. His instrument case he deposited
+in the car, right in the way of my feet, but when I tried to move it I
+found that it would not budge.
+
+"Are you tired?" he asked, as he began to crank the car.
+
+"I'm tired and cold--and _hungry_."
+
+"All of which will soon be remedied," and he smiled as he looked at
+me. "Ann, you never saw a man in my condition before in your life."
+
+"What?"
+
+He had a hard time working his way into the car with those bulging
+pockets, but he finally got fixed satisfactorily, then he moved the
+heavy instrument case; and I gave my feet several relieved shakes.
+
+"Very likely for the first time in your young life you behold a man
+who has more money than he knows what to do with!"
+
+"_Money!_" I edged away respectfully to give the pockets more room.
+"Is it money?"
+
+"Every pound of it is coin of the realm," he answered. "It is
+_nickels_."
+
+"Alfred!"
+
+"Those low-down scoundrels paid me in nickels." And his eyes began to
+flash again.
+
+"What on earth for?"
+
+"For pure cussedness!"
+
+"And you had to count them all!" No wonder he had been gone a long
+time.
+
+"I sat there like a fool and counted the instrument case full; then I
+dumped the rest into my pockets. The lawyer is sitting in front of his
+little pile now, counting it; and there is a small bag full to be sent
+to the magistrate to-morrow."
+
+"Why, it's like a dream, isn't it? I never heard of so much money."
+
+"And I never believed before that surgeons charge too much for their
+services--but now--"
+
+We laughed all the way back to town; we drove up to Beauregard's
+laughing; we laughed as Alfred slipped off his coat and the solemn
+waiter looked startled at the heaviness of the garment. Then we looked
+around leisurely to select a table, for it was late and the diners
+were few.
+
+"Let's go into the booth," I suggested, nodding toward a small
+mahogany partition at one side and near the front of the restaurant.
+This compartment was built with some other purpose in view than acting
+as a private dining-room, for the open doorway is unscreened in any
+way, and the partition itself is only about seven feet high. I set
+down these uninteresting figures to let you know that I am a
+well-brought-up young person and don't go into private dining-rooms
+unchaperoned--nor should I have been here at all with any one but
+Alfred.
+
+I had learned the comforts of this mahogany screen from having come
+here often with Cousin Eunice and Waterloo. We always make a bee-line
+for its shelter when we have him with us, for he fills his mouth so
+full that his mother always has to make him stop and unload. This is
+less embarrassing when there is a partition between her and the
+public.
+
+The place happened to be unoccupied when we came into the restaurant
+that night, and Alfred and I sat down with a sigh of mingled
+exhaustion and content. He began a lavish and extensive order which I
+curtailed materially on account of the lateness of the hour.
+
+"We can't spend _all_ our nickels to-night," I said, reprovingly; and
+we laughed a little over the nickels, at intervals, all through the
+meal.
+
+Then we talked, or at least, I talked, which is usually the case when
+Alfred and I are together. I asked him questions about the circus
+people and the curious sights he had seen in the tent which was not
+open to the public. And he told me about the hideous Cossacks standing
+guard over their high-pommelled saddles, as the hurried process of
+packing went on, the long-haired ranchmen, who were tenderly laying
+away their guns; and the Hindoo woman who sat and glared at him as he
+handled the nickels which would mean months of a lessened salary for
+her and her husband.
+
+"_Think_ of the balloons and pop-corn and red lemonade those nickels
+represent," I said, still on the subject of the circus, as we finished
+our meal and left the table.
+
+Under the influence of the good dinner, the soft lights, with their
+soothing shades on the table, and the warm air of the comfortable
+room after my long wait in the autumn cold, I was beginning to feel
+deliciously sleepy, and was thinking with pleasure in how short a time
+Alfred could make the distance home, now that the streets were not
+crowded--when we left the booth and I looked around at the people
+occupying the other tables. I looked at them indifferently, as I
+waited for Alfred to put on his overcoat, my eyes traveling slowly
+around the room, until they stopped at a table close in front of where
+I was standing.
+
+Just outside the partition and sitting so squarely facing it that I
+dropped one of my long gloves in my startled surprise when I saw him,
+was Richard Chalmers, smoking a fragrant cigar, from which he had
+stripped a dainty red-and-gold band, which was lying upon the
+newspaper he had spread out in front of him.
+
+But he was not reading, and I imagined from his look that he had not
+been reading for some time, for he was looking straight at me with the
+same half-amused smile he had worn when he had sat on the old stone
+wall that day and told me that there was a vast difference in our
+ages. It seemed that he was quietly waiting for me to look at him,
+and, as our eyes met, he rose at once, and came over and shook hands
+with me.
+
+"I was waiting for you to come out, Miss Fielding," he said, after I
+had introduced the two men and they had reached simultaneously for my
+glove, which Alfred got to first--then Mr. Chalmers began to fold the
+paper he had not been reading, and made preparations to leave the
+place as we did. "I happened to drop in here a little while ago, and,
+fortunately, chose this table. Then I heard your voice--I felt sure
+that it was you--so I waited to see."
+
+Alfred excused himself a moment and crossed the room to speak to a
+white-haired old gentleman at one of the tables. I recognized this old
+man as a well-known back number in the medical profession of the city,
+and had heard Doctor Gordon say that he was pitiably grateful for any
+attention which the younger fellows showed him. Alfred spoke a few
+words of congratulation on a recent address the old doctor had made at
+a medical meeting, they both laughed over a half-whispered joke, then
+Alfred turned to leave. An appealing hand was laid on his coat sleeve,
+as he allowed himself to be cornered by the old man, and a harangue
+ensued, carried on in a quavering, high-pitched voice, with now and
+then a deep-toned word from Alfred.
+
+I stood and waited for him and Richard Chalmers came closer to me as I
+glanced over into one of the mirrors on the wall and began to tie the
+big veil around my hat again, and to pull up my coat-collar a bit
+closer, preparatory to going out into the chilly air.
+
+He dropped his voice and began to talk as rapidly as his lazy,
+southern drawl would let him. He seemed to have a good deal to say and
+he wished to say it all. I was in an agony of fear that the old
+doctor's harangue might not last long enough.
+
+"Yes, the next week after seeing you I went East and returned only
+this morning," Richard's voice was saying, and, while the words made
+all the difference in the world to me, still I heard them only
+indistinctly. All I could take in was the fact that I was hearing his
+voice again.
+
+"I reached the city this morning, and telephoned Clayborne about noon
+to ask him where you were. You remember you told me that you were
+booked to come home with them? I was very glad indeed when he said
+that you were at his house, and I should have gone out to see Mrs.
+Clayborne to-night--I wanted to tell her about my mother and sister
+coming up to town next week for some shopping. They live in
+Charlotteville--eastern end of the state, you know--but Clayborne said
+that there was a lecture or something on for to-night. He thought you
+would all likely be at home to-morrow evening."
+
+"Yes--I think so. We shall be very glad to see you."
+
+"It was the merest chance that I dropped in here and heard you
+talking--I understood that something very amusing had happened at a
+circus."
+
+"Yes," I said weakly.
+
+"So I stayed to listen. You will forgive me--for I knew that it was
+your voice, and"--with a _wonderful_ smile--"you see I am very fond of
+music."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SHOPPING EXPEDITION
+
+
+"_O Richard, O mon roi_," I carolled this morning, but I confess that
+I carolled it as much in an undertone as the unfortunate aristocrats
+had to employ when they chose to give vent to their feelings by
+singing that song during the Reign of Terror.
+
+I was up-stairs in my own room at Cousin Eunice's, brushing, shaking,
+smoothing, folding, and now and then mending a little ripped place in
+my clothes, for, during the last four weeks I have done nothing but
+wear them. Early in the morning, all through the day, and late at
+night, I have lived to maltreat those clothes. And they are showing
+signs of being weary and wounded.
+
+It is a good thing, possibly, that mother and Cousin Eunice would not
+let me have the black spangled net that my soul yearned for, else
+there would not have been a spangle left to tell the tale by this
+time.
+
+Cousin Eunice was in the next room throughout the time I was thus
+employed--that is, she was in and out, hence the undertone in my
+singing.
+
+"Ann," she finally called in a vexed tone, after a period of silence,
+"you'll live to learn, after you're married, that a man and his
+poll-tax receipt are soon parted."
+
+"It's a registration certificate," I amended softly.
+
+"Well, what if it is? It's eternally lost when they want it."
+
+She had spent the morning emptying bureau drawers, scratching through
+piles of old papers, peering under the clock, into a cracked vase,
+moving the piano and searching in the dusty lint beneath, and dazzling
+her eyesight by a scramble through a five-years' accumulation of pink
+electric light bills--but no sign of the registration certificate.
+Toward luncheon time Rufe called her up and said he hoped she had not
+put herself to any trouble, for he forgot to tell her early this
+morning that he had already found the missing paper in his
+pocket-book.
+
+"They have to register before they can vote, don't they?"
+
+I knew that they did, but I was in a mood to talk politics this
+morning.
+
+"Yes. This is just a measly little municipal election, however."
+
+"Oh, I know that it is not gubernatorial."
+
+"I observe that you have improved your store of knowledge
+mightily--since that day we sat under the althea hedge." She came into
+my room as she spoke, and sat down on the side of the bed.
+
+"Yes, I feel that I know all about the state of affairs now."
+
+"Then I wish you would tell me, so I can tell Rufe." She was tired out
+from her strenuous morning, and her head fell over among the pillows.
+I laid down the skirt I had been brushing and seated myself on the
+foot of the bed.
+
+"What's the trouble?" I asked. "I thought the matter was very simple."
+
+"You thought the matter was simple, you dear little goose, because our
+favorite piece of gubernatorial timber has showered you with devoted
+attentions this past month. It seems that he has declared his
+intentions toward you--so far as looks and acts go--but he is backward
+about his political doings."
+
+"Then you have just not listened to what he has said," I denied
+stoutly, the spirit of the game strong within me, and the spirit of my
+admiration for him much stronger. "Nobody could denounce Appleton
+more entirely than he does!"
+
+"Oh, Appleton!" There was infinite scorn in her tone. "What decent
+person doesn't denounce him?"
+
+"Then, what's the trouble?" I asked again. "Appleton stands for
+whisky; we stand for water--the affair seems quite clear to me."
+
+"And Jim Blake stands for whisky _and_ water--with a goodly dash of
+sugar. He's a kind of toddy for our split Democracy."
+
+"But what has _he_ to do with Richard Chalmers?" I asked, an uneasy
+fear clutching at my gay spirits.
+
+"That's just what we want to know--before the _Times_ can rally to the
+support of Chalmers."
+
+"The _Times_!" I was genuinely aroused now. "Why, I thought the
+_Times_ had virtually _made_ Richard Chalmers."
+
+"Well, the paper has boomed him because he has always stood for the
+right principles heretofore. But there is a grave complication about
+to set in now, it seems. Of course the people of this state are not
+going to stand for Appleton again--we are not Hottentots, and either a
+strong Democrat must come out, and stand on a strong platform, else we
+are going to have a Republican for governor."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, the law-abiding faction is ready to support Richard Chalmers,
+so long as he does not compromise, but at the first evidence of
+weakening on his part--the vote goes to some _clean_ Republican."
+
+"And you are afraid that he will join Blake--in some way?"
+
+"In a very clearly defined way. Blake is the most popular man in the
+state. He could put up a good fight for anything he wanted here--and
+he could throw his influence to Chalmers."
+
+I traced the pattern of the counterpane with the end of the
+clothes-brush which I was still holding in my hand.
+
+"I don't know a thing about it," I said finally, my tone and feelings
+far different from what they were but a few minutes before, when I had
+declared confidently that I knew all about it. "He has never once
+mentioned politics to me these last few weeks."
+
+"Well, I dare say not," she said, straightening up and smoothing back
+her hair. "Imagine a man talking politics before Mrs. Chalmers and
+Evelyn! And they have been with you every minute that you and he have
+been together."
+
+It was true. These last few weeks had brought about a delightful
+state of closer personal contact between Richard Chalmers and me, a
+condition which he has seemed determined to make stronger and more
+pronounced by every means in his power--and he has the most charming
+means--but always under the supervision of his mother and sister.
+
+Supervision? Good heavens, what an absurd word to use in connection
+with either one of those women where Richard is concerned, for they
+are truly as much slaves to him as if he had chains around their
+wrists and ankles. A worshipping slave is his mother, while Evelyn is
+so timid and fearful in his presence that she appears to be much
+stupider than she really is, which is stupid enough, in all
+conscience!
+
+When I first discovered this mighty reverence in them for the man who
+is so kingly to me I felt that they must recognize in him that
+wonderful _regal_ attribute, which so irresistibly attracted me. But I
+soon learned, for we were together constantly, that Evelyn fears and
+dislikes him, and the only time during those weeks of companionship
+that she displayed the slightest eagerness over anything was when she
+was urging me to accompany them on some pleasure party, where, unless
+I should go along with them, they would be left solely to the
+companionship of her august brother.
+
+"He's so much nicer when you're around," she explained to me one time
+with a look of pleading candor, when she was insisting that I go to
+dinner with them that evening. I had received pressing invitations
+from the three members of the family, but was hesitating on account of
+Mammy Lou's slogan.
+
+Evelyn is an intensely inane girl, but not bad at heart, and it had
+not occurred to her that she was saying the wrong thing. Her mother,
+who is much more acute, came forward with a flurried palliation for
+Evelyn's thoughtless words. Richard is so dignified that Evelyn has
+never grown to _know_ him, she explained, with what impressed me as
+undue haste; he is so much older than she, and has been away from home
+so much of recent years.
+
+"It doesn't make me think any less of him to know that you are both
+deadly afraid of him," I smiled to myself as I ran up-stairs to change
+my dress. "But I am not in the least afraid of him."
+
+His women are not at all like Richard, even in so far as length,
+breadth and thickness go. The quality in him which results in simply a
+splendid physique, in them tends toward heaviness, and I have heard
+from his own lips that he "hates dumpy women." Yet he cares extremely
+for the handsome appearance which they make in their expensive
+clothes, and his cold dignity finds a pleased echo in their studied
+correctness.
+
+Correct they both are, and stylish and _orthodox_, church and clothes
+being the alpha and omega of their conversation.
+
+They are conventionally polite, whereas he is always superbly
+courteous; and Mrs. Chalmers can invariably be depended upon to do and
+say exactly the right thing. Evelyn passes muster all right, because
+she never does or says anything.
+
+While Richard's mother can describe to the turning of a milliner's
+fold the latest foibles of fashion's fancy, she is complacently
+old-fashioned in her notions about other things, maintaining the faith
+in which she was brought up, namely, that all children should be
+whipped and all husbands watched, while women should say their prayers
+regularly and see that their corsets suit their figure. She quotes the
+Bible unendingly and is so morbidly "proper" and ladylike that I am
+sure she thinks, if she ever thought about it at all, that being
+burned at the stake was no more than Joan of Arc deserved for being
+so immodest as to ride cross-saddle before all those fast and loose
+Frenchmen.
+
+It fell to Cousin Eunice's lot to go shopping with Mrs. Chalmers and
+Evelyn; and to the hair-dressers, and to the thousand and one other
+places that out-of-town women always feel that they must visit when
+they are in a city for a little while. I usually fight shy of this
+phase of getting acquainted, not because, as you may think, that
+Richard was never along, for he was frequently; but simply because I
+_hate_ shopping.
+
+One morning, only a little while before they were to go back to
+Charlotteville, they asked Cousin Eunice to meet them in the city as
+they had some rather important purchases to make and desired her
+judgment on the matter. Cousin Eunice has known Richard's family ever
+since he shot up so suddenly on the political firmament, and she had
+shopped with them before, so she fortified herself for this occasion
+by putting on her most comfortable shoes and arranging her hair to
+stand the strain of a day's long crusade away from a mirror.
+
+I had been invited to lunch with Ann Lisbeth that day, for there had
+been killed a fatted calf to glorify Alfred's birthday, and I pleaded
+this engagement when I was politely urged to join, at least for a
+while, the shopping expedition.
+
+"I wish you would come on in and see that coat I'm worried over,"
+Evelyn rather insisted, as I was about to make my adieus at the
+entrance of one of the big shops, without even glancing at the
+bewildering array of new fall goods displayed in the windows.
+
+Clearly Evelyn considered my seeming indifference to fashionable
+apparel a pose, for she continued, looking at me slightly aggrieved:
+"You evidently must be interested in your own clothes. Richard said
+last night that you were a feast for an artist."
+
+My face turned a little red, but I meekly followed them on into the
+place. I might have told her that, while to _her_ clothes were an end,
+to me they were a means--and no one is ever deeply interested in a
+mere means. Yet when the end is such a speech as _that_ from such a
+man as that, it stands one in hand to take a little interest in the
+means. This brought about the frenzied overhauling of raiment which I
+instituted this morning.
+
+Although it was still warm weather, the autumn stock of furs was
+already on exhibition, and Evelyn's attention had been particularly
+attracted by a coat of short, glossy, and very expensive fur. One
+more sight of the attractive garment decided her.
+
+"Well, I'm certainly glad you've made up your mind," Mrs. Chalmers
+said, as she opened her shopping-bag and drew out her check-book. She
+was busily filling out the blank after "Pay to the order of" when she
+suddenly stopped and looked up at Evelyn.
+
+"I wish I could get this cashed somewhere else," she said in a low
+voice, "for Richard will criticize our taste unmercifully when he
+learns that this amount of money has been paid for that coat. He
+always looks over my returned checks."
+
+"Oh, we'll just tell him that this was the entire amount of our
+shopping bill at this store," Evelyn answered easily, as if such a
+deception might be an every-day affair with them. "If he asks me I'll
+tell him that the coat cost only half of what it did."
+
+"That's true, we can do that," Mrs. Chalmers said, looking relieved
+and going on with her writing. "But don't you forget to back me up in
+whatever I tell him."
+
+After she had handed the check to the gratified saleswoman and again
+given directions about a slight alteration in the set of the collar
+she turned to Cousin Eunice and said a word or two in explanation.
+
+"Richard is such a critic," she stated rather absently, her eyes fixed
+on a handsome evening wrap hanging in a case close by; "when he knows
+we have paid a good deal for our clothes it seems to give him real
+pleasure to criticize them. He says Evelyn and I will buy anything a
+shop-girl shows us if she will only flatter us enough. So I am in for
+doing anything that will keep the peace. I consider it one of the
+first duties of a Christian."
+
+Her mouth closed primly for a moment after her last sentence, but
+opened again almost immediately, for her eyes were still fascinated by
+the beauty of the delicate-colored wrap.
+
+"Mrs. Clayborne, _do_ you think I am too stout for one of those loose
+cloaks?"
+
+I stood for a moment looking at the group and fingering the handle of
+my shopping-bag nervously. I was glad that my opinion of the evening
+wrap was not asked, for I should have given a random answer. I was
+wondering so many things in so short a space of time that my brain
+could not find room for words just then. Of all the different kinds of
+lies that one meets up with in life it has always seemed to me that
+the lies women tell about the cost of clothes are the lowest class.
+What a deplorable lack of understanding must exist between members of
+a family when such lying is deemed necessary! I imagined mother or me
+trying to lie to father--about the cost of clothes!
+
+The bewitching evening wrap was brought forth from its case and Mrs.
+Chalmers and Evelyn trailed away after the shop-woman to the
+dressing-room. Cousin Eunice and I sat down to wait for them. She
+looked at her watch, stifled a yawn, and then turned to me rather
+hesitatingly.
+
+"I wonder if our friend, Mr. Chalmers, is a domestic tyrant?" she
+said.
+
+I started, for this phase of the matter had not presented itself to my
+mind.
+
+"He doesn't seem to be," I answered, with as much nonchalance as I could
+muster. "Of course every one can see that they both stand in awe of him;
+but I thought that must be because he is so extraordinarily--clever."
+
+She laughed, then she looked at me more seriously.
+
+"If it were only his cleverness they would not be hypocritical with
+him. And tyrants _do_ breed hypocrites."
+
+"Not unless there is hypocritical material--to start out with."
+
+"I--don't know! If you loved a tyrant, and desired above everything
+else to please him, it might mean the ultimate ruin of even _your_
+frank character."
+
+"I couldn't love a tyrant," I argued.
+
+"You might not recognize the tyrant in him--until after you had
+married him," she said.
+
+The same uneasy feeling that again came over me when I discussed his
+political prospects took possession of me then, and I started to ask
+her frankly what she had in mind, when Evelyn came up and said that
+her mother wanted Cousin Eunice to come and see her with the wrap on.
+So she passed on back to the dressing-room to help decide the
+momentous question, while Evelyn and I sat there and discussed the
+good points of the coat she had just bought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ann Lisbeth was sweet and wholesome when I met her an hour or two
+later--an admirable antidote to the disagreeable feeling I had brought
+away from the shops.
+
+"Alfred doesn't know you're coming," she said with a bright smile,
+"he'll be so pleased!"
+
+As is usual when the fatted calf is killed for a medicine man he takes
+that occasion to be an hour late--an emergency case at the last
+minute, or some one at the office that it took an unreasonable time to
+get through with. I hardly heard the excuse which Alfred made when he
+came in, but I knew it was true, whatever it was, and, as Doctor
+Gordon was not going to be able to come at all, we three went in and
+gave ourselves up to the joy of the occasion.
+
+I was absently eating everything that was brought to me, and was
+thinking all the while how perfectly preposterous it was that Richard
+Chalmers--a man like Richard Chalmers--should have such weak-minded
+females attached to him; and I had just reached the conclusion that
+there could never, _never_ be anything like friendship between us, no
+matter what there might be as an occasion for friendship, when the
+dessert was brought in, and with it a great, beautiful cake, iced in
+forget-me-nots.
+
+"Now, don't you think I'm sentimental?" Ann Lisbeth asked with a
+smile, after we had used up all the adjectives that we had at our
+command. "You see, I thought maybe Alfred's next birthday might be
+spent in London, or Vienna, or somewhere far away--and I knew that I
+was going to have you here to-day, Ann--so I told the woman who made
+the cake to be sure and use forget-me-nots. So when he thinks of us on
+his next birthday he will have to remember how much we all love him!"
+
+All of a sudden I had that uncomfortable feeling that comes in my
+throat sometimes when I don't want it to, and I realized that if
+something did not happen to divert my mind I should certainly cry.
+Ever since his graduation Alfred had been trying to devise means for
+this course of study abroad, and I had known how much better his
+practice had been lately, but somehow, I had not thought of his going
+so far away so _soon_. Suppose Mammy Lou should have gall-stones
+again!
+
+I wrestled for a moment with that awful lump in my throat; then I
+spoke, and my voice was natural again.
+
+"Is this sudden 'wanderlust' the outcome of collecting all those
+nickels?" I asked with a laugh.
+
+After we left the table Alfred and I went into the library for a
+while, and Ann Lisbeth stayed in the dining-room to keep her husband
+company while he ate, for he had come in just as we were finishing,
+and declared that he was starved.
+
+"Ann, I have a surprise for you," Alfred said, springing up from the
+big leather chair into whose depths he had lazily thrown himself a
+moment before. He sometimes took a short nap after luncheon, when he
+had been out all the night before, and I had picked up a magazine to
+amuse myself with in case he deserted me in favor of his siesta.
+
+"A surprise?" He had given me a surprise the last time I spent the day
+at the Gordons'.
+
+"A bully one. I found it down home the other day--last week when I was
+out there--while I was rummaging in a box of ancient books and papers.
+Wait, I'll run up-stairs and get it."
+
+He returned almost immediately with a book in his hand, a ponderous
+old tome it was, with yellowed edges and time-stained leather covers,
+but I saw a name on the back which sent my pulses throbbing with
+pleasure.
+
+"Moore's _Life of Byron_," I said, reaching out for it eagerly. Alfred
+had known that I wanted the book for years, and whenever he had been
+in a big city for any length of time he had always searched about for
+it, but had never come across a copy.
+
+"It isn't Moore's _Life_," he said, sitting down beside me on the
+couch, "but from what I have been able to gather, by glancing through
+it, it seems to be a rather more intimate affair than even that.
+Besides the poems, there are a lot of letters and extracts from his
+journal; the entire correspondence for several years between him and a
+fellow whom he calls his 'dear Murray.' Guess you know who his dear
+Murray is--I'm sure I don't. Then there are some letters to the
+Countess G-u-i-c--"
+
+"Oh, Alfred! Guiccioli! I'm so glad to get my hands on this book. You
+are a darling to think about bringing it up for me to read!"
+
+"Oh, I brought it up for you to keep. It belonged to my grandfather,
+and I can give it to any one I want to."
+
+I laughed a little at his simplicity.
+
+"But surely you would not be such a barbarian as to let a book like
+this go to any one outside of your family. Boy, this is an heirloom! I
+never heard of just this edition before. The engravings in it are
+wonderful. It is a very valuable book. I couldn't think of letting you
+give it to me!"
+
+Ann Lisbeth had come into the room for a moment, but as she saw us
+sitting together on the leather couch and absorbed in the book, she
+had hastily left the room, closing the door behind her.
+
+As I finished speaking Alfred glanced at the closed door then
+deliberately reached over and caught both my hands as they fluttered
+about over the leaves of the book. In my surprise they struggled a
+moment, but he held them--he has such big, warm, _capable_ hands; no
+wonder people are trusting as to their ability--and thus it was, with
+our heads bent close together and our hands pressing down upon the
+passionate poems of the greatest passion poet, that I received my
+first declaration of love.
+
+"Don't you know that there is nothing in the world I own or could get
+too valuable for me to give to you, Ann?" he said, in low, tense tones
+that I had never heard from him before. "Surely you know what you are
+to me! The greatest privilege I could ask is to give you everything I
+have or shall have--a life of devotion--a heart, darling, that has
+always been yours! A world of _love_!--"
+
+He came closer still, and in another moment he would have had his arms
+around me, carried away as he was by the force of his own feelings,
+but I drew back and he was arrested by the look on my face. His own
+went white with sudden misery.
+
+"Ann! Surely you don't mean to tell me that I am already too late?"
+
+"Too late?"
+
+"That you love some one else!"
+
+His face, pale and drawn, looked strangely unlike my genial,
+even-tempered Alfred. He was capable of great depth of feeling,
+then--besides being so strong, so fine! I had always had an infinite
+respect for him, and admiration, and affection! I had known that the
+strength of his nature had been tested and found _there_; and it was
+like the strength of oak, sturdy, deep-rooted, indomitable.
+
+"I _so nearly_ love _you_, Alfred," I cried, struggling between the
+pain I felt at his hurt and the bewilderment of my own confused
+feelings.
+
+For the face of Richard Chalmers was between us, and his face, too,
+spoke strength. Strength of steel, cold, inflexible, even cruel,
+perhaps--yet holding such a potent attraction.
+
+"--But you _quite_ love some one else?" His voice was calm, although
+his face was even whiter than a moment before.
+
+"I don't know--I only know that I am oh, so sorry for you--and for
+myself, too!"
+
+He was still holding my hands in his strong clasp, and they felt so
+wonderfully at home there that I never thought to move them--if I had
+never known that other man I should have loved _him_ so!
+
+"Ann, is it Chalmers?"
+
+The question was frankly put, and as frankly answered.
+
+"Yes.--But there is nothing yet--nothing has been _said_--still, I
+know--"
+
+"Ah, I was afraid of that! That was what overpowered my determination
+not to speak of my love until I came back from Europe! I noticed
+something that first time I met him--then the Gordons told me of his
+attentions to you."
+
+"Yes," I said. "But he has never told me that he cares."
+
+"He will. And I congratulate him."
+
+Alfred arose, as he spoke, and I laid my hand on his arm.
+
+"This is not going to make any difference between us?" I asked
+appealingly. I felt that I could not lose my friend.
+
+"Not in my feeling for you," he answered, looking down at me with a
+look that I hated to see in his brown eyes--they usually met the world
+with such a level, untroubled glance. "If you should ever change, or
+ever need me--you know that I will be there. But, dear, it will be
+painful to go on meeting you. I'm going away in a few weeks, perhaps,
+but until then--"
+
+"I know. I'll stay out of your way," I promised humbly.
+
+He leaned over suddenly and caught my face between his hands. He
+brushed his lips lightly against the coils of my hair.
+
+"Good-by, _darling_," he said. Then he went out softly and closed the
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ANN RECEIVES A CALLER
+
+
+"Whoopee, what a pretty pitcher!" Waterloo cried admiringly, as he
+came down to breakfast this morning with the belt of his rompers still
+unfastened and a look of sleepiness in his brown eyes.
+
+He followed his mother into the kitchen, as did we all, for the cook
+was late, and Rufe was anxious to get off early.
+
+"Let me play with it. I won't hurt it."
+
+I do not know whether it was the appeal in his voice or the wish to
+avoid a conflict, which always made her so nervous that she let the
+toast burn, which made Cousin Eunice pick the object under discussion
+up in her hand and silently debate a minute.
+
+"Isn't it a sign of the times when a child of his age doesn't know a
+coffee-pot when he sees one?" Rufe asked, as he stood in the doorway
+and absorbed lots of space. When Galileo, or whoever it was, made his
+famous remark about nobody being able to occupy more than one space at
+a time he had never seen a man in the kitchen before breakfast.
+
+"I think it speaks well for his up-bringing," he continued (Rufe's I
+mean, not Galileo). "It shows how entirely we are on the water wagon
+here at this house."
+
+"Lemme play with the coffee-pot," Rufus, junior, was insisting,
+dangerous signs appearing around the corner of his mouth. Cousin
+Eunice, who is observant, noticed these signs. It always gives her a
+spell of indigestion for him to have a crying spell before breakfast.
+
+"Now listen, son," she said, handing the vessel over to him with a
+dubious look, "you must be very careful with the coffee-pot. Father
+went up himself yesterday and bought it for mother, because we are
+going to have so much company this afternoon that the other pot won't
+hold enough. So you just sit down on a pile of sofa pillows to play
+with it, then you can't drop it and make ugly dents in the pretty,
+shiny thing."
+
+This arrangement proved so satisfactory that breakfast was finished
+and eaten before Waterloo could be prevailed upon to break his fast. A
+pocket full of marbles poured headlong into the new-fangled
+coffee-pot had added very materially to its success as a plaything,
+and the music of this kept him engaged for at least half an hour after
+the cook finally showed up and took the reins of the kitchen work out
+of our relieved hands.
+
+Cousin Eunice then went into the dining-room to give another look at
+the piles of silver, china and napery that are considered necessary
+accompaniments to civilized eating in public.
+
+"Almonds, olives, mints," she said, touching the glass and silver
+dishes which were placed in a row on the sideboard. "Oh, isn't there
+always a gala feeling about eating out of wedding presents? And I'm
+going to use every pretty dish I have this afternoon."
+
+"Is Mrs. Barnette such a big personage, then?" I inquired. The
+"Scribblers' Club" was going to meet with Mrs. Clayborne, and I had
+heard much of the visiting lioness just mentioned. Cousin Eunice is
+the kind of woman who takes her parties hard, and before the actual
+date of one, everything in the house, from Waterloo's scalp to the
+back kitchen shelves, is put in apple-pie order--as if a visit from
+the health officer were impending.
+
+"Big?" Cousin Eunice was going over the row of dishes again, to make
+sure that she was going to be able to use them all. "Why, she speaks
+seven different languages, and has all her underclothes suspended from
+her shoulders."
+
+"Mercy! Then it will take every piece of silver and fine glass you can
+muster to offset that, I'm sure."
+
+"Naturally I must make an impression some way. If my book had been
+published and talked about all I should do would be to offer them a
+cup of tea and a wafer--and they would fall all over themselves for
+the honor of coming."
+
+"Meanwhile, being humble and obscure, you have to serve flesh and fowl
+and coffee--say, don't you reckon I'd better be scrubbing out the
+coffee-pot?"
+
+"Please do," she nodded, as she went on with her work while I bearded
+Waterloo and demanded the glittering object of his admiration.
+Manlike, he had already tired of the plaything, and was ready to
+scamper away with Grapefruit, for she had found a dead frog out in the
+yard, she said, and they would have a grand funeral if he would come
+on.
+
+"Take him for a little walk now and save the funeral ceremonies until
+afternoon," I suggested, "so he'll stay out of his mother's way
+during the party."
+
+Then I poured the marbles out of the coffee-pot into his grimy little
+hands, the life-lines and head-lines of which constituted little
+streaks of whiteness, thereby proving them to be the hands of a
+Caucasian.
+
+"There's one that won't come out," he informed me, as he pocketed the
+others and departed with Grapefruit.
+
+I investigated and found a marble lodged firmly in the neck of the
+spout, a most tantalizing position it occupied, resisting coyly my
+efforts to remove it, yet protruding almost halfway into the body of
+the pot. I stood there fingering it until Cousin Eunice came to see
+what was the matter. I explained, and when she insisted upon trying
+her own hand at the marble's removal I reluctantly gave it over to
+her.
+
+"Now isn't that _too_ bad?" she finally exclaimed with a nervous
+impatience after she saw that it was useless to try any further. "It
+serves me right for giving it to him to play with--but I _do_ hate to
+get him started before breakfast."
+
+Each member of the family and the servants took turns at trying to get
+the marble out of the fine new coffee-pot, spending, all told, several
+hours of the busy morning, and when Rufe came in to luncheon the
+story was poured into his somewhat unsympathetic ears.
+
+"I knew he would do the thing some damage when I saw you hand it over
+to him to play with this morning," he said with a fatherly air.
+"Doesn't he tear, or break, or _chew_, or sprinkle over with talcum
+powder everything he can get his hands on?"
+
+"Maybe you can get the marble out," I said, bringing the coffee-pot to
+Rufe, and he worked over it for a full half-hour.
+
+"Oh, it's ruined," he said disgustedly, when he saw that it wasn't
+coming out. "Of course the coffee won't _pour_! It will just drop, as
+reluctantly as tears at a rich uncle's funeral."
+
+"Why, we hadn't thought to try," Cousin Eunice said, and I took the
+thing from Rufe's hand and sped with it to the kitchen sink.
+
+"It pours," I announced triumphantly.
+
+"Then your glory as a hostess is saved," Rufe comforted her.
+
+"But who wants to go through life with a marble up the coffee-pot
+spout?" she persisted, with little worried lines between her eyes.
+
+"Besides it will be sure to taste like marbles," I added.
+
+The little worried lines between Cousin Eunice's blue eyes grew deeper
+in the early afternoon as the ices and cakes were delayed an hour in
+coming, and we found that Waterloo had sprinkled frazzled wheat
+biscuit all over the chairs and floor of the reception-room, just as
+the door-bell was ringing to announce the first Scribbler. Then she
+grew cheerful again when some of her best friends among the club
+members arrived, and only slightly flurried at the advent of Mrs.
+Barnette.
+
+I stayed in the presence of the learned body long enough to hear with
+my own ears that they were not discussing anything too deep for me to
+understand, everything being spoken in plain English; but this
+happened to be a business meeting as well as an occasion for social
+enjoyment, so when the time for election of officers drew near I fled,
+fearing at least Esperanto--if not actual blows.
+
+I was present once at a meeting of mother's missionary society when
+this ordeal had to be gone through with, and I shall never forget the
+injured expression and cutting accents of the secretary _pro tem._
+when she found that the office was not permanently hers.
+
+The only untoward event that happened this afternoon (and that wasn't
+untoward through any fault of ours) was when Mrs. Howard, an immensely
+tall, raw-boned Scribbler, happened to speak in complimentary terms of
+dear Mrs. Clayborne's lovely sylvan room.
+
+"I am _so_ sensitive to rooms," she said, fluttering her rich lace
+scarf toward one corner of the apartment which she particularly liked,
+"and the least false note gets so on my nerves!" She was sitting alone
+upon a small sofa--alone, yet not alone, for Waterloo's little, but
+_loud_, mechanical bug was also sitting on the sofa, although his
+presence was unsuspected by Mrs. Howard.
+
+This amazing insect is like love in the springtime, it only takes a
+touch to set it a-fluttering, for it seems always to be wound up. The
+heavy lace scarf hanging from Mrs. Howard's long arms and creeping
+over its back and sprawling legs was quite enough. It caught in the
+silken fabric with its sudden zizzing, clicking noise; and it climbed
+steadily upward, toward the lady's stalwart, but nervous, shoulders.
+
+The meshes of the lace concealed the true identity of the intruder,
+and Mrs. Howard no doubt considered herself to be in the clutches of
+some poisonous and persistent spider. She shook her scarf; she tried
+to slay the monster with her book of minutes; she screamed. Finally,
+jerking the scarf from her shoulders and flinging it into the middle
+of the floor, she bravely trampled the "thing" underfoot, and thus she
+silenced it. Then she subsided upon the sofa, pale and exhausted.
+
+"Let's have the sandwiches--quick," Cousin Eunice whispered to me, and
+I fled to the dining-room to see that everything was in readiness.
+
+Under the genial influence of the buffet luncheon I found that they
+all unbent somewhat--enough to get down to commonplaces, even
+discussing such things as husbands, wall-paper and jap-a-lac.
+
+I vibrated between the scene of gaiety in the house and the more
+enjoyable frog funeral, which was in full blast in the back yard.
+
+Grapefruit had taken down one of the kitchen window shades to make a
+tent, under which there was an attractive tub of water, with several
+members of the bereaved frog family sporting heartlessly around in its
+muddy depths.
+
+I had not thought of danger, although I had seen Waterloo dabbling in
+this tub pretty constantly during the last sad rites; but after the
+final Scribbler had departed and his weary mother came upon the scene,
+little Waterloo was ordered peremptorily in the house, and dire
+predictions were made.
+
+"Oh, you'll be sure to have croup to-night," Cousin Eunice said
+dejectedly, as she followed Waterloo up the stairs and rubbed down his
+dripping little hands and arms with a Turkish towel. This task being
+finished to her maternal satisfaction, she turned to me with a look of
+unutterable weariness.
+
+"Unhook me, Ann; my head is bursting. I'm going to bed."
+
+So this is how it came about that when the door-bell rang at eight
+o'clock to-night there was nobody but me in fit condition to receive
+callers. Rufe was alternately filling the hot-water bottle for Cousin
+Eunice's aching head and racking his own brain trying to remember
+where he had put the wine of ipecac after Waterloo's last spell of
+croup. And the poor little darling was coughing in a manner that to me
+was frightfully alarming. With no thought in my mind save to help Rufe
+in his nursing feats, I had taken off my party frock and had slipped
+on a low-neck Peter Pan blouse, with a fresh linen skirt. My hair was
+about ready to tumble and my face flushed with worry over Waterloo.
+
+"Oh, the devil!" Rufe pronounced, when the penetrating sound of the
+door-bell reached us. But it was not the devil.
+
+"It is Mr. Chalmers," I said, with a little catch in my breath as I
+heard his voice down in the hall.
+
+"Well, you run down and get him settled," Rufe said, holding up a
+little bottle of dark-colored liquid to the light to read the label,
+"--then come on back for a few minutes and help me give the rooster a
+dose of this--will you? It always requires an assistant."
+
+"Let's give the medicine now--then I'll dress before I go down."
+
+"Nonsense! You look a thousand times prettier flushed and careless--as
+you are now--than you do all fixed up with your hair smooth. I don't
+like to keep him waiting long, for he might have come to see me about
+something important. You sound him, like a good girl, and if he
+doesn't want to see me particularly tell him that my family is ill and
+that you will entertain him."
+
+I did take time to glance into the mirror to satisfy myself that Rufe
+was not entirely wrong--then I ran down-stairs.
+
+Mr. Chalmers was standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire
+(which Cousin Eunice had ordered kindled up all over the house when
+she realized that there was danger of Waterloo having croup), as I
+came down the steps, and when he saw, through the big doorway, that I
+was alone, he came to the foot of the stairs to meet me. The front
+part of the house was still open, and there was a beautiful moonlight.
+After I had greeted him I stood in the dimly lighted hall a moment,
+looking out into the night; then I went on into the long, beautiful
+room, which was filled with the scent of roses to-night, and, as we
+drew up before the fire, I shivered a little. There was just enough
+crispness in the chilly air to cause a deliciously shivery sensation.
+
+"Well, you have no engagement for this evening, I hope," he began, as
+I moved closer to the hearth and stirred the fire into a brighter
+blaze. "I should have telephoned, I know, but I was detained at the
+office until quite late."
+
+"No, there are no engagements to-night. Cousin Eunice has gone to bed
+with a headache and Rufe is nursing Waterloo through a spell of croup.
+By the way, you'll excuse me while I run back a few minutes and help
+give the little fellow a dose of medicine?"
+
+"Certainly--if you'll promise not to be long," he said with a smile.
+
+"Oh, it will take only a little while. Then, when the invalids both
+get settled Rufe can come down--unless you are in a special hurry to
+see him about some mighty political secret. In that case I can send
+him right now, and play the part of nurse myself."
+
+"Please do _not_," he answered, speaking much more earnestly than the
+occasion warranted. "I came solely to see you. Tell Clayborne he is
+not to disturb himself on my account."
+
+Waterloo was breathing better and had gone to sleep by the time I
+reached his bedside again.
+
+"I don't believe he's going to need the stuff, after all," Rufe said,
+unbuttoning his collar and beginning to make preparations to be
+comfortable. "Eunice says her head is a little easier, so I'm going to
+lie down here and read the paper until I'm sleepy. Chalmers didn't
+want anything special with me, did he?"
+
+"No. He said you were not to disturb yourself at all," I answered, and
+he looked up quickly as he deposited his collar on the dressing-table.
+
+"So? He came to see you?"
+
+"That's what he says. He may later swear it by the inconstant moon.
+She is so beautiful to-night, that you can forgive her for being
+inconstant." I rattled away to hide my trembling joy, brought on by
+the anticipation of two hours alone with _him_.
+
+But Rufe's eyes were grave.
+
+"Ann, don't lose your head over Chalmers," he said soberly, with that
+queer density with which a married man usually regards a love affair.
+(Oh, stupid Rufe! My head has been lost so long that I have grown
+delightfully accustomed to doing without it!) "He is a good fellow,
+and all that, but I don't know that he's good enough for you."
+
+"Ann!" It was Cousin Eunice's voice calling weakly from the darkened
+room beyond. I went to her bed.
+
+"Ann, is that Richard Chalmers down-stairs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And Rufe isn't going down?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, listen, dear: he may propose to you to-night--I have seen that
+he was only waiting to get a good chance--but _don't_ promise him
+anything! Until we know him better, dear!"
+
+I patted her hand softly, then ran into my own room to get a fan that
+I might have something to toy with. There was a bottle of rich perfume
+on my table, my favorite lily-of-the-valley, and I drew the long glass
+stopper across my lips. Then I went to the window and looked out at
+the white light of the moon.
+
+"Not promise him anything!" I said half aloud, the beauty of the night
+drawing a sigh of longing that was almost a sob. "Oh, don't they
+_know_ that I would promise him my very soul if he should ask it?"
+
+Richard was restlessly walking up and down the length of the long room
+when I came down again. He crossed to meet me and held out his hand,
+catching mine in his strong grip, just as if we had not shaken hands
+only a short time before. "So I am going to have you all to myself
+to-night?"
+
+"Rufe said he would stay with his ailing family, if you would put up
+with my society."
+
+"Ah! Don't you believe that I came just to see you? I was afraid that
+I should not be able to get a moment alone, so I was going to ask Mrs.
+Clayborne, as a great favor, to let me take you to the theater--or
+anywhere else that you preferred. I have tickets here to the Lyceum,
+and there is a taxi-cab at the door. Shall we go?"
+
+"Let's stay here," I begged. "It has been an awfully tiresome day. Go
+and dismiss the cab."
+
+He looked gratified at my decision, then went out to send the cab
+away. I glanced at the bower of a room and felt a thrill of
+satisfaction. It was all so beautiful, and I love beauty.
+
+"Shall I close these doors?" he asked carelessly, as he came in again
+and I heard the chug-chug of the cab as it sped away. "Shall I close
+these doors? It is really chilly to-night."
+
+"Yes, I noticed," I said in some confusion, for I remembered that the
+closing of a door had meant a great deal to Alfred a few days ago. Ann
+Lisbeth had closed it, because she knew that he wanted her to; and he
+had looked to see before he had said a word. Evidently it is a way
+with lovers!
+
+"I noticed that it is cold," I repeated, as he came over and stood
+near me without speaking. "My hands are quite cold."
+
+I recognized the absurdity of this as soon as the silly words were out
+of my mouth, and I tried to think of something else to say quickly
+enough to cover my shamefaced silence, but nothing would come to my
+aid, and I had finally to meet his compelling eyes with a frankly
+embarrassed little laugh.
+
+"Let me draw your chair back from the fire," he said, after we looked
+straight into each other's eyes for a moment, "or, better still, throw
+something around you and let's go out on the little side balcony where
+Clayborne and I always go to smoke. It is a glorious night."
+
+I went out into the hall and got a long, loose wrap. As he held it for
+me to slip my arms into the sleeves his eyes traveled slowly over the
+crisp freshness of the linen gown I wore. My back was to him, but I
+was watching him in the mirror.
+
+"I have a worshipful reverence for virginity," he said at length,
+"even if it be only of a white linen suit. I have always wanted the
+first and best of everything. It is this entirely fresh and unspoiled
+quality of your beauty that has so attracted me."
+
+We were walking out through the long French window which opens on to
+the balcony, and as we gained the shadow of a thick growth of vines at
+one side he stopped, putting up his arm to stop me.
+
+"Ann," he said, with the same sudden directness that had startled me
+that day in the orchard when he had asked me about our first meeting,
+"Ann, you have seen that--I am attracted? Dear, I don't want to
+frighten you, you beautiful little _young_ thing," here he lost his
+self-possession, "but I love you, sweetheart--love only you--love
+you--_you_!"
+
+His arms slipped about me, and tightening their clasp after a moment,
+he drew me very close, so close that his perfect face closed
+everything else on earth from my view. And his keen gray eyes became
+two points of steel that pierced through, straight to my soul, and
+carried with them a sweet potion that inoculated my being with
+adoration for him.
+
+I felt his cheek brush close to mine, his thin, cold face
+transfigured; and, as if to prolong the exquisite torture of suspense,
+we both held apart a moment before our lips met full. Then--
+
+I was so swept by the storm of strange and wonderful emotion that my
+senses failed to take it in at first--that Richard Chalmers was mine!
+He loved me; he was feeling the same joy and the same torture that
+were running like fire and wine to my brain. Even in the dim light my
+eyes must have betrayed some of this bewilderment to him, if his own
+thoughts had not been equally in a tumult.
+
+"You are _sure_?" he questioned, after his passionate breath had
+slackened a little so that he could speak. "Ann, this means everything
+to me. Don't let me kiss you like that again unless you are very sure
+of your own mind."
+
+--But he kissed me again, and kissed--and kissed until his lips grew
+cold, and I felt suddenly so tired that I could stand up no longer.
+
+Oh, divine rapture of senses and soul! Could I forget that kiss in the
+hour of death? I wished that death might come then, as we stood
+together in that first passionate embrace, our lips meeting in kisses
+of fire, our hearts throbbing in physical pain. Oh, to die
+thus--together! So perfect was the moment--so supreme the joy!
+
+My head fell over, with a little droop of utter weariness upon his
+shoulder, and his arms loosened.
+
+"You are tired," he said, in quick contrition, turning my face up to
+the moonlight. "Shall we go back into the house? I'm a brute to treat
+you this way!"
+
+We passed in through the long window and walked over to the far
+corner, where the big leather chair is. I sat down, lost in its ample
+depths. Then he stood up in front of me and looked down with the
+calmly contented expression of one who is greatly pleased over a new
+possession.
+
+"You beautiful little _young_ thing," he said again.
+
+"Young?" I felt so secure, so happy, when discussing the question of
+age with him now.
+
+"That is all I'm afraid of! You may grow tired of me."
+
+"You are afraid of nothing, Coeur de Lion," I answered with an
+adoring look that brought on another avalanche of caresses. "I have
+always called you that."
+
+"Always? Since when?"
+
+"Since that day at the gates of the cemetery."
+
+"Ah! And I have never ceased for an hour to think of you since that
+day--and to wonder how I could make you love me."
+
+"When all the time you were the man of my dreams. Your face told me
+that when I first saw you--cold as steel to all the world, yet strong
+as steel for me."
+
+"You have never imagined yourself in love before, Ann?" he asked,
+after a little silence which he beguiled by raising each finger-tip of
+my left hand to his lips.
+
+"No."
+
+"I thought not. A woman doesn't kiss like that but once."
+
+"--And a man?"
+
+"I've told you that I have never cared for any other woman. That's
+what makes me feel such an utter fool now! To think that, at my age, I
+should have let a passion take such possession of me--before I knew
+whether or not there was the slightest chance of its being returned!"
+
+"Oh, love, how humble the little god makes us! When all along you have
+been _King_ Richard to me."
+
+"Well, there was never a king who found so worthy a queen-consort.
+When are you going to marry me, Ann?"
+
+We had strayed off the heights a little and I was taking a much-needed
+breathing spell in the less rarified air, when he sent my senses
+reeling again at the question. Married! To this regal creature, who is
+so splendid in mind, body and spirit! And he was asking me to marry
+him, me--simple Ann Fielding, a dreamer of dreams, who had never
+dreamed one half so radiant as this blessed reality! To live with him
+always! "The desire of the moth for the star," oh, joy, the moth was
+going to reach the star this time! Greater joy! the star was reaching
+out just as longingly for the moth, and calling the tiny creature
+another, an infinitely brighter star!
+
+"I hardly expected you to be in such a hurry about marrying," I
+finally answered, after he had repeated the question. "I have heard
+you say such cynical things about the holy estate--when you thought I
+wasn't listening. One time you said you thought passion consisted
+largely of not knowing what a woman looks like before breakfast."
+
+"Sweetheart," and his eyes were very serious, "I am sorry for every
+light word I have ever spoken about marriage--since you have honored
+me so." Then teasingly he continued after a moment, "The thing I
+desire most on earth just now is to know what _you_ look like before
+breakfast, sweet Mistress Ann."
+
+"Do you desire that most? Then what next?"
+
+"You know, love. My ambition is next--and all I have in the world
+besides you."
+
+"You want to marry me and be governor of this state--now, on your
+honor, which do you desire the more--_Richard_?"
+
+He threw his arms around me again, as I called his name, and stopped
+my mouth with kisses.
+
+"Don't jest," he begged. "It is sacrilege to-night."
+
+Then we strayed from the heights again, and fell to talking about his
+ambition, and from that to more commonplace affairs still--how we
+were going to spend the next few days, and how we might arrange that
+to-morrow, Sunday, could be passed together. _Together_, that was all
+that either of us desired.
+
+"I'll come early enough in the morning to go to church with you," he
+suggested, "then we'll have luncheon at Beauregard's, if we can get
+Mrs. Clayborne to go with us, and--"
+
+"Mrs. Clayborne?" I asked in surprise. "What for?"
+
+"Ann," and he took my hand gently, as if he might be admonishing a
+child, "I consider it entirely out of place for a woman to go out
+alone with a man, even if the two are engaged. Evidently your mother
+has never given the matter as much consideration as I have always
+insisted should be used in the case of my sister--for I have seen you
+alone with this friend, Doctor Morgan, several times. When I happened
+to meet you in Beauregard's the night of the _circus_," there was a
+struggle here between amusement and sarcasm, "I thought, of course, he
+was some very close relative. But I find that he is only a dear
+friend, with whom you take long country drives--and who gives you
+heirloom volumes of Byronic poetry."
+
+"We have known each other since he first started to college," I
+stated, by way of defense, but I own with less assurance than I should
+have used if there had not been before me the picture of the scene in
+Ann Lisbeth's library.
+
+"I think it would be well to return the book with a note saying that
+you had found it too valuable a gift for you to feel justified in
+accepting. And, of course, you understand that from now on _I_ furnish
+you with every pleasure that it is in the power of a man to provide
+for the woman he loves. If you want books, you have only to let me
+know; if you wish to take a long country drive, you have but to call
+me. I'll even take you to the circus," we both laughed, "if your
+inclination is in that direction; but, little love, no other man must
+come near you!"
+
+"You are inclined to be jealous?"
+
+"Not at all! I am simply trying to avoid all cause for jealousy."
+
+"There isn't any other man who wants to come near me," I answered
+truthfully, as I recalled Alfred's beseeching look when he had
+virtually asked me to avoid meeting him.
+
+"Nonsense," he declared, so suddenly and so decidedly that I smiled
+with the pure joy of having him jealous. Richard Chalmers jealous!
+Afraid that I might fall in love with some other man! "Nobody could
+look at you without being attracted. I am far from being a ladies'
+man, but I acted a fool for weeks last winter--because I had happened
+to pass you on a country road. When you were driving with another man,
+too!"
+
+"That was because we had found each other," I said, running my hand
+through his soft, light hair, and dwelling on the proud privilege that
+was mine.
+
+"--Well, you will be guided by my advice in this matter, I feel sure,"
+he said finally, "and you are too clever a little woman not to manage
+to keep all other men at arm's length without betraying the secret of
+our engagement."
+
+"Secret?"
+
+"Yes, please, dearest! Let us keep it secret from every one save our
+families until this deuced nomination business is over. There would be
+a lot of talk, you understand, because I happen to be a little in the
+limelight now. They would be wanting to put your picture in the papers
+for all the other men to gaze at. I can't bear to see a woman's
+picture in the paper."
+
+I laughed a little and agreed with him. This was only another phase
+of his kingly character. Whatever is his must be _his_, with a
+fanatical exclusion of every one else.
+
+"I called you Richard, Coeur de Lion, but it was a mistake. You are
+a sultan."
+
+"With only one love, my Nourjehan."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A DRAWN BATTLE
+
+
+"And all the time the marble _belonged_ in the coffee-pot spout!"
+
+"How do you know? Who told you?"
+
+Rufe and Cousin Eunice looked up from the grape-fruit which had been
+absorbing their attention. They always sleep late on Sunday morning,
+and, on account of the headache and croup of the night before, they
+had slept later than usual this morning. I had been up for hours and
+had already had a walk out in the brilliant October sunshine.
+
+"Your Cousin Richard told me!"
+
+My words were quietly spoken, with only a tiny smile that insisted
+upon creeping around the corners of my mouth, out of sheer happiness
+from speaking his name. But, quiet as they were, they electrified the
+two at the table.
+
+"Ann! _What?_"
+
+"'Tis true. The marble is placed in there, when the pot is being
+made--to keep in the heat, you understand. Richard always makes the
+coffee himself on hunting-trips, and--"
+
+"Ann! _Will_ you hush talking about coffee-pots? Tell us what you
+mean! Are you already engaged to Richard Chalmers?"
+
+"Yes. _Engaged!_"
+
+"Well, upon my word! And this is how the shy young creatures feel
+about the matter when the man's back is turned," Rufe said, starting
+up and pulling out my chair for me. "You ought to have your eyes cast
+down, and whisper the news with blushes and tears, you horribly modern
+young woman!"
+
+But he patted my shoulder affectionately and said Chalmers always had
+been a lucky devil. Cousin Eunice stared at me a moment in silence.
+
+"And you are very happy?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. _Very_ happy."
+
+"Then I congratulate you both." But she did not come and kiss me, for
+which I was very thankful. I have a masculine dislike for scenes. It
+was for this reason that I sprung the news of the marble in the spout
+first.
+
+She asked a few questions as to how it had come about, but, while she
+manifested no great enthusiasm, she was too humane to make any
+kill-joy reference to her request of me last night.
+
+We finished breakfast and I pushed back my chair.
+
+"Well, I must hurry and dress for church," I said, looking
+nonchalantly out the window, for I knew that this would be another
+bomb. I have always been a notorious heathen in my family circles. I
+usually spend Sunday morning in the woods with a book of poetry or
+philosophy--sometimes with two or three children from the village--but
+I _never_ go to church.
+
+The bomb exploded.
+
+"Rufe, listen! Did you hear that? Going to church with her young man!"
+
+"Well, it was his first request of me. I couldn't refuse it, could I?"
+
+"Chalmers always has had a way of making people do exactly what he
+wishes," Rufe said, coming up to Cousin Eunice to kiss her good-by.
+
+"I shall do as he wishes when I think it is right," I answered with
+some spirit, for it aroused me to think they should consider me an
+incipient "doormat wife." "But of course he will soon learn that I am
+not like his mother and Evelyn."
+
+"God forbid that he should ever make you like them!" Cousin Eunice
+said, with so much fervor that I looked at her in surprise.
+
+"You don't think that he made them--what they are?" I asked.
+
+"I--don't know," she said, looking at me gravely. "He is masterful;
+but that is far from being a bad trait. I imagine that his attitude
+toward you will be just what you make it. Be frank and sincere with
+him always--just as you are with the rest of the world. And never let
+him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect. Many wives
+do not know the meaning of that word."
+
+"But Richard will always exalt his wife."
+
+"Yes. He will exalt everything that is _his_--simply because he
+possesses self-respect himself, raised to the n-th power. You will be
+the best-dressed, the best-housed, the best-established woman in your
+set. And that set will be wherever he chooses to place you. If he
+rises politically you will have a brilliant course marked out before
+you; if he does not you will still have a life of luxury, leading the
+smart set in Charlotteville."
+
+"_Don't_," I begged, for she had spoken half in earnest about the life
+in Charlotteville. "You know how I hate just plain society--the kind
+that Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn love. It would be the extinction of me.
+Above everything else on earth I love freedom. But I also love the
+'paths of glory.'"
+
+"And, don't you see, dear child, that if you tread these paths with a
+man as much older than yourself as Richard Chalmers is, and especially
+a man whose disposition tends toward tyranny, that you will march to
+the music that _he_ directs?"
+
+"Well, if it's the music of his voice I shall bow my head and face the
+east whenever I hear it."
+
+"Don't think that I am a croaker, but I am a married woman and older
+than you," she kept on, ignoring the extravagance of my last sentence,
+"and I may be able to give you some advice that will help you. You are
+a girl of an _intense_ nature, very candid, very kind-hearted, but
+alas, very impractical. Having been reared as you were you are
+naturally self-centered and visionary, with a capacity for
+development, but as yet you have not reached any very high degree of
+serenity or _strength_, in spite of all the pencil-marks you put in
+your little volume of _Marcus Aurelius_. You have never had to
+practise sacrifice, patience, endurance--any of the virtues which make
+a _woman_, and without which life is a vain thing."
+
+"All those things will come with--marriage," I said.
+
+"With marriage where the man recognizes an equal partnership," she
+amended.
+
+"Cousin Eunice, you have no idea of what Richard thinks of me," I
+explained, feeling very grave myself by this time, but wishing to set
+her right in regard to my standing with my lover. "Of course all of
+you still think of me as being ridiculously _young_ and irresponsible,
+somehow, just because I have never, as you say, been put to any test.
+But Richard knows that I am a woman, capable of knowing my own
+mind--and he adores me--just as I do him."
+
+"Dear," our voices had sunk low, and she came over and laid her hand
+upon my arm, "an adoring husband is a delightful thing--between the
+pages of a book. But you will need a man who loves and _trusts_ you."
+
+"I am sure Richard does that."
+
+"I hope so. It may be that you can be a power for good in his life,
+taking a sincere interest in his work, and letting your own honesty be
+a kind of bulwark to him in the corruption which will be sure to
+assail him in his career. Never _hedge_ with him, Ann, in the little
+things; then he will have an ideal of his wife which will keep _him_
+from ever being tempted to hedge in the big things."
+
+"You know it is not my nature to hedge," I replied, rather
+emphatically.
+
+"You have never been tempted to," she answered. "I know that you would
+never come down to lying about the price of a fur coat, but luxuries
+happen not to be your weak point."
+
+"Fortunately not," I said, with a little laugh, for the discussion
+seemed a waste of time to me. Still I know that newly engaged girls
+and brides have to listen to a lot of admonishing from their female
+relatives. I wished, upon this occasion, that I could take mine as
+indifferently as I once saw a bride take hers. I was a child at the
+time, but even then I was impressed by the absurdity of a conventional
+aunt giving, in a well-modulated voice, the usual advice about "bear
+and forbear," as the pretty little bride-niece sat by and allowed big,
+conventional tears to roll down her cheeks, while she kept on
+industriously cleaning her diamond rings!
+
+"What is my weak point?"
+
+I asked the question, half hoping that the talk would be steered away
+from the radiant subject, but to my surprise I found that I was
+moving around in a circle.
+
+"Your weak point is Richard Chalmers--now and for the rest of your
+life!"
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean that you idealize him and worship him."
+
+"I do," I answered proudly.
+
+"And he thinks you are the prettiest little creature he ever saw, so
+he wants you for his," she kept on, analyzing my feelings and his with
+such a persistent accuracy that I found myself hoping my bridal advice
+would be given me by some one with less power of character delineation
+than is possessed by a lady novelist.
+
+"Ann, when a middle-aged man marries a young woman, especially if the
+man has money, he is likely to treat his wife less like a wife than
+a--mistress. He showers her with violets, kisses, diamonds; but he
+neither burdens her with his troubles nor calls upon her for help.
+Now, this may be pleasant for the woman, if she be a certain type of
+woman, who marries a man to be 'taken care' of, but it is not
+conducive to character development. If the man is poor and the woman
+has to _cook_ she has a better chance to enter the kingdom of heaven;
+but this is a rare opportunity, for a young woman seldom marries a
+middle-aged _poor_ man."
+
+"But surely you don't think that I am marrying Richard for his money?"
+
+There was no reproach in my tone; I was simply astounded that any one
+could take such a view of the matter.
+
+"Certainly not in cold-blood," she answered. "I think you are
+bewildered--hypnotized by the halo which you have placed upon his
+head; and the glitter of the man's amazing good looks."
+
+"The halo was already there," I corrected, but not so staunchly as my
+conscience made me feel that I should have done. Cousin Eunice has a
+disagreeably convincing tone in argument.
+
+"His good looks, while undeniably _there_, are enhanced by the luxury
+with which he surrounds himself--his handsome clothes are a distinct
+asset. Can you deny it?"
+
+"Certainly not! And his cigars are a joy. When I shook out my hair
+last night it was fragrant with the odor. He smoked, you know, out on
+the balcony."
+
+"Ah, and then you thought that your hair was a halo--because it had
+the odor of his cigars in it!"
+
+"Well, let's not get away from the subject of _his_ halo. I believe
+you said that I placed it around his head?"
+
+"You have done so, Ann! That halo has lain all the years of your life
+in your imaginative mind. You have kept it in a sacred chamber of your
+thoughts, while every tale of chivalry and every record of noble deeds
+has sent you to that chamber with more golden virtues to weave into
+the beautiful crown. Then one day you suddenly storm that room and
+snatch up the halo to place it triumphantly upon the head of the first
+startlingly handsome man you meet!"
+
+"If I have had a halo I have placed it upon the head of Richard
+Chalmers, who wears it so gracefully," I defended.
+
+"I admit the grace," she said, still speaking gravely. "But--_does it
+fit_?"
+
+"Well, he will be here in less than an hour," I replied, looking up at
+the clock in some alarm, for I felt that I must be very beautifully
+and carefully dressed upon this occasion. "I want you to come in and
+talk with him every time he comes, and maybe you will tell me if you
+think I need to take any tucks in the halo!"
+
+At half-past ten he came. I was still up-stairs when I heard the gate
+click, but I ran to the window and gazed down upon him in silent
+satisfaction. He threw away his cigar and swung briskly up the walk,
+the morning sun shining down upon his glossy hat, and changing it into
+an absurd kind of halo.
+
+"How is my little girl?" he asked in a low tone as I met him in the
+hall. "Has it seemed a long time since last night?"
+
+We passed into the drawing-room and found chairs that would not be
+directly in the line of vision of any one who might be crossing the
+hall in front of the door. He caught my hand and pressed it, but there
+was no sudden attempt at a stolen kiss. This was exactly to my liking,
+for, above all things, I am _artistic_, and I should not care for a
+lover who came in and kissed me before there had been time for any
+display of feeling to warrant it. Yet I am saying nothing against this
+habit in _husbands_.
+
+"Have you been waiting long?" he asked, his eyes wandering approvingly
+over my dressed-up, Sunday attire. I wore a pretty pink foulard silk,
+with a tiny white figure in it, the cream lace yoke and bit of black
+velvet ribbon at the collar managing some way to bring out the best
+there is in my eyes and complexion, for when pink and I are left
+alone we are not congenial. I felt a sudden sense of gratitude toward
+the woman who had made the dress and put that yoke and collar to it,
+for I realized that Richard would be quick to detect any
+incompatibility of colors. His eyes were still approving when they
+strayed down to my high-heeled black suede shoes! and I felt sinfully
+proud of my instep.
+
+"I've been dressed half an hour. Do I please you, Coeur de Lion?"
+
+"You are so entirely perfect that I know now I can never find jewels
+that will be worthy of you."
+
+"Jewels?"
+
+"Guess what I've been doing this morning!" He had leaned over closer
+to my chair as he spoke, and he again caught my hand and pressed it.
+
+I smiled and shook my head.
+
+"I've been buying my sweetheart an engagement ring."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"That's what detained me. I couldn't find a stone that I exactly cared
+for."
+
+He drew a little brown kid box from his pocket and touched the tiny
+pearl clasp.
+
+"See if you think this will do," he said, handing me the opened box.
+
+On the rich satin lining lay a big blue diamond; it caught the gleams
+of morning sunlight to its heart, then sent them back, with a dazzling
+radiance, to my eyes.
+
+I looked up at him and had begun to speak when there was the swish of
+skirts at the door and Cousin Eunice came into the room. I closed the
+box in my hand and listened to what she might say to him in greeting.
+
+"I came to warn you two benighted young people that it is high time
+for you to start to church, if you are still in the notion of going,"
+she said, after she had shaken hands with Richard and remarked upon
+the beauty of the morning. "You can't rely upon Ann to know anything
+about church time," she continued, as he wheeled up a chair for her
+and we all three sat down again. "She hasn't been to church since she
+was in the infant class at Sunday-school."
+
+"Ah! So I shall have missionary work to do--the first thing," he said,
+answering her light banter. Then, after a moment he reached over and
+took my hand, which was lying on the arm of my chair, in his. The
+gesture was infinitely chivalrous and caressing.
+
+"Mrs. Clayborne, Ann has told you of our happiness?"
+
+"Yes. And I congratulate you sincerely." Her blue eyes were suddenly
+grave and tender. She arose and extended her hand to him in frank
+fellowship. He towered above her a moment as he gratefully pressed the
+welcoming hand, then she turned and put her arm around my shoulder.
+
+"Ann is my little sister," she said, looking into his eyes with a
+steady glance. "You must always be very good to her."
+
+"I expect to be," he answered gravely.
+
+We showed her the ring and she admired its brilliant beauty.
+
+"But, you conceited man," she said, with a really cousinly laugh as
+she turned upon him, "you must have bought this before she accepted
+you! She told me that the wonderful event happened only last night!
+This is Sunday."
+
+"Oh, I happen to know Harper pretty well," he explained, mentioning
+the name of the best-known jeweler in the city. "I called him early
+this morning and he went down and we took a look through the vaults
+together. This was rather the best stone I could find, so I waited for
+him to set it for me."
+
+"Well, I must admit that I admire both your taste and
+your--precipitation," she said, smiling on him in the friendliest
+fashion.
+
+I had not had time before to give the matter a thought, but it dawned
+upon me then that nobody save my imperial Richard would have had the
+temerity to call a rich diamond merchant from his warm bed on a Sunday
+morning and have him go forth with tools in hand to set a jewel.
+Surely he could do anything he wished! He possesses an undoubted power
+over men, and a high-handed, yet charming way of having people do as
+he desires them to. Cousin Eunice was already showing signs of
+weakening from her harsh judgment of the earlier morning. I remembered
+suddenly the slim, satiny horse he was driving the day I first saw
+him, and how he spoke only a word to her when she became frightened at
+Alfred's car. She at once obeyed the influence of his voice. Tyrant?
+He is no tyrant. He manages to get his way always by being so lovable
+and so charming that it is a pleasure to give in to him.
+
+"Well, shall we be off to church?" he asked as Cousin Eunice went out
+into the hall to meet Waterloo, who was just then returning from
+Sunday-school.
+
+"If you prefer. I always try to take a long walk on Sunday morning. It
+makes me feel so good and _holy_ somehow!"
+
+He smiled. "And don't you feel that way in church?" he asked.
+
+"No--except when the big pipe-organ is playing. I love the feeling of
+cathedrals, without any organ, but I know that this is only a revel to
+the senses, and it seems wicked to go--just for that."
+
+He laughed outright. "So you think that people ought to get spiritual
+upliftment from going to church, do you?"
+
+"I do. And if they get no such upliftment I think they ought to have
+respect enough for their Maker to stay away!"
+
+"Their Maker? Are you so old-fashioned as to think that there is much
+_worship_ in these churches--with their paid singers and their paid
+preachers and their heedless, gossiping throngs?"
+
+"There is _some_ worship. For the sake of those few I feel that the
+reverential spirit ought always to be carried there. But I am like
+you. I scorn hypocrisy. The sight of a notoriously immoral deacon or
+steward sickens me with church-going for months. So I get my spiritual
+upliftment from going near to nature's heart. The birds and the bees
+are not orthodox--neither are they hypocrites."
+
+"Well, you shall show me some of these temples of yours about the week
+after next, when I have packed you off down home, and have speedily
+followed you there."
+
+"There are plenty such temples around here," I answered. "We might go
+to-day."
+
+"Yes, but we are going to church this morning."
+
+"Why? You have just agreed with me that you gain nothing from
+listening to a man who is paid so much a year to explain to you
+something of which he knows nothing."
+
+"Good heavens, child! What a sentence from the mouth of a babe! I go
+to church because it is good form."
+
+"Then you are the one who needs a missionary."
+
+"Well, I'll promise to quit going altogether after we are married. I
+shall expect you and mother and Evelyn to keep up the appearance of
+respectability for the family."
+
+"Listen, Richard," I said, standing close to him and lowering my
+voice so that I might not be overheard. "I may as well tell you now,
+in the beginning, that I could _never_ be a 'religious' woman the way
+your mother is. Our ideas on the subject are wholly different. I have
+a religion, but your conventional orthodoxy has little to do with it.
+And I shall not pretend that it has."
+
+"Ann! I believe I have fallen in love with a little reformer. Will you
+be so good, madam, as to set forth your views?" He spoke in the
+lightest tone of jest. Evidently he had no idea that a woman possessed
+such a thing as views.
+
+"Oh, it is a vague sort of belief; a dawning light of faith in the
+Eternal Wisdom, against which orthodoxy seems like a harsh glare which
+makes you squint your eyes."
+
+"Upon my word! What would mother say to that?"
+
+"She'll never say anything to it, for I shall never express such a
+thought to her. It is a useless waste of breath. But, Richard, if you
+love me, you will leave me untrammeled in such matters."
+
+"My dear, you are to be untrammeled in all matters. My only wish is
+your happiness. Now run and get your hat."
+
+"I'm not going to church with you for the sake of good form."
+
+"What?"
+
+"My conscience would hurt me all day."
+
+"Of course you are not in earnest," he said, and the smile died away
+from his lips. "So hurry, dear. We are late already."
+
+"But I am in earnest."
+
+"Then you are a very foolish little girl, and I'll explain, as we walk
+on down the street, why it is well for me to show my face in the
+different churches around the city."
+
+"You don't need to explain," I responded, but without stirring to get
+my hat. "I know that it will gain votes for you. But I don't approve
+of such methods."
+
+"Ann, I have found that it will never do to discuss any kind of
+business proposition with a woman. So let us not waste any more time
+arguing the matter. Go and get your hat."
+
+I had moved back from him a step or two and had opened my lips to
+state my position again, when Cousin Eunice, for the second time,
+broke in upon an interesting scene.
+
+"Mr. Chalmers, Rufe has just called me to ask if you were out here.
+It seems that there are some important out-of-town voters down at the
+_Times_ office. They are anxious to see you, as they are just passing
+through the city and will leave at two o'clock. Rufe apologized for
+his cruelty, but he says it is important that you should come."
+
+"Thank you very much, Mrs. Clayborne. Of course I shall have to go."
+He turned to me with sudden regret. Evidently he had already forgotten
+the slight difference of opinion. If he recalled it he would smile
+over my "stubbornness."
+
+After he was gone I told Cousin Eunice of the occurrence.
+
+"So soon?" she asked, with a smile for my earnestness. She did not
+consider his proposed offense such a crime as I did, but she looked
+serious as I told her of our little clash. "If the telephone hadn't
+summoned him I wonder which of you would have come off victorious?"
+she questioned.
+
+"I--wonder?" I repeated absently, but the big diamond was flashing a
+reminder of his love into my eyes and heart, and, as Cousin Eunice
+turned and left me, I bent and kissed the stone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SHADOWS
+
+
+At home, back of the village, and extending so far away that I had
+never yet explored the uttermost reaches of it, lies a long, low hill.
+It is wooded in places with patriarchal oaks, so stately and
+far-reaching that they call to mind the tales of fairy forests, where
+knights in glittering armor rode through; or giants lived in hidden
+houses in the midst of them.
+
+With the varying seasons this hill always seems to tell the silent
+story of the feelings in nature called forth by the changes. It speaks
+of joy in the spring; a gentle sadness in the summer; a glorious
+renunciation when the living green must give way to the gorgeous,
+though dying, red; and in winter there seems to be a spirit of
+patience.
+
+Back of the actual summit of the hill, and partly shut in by its
+crest, which runs along half of its rounding curve, and skirted on the
+other side by the woods, where the oaks and chestnuts grow, is an
+expansive depression, wide, rolling, beautiful. The ground, which is
+barren red clay, is thickly coated over with a scrubby growth, green
+for only a short while every spring, when there are millions of minute
+blue blossoms deep-set in its mazes. Later, it takes on a dull brown
+which lasts until fall, when it changes to a withered yellow.
+
+A few small cedar trees, growing sometimes singly, sometimes in sparse
+clumps, are dotted around over the ground, but the only actual beauty
+of the place is its look of great space. It is the only spot I know of
+where I can see sky enough.
+
+The sky! Yes, that is its charm. It seems to close down upon this cup
+with such a _nearness_ that on summer days you can almost reach up and
+touch the clouds. And they are unbelievably lovely at such times. Then
+on other days, when the heavens are hidden by long, sweeping bars of
+heavy gray cloud, and the wind comes tearing over the crest, like a
+monster knowingly cruel and relentless--then the expanse of earth and
+sky indeed seem to run together; but the look of nearness is lost. The
+feeling of immensity is crushing; and you have the sense of being
+brought face to face with an unseen Presence.
+
+Cathedrals hold this Presence, but tamed, trained and refined
+sometimes out of all semblance to its mighty prototype of the wilds.
+
+Years ago, when I was a child, Cousin Eunice used to take me up here,
+for she was the first one of our family ever to discover the place. To
+be sure, it had always been there, and we had driven around it
+whenever it had been necessary, but nobody ever dreamed of wanting to
+take walks there, for it is a wild, lonesome-looking spot, besides
+being cut up in places by great gulches. In the exact center of the
+depression there is the bed of a prehistoric lake. The stone basin is
+there, with all signs of water, at a tremendous distance in the past.
+
+"Isn't it _great_!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed, as we came upon the spot
+for the first time in our rambles. "Why, it is like being in another
+world, where everything is fresh, and free, and primitive. Let us
+pretend that this is our sacred garden, where we can carry only happy
+thoughts; where we can look at this immensity and learn the true value
+of things!" So we would often walk here, sometimes with Rufe; and then
+they would discuss the mysteries of Life and Death and Abiding Love.
+
+On the Monday morning after the events of Sunday which I have just
+recorded, I awoke with an overpowering desire to get away to this
+"garden." I wanted to get out to where there was sky enough! To a
+place so immense that I could think it all out and get a true value of
+things! I wanted to dwell on the great happiness that has come to me;
+to take in, if I could, the unbelievable fact that I have been whirled
+away through the infinite spaces of human longing until I have come
+upon and possessed the star of my heart's desire. Star of my heart's
+desire! King or sultan, he is the "god of my idolatry,"--Richard
+Chalmers, my lover!
+
+And while I craved this sight of a wild, free nature, I felt keenly
+that I should wish, on a morning like this, that the clouds and sky
+and trees should shrink into their proper place in the background of
+the mighty stage. They should move back and make room for me; and my
+triumphant ego should come and place itself in the limelight for me to
+review. I wanted to see myself at the age of Eve.
+
+I explained some of this feeling to Cousin Eunice, in idiomatic
+English, after breakfast on Monday morning, but here was a hue and
+cry. It was the wrong thing for me to do, she declared. I should stay
+here and get better acquainted with my fiancé. Besides, the first few
+weeks of a courtship were too dear and precious to be spent apart! I
+should die of homesickness for a sight of this beautiful city where I
+had gained my new-found joy!
+
+I mentioned the matter to Richard when he came that evening--that I
+wanted to go home for a day or so anyway, then I might come back--and
+I found that he approved the plan most decidedly.
+
+"I shall be out of town for several weeks," he said, "and of course I
+don't want you here in the city while I'm away." He spoke with a
+half-playful air, but I had already learned to read his expression so
+well that I knew he was in earnest. "You don't suppose for a minute
+I'm going to give any other fellow a chance to steal you away from me
+now, do you? Before I have had time to realize my good fortune?"
+
+"I wish you would _not_ talk that way, even in jest," I told him
+seriously. "It implies a kind of distrust."
+
+He had been there quite half an hour when this took place, but he came
+over to my chair and kissed me for the first time. If Richard does
+treat his wife as a plaything, as Cousin Eunice suggested, I don't
+believe he will find it necessary to shower many violets and diamonds
+upon her. I believe that kisses will do the work.
+
+"Distrust! Love, _little_ love, don't say that again!"
+
+"Then let's for ever bar discussions about any other man."
+
+"I shall be delighted to! And, to make assurance doubly sure, I'm
+going to pack you off down home, as I mentioned yesterday. I'll be
+gone just a few weeks, and shall, of course, run down to see you the
+minute I get back to this part of the state. I am going by
+Charlotteville to tell mother and Evelyn the news."
+
+"And we'll have letters every day."
+
+"And I'll call you up whenever I'm where a long-distance 'phone is.
+Some of those little towns don't boast one."
+
+He drew me close to him and we went together out to the little balcony
+where he could smoke. The smoke blew through my hair and lingered
+there. It seemed almost like a kiss from him that night, as I loosened
+my hair and began to brush it out.
+
+"Oh, I _wish_ it could stay there until he comes back," I whispered in
+agony, as I buried my face in the soft, odorous mazes; and thought of
+the long days that would have to pass some way before I could see him
+again.
+
+"I believe I'll go and get Neva to walk with me this morning," I
+decided, when mother told me that Mrs. Sullivan has been obliged, by
+maternal affection, to send for her daughter to come home and spend
+the week-end. "She will not disturb my musings."
+
+I have been home several days now and have had an equal number of
+letters from Richard, dear letters, all; and after the receipt of each
+one I feel that same inclination to get out under the open skies with
+my joy.
+
+This was Sunday morning, and there is a glorious Indian summer sun
+shining over the earth with that soft haze which only this season of
+the year gives. Of course I could not stay in the house.
+
+When I rang the door-bell at the Sullivan cottage about ten o'clock I
+was admitted upon a scene of confusion which vainly tried to smooth
+itself out into a Sabbathical family-quiet upon my entrance. But the
+tension made itself felt in spite of the Sunday clothes in evidence,
+and the Bibles lying in readiness on the center-table in the parlor.
+
+I mentioned the object of my visit, but Neva shook her head
+reluctantly. She would love to go walking with me, she explained, but
+she was going to church.
+
+Her tone and statement were both so inoffensive that I was naturally
+startled at the storm which burst forth at her words.
+
+"You _ain't_," Mrs. Sullivan contradicted flatly, displaying an
+unwonted degree of animation.
+
+"I am," Neva answered, with a _Vere de Vere_ repose.
+
+"Your hats is all locked up," her mother suggested.
+
+"Then I'll go bareheaded. They'll think it's a new style that I've
+learned in the city."
+
+Mrs. Sullivan subsided into a chair and showed signs of tears.
+
+"I see that it's poorly worth while to educate you," she began, but
+Neva interrupted her nervously.
+
+"Oh, mamma, don't say _educate jew_."
+
+"Now, did you ever hear anything that sassy? I don't see how _no_ man
+could want you!"
+
+Mrs. Sullivan's tone was tearful, but Neva's sensitive ears had
+already drunk in their money's worth of culture at the college for
+young ladies.
+
+"There you go again! '_Want chew._' Mamma, haven't I begged you not to
+go through life saying chew and Jew, unless you refer to
+mastication--or an Israelite?"
+
+The tears actually started at this piece of filial cruelty, and Mrs.
+Sullivan turned to me for consolation.
+
+"Now, I'll put it to you, Miss Ann, ain't that enough to make a woman
+wish she hadn't never saw a child? And do you know what this trouble
+is all about?--That common, ig'nant clodhopper, Hiram Ellis, that
+Nevar's almost broke her neck to see since she's been home."
+
+"Why, I thought Hiram was in high favor--with you _all_," I said in
+surprise, remembering the occasion of the fainting-spell.
+
+"He was, so long as Nevar was just a ordinary country girl," Mrs.
+Sullivan explained, wiping her eyes and glancing with a look of shame
+and reproach at Neva; "but do you reckon me and Tim's spending all
+that money on her education, and then let her turn in and marry
+anybody as _plain_ as Hiram Ellis?"
+
+"_Plain!_ Well, I don't see as we're so _fancy_!" Neva said
+indignantly.
+
+"Is she going to marry him this morning?" I asked, and I noted then
+the extreme fussiness of Neva's hair arrangement. It bore a truly
+leonine aspect. She had on her school uniform, and so, except for the
+number of class-pins, she had not sinned excessively in the way of
+dress. But the hair gave me some misgivings as to her intentions.
+
+"Ain't no telling what she'll do," her mother said hopelessly. "She's
+bent on going to church where she can see him! We've done all we could
+to keep her at home, even to locking up her hats and Tim carrying off
+the curling-irons in his pocket so she couldn't curl her hair. But do
+you know what that young'un done? I'll be blessed if she didn't hunt
+up her pappy's old tool box and git out his old _augur_--and curled
+her hair on that. Did you ever hear of a girl so deep in love that
+she'd _curl her hair on a het augur_?"
+
+"Oh, mamma," she begged piteously, "don't say 'pappy!' And _don't say
+'het!'_"
+
+So it happened that I walked alone through the "garden." Alone, yet I
+felt that I was in a beloved presence, for Richard's last letter was
+with me. I sat down at the edge of the lake which had dried up in the
+Stone Age, and drew the letter out from its resting-place to read it
+over again.
+
+Richard's handwriting is heavy, black, and almost as free from flowing
+curves as the chirography of a literary man. "Sweetheart," the letter
+began, and the firm lines which formed the letters looked very much as
+if he meant it. It was signed "Richard, R. I.," in humorous acceptance
+of the title I had given him. But perhaps the dearest thing in
+connection with the letter was the faint aroma of "Habana" which hung
+over it. I held the sheets up close to my face and shielded them from
+any vandal winds that might slip up and covet that sweet odor; and I
+recalled the smile in his eyes when he made me the promise that he
+would always be smoking when he wrote to me--that the letters might be
+more realistic.
+
+"Don't tell me any more that you are a full-grown woman," he said, as
+he made the promise. "You are a child--but adorable."
+
+He knew that I would be lonely, the letter stated, but he had left
+orders with a book-dealer that a batch of new books be sent out to me
+each week, to help while away the time. Orders had also been left with
+the florist and confectioner--and I must at once report to him any
+negligence on the part of these worthies.
+
+"Of course you have already acted upon my suggestion that you return
+the Byron book," the letter continued, as if the mention of books had
+brought this affair to his mind, but I fancied that he had mentioned
+them rather as a means of leading up to this. "I know you would not
+keep it after I have shown you the impropriety of your doing so."
+
+"Impropriety!" That is a word that I hate and avoid. No one had ever,
+to my knowledge, used it in connection with anything I have ever done
+up until this time. I bridled a little as I read it over. Somehow, out
+here in the wilds, I seemed to recall suddenly that if Richard is a
+gallant lover, so also is Alfred an old, and very dear friend--while
+the Byron book is a delightful possession.
+
+"I shall not send it back," I decided, after a little reflection. "I
+shall stand my ground. He is not unreasonable, and he will sooner or
+later understand that I am old enough to judge for myself between
+things proper and improper! Ugh, how the words remind me of my
+prospective mother-in-law!"
+
+I hastily mapped out a letter in reply to this, telling him that I
+should keep the book, because I saw no reason, on the grounds he
+mentioned, for sending it back.
+
+So intent was I upon this idea that I hastily jumped up from my sunny
+nook by the old lake and shook out my skirts. I would go home right
+now and write that letter!
+
+I made my way across the breadth of the valley and leisurely climbed
+the hill, for the midday sun was quite hot. I paused and looked back
+once in a while, for the garden was so beautiful this morning.
+
+There was absolutely no thought of defiance in my idea of showing
+Richard my viewpoint, for I did not dream that he considered the
+affair in any other light than the cut-and-dried distaste to "a young
+woman receiving presents from a young man to whom she is not engaged."
+He had not _asked_ me to return the book. He had simply shown me the
+error of my way--and I had failed to recognize it.
+
+I stopped again to look around at the wild beauty of the place before
+leaving it, then, with a little running start, I quickly gained the
+crest. When I had reached it I stopped once more, this time with a
+startled surprise, for I found myself face to face with Neva. I noted,
+with amusement, that she had possessed herself of a hat.
+
+"Well, so you decided to come for a walk?" I said in greeting. "How
+did you manage to get your hat out of the wardrobe?"
+
+She stopped still in the path and her eyes suddenly met mine in a look
+of dumb misery. I first thought that the question might have been
+embarrassing to her, and was trying to think of something to cover it,
+when she spoke.
+
+"Piled a box on a chair on a table," she explained with an effort,
+"until I could reach up high enough to prize the top off. 'Twas old
+and loose--and I still had the augur!"
+
+"Neva! Think of the perseverance! And after all that, you didn't get
+to see him?"
+
+At my words her mouth tightened at the corners, and her eyes looked
+very bright and dry.
+
+"Oh, I saw him," she answered bitterly, after a moment's struggle. "He
+drove right past me while I was trudging down that dusty road to
+church. But he didn't see _me_. He had Stella Hampton in the buggy
+with him."
+
+"Stella Hampton? Who is she?"
+
+"She's the girl that sicked the fit doctor on to me!"
+
+I tried to comfort her, but she was desolate.
+
+"It ain't that I care so much about _him_," she assured me,
+forgetting, in her misery, her boarding-school English, "but oh, I
+can't bear to face them at home. It's so terrible to be made ashamed
+before folks."
+
+I agreed with her and insisted that she go home with me, not braving
+the ordeal of facing her own family until late in the afternoon, when
+they should have forgotten it a little. Tears of gratitude came to her
+pretty, troubled eyes as she joyously accepted my invitation.
+
+Mother was on the front porch as we came up the walk and she welcomed
+Neva cordially.
+
+"Ann," she said, turning to me and speaking in an undertone, "there is
+a long-distance call for you. The operator has rung up several times,
+then said that the 'party' would call again at twelve-thirty."
+
+"Oh, mother!" I cried, with a great throb of pleasure. In a few
+minutes I should be listening to the sound of his voice, and that was
+a deal more satisfying than the aroma of cigar smoke in a letter!
+
+"Little runaway, where have you been all morning?" I heard in his
+dear, drawling tones after the connections had been made and listening
+ears supposed to be removed from the line. "I've been trying for three
+hours to get you."
+
+"I've been out for my Sunday morning tramp," I answered, a sudden
+overwhelming longing to _see_ him sweeping over me. His voice sounded
+so near that I could scarcely believe that half the length of the
+state lay between us.
+
+"Alone?"
+
+There was no drawl to this query.
+
+"No, not alone. I had your letter with me."
+
+"When are you going to answer it, sweetheart?"
+
+"To-day. I have already thought up some of the things I'm going to say
+to you."
+
+It might have been thought transmission, or it might have been chance,
+but at all events, it is the honest truth, that the next question was
+the one in my mind.
+
+"And what have you to say for yourself about Doctor Morgan's book, my
+lady?"
+
+"A good deal more than is profitable to say over a long-distance
+telephone," I replied, hoping to change the drift of the talk. I felt
+that I could say my little speech better on paper than I could over
+the wires.
+
+"Well, that has been troubling me a little, Ann," he said in his
+unsmiling voice, and I felt that his eyes were looking coldly into the
+space just beyond his telephone. "I see that you are disposed to
+argue the matter. I had an idea that you had not sent it back, so I
+decided to ask you when I got you to the 'phone. Now, the question is,
+are you going to be guided by what I tell you in this matter, or not?"
+
+No woman who has not experienced the agony can half appreciate the
+feeling of sudden terror that came over me at the cold sound of his
+voice. It seemed to have a threatening tone of _finality_ in it that
+chilled me to the bone. I had such a feeling of helplessness somehow.
+You can argue with a man and cajole him and smooth his hair when he is
+where you can get your hands on him, knowing all the time that you are
+not going to let him leave the house until he has smiled the smile
+that won your heart; but, oh, the futility of trying to argue with a
+masterful lover over a long-distance telephone.
+
+"Are you talking? I can't hear a word."
+
+"I'm not talking, Richard," I answered. "I'm--I'm _thinking_."
+
+"Well, I called you because I wanted to hear you talk. You haven't
+answered my question yet." Again that tone of cold meaning. A hundred
+thoughts a minute were flying through my brain. Should I say no and
+have a quarrel with him? Should I say yes, and prove myself a
+coward--or should I lie to him?
+
+If this were a tale of heroism, I should have a few ringing words of
+challenge to insert right here and then a quick curtain. But this is
+not a heroic story, it is only simple truth, told with regret and
+aspirations after a higher courage, yet still a true account of what
+happened in our back hall this beautiful Sunday morning. _I hedged._
+
+"I'll send it back, Richard," I told him, and he at once changed his
+tone and the subject of his discourse, beginning a recital of how he
+missed me and how he was going to cut short his trip up there and come
+on back. I scarcely heard the words, for I was trying to frame for my
+own conscience my sophisticated excuse. "I shall send it back if he
+_convinces_ me that there is any just occasion for doing so," I
+pleaded to myself. But after he had said good-by and I started from
+the telephone I found mother's eyes fixed upon me in a kind of pitying
+wonder.
+
+I flushed and looked away. Then I recalled Cousin Eunice's words:
+"Don't let him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect.
+Many wives don't know the meaning of that word." Wives? Dear me! I
+have been his fiancée only a week!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THANKSGIVING DAY
+
+
+Thanksgiving day--and I have written nothing since the middle of
+October! But you remember I told you in the beginning that my journal
+might be, not so much a record of deeds as a setting forth of wishes;
+and my wishes all come to pass so speedily these days that there is no
+time to write them down.
+
+To be honest, I had no idea of bringing my journal up here to
+Charlotteville with me, when I came for this Thanksgiving visit, for I
+thought of course Richard would be here all the time and I should not
+find a moment dull enough for me to sit down and write. But, as it
+happens, I am glad that the book was slipped into the tray of my trunk
+almost without my knowledge, else I should be spending a lonely
+evening right now.
+
+Let me see--shall I begin where I left off--that sunny morning when I
+parried with Richard across half the state and lived to regret it? Or
+shall I begin with my entrée into Charlotteville and then jot down the
+past happenings as they come to me? The latter course strikes me as
+rather the better, then perhaps I shall not be tempted to give any one
+little occurrence too much space. Things seen in a sort of
+over-the-shoulder perspective are more likely to shrink into their
+normal size.
+
+If I had snatched you up, my journal, the day that Richard sent me
+that exquisite chased card-case--a counterpart in pattern of his own
+sacred cigarette-case which I had once fingered with admiring
+reverence--I should have used up pages and pages of space, besides
+impoverishing myself in the way of adjectives. But I spent so many
+days dangling that card-case in front of me, as I stood before the
+mirror--using always my sparkling left hand--that before I had grown
+accustomed to the possession of it there came something even better
+calculated to take my breath away. A dull gold brooch it was this
+time, set with a green jade scarab--the little beetle bearing along
+with it a page of typed pedigree, showing the why and wherefore of its
+being. It in nowise detracted from the joy of possession, that these
+trinkets came in the nature of olive branches.
+
+Yes, my sovereign was angry when I brought up the discussion of the
+book again, the Byron book, which I had promised to return, but with
+the proviso, under my breath, that I should be made to see the reason
+why first. I learned that he not only has the heart of a lion, but a
+little of that beautiful animal's kingly fury also when he is aroused.
+And he was aroused at what he termed my deception.
+
+I made a clean breast of the matter the very first hour we were
+together again, knowing that I could make him listen to reason if I
+got him _literally_ at arm's length. But I had to listen to some
+things, too, in that hour; coming off victorious to such an extent
+that he finally called himself every kind of high-class villain
+imaginable. Then, the next week this plethora of express packages.
+
+So it seems that my idea concerning the warring elements in his
+character was not altogether wrong.
+
+But to hasten on to Charlotteville! Mrs. Chalmers wrote mother several
+weeks ago that she wanted me to come for Thanksgiving, so there was
+plenty of time for the getting together of clothes which I now knew to
+be absolutely essential to my peace of mind when I should be with
+Richard. I never knew a man to pay such attention to these little
+details. But what else can you expect when you are engaged to an
+Olympian god? Still--I almost wish sometimes that he did not lay so
+much stress on mere luxuries, for people can have a lot of enjoyment
+in life without them. Yet to Richard a big house, servants, expensive
+clothes, all are as necessary as the air he breathes, and he wants to
+make me feel the same dependence on them.
+
+During the one little visit I have made in the city since our
+engagement he kept his promise of taking me for long country
+drives--but always in a big touring car, with a chaperon and a
+chauffeur! When I suggested that it would be more "fun" to drive that
+pretty horse of his and go alone, he assured me gravely that many
+things in this life which were good "fun" were not proper. So I said
+no more, but I felt a sudden sense of gratitude toward fate for not
+ever sending Richard driving past me last winter when I used not only
+to drive out the pikes with Alfred, but get out and go down on my
+knees to help him with a puncture. True, I wasn't much help, usually
+being good only to hand him things, or _blow_ on the patches to make
+them dry the faster--but I always liked to help, and he always let
+me.
+
+But Charlotteville! Well, it is a small town in the eastern end of the
+state--a citified little place enough--where there are at least a
+dozen people who own handsome motor-cars; and the ices are always
+frozen in fancy shapes at the parties. Still it is a little town,
+where everybody likes to talk about everybody else--and the
+power-house shuts off the electricity at midnight.
+
+I was glad when I found that there were other guests for this
+occasion, for I thought that would give me more time alone with
+Richard, and after I had met these guests I felt glad on their own
+account, for they are delightful.
+
+Mr. Maxwell, the only other man, came down the same day that I reached
+here; on the same train, in fact, but neither of us knew this at the
+time, for I happened to be in the day-coach and he was in the Pullman.
+
+When I reached the station here at Charlotteville, and at first saw no
+one on the little platform to meet me, I felt a sudden sinking around
+my heart; but, after the crowd had moved along a bit, I espied
+Richard's tall form at the extreme end of the platform. He was looking
+with a good deal of eagerness into the windows of the one Pullman
+car. With him, and talking exuberantly, was a boyish-looking young
+man who had forgotten to remove his traveling-cap. Richard seemed to
+be paying no attention to this bright-faced youth.
+
+I dropped my bag and hastened down the platform.
+
+"Oh, she's disappointed you, old boy! 'Tain't another thing," the man
+in the cap was saying as I came up close behind them and slackened my
+pace. "I'll swear there wasn't a thing in that car that looked like a
+cross between Venus de Milo and--"
+
+"Richard," I called softly, and he wheeled around in delighted
+surprise.
+
+"Bless your little heart!" he said, so genuinely glad to see me that
+he forgot for a moment the presence of the other man. That is, I
+thought at the time he had forgotten, but I soon saw that he
+considered Mr. Maxwell too much of a good-natured fool to count. "I
+thought you had failed to come," he kept on. "Where the dickens were
+you?"
+
+"I was in the day-coach," I answered, after I had shaken hands with
+Mr. Maxwell, when Richard remembered to present him.
+
+"What?"
+
+His tone was low and quiet, but his eyes spoke surprise, and I
+remembered, with a sudden chill, that according to his ethics I had
+done almost a disgraceful thing.
+
+"There were some people in the day-coach I--wanted to be with," I
+began by way of explanation, but I saw that this was making matters
+worse.
+
+"What kind of people?" he asked drily.
+
+"A woman. I got to talking to her when we changed trains at M--; she
+had _such_ a headache--and two babies. The littlest one consented to
+let me walk him around some; and I fed the other one the remains of a
+box of chocolates. When this train came they got into the day-coach,
+and of course I went with them."
+
+"Why 'of course?'" he asked again, but with an amused smile dawning in
+his eyes.
+
+"Well, I was still carrying the baby! I couldn't go off into another
+car with him, could I?"
+
+Richard looked at Mr. Maxwell and laughed perfunctorily, but I knew
+that in some way he felt that I had humiliated him. Mr. Maxwell did
+not laugh, although his is essentially a laughing face.
+
+"I understand," Richard said finally, turning to me again and asking
+for my checks. "You have quite the appearance of a good Samaritan.
+Your hair is--er--just a trifle ruffled. Couldn't you have managed
+some way to smooth it a little before you reached here? Evelyn always
+spends the last hour of a journey back in the dressing-room arranging
+her hair and powdering her face."
+
+"Well, of course I know that is the ladylike thing to do," I
+responded, with something more nearly like sarcasm than I had ever
+used to him before.
+
+Mr. Maxwell was busy taking his things from the porter, and as he
+exchanged his cap for a more dignified, but less becoming, hat, I
+noticed a scar on his forehead, high up and extending quite a distance
+toward the crown of his head. His hair grew queerly along the line of
+the scar. He seemed purposely to have detached himself from us for a
+moment, so I spoke to Richard again.
+
+"Richard," I said, speaking low and rapidly, so that only he could
+hear. "I am sorry if I am a _fright_! But I just couldn't prink before
+that woman on the train. She was deathly sick, so I kept the baby all
+the way. Then she was _poor_ and proud and--I didn't care about
+opening my bag and spreading all my silver things out before her!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"You are an extremist, Ann," he said. "But you are not a fright.
+Only, you're so fine, when you're at your best--and mother won't
+understand."
+
+"Of course not," I answered rather shortly; and the drive out to the
+house might have been a very quiet one if it had not been for Mr.
+Maxwell's irrepressible chatter.
+
+I was grateful for the chatter at the time, still more so when we
+reached the house, for it helped my ruffled hair to pass unnoticed.
+
+The feminine portion of the family met us at the front steps, and, as
+darkness was drawing on, I failed to take in at the time the full
+magnificence of the outside of the house. When I saw it next morning
+in the bright sunshine it struck me as being an oppressively massive,
+gleaming structure, with a great display of plate-glass doors and
+windows; and, instead of long, generous porches, as we have at home,
+there are several tiled vestibules that each morning are--no, not
+scoured, they are _manicured_.
+
+Mr. Maxwell is a great friend of Richard's, strange as it may seem
+that two such incompatible natures should find so much in common; and,
+being heir to his mother's fortune, is such a desirable catch that
+Mrs. Chalmers frequently has him down here, hoping that he and Evelyn
+will take a fancy to each other. Richard told me this, quite simply.
+Evelyn wears her prettiest gowns and uses her softest tones when he is
+around, but she is no more interested in him than she is in any other
+man. In fact, she is too well brought-up to display any preference in
+her marriage. Whatever her mother arranges for her will be entirely
+satisfactory.
+
+And as for Mr. Maxwell--but that brings me up to a mention of the
+other guest here now, and it is surprising that I have not said
+something about her before, for she and I have been great friends from
+the day I arrived.
+
+It is amazing that people can get so well acquainted in such a short
+space of time when they are staying together in the same house, yet
+when neither of them is what you would call "easy to get acquainted
+with." I am not, I know, and I feel equally as sure that Sophie is the
+same way, yet you will notice that sometimes when two such diffident
+people are thrown together they will take a liking to each other right
+away.
+
+It was this way with Sophie Chalmers and me. She is Richard's cousin
+and lives in some vague place "out west." She happened to be visiting
+some of the other Chalmers relatives in a near-by town for a few
+weeks this fall and I think Mrs. Chalmers must have felt that if she
+had to invite her it would be less trouble to have her when there were
+other guests, so she asked her to come and spend the Thanksgiving
+holidays with them. If the girl had been less obviously a sort of
+"poor relation" (though by no means looking the part) or if Mrs.
+Chalmers had not tried so persistently to keep her in the background
+the "unexpected" which happened in this case would have been less
+surprising.
+
+For Mr. Maxwell had no more than walked into the drawing-room and been
+presented to her than he fell in love with her; and, like most
+merry-eyed people, he fell very deeply in love.
+
+Even their meeting was most unusual--dramatic, you might call it. And,
+as it took place at the moment of our arrival, it served to divert
+somewhat the attention from my disheveled looks, which had been such a
+shock to Richard. "Mr. Maxwell--Miss Chalmers," some one had said, as
+we all passed into the house and the tall, rather tired-looking girl
+unfolded herself from one of the big chairs drawn up close to the
+hearth. She showed no surprise as she extended her hand to the new
+arrival, but Mr. Maxwell looked at her for a moment as he held her
+hand in his; then he asked quite simply: "Where have we met before?"
+
+The question was so earnest and so direct that the girl's face
+flushed, but before she could even start to offer a suggestion as to
+whether they had met before or had not, Mrs. Chalmers hastily put in
+that there was little probability of a former meeting, inasmuch as
+Sophie had not been in this part of the country in several years.
+
+"We have certainly met before," Mr. Maxwell persisted, his eyes still
+fastened on Sophie's face, and running his fingers through his hair,
+along the line of the scar, as if that could help him in remembering.
+"I am certain of that. And I should surely not be so discourteous as
+to acknowledge that I have forgotten--except there are so many things
+hazy in my mind--since that night just outside El Paso."
+
+I, too, was watching Sophie intently, as we all were, and I saw her
+eyes wander to the scar along his forehead. She looked away, but in
+another moment had returned to it again, as if the queer little white
+line held a fascination for her. At his mention of El Paso she gave a
+distinct start, but regained her equilibrium almost immediately.
+
+"I must be a very common-looking person," she said with a little
+laugh, turning to me as she spoke, "for I seldom meet a stranger who
+doesn't know some one whom I am so exactly like that the resemblance
+is startling!"
+
+We had all moved about a little from the positions into which Mr.
+Maxwell's first earnest words had petrified us, and Mrs. Chalmers was
+beginning to say something about taking us to our rooms, when that
+persevering young man spoke again. He had not moved an inch, but stood
+there in the middle of the floor, his eyes fastened on Sophie's face.
+
+"It's not your looks, that is, your looks are not so convincing as
+your--your voice," he said, his expression still showing his
+bewildered surprise; but something in the girl's face must have
+pleaded with him to change the subject, which he did, easily.
+
+"Well, don't you think the scar adds to my list of attractions?" he
+asked banteringly, as he turned to Mrs. Chalmers, who beamed approval
+upon him. "The girls all think I acquired it in some brave, though
+mysterious, manner--those who don't know that I got my sky-piece
+cracked in a wreck in Texas last year."
+
+From that hour he began a course of small attentions, minor
+courtesies, but none the less meaning, all of which have been
+calculated to make Sophie regard him with quite a degree of favorable
+interest, and if I am not mistaken none of these calculations has
+failed to hit the mark. But since their first meeting I have only once
+heard him refer to that unusual resemblance she bears to some one whom
+he has known; and I am sure he found the impulse then to speak so
+strong and sudden that the words were out before he had time to think,
+for Sophie so clearly disliked a mention of the subject. This proves
+to me that they have known each other in some mysterious manner, but
+as she has never told me the secret, of course I have never questioned
+her.
+
+Last night at the dinner table was when it came about, and, when I
+think it over, it was a ludicrous happening rather than a sentimental
+or even mysterious one. Mrs. Chalmers had been holding forth upon some
+Scriptural interpretations which her beloved pastor has recently made
+use of in his sermons, and, among others, the casting of pearls before
+swine was brought forward for discussion.
+
+From the moment the word "swine" was mentioned Mr. Maxwell's face took
+on its bewildered look and he fixed his eyes on Sophie with that same
+intensity of expression which they have worn so often this last week.
+Suddenly he seemed to remember what his mind was so evidently
+searching for.
+
+"Swine! _Pigs!_" he blurted out, in such a startled way that we all
+instinctively stopped eating to await developments. "_That's_ what I
+heard you--or the girl with your voice--saying that night. I remember
+it distinctly now! It was hot--heavens, how hot it was!--and there was
+a fierce pain in my head for some reason; but I heard your voice, just
+a short distance away from me, saying: 'This little pig went to
+market, this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had--' and
+there you broke off, because you couldn't remember what it was the
+third little pig had. There was a peevish child's voice crying: 'Tell
+little pigs! Tell little pigs,' and then a man's voice, trying to help
+you out. You asked the man, '_Do_ you know what the third little pig
+had--or did?' But he couldn't remember either. He began saying the
+doggerel over again, 'This little pig went to market; this little pig
+stayed at home; this little pig had--'
+
+"'Roast beef, damn you,' I hollered, for somehow I wasn't as near
+being dead as you thought. 'Roast beef, but you needn't stand outside
+my door rehashing it all night. Then you and the man laughed in a
+surprised, though subdued way, and walked away from me, although I
+didn't hear the sound of footsteps."
+
+His scar showed very white as he finished this queer little story; and
+he looked at Sophie almost beseechingly. He had the appearance of a
+man groping about in the dark.
+
+Sophie, too, was clearly embarrassed, but said nothing by way of
+explanation; and, ridiculous as the incident was, not one of us even
+smiled.
+
+There was a heavy, tense silence about the board for a moment, then
+Richard spoke.
+
+"Upon my word, but this is interesting," he said, in a slow, sarcastic
+drawl. "Sophie, have you been traveling in vaudeville?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As we left the dining-room one of the servants told Richard that there
+was a long-distance call for him, a bit of news which brought a frown
+to my lord's handsome face.
+
+"Well, tell 'em I can't be found," he commanded briefly, as he caught
+the extreme tip of my elbow and began steering our course toward the
+library. We usually had a few short minutes alone there after dinner.
+
+"The operator has already told the party that you are here, Mr.
+Chalmers," the colored boy answered, looking embarrassed and trying to
+slink away into the back hall as soon as he could.
+
+"The devil!" Richard exclaimed, under his breath, but he loosed his
+hold upon my arm as we reached the foot of the steps, and he suggested
+that I run on up-stairs and wait until I thought he had had time to
+finish his conversation, then come back and join him in the library.
+
+"If you mix up with them in the drawing-room now you can't find an
+excuse to get up and leave when I have finished," he explained, and I
+smiled a happy assent.
+
+Sophie, too, had gone to her room for a few minutes after dinner, and,
+as she heard me stirring around in mine, she called at my open door to
+say that she wanted my advice about something.
+
+"Come in, by all means," I bade her. "I have lots of advice."
+
+"It's about a dress for the ball to-morrow night," she said, holding
+over her arm a dainty gown of soft white silk. She spread the garment
+out upon my bed, then stood off a few steps and looked at it. "Do you
+think it will do?" she finally asked.
+
+"Do? Why, I think it's lovely!" I declared truthfully.
+
+"Well, I want to look lovely," she answered, with a queer little
+smile, but as she sat down on the bed and picked up a bit of chiffon
+flounce in the neck of the gown, she looked up at me again, with an
+expression of almost tragedy in her eyes. "But I have no gloves that
+are long enough and clean enough to wear with this!"
+
+"Well, wear a pair of mine, then," I began, noting that her hands and
+mine are about the same size, but before I could suggest this she had
+interrupted me.
+
+"I didn't come in here for _that_," she exclaimed, rather haughtily,
+throwing back her head a little and looking me squarely in the eyes.
+"I wanted to talk with you a little because you don't seem so
+oppressively elegant and _rich_, you know--"
+
+"I am not in the least rich," I assured her comfortingly. "Nearly all
+my gloves have been _cleaned_."
+
+I hastily threw up the top of my trunk and scrambled around for my
+glove box.
+
+"See!" I exclaimed, holding up a pair that she had seen me working on
+the day before. "They _look_ as good as new, but whew! it would take
+one of your Texas cyclones to blow the smell of gasolene out!"
+
+"One of _my_ Texas cyclones?" She looked surprised, but I fancied that
+she was pleased. "Who told you that I live in Texas?"
+
+"Nobody that I remember; yet I got it into my head somehow that you
+live in Texas."
+
+"I do. I live in El Paso," she threw aside the flounce of chiffon
+which she was still fingering and started to her feet. I was standing
+in front of her with the pair of freshly cleaned gloves in my hand.
+"Ann, I hate lying, and I am going to tell you something, for I can't
+keep up this deception any longer. I don't care what Aunt Ida says."
+
+There was a quick rap at the door at this most interesting juncture
+and Evelyn stuck her head in.
+
+"Ann," she said, glancing quickly at us both and seeming a little
+surprised to see us closeted together in this familiar fashion.
+"Richard has just had a long-distance message from the city. He has to
+go up there to-night on business and he wants to know if you'll let
+him come up to your door and say good-by?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SOPHIE'S STORY
+
+
+I had to lay my journal aside last night before I reached the really
+thrilling occurrence of Thanksgiving day, which was, strangely enough,
+neither the dinner nor the ball, although each was in its own peculiar
+way a decided success.
+
+I have Evelyn's word that the ball was a success, for neither Sophie
+nor I attended it, albeit Richard had, at my whispered suggestion,
+sent Sophie a box of long white gloves from the city, getting them off
+on an early train that they might reach her in time; and sending along
+with this a box of roses--Maréchal Niel for Sophie, La France for Mrs.
+Chalmers and Evelyn, while for me there was a great sheaf of American
+Beauties.
+
+But he did not come back in time for the ball, and I suddenly lost all
+interest in the affair as the last train out from the city that
+evening failed to bring him. Sophie had been suffering all day with a
+frightful neuralgic headache, and, as night drew near, it became so
+much worse that she declared that she could not go to the ball. The
+lights and dizzy whirling around would be the death of her, she
+decided, so she dropped down into a chair in the library after dinner
+and said she would give it up.
+
+"Then I'll stay with you," I volunteered, and, despite her own
+protestations and feebler ones from Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn, the
+matter was thus arranged. There were always far too many girls at such
+affairs anyway, they all knew, so that my absence would really be a
+blessing.
+
+Mr. Maxwell came into the room just as the matter had been thus
+satisfactorily settled and when he heard of the arrangement his face
+beamed with a kind of mischievous happiness.
+
+"Now, that's what I call luck," he said, as the door closed upon Mrs.
+Chalmers' retreating form and left us three alone together. "I'll go
+with the ladies and stay long enough to see that Evelyn's card is
+filled--then I'll take a sneak, and come on back home to see how the
+headache is progressing."
+
+His smile spoke immense approval of his own cleverness, but Sophie cut
+it short.
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," she said decidedly, looking up at
+him as he stood by the library table, a folded newspaper in his hand;
+"you'll stay and do your duty by the wall-flowers."
+
+"Not I, sweet lady," he answered banteringly. "Life is too short. I'm
+coming back here and entertain your headache away!"
+
+And he did. He came in at about half-past ten, for the filling up of
+Evelyn's card had been a matter quickly despatched, and he was in
+radiant spirits over having "jumped the game."
+
+"Mrs. Chalmers didn't mind at all," he explained as he drew a chair up
+to the fire and lighted a cigarette. "I left her in a corner with a
+few other fond mammas and she even insisted that I should not go back,
+as Jim goes for them about two o'clock. All I'm to do is to go out to
+the stables and punch Jim in the ribs and wake him up in time. So we
+are going to have a jolly evening together."
+
+"Oh, dear, what a pleasant prospect!" Sophie said, only half in jest,
+as her hand went up to her aching head. "Now, if I could just get rid
+of this one-eyed pain I might find life decidedly worth living."
+
+"Isn't there anything we can do?" he asked solicitously, casting his
+cigarette quickly into the fire as if he thought the smoke might make
+her head worse. "Can't Miss Fielding and I make you a mustard
+plaster--or something?"
+
+"There is a little bottle of stuff in my bag up-stairs that sometimes
+acts like magic in a case like this," she finally said with some
+hesitancy, and I realized that she was hesitating because she disliked
+the idea of having any one fussing over her. She is one of these
+capable creatures who seldom ask even a small service of any one.
+
+"Let me run and get it," I said starting up and resolving that I
+should get the bottle, hand it in to Mr. Maxwell at the door, then
+betake myself off to my own room and leave them alone together. I
+imagined that he would enjoy the privilege of hunting about to get her
+a glass and a spoon himself. And it would make them feel more at home
+with each other for him to be rendering her these little services.
+
+I went to Sophie's room and found a bag where she had told me to look,
+in the closet on the lower shelf. I caught it up and moved across to
+the bed, where I sat down and deposited it by my side; then I began a
+wrestling match with the most obstinate catch that it has ever been my
+ill-fortune to come across on an alligator-skin bag.
+
+"I'll just have to take it down and get Mr. Maxwell to open it," I
+finally decided, after I had worked with the thing until my strength
+and patience were both exhausted. "It is provoking to see the ease
+with which a man can subdue a thing like this after a woman has broken
+off all her best-looking finger-nails over the task."
+
+So I caught the bag up in one hand and my trailing skirts in the other
+and wended my way back to the library. My load was quite heavy,
+heavier than an ordinary traveling-bag I remembered afterward; and in
+struggling with the lock I had at one time pulled slightly apart an
+end of the stubborn opening. A whiff of drugs was borne to me in that
+instant--a kind of combination of odors, none of which I knew by name,
+but they were all strikingly familiar, for they were exactly like the
+smells in Alfred's small black instrument case.
+
+"I hope you don't take all these different kinds of dope for your
+headaches," I thought with a quick little feeling of contempt, for I
+don't have much patience with the headache-powder habit. I learned
+this contempt from Alfred, of course.
+
+Mr. Maxwell was alone in the library when I returned and told me that
+Sophie had gone to get a glass of hot water.
+
+"She says that is all she ever takes for these spells of neuralgia,"
+he said, holding out his hand for the bag, when I explained to him
+about the fastening. "But there is a little bottle of something or
+other in here that she rubs on her forehead--and that eases the pain."
+
+"Then why on earth didn't she rub it on early this morning?" I
+inquired wonderingly.
+
+"That's what I asked her," he answered with a slight laugh, "but she
+says that the stuff burns the skin and leaves a red mark; and she
+didn't want to be disfigured for the ball--I told her that she would
+have looked just the same to me--red mark or no red mark."
+
+He was smiling good-naturedly as he worked with the lock of the bag,
+which after a moment or two came open with a lamb-like docility. He
+was walking across the room to deposit it upon the table when Sophie
+came in and saw him with the bag opened in his hand. She gave a little
+startled exclamation and we both wheeled and faced her.
+
+"That's the wrong bag," she said, speaking with such nervous haste and
+her face wearing such a white, scared look that we both instinctively
+glanced into the open case Mr. Maxwell held in his hands. "Don't!
+There's something in there that I don't want you to see!"
+
+Poor girl, if it had been a dynamite bomb or a counterfeiter's kit of
+tools, she could scarcely have looked more frightened, for Mr. Maxwell
+and I had already seen the contents. His face suddenly went white,
+too, as he quickly strode across the room and laid the bag upon the
+table.
+
+"_This_ is likely the thing you didn't want us to see," he exclaimed,
+reaching in and holding up to the light a glittering little object. It
+was a hypodermic syringe!
+
+When she saw the silvery-looking instrument actually in his hand and
+observed the stern, harsh look in his eyes she gave a wild, hysterical
+laugh and walked quickly across to him. She clutched the shining thing
+from his hand and held it up before me.
+
+"_Now_ you both know the 'disgraceful secret' which Aunt Ida has made
+me keep so securely locked away from you," she cried, holding the
+instrument in her hand and pulling the piston backward and forward
+with a deftness born of long familiarity. "She made me promise to keep
+it a secret, for she said that if her 'society' friends knew of it I
+should be considered beyond the pale. Heavens knows that I am sorry
+for it and ashamed of it, but there was a mighty--temptation."
+
+She sat down in the nearest chair and began to cry, her face buried in
+her folded arms, and her shoulders heaving convulsively. I went over
+quickly and laid my hand upon her head.
+
+"Don't cry, Sophie!" I begged, "it will make your head worse;
+and--_this_ doesn't make the slightest difference in our feeling for
+you. We are not 'society,' are we, Mr. Maxwell?"
+
+I glanced appealingly toward him, but he did not see me. His eyes were
+fixed upon Sophie's bowed head with a pitying, yet _horrified_ stare,
+then the look of bewilderment which he wore at the first sight of her
+came over his face, painfully intensified this time.
+
+"My God!" he finally broke out, and I knew that he did not know he was
+speaking aloud. "I have seen you before to-night with that thing in
+your hand! I can even feel its sharp little sting in _my_ arm--but
+where--_where_--I can't remember."
+
+At his queer words Sophie looked quickly up, but he had already turned
+his back to us two and was leaving the room. We heard him linger a
+moment in the hall as if he might be looking for his hat; then the
+big front door closed behind him.
+
+"He still doesn't remember!" she said slowly, looking at me in
+surprise. "I thought he would. I don't imagine that he has had much
+experience with trained nurses, so I fancied it would all come back to
+him when he found that I was one."
+
+"You took care of him when his head was hurt last year?"
+
+"Yes. I nursed him from the night he was brought into the hospital
+until he was almost out of danger--it was a long, tedious case, and we
+thought for a while that we were not going to save him."
+
+"And you really were telling some child about the little pigs going to
+market one night when he heard you?" I asked, thinking how much
+stranger than fiction this case was.
+
+"Yes. That was after he was beginning to be better, but I was still
+his 'special.' The baby's cot had been moved out into the corridor
+just beyond his door--it was so hot--and I used to slip out there
+occasionally and get the little fellow to sleep. But I came down with
+malarial fever myself before Mr. Maxwell was entirely well. That's the
+reason his memory of me is so hazy."
+
+"Then why didn't you tell him plainly--when you first met him here and
+saw that he remembered you?" I asked as she got up and opened the bag
+wider to try to find the bottle of medicine she wanted, for her hand
+went to her head in a manner which told me that all this excitement
+had in nowise lessened the pain.
+
+"That's what I am so sorry for and ashamed of," she answered simply,
+as she lifted some of the contents of the bag out and placed them upon
+the table. "I shouldn't have stayed here an _hour_ after Aunt Ida told
+me I must sail under false covers, but--I said a while ago, in my
+excitement, that there was a mighty temptation! I didn't intend to say
+it, but--it is true."
+
+"And the temptation was--"
+
+We heard the front door open then and close again softly. Mr. Maxwell
+had finished his walk out in the cool night air. I hoped that he would
+come on back into the library as he heard our voices, but he passed
+the door and in another moment we heard his footsteps on the stairs.
+
+"They told me that _he_ was coming," Sophie said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four days have passed since the night of the Thanksgiving ball; and
+at a house-party where four days drag there is a greater sense of
+calamity than would be caused by a dreary four weeks at some other
+time. For there is always the tormenting thought of how much hay one
+might have been piling up if the sun would only shine.
+
+Here are the three of us--Evelyn, Sophie and I--all at the age of Eve;
+and all enduring such a period of gloom that I feel sure if the
+original Eve had been half as badly bored she would never have waited
+for a pretty snake to come along and amuse her--she would have started
+up a flirtation with a _grub-worm_!
+
+Richard is still away and I have not even had a line from him. Neither
+has any one else on the place, of course, but his name appeared in the
+society columns of the _Times_ the day after Thanksgiving. He had
+attended the football game that afternoon with Major Blake's party,
+the paper stated--and alas! I was in no position to dispute the
+statement.
+
+Now if there is _one_ thing a girl hates worse than having her rat
+show in the presence of her beloved it is to have that beloved's name
+appear in a society column when her own is not in the same line!
+
+"Why the Blakes?" I kept wondering uneasily, as I read over the
+hateful paragraph again and again; and I tried to fight down the
+fierce feeling of jealousy which took possession of me. "Why couldn't
+he have gone to the foot-ball game with some one else--or why couldn't
+he have come home?"
+
+I found upon this occasion that jealousy is a passion which makes me
+physically ill, and I thought quickly of how tormented Richard must be
+by his jealous disposition. I wondered if he had ever felt the quick
+desire to strangle Alfred Morgan that I now caught myself feeling to
+annihilate the entire Blake faction. They had no right to make Richard
+leave home upon such an occasion as this; or they should have finished
+their hateful business and sent him on back home for Thanksgiving.
+They certainly had no right to take him off with them to a foot-ball
+game for all the world to see--and have his name with theirs in the
+paper next morning.
+
+"Major Blake had with him in his car, besides Mrs. Blake, Miss
+Berenice Blake, who returned last week from Denver, and Mr. Richard
+Chalmers."
+
+I knew the horrid words by heart, yet I read them over and over. And
+even this was not the worst. On the front page of the _Times_ was a
+cartoon representing Major Blake seated beside a little creek, angling
+persistently for a fish in midstream--a fish with Richard's handsome
+head and "Chalmers" printed in big letters across the side. The bait
+was a bag of gold and a handful of glory; and beneath it was written
+"Little fishie in the brook, can daddy catch him with a hook?"
+
+Such a cartoon in Rufe's paper struck me as being pregnant with
+meaning. What did it portend? Why did Richard leave home at this time
+to spend Thanksgiving with old man Blake if it did not mean that he
+was entangled with him? How deeply entangled--and for what? Major
+Blake had some time ago given the anti-liquor forces to understand
+that they had not money enough for their campaign to make a union with
+them interesting to him. But the Appleton followers had been equally
+unsuccessful in trying to gain his support. _Could_ it be that he and
+Richard intended forming a separate faction where his own personal
+popularity should cut a tremendous figure in gaining for him what he
+wanted, and he could have the backing of Richard's friends among the
+temperance forces? But where would Richard come in then? Why should
+old man Blake give all the biggest portion of the plum to Richard,
+when he had never been governor himself?
+
+I thought over the matter and _thought_--until I grew dizzy with the
+problem, yet I never found anything that could serve even as a
+half-way solution. But enough of my own grievances.
+
+As I have said, Sophie and Evelyn are both miserable, too, though in
+entirely different ways. Evelyn is half ill, with a constantly
+threatening pain in her right side--a trouble which she has had for
+several years--and Sophie, poor girl, has stayed in her room most of
+the time because she is so disappointed in the way Mr. Maxwell has
+acted since he learned that she is a working-woman. Horrid cad! He has
+watched Sophie every minute she has been in his presence since that
+night, looking as if he were a detective and suspected her of carrying
+concealed weapons about her. Yet all the time there is a look of dumb
+misery in his eyes--sorrow and _incredulity_.
+
+He has several times tried to get me off alone where he could talk to
+me of the occurrence Thanksgiving night, but I have been careful to
+avoid him, for I am as much disappointed in him as Sophie is. Each of
+them has tried to leave, but Mrs. Chalmers has insisted upon their not
+doing so. She is so upset over Evelyn that she needs Sophie's skilled
+advice in nursing, although no open acknowledgment of the matter has
+been made. And she has insisted that Mr. Maxwell remain at least until
+Richard returns.
+
+Meanwhile she has tried to get a message through to Richard in the
+city, but she has been so far unable to find him. Altogether it is
+rather a miserable household.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another day; and it started so well and ended so queerly that I am not
+going to try to sleep for hours yet--until I have written the whole
+thing out so I can read it over and see whether or not it really
+happened, for I find it so hard to believe.
+
+To begin at the beginning, Richard called up from the city this
+morning and explained to his mother that he had been on a business
+trip down in the country--far away from a telephone station, he said,
+and so he had not been able to communicate with her. He asked her to
+call me to the telephone and we had as satisfying a little talk as
+people in our position ever have over wires. He would be down home on
+the first train in the morning, he told me, and he insisted that I
+tell him something he might have the pleasure of bringing me.
+
+"Oh, I'll excuse the olive branch," I replied in answer to this
+question, "for I'll be so glad to see you."
+
+Glad to see him? Ah yes, so glad! And in the joy of the thought I
+forgot all about being jealous of the Blakes. With this restoration of
+happiness the day naturally passed more quickly to me, and I found
+myself wondering why Evelyn didn't get over that hurting in her side,
+and why Mrs. Chalmers still looked so anxious and why Sophie and Mr.
+Maxwell continued to eye each other so reproachfully when the one
+thought the other was not looking. Richard was coming home in the
+morning! Surely all would be well then!
+
+Dinner was a dismal affair, for Evelyn was not any better--was not so
+well, Mrs. Chalmers said, with a look of great anxiety, although the
+doctor had not said positively what the trouble was. As soon as we had
+left the table Sophie followed Mrs. Chalmers to Evelyn's room, thus
+leaving Mr. Maxwell to a tête-à-tête evening with me.
+
+There was a brilliant fire in the library and we both were attracted
+toward its cheer as we crossed the hall. He lit a cigarette and sat
+staring moodily at the little clouds of smoke which he puffed into
+the air. Clearly he was not going to thrust conversation upon me. To
+make sure that he should have no encouragement to do so I began
+looking around vaguely for something to read. There was a pile of
+fresh papers which had come by the night's train lying folded on the
+table, but I have had little appetite for newspapers since the day of
+the fishy cartoon. I should not read any more of the horrid tales
+about him, but he should tell me all that there was to tell and I
+would believe him. But not a question did I expect to ask. His
+confidence should be entirely voluntary or not given at all.
+
+No newspapers for me then this night; and I glanced around the room
+for something else. Something forbidding-looking and very deep I
+decided on as being best to keep Mr. Maxwell's conversational powers
+in abeyance. I went to one of the book-shelves which lined the walls.
+Running my hand along a line of Huxley's works I came to _Science and
+the Christian Tradition_ and promptly decided that this was the very
+volume I needed to impress Mr. Maxwell that I was reading something
+very profound and needed all my wits about me.
+
+Returning to my chair by the fire I sat down and opened my book, but I
+was in nowise disappointed by finding that the leaves had never been
+cut. There was a heavy pearl-and-silver paper-cutter lying on the
+table near by, but I did not take the trouble to reach for it. What
+did I care for a lot of prehistoric teeth and toe-nails dug up and
+brought forward to prove that before "Adam delved and Eve span" the
+baboon was a gentleman?
+
+Mr. Maxwell continued to stare into the fire, and I do not believe he
+ever glanced at the impressive three-quarters morocco binding I was
+holding up so persistently for him to see. After half-an-hour had been
+thus profitlessly spent I grew tired and decided that I would go to my
+room and go to bed. Morning would come the more quickly this way.
+
+As I started to cross the room to replace the book in its niche I
+heard Mrs. Chalmers going up the steps again--it seemed to me fully
+fifty times that evening she had made pilgrimages up and down those
+stairs on her way to and from the invalid's room.
+
+"Evelyn must be worse," I said aloud before I remembered that I was
+trying _not_ to start conversation.
+
+"Possibly so," he answered politely.
+
+"I believe I'll go now and see if I can do anything to help Mrs.
+Chalmers; she must be worn out."
+
+I put the Huxley back where he belonged and had turned again to wish
+Mr. Maxwell good night, when I found that he had at last unfastened
+his eyes from the bright fire and was looking toward me appealingly.
+
+"Miss Fielding," he began with an unwonted timidity.
+
+I had already opened the door to leave the room, but I came back a few
+steps, leaving the door wide open; and as I did so I heard, for the
+fifty-first time, the sound of Mrs. Chalmers' footfalls upon the
+stairs. She was coming down this time.
+
+"Yes?" I said coldly in the direction of Mr. Maxwell.
+
+"Miss Fielding, I am going away in the morning," he said rather
+awkwardly, as he pushed up a chair for me again, but I did not sit
+down. I leaned over a little and rested my elbows against its high
+leather back. He stood upon the hearth-rug, and even the shaded lights
+of the room brought out the troubled lines on his face. "I am going
+away on the same train that brings Chalmers home," he repeated.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I was anxious to talk with you a little before I go," he went on
+with considerable hesitation. My attitude was far from being
+encouraging. "You seem to be on friendly terms with her still--with
+Sophie, I mean."
+
+"I _am_ on friendly terms," I said rather pointedly. "I am fortunately
+not the kind of person who indulges in _seeming_ friendship."
+
+"Oh, I say, Miss Fielding, don't rub it in on a fellow! Don't you see
+that I have been half crazy ever since I found it out? Surely you
+don't think that the matter hasn't made me feel worse cut up than
+anything that ever happened to me before! A man doesn't get over a
+shock like _that_!"
+
+"Shock?"
+
+"Certainly shock," he repeated earnestly. "If she had told me she is a
+horse-thief I couldn't have felt worse. Of course a man could keep up
+a sort of pitying friendliness after such an acknowledgment as that,
+but--I had intended asking her that night to marry me."
+
+He looked at me as if he might be beseeching me to speak a word of
+comfort to him, but I stood there and said nothing.
+
+"Miss Fielding, surely you understand that I couldn't marry a woman
+who, by her own acknowledgment, is a--a dope-fiend."
+
+"Dope-fiend!" I gave a little shriek.
+
+He looked at me a moment as if he thought I had lost my mind, then we
+were both startled by the abrupt entrance of Mrs. Chalmers at the door
+which I had a few minutes before left open. She had evidently heard my
+horrified exclamation and come in to investigate. She looked from one
+to the other of us inquiringly, and there was no use trying to hide
+the situation from her.
+
+"Miss Fielding and I were talking about Sophie, Mrs. Chalmers," Mr.
+Maxwell explained after a moment of painful silence. "She acknowledged
+to us, Miss Fielding and me, the other night the--the truth about this
+unhappy condition."
+
+"The truth?" Mrs. Chalmers' tone was questioning, although I knew that
+she must have heard my startled cry as I repeated the hideous word he
+had used a moment before.
+
+"It was the night that we stayed away from the ball--we three--and we
+found the evidence in her bag. She acknowledged that it was true. I
+had expected to ask her to marry me that night--but she is a
+drug-fiend."
+
+Mrs. Chalmers started, but she did not speak. She made no effort to
+correct him.
+
+"So of course I am leaving in the morning. I should have gone long
+ago, but--"
+
+He looked at Richard's mother, who stood in the center of the room,
+directly beneath the chandelier. The light shone down on her soft
+white hair and changed it into a veritable crown of glory. She moved
+her crown slightly as she nodded an assent to his suggestion of
+leaving in the morning, but she did not lift a finger to detain him,
+nor to set him right in regard to Sophie. Could it be that her desire
+to get Evelyn married off to him was going to carry her to such
+lengths as this? It seemed so; and I caught myself wondering quickly
+if in so doing she might be carrying out a command of Richard's.
+Likely he was very positive in bidding her keep Sophie's secret, or in
+impressing it upon her that Evelyn ought to be suitably married. In
+either case she would be mortally afraid to speak--she would _not_
+speak. Then quickly upon the heels of this came the knowledge that if
+she did not speak it was my place to do so, for I knew the truth as
+well as she did--but it might make Richard angry! It would be sure to
+if he had given commands that the secret should be kept! I might even
+lose him--
+
+"That train leaves at six-thirty, I believe?"
+
+Again he looked at Mrs. Chalmers and she again nodded her head. But
+she did not speak.
+
+"Then I shall not have an opportunity of seeing you in the morning,"
+and he walked over and shook hands with his hostess, making his adieus
+in a wretchedly forced way.
+
+She shook hands with him and allowed him to pass on to me. I gave him
+my hand in a mechanical fashion, and my eyes were fixed upon Mrs.
+Chalmers' face. She was evidently frightened at the thought of the
+thing she was doing; but she was just as evidently going to see it
+through.
+
+"Good-by, Miss Fielding," Mr. Maxwell said simply, then turned toward
+the door.
+
+I was still looking at her as I heard the sound of his hand upon the
+door-knob, but as I realized in that instant that he was really
+_going_ and that neither of us had lifted a finger to set him right, a
+sudden power over which it seemed that I had no control came and
+caught me, almost physically forcing me out of my place. I ran across
+the room.
+
+"Mr. Maxwell!" I called.
+
+He came back a few steps and stood facing us.
+
+"You were leaving--that is, we were about to let you leave--under a
+false impression," I stammered breathlessly, all the time a sense of
+my doing something very much out of place strong upon me.
+
+"False impression?" His eyes were glittering feverishly.
+
+"Yes. It is true that we found the--the thing you mentioned in
+Sophie's bag that night, but she is no--dope-fiend."
+
+He stood still as if he were petrified.
+
+"Physicians carry those things in instrument cases," I went on,
+feeling that my explanation sounded very tame and inadequate.
+"Physicians carry them and so do _nurses_."
+
+He looked at me a moment in utter bewilderment, then, slowly,
+comprehension dawned in his eyes. Even the understanding was going to
+be bitter to him, for there would be the humiliating confession that
+he would have to make to her that he had misjudged her.
+
+As I said the word "nurses" Mrs. Chalmers moved a step forward and
+held up a warning hand.
+
+"Ann," she exclaimed in a frightened whisper, "Richard said that this
+affair was _not_ to be mentioned."
+
+"A professional nurse!" Mr. Maxwell cried, his face lighting up as a
+hundred hazy memories came flooding over him. "In El Paso--my God!
+_Of course!_"
+
+He came up to me and caught my arm.
+
+"This is what you mean?" he asked.
+
+Mrs. Chalmers' eyes were fixed on me in a kind of fascinated wonder.
+How _could_ any one go against Richard's expressed wish? But my own
+eyes were meeting hers steadily as I turned to answer Mr. Maxwell's
+pleading question.
+
+"Yes, that is what I mean. Sophie belongs to the great army of the Red
+Cross!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL
+
+
+As is frequently the case when I have gone to bed late and in a
+perturbed state of mind, I awake early, with a heavy feeling between
+my eyes and a marked distaste to getting up. It was so this morning,
+except I had an indistinct impression that, instead of waking
+normally, I had been awakened by some unusual noise.
+
+I turned over in bed and looked around the room for a few minutes
+before I began to think of the effort of getting up. I had by no means
+forgotten that Richard was coming--might already be here, as the
+spasmodic bursts of sunshine indicated that it was at least seven
+o'clock--but he would not expect me to do anything so unusual as to
+dress this early and meet him down-stairs for a few minutes' stolen
+happiness before we should meet and shake hands formally at the
+breakfast table. The bliss of such a secret little reunion might,
+doubtless would, appeal to most lovers, but not to Coeur de Lion.
+He would see in it only the impropriety of a young woman meeting a man
+in a deserted library in the early hours of the morning. Richard has
+this way of throwing--well, not exactly cold water, but _iced
+lemonade_, over the exuberance of my youthful feelings! I wish this
+were not so, but--
+
+I looked around the beautiful, befrilled bedroom, with its handsome
+furniture of Circassian walnut and its dainty blue silk hangings--and
+I thought, with a quick little pang of longing, of my severely plain
+sleeping apartment at home. This Spartan bareness is in imitation of
+Alfred's cell-like bedroom, which Ann Lisbeth had once shown me, and
+which had attracted me by the air of wholesomeness the immaculate
+cleanliness gave it. Alfred and I have often planned a house so plain
+and sanitary that we could turn the hose all through it. Housekeeping
+would be a delightfully simple affair with him, for he and I agree so
+perfectly in our dislike of complicated things. Dear me! I wonder what
+kind of house Richard and I will keep? It will be--expensive, but will
+it be harmonious?
+
+The events of last night came crowding before me and I remembered with
+a most disagreeable little chill that Mrs. Chalmers' eye had held a
+look of terror as she thought of Richard's commands being disobeyed.
+Was Richard a monster then? Did he _eat_ people when they dared to go
+contrary to his wishes? I also recalled the day he and I had had our
+first actual quarrel--about the volume of Byron which Alfred had given
+me. His eyes grow very cold and glittering when he is angry, and--yes,
+I can understand that a certain class of women might be very much
+afraid of him. Especially if they had him to live with! And I wondered
+if, at last, after months of struggling, I, too, might not find it
+more restful and peaceable to become a groveling sort of hypocrite to
+my lord and master?
+
+"Never, never!" I cried aloud, jumping out of bed as I heard again the
+same sounds which had awakened me--hurrying footsteps down-stairs
+through the halls, and the sound of many doors being hastily opened
+and closed. "I'll give him up if I find him as they say he is."
+
+Just then I recognized the heavy, dignified slam of the massive front
+door, a kind of muffled protest against the impertinence of using
+haste with such an august portion of that house; then, a moment after,
+there was the sound of an automobile starting.
+
+"Evelyn must be much worse," I thought uneasily, as I hurried through
+with my bath and slipped into my clothes. If this were so I knew that
+I should not have to meet Mrs. Chalmers at the breakfast table, and I
+should be relieved of the ordeal of coming in contact with her bland
+smile. I instinctively felt that she would meet us all exactly as if
+nothing had happened the night before. She is entirely too well-bred
+to bear malice.
+
+Now, for my part, I have a nervous distaste to whited sepulchers,
+aside from any question of morality, and I always have a sense of
+being brought face to face with the rottenness and dead men's bones
+whenever I am forced to _smooth_ over a situation which has not been
+thoroughly explained and threshed out. When I have a grievance against
+any one, my first desire is to "have it out" with the offender, and I
+always want any one whom I have offended to offer me the same
+privilege of setting myself straight.
+
+But Mrs. Chalmers would, I know, sit for ever at the mouth of such
+whited sepulcher with a bottle of vera-violet held to her nose before
+she would face anybody in helping to rid the place of its pestilence.
+
+These thoughts were running through my mind as I was dressing, and I
+will say that I had the grace to feel ashamed of them as I ran down
+the steps and met her in the hall, her face looking old and drawn with
+anxiety, her hair in disarray, and her figure enveloped in a fantastic
+kimono.
+
+"Evelyn is very much worse," she said in a trembling voice as I came
+up with her and inquired after the patient. "It is an acute attack of
+appendicitis and Doctor Cooley has just telephoned to the city for
+Doctor Gordon to come out on the first train. He says--she
+can't--_live_ without an operation; and, even so, he is very much
+afraid that it--the appendix--has ruptured."
+
+She broke down here and sobbed miserably, burying her face in her
+hands and wiping away the tears upon one long silken sleeve of her
+flowered kimono.
+
+"Evelyn is all I have in this world," she moaned, and I suddenly felt
+infinitely sorry for her--and forgiving. "She is all I have to comfort
+me in my miserable life, and now Richard has come home and blames this
+trouble on me."
+
+"Blames you?" I questioned, looking down upon her disordered hair in
+amazement at the thought.
+
+"He says that I ought to have known better than to let her dance so
+much the other night," she explained, lifting a tear-stained face to
+me for a moment, as if to acknowledge the sympathy in my voice.
+Clearly she was not accustomed to sympathy.
+
+"Dance!" I said again in surprise. "Why, people have appendicitis who
+have never seen inside a ball-room! That is a most absurd idea."
+
+"Not nearly so absurd as some things he hatches up against us two,"
+she broke out, her anger toward Richard making her forget, for a
+moment, her anxiety for Evelyn. "Oh, Ann, he leads us _such_ a life!
+He is exactly like his father--and he was a _despot_!"
+
+We were interrupted by the quick footsteps of Sophie, as she came
+hurrying through the hall. She had an ice-cap in her hand, and there
+was a thermometer-case thrust through her belt. There was no trained
+nurse in Charlotteville, so she had quietly explained to Doctor Cooley
+her qualifications to act in that capacity. Mrs. Chalmers whispered
+this to me, as Sophie passed by; also that Mr. Maxwell had left on the
+same train that brought Richard, but not before he and Sophie had
+spent a long hour together in the quiet library.
+
+"She was up nearly all night," Mrs. Chalmers said, "so they came face
+to face here in the hall at daybreak. She is a good girl, and he will
+make her happy. I am glad they have come to an understanding."
+
+"But I thought--" I began, then stopped, not knowing how to express my
+idea about her plans for Mr. Maxwell and Evelyn; but she read my mind.
+
+"You thought I wanted to catch him for Evelyn?" she asked without
+embarrassment. "Well, I did, but I shouldn't have gone to such
+lengths, except for the sake of keeping Richard in a good humor."
+
+"Then he'll be in a very bad humor with me when he hears that I was
+the one who told about Sophie," I suggested, but she cut me short.
+
+"Oh, he's in such a fiendish humor about something that happened to
+him on this trip of his that he will forget all about these things
+here at home."
+
+"Is there some sort of political trouble?" I asked anxiously, but she
+shook her head.
+
+"Richard never mentions his business affairs to us," she said, as she
+smoothed down her kimono and followed Sophie up the stairs.
+
+Half an hour later Richard met me at the door of the breakfast-room,
+looking very tired and morose. We sat down and ate breakfast in
+unchaperoned gloom. He asked me a few perfunctory questions about the
+happenings here since he left, but he volunteered no information as
+to what kind of business it was which had taken him away, nor where he
+had been.
+
+After breakfast we established ourselves in the library, he with a
+batch of newspapers which he had brought with him from the city and I
+had a new magazine, but he seemed to care little for reading, and he
+sat and smoked in moody silence for a while. The day was warm, but the
+sunshine of the early morning grew fainter, and by noon there were
+signs of a thunder-shower, the clouds seeming to gather from all
+directions; and the air became oppressively heavy.
+
+Richard finally threw away the end of his cigar, yawned a time or two
+in an abstracted sort of fashion, then got up and walked over to the
+window. He pulled aside the curtains and looked out at the threatening
+sky.
+
+"Get your hat and let's go out for a little fresh air before it
+rains," he suggested as he came back and threw himself into his chair
+again, stretching out his long legs to the fire.
+
+I got up obediently and started toward the door, but he reached out,
+caught my hand and stopped me.
+
+"Isn't it a devilish old day?" he said lazily, as he drew me down
+toward him. "You haven't kissed me once since I came home. Don't you
+love me any more?"
+
+"Love you? Of course I love you!" I answered, kissing him on the
+forehead and smoothing back his fair hair. I had entirely forgotten
+the traitorous thoughts of the early morning. "But you have been in
+_such_ a mood! Who wants to kiss something that looks about as
+lover-like as Rameses II?"
+
+He smiled a little and took my face between his hands.
+
+"I _am_ a savage," he admitted, though not at all bearing the
+appearance of one at that moment; "but I've had a lot to try me
+lately--and then I was so disgusted when I came home and found that
+mother had let Evelyn dance herself into another of these attacks."
+
+"Oh, Richard! Surely you don't really think it was the dance that
+brought it on? It might have been the dinner--but I shouldn't even
+suggest that to your mother. She is miserable enough already. You
+ought to try to comfort her."
+
+"That's very charitable of you," he said, a sarcastic little flicker
+around the corners of his mouth, "but, all the same, I find that I can
+manage my womenkind better to use a little frankness with them
+occasionally."
+
+I drew back from him somewhat.
+
+"Frankness?" I cried in genuine surprise at his cold sarcasm. "Even if
+frankness were the right name for--this, do you consider that now is
+the time for it? When she is so wretched?"
+
+He turned from me and threw down the paper he had picked up a moment
+before as I stood talking to him.
+
+"Let's don't quarrel," he said finally, in a low tone; and,
+impulsively reaching out both hands to me, he added: "And, Ann, for
+God's sake, don't ever act as if you were afraid of me!"
+
+"Afraid of you!"
+
+He smiled. I think he has the most adorable smile of any man on earth.
+
+"Go and get your hat," he said.
+
+As I came down-stairs again with my hat on I found Sophie standing at
+the front door talking with Richard. She was dressed entirely in the
+garb of a nurse by this time, and I looked admiringly at the becoming
+white uniform, but Richard made no reference to the change nor
+anything that it entailed.
+
+"Sophie thinks that we would better not go very far," he said to me
+as he stepped outside into the vestibule and looked up again at the
+clouds. "She says Evelyn is not resting so well--and mother, of
+course, has entirely lost her grip."
+
+"Do you think that there is any new danger in Evelyn's case?" I asked
+anxiously.
+
+"Well, we are eager for the surgeon to get here as quickly as
+possible," she answered.
+
+"He'll be here on the noon train, and, of course, he can operate
+immediately. And it hasn't been nearly twenty-four hours since the
+onset of the acute attack. The mortality is less than one per cent, if
+taken within--"
+
+I had been looking into Sophie's eyes as I spoke and had not observed
+that Richard was listening intently to what I was saying, but as I
+made use of this last bit of medical jargon a contemptuous little
+half-laugh broke from him and I looked up quickly. He was smiling
+sardonically.
+
+"Of course your friend, Doctor Morgan, is your authority," he said,
+his brows elevated and a disagreeable expression around his mouth.
+
+"He is--and I couldn't ask a better," I flashed back at him.
+
+We stood thus a moment, our eyes meeting in fiery challenge, and in
+that brief moment I realized that such a scene repeated a few times
+would cause us to hate each other. I felt suddenly as if the earth
+were receding from me and leaving me in a very uncertain stratum of
+air. I was violently angry with Richard--and he was infuriated.
+
+"It's a pity the public continues to display such a lamentable
+ignorance in regard to this wonderful Hippocrates of yours," he
+sneered, though in an even voice.
+
+"That ignorance is growing less every day," I responded easily, so
+easily, in fact, that I am sure Sophie never suspected that we were
+both at white heat.
+
+But she was embarrassed at the bad taste we were both exhibiting, so
+she made some excuse and quickly left us. We walked slowly down toward
+the gate, not that there was any joy left in the prospect of a quiet
+walk together, but because there seemed nothing better to do right
+then. Out through the gate and quite a distance up the street we
+passed before either of us spoke, and I noticed once that his right
+hand, which clasped his slender silk umbrella, was trembling.
+
+"Ann," he said finally, speaking in a remarkably low, gentle voice,
+"why does it seem to give you such pleasure to torture me that way?"
+
+"Torture you?" I answered. "Oh, Richard! Why should you torture
+yourself into a passion if I but mention anything even remotely
+connected with the medical profession?"
+
+"Medical profession!" His voice was still very quiet. "You would imply
+then that I am--that I am jealous of this yearling doctor?"
+
+There was infinite contempt in the word "yearling."
+
+"I don't _imply_!" I responded warmly. "I have good, clear English for
+what I wish to say."
+
+"You certainly have for all that you wish to say about this paragon of
+yours."
+
+"He _is_ a paragon; but he isn't mine."
+
+"No? I wonder why? You certainly might have won him!"
+
+Was this a lovers' quarrel? I had always heard them spoken of as being
+frivolous, make-believe disagreements, whose sting was light as
+thistle-down and whose shadows were quick to disappear at the dawn of
+a beloved smile. But if this were true, then my altercation with
+Richard was a much more serious affair, for I found my patience
+strained to the breaking point when I finally burst out: "Richard,
+hush! This is disgraceful! I will not quarrel with you any longer. You
+make me wish that I had never seen your face!"
+
+My vehemence seemed to startle him out of his own wrath, or, at all
+events, it acted as a signal to him that he was to go no further, for
+he began to retract; not humbly, not penitently, as if he had found
+himself in the wrong, but with a sudden sparkling brilliance, his eyes
+and his smile dazzling my senses as they did the sunny afternoon we
+spent together, sitting on the orchard fence.
+
+"Well, I'm glad I have seen your face," he said fondly, as he looked
+down upon me with that same air of possession, "for you are the
+prettiest little spitfire I ever saw."
+
+He suggested that we walk up to the river side, not a great distance
+away, but it is as secluded a spot as if it were miles away from human
+habitation. There are thickets of undergrowth just beyond a skirt of
+woods, and a stone wall where we might sit down for a quiet little
+talk.
+
+We made for this spot in silence, and, as he placed a strong, lithe
+hand on either side of my waist to lift me bodily up on the wall he
+said, with that same directness of manner which I found characterized
+his speech: "Ann, I beg your pardon--ten thousand times, sweetheart!
+Will you forgive me--and--and kiss me?"
+
+His lips were already upon mine, and I knew then that there was
+nothing in this life so beautiful and sweet and intoxicating as their
+touch. I gave myself up to the exquisite madness with an abandon which
+shuts out all knowledge that Richard and I are not comrades, not even
+friends--that we have no ideals in common, no similar tastes! What
+does all this matter when he has his arms about me and I am so close
+to him that I can hear the quick thump, thump of his heart-beats, and
+I know how they quicken for me! Nothing matters! I love him!
+
+"That's my own little girl," he said radiantly, as he lifted his face
+from mine and saw my entire surrender. "This is the first moment
+to-day that I have felt as if you really love me."
+
+He dusted off a space on the wall then sprang lightly up to a seat by
+my side.
+
+"I've been waiting for you to brighten up a bit and look like
+yourself," he continued after a few minutes of happy silence. "I have
+something to show you."
+
+"Something to show me?" I looked at him wonderingly.
+
+"Something I brought you from--from the city."
+
+"But I told you not to bring me anything."
+
+"I know. But I had already bought it then, and I couldn't take it back
+to the jeweler and tell him that my lady had turned it down, could I?"
+
+He drew a little case from his pocket, a long, slender one this time,
+and as I found my eyes fixed with an eager fascination upon his hands
+as they worked for a moment with the catch, I seemed to see stretching
+before me a long vista of years, each one punctuated with quarrels
+like the one we had just endured, and the rough places left by these
+ruptures filled in and smoothed over by myriads of these small, dainty
+jewel-boxes. But Richard's deft fingers had opened the case, and he
+passed it over to me. I gave a little gasp of astonished delight as I
+saw lying upon its bed of velvet a string of pearls--white,
+softly-glistening, beautiful things.
+
+"Let's see how they look on you," he suggested, unfastening the dull
+gold clasp and slipping the lovely chain around my neck. He fastened
+them securely, then smiled approval as he leaned back and viewed the
+effect.
+
+"I've wanted you to have something like this ever since I've known
+you," he said with the air of a connoisseur as he still held back and
+looked at the pearls lying close around the neck of my collarless
+blouse. "So when I happened to see these the other day in--the city, I
+decided that they were exactly what I wanted for my little girl."
+
+I was opening and shutting the box as he talked, and when he mentioned
+seeing them in the city I idly glanced at the name on the lining, and
+saw that the case bore the name of a well-known firm in St. Louis.
+
+"Why, Richard," I cried, "did you go all the way to St. Louis to find
+them?"
+
+I laughed, but there were two tiny lines between his eyes.
+
+"Don't say anything about it to mother, but the truth is I did have to
+go to St. Louis while I was away from home this time."
+
+"Your mother thinks you were down in some little country town--away
+from a telephone!"
+
+"Well, it was a--business trip. She wouldn't be interested, and I
+never have believed in a man boring his family with his business
+affairs."
+
+"I shouldn't be bored, Richard," I began, hoping so fervently that he
+was going to confide in me that half the joy I should have been
+feeling over my beautiful new possession was turned into pain when I
+saw that he was not.
+
+He changed the subject quietly and we discussed various minor matters,
+until I remembered, with a start, that it was time for us to be going
+home. It must be long past noon. I mentioned this to Richard and he
+jumped down immediately.
+
+"I haven't heard the train whistle, have you?"
+
+"No, but we haven't been listening for it. Look at your watch."
+
+He did so, and we were both surprised and not a little ashamed when we
+saw that it was half-past one.
+
+"We'll have to hurry," he said briefly, and we walked home faster, I
+dare say, than ever lovers walked away from that delightful spot
+before.
+
+When we reached the house we found that the doctor from the city had
+indeed arrived; the preparations for the operation being well under
+way. There was not to be an hour's delay, Sophie told us, as she
+paused on her way up the steps. Her hands were full of glistening
+instruments, and a negro servant followed with kettles of boiled
+water.
+
+"What does Gordon think of her condition?" Richard asked, as he eyed
+Sophie's burden with a little shrinking.
+
+"Doctor Gordon couldn't come," she answered abstractedly as she looked
+around and gave the servant some directions about keeping a bountiful
+supply of water that had been boiled, "there was a wreck on the road
+that he is surgeon for--it didn't amount to much, but still he had to
+be there, so he telephoned Doctor Cooley that this young colleague of
+his whom he sent to do the operation is thoroughly competent--it seems
+that they operate together a great deal. I didn't catch the young
+doctor's name when he was introduced--and I've been too busy since to
+ask."
+
+"Doctor Morgan," I said, feeling sure that Doctor Gordon would send no
+one but Alfred on a case like this.
+
+"Doctor Morgan--the _devil_ it is!" Richard's voice burst out so
+suddenly and so fiercely that I turned and looked at him in amazement.
+Then, for the first time, I realized how easy it might be to be afraid
+of him. Fierce and sudden as the words were, they were spoken in his
+deep, even voice, and not a muscle of his face showed the intense fury
+which I felt that he was laboring under. It was a cold, cruel anger,
+and it showed only in his eyes. They were glittering like two
+sharp-pointed steel blades. "Doctor Morgan here--and you knew all the
+time that he was coming!"
+
+He looked at me so accusingly that Sophie sensed the point of the
+situation at once, although she had never heard Alfred's name
+mentioned before; and she broke in with a light laugh.
+
+"Why, he didn't know himself that he was coming until ten minutes
+before train time. It was too late even to find a nurse to bring with
+him, so I am going to help in the operation."
+
+Her words had the effect of quieting, in a measure, this insane
+suspicion of Richard's; and he and I followed her up the broad
+staircase. She led the way into the room which had been hastily
+divested of its rich furnishings and transformed into a semblance of
+an operating-room; and we two followed automatically. Sophie passed in
+and began busying herself about the preparations, but just inside the
+doorway we stopped.
+
+Standing in the middle of the floor, near the end of a long table upon
+which had been placed several bowls of water, some clear, others light
+blue, his top shirt off and his arms up to his elbows thickly coated
+over with a soft lather, was Alfred. Another young fellow, whom I
+afterward learned was a local physician, stood near the table; and he
+too was busily "scrubbing up." As we came into the room Alfred bade
+Sophie hurry up with her own preparations.
+
+"Would you object to hearing a word from me before your manipulations
+go further?" Richard's voice broke in, after the briefest and most
+perfunctory of greetings, which fortunately were divested of any
+hypocritical handshaking on account of Alfred's green soapiness. "I
+understand that our family physician, Doctor Cooley, telephoned to the
+city for Doctor _Gordon_ to come down here and operate upon my
+sister."
+
+"Doctor Gordon received the message, but was detained by a small wreck
+on the Eastern," Alfred said quietly, rinsing the soap-suds from his
+hands and motioning Sophie to drop another bichloride tablet into the
+next bowl of water. "He sent me to do the work."
+
+"So I have been informed," Richard said, his eyes looking far colder
+and more cutting than the steel instruments which Sophie was now
+rattling about in a big pan, "but--as it happens--I don't want you to
+do the work."
+
+The insult was so barefaced and so ugly that Sophie suddenly turned
+scarlet and the young doctor bending over the bowl of water busied
+himself unnecessarily with a bottle of green soap. Richard himself
+began nervously tampering with his watch-fob, while I afterward
+recalled that my fingers were playing convulsively with the pearls
+which were still around my neck. It was an _electrical_ moment and we
+all showed signs of weakening before the current--all except Alfred.
+
+He stood in the same spot at the end of the table, directing straight
+at Richard his level, steady glance, and looking the personification
+of simple dignity--in an undershirt.
+
+"That might put a different aspect upon the matter," he said slowly
+after a moment's deliberation. Not a muscle of his face changed, and
+no one less well acquainted with him than I am could have detected the
+hardness in his voice.
+
+"_Might_ put a different aspect?" Richard looked incredulous.
+
+"Yes, it might--if the patient were a minor, and you her sole
+guardian."
+
+"Ah! Then you mean to ignore my rights?"
+
+"I do--if you wish to put it that way. Your sister's condition is
+critical; and there is no one else to operate."
+
+"Then there is no appeal to be made to your pride?" I do not know what
+Richard meant, nor do I believe that he knew himself, for he surely
+would not have run the risk of trying to get another surgeon when it
+had been made so clear to him that the delay would be fatal. Alfred
+seemed to realize that there was no more occasion for argument than if
+he had been talking to an unreasonable child--or a dangerous lunatic.
+
+"No; my pride lies dormant in a case like this," he answered simply.
+"I acknowledge only Duty."
+
+Then, at Alfred's words, it seemed that the magic change which I have
+before noticed comes over Richard when he sees that he has gone far
+enough, began to make itself felt. It appeared that he was not going
+to have the courage to turn about and apologize, as he had done with
+me earlier in the day; but he began to do what he considered all that
+was ever necessary from _him_ to ordinary mortals. He began to back,
+sullenly.
+
+"Of course, if it is only an ordinary case of appendicitis _you_
+might do," he admitted grudgingly, "but--suppose there are
+complications?"
+
+I give Richard credit for not intending this worst insult of all. He
+was so entirely absorbed in gaining his own end, and that end was
+proving to Alfred that he was incompetent to operate, that he failed
+to consider the words he used. To him this was only a simple argument
+in favor of his theory. Alfred met the thrust as he had met the minor
+ones.
+
+"If there are complications, I shall grapple with them," he answered
+quietly. "That's what I studied surgery for."
+
+Sophie came across the room then and told us in a low voice that they
+were about ready. Would we please wait outside? Without another word
+Richard took me by the arm and we walked out together. He held my arm
+tightly as we made our way cautiously down the steps; cautiously
+because it had suddenly grown very dark and there were threatening
+rumbles in the distance, following vivid flashes of lightning. The
+fumes of the anesthetic were filling the house, while outside the big
+drops of rain were beginning to pelt down, making little comet-shaped
+streaks of wetness against the window-panes.
+
+We heard the shuffling steps as they moved Evelyn into the room and
+placed her upon the table; then we heard Alfred call from the head of
+the steps, his voice calm and unruffled as it would be in the case of
+any gentleman making a request of another.
+
+"Mr. Chalmers, will you call the power-house and have them turn on the
+lights?"
+
+Hours after, when it was all safely over and Sophie earnestly
+supplemented the local doctor's praise of Alfred's skill and
+technique, Richard sought me out as I stood alone in the dining-room
+locking up the silver. I had seen Mrs. Chalmers do this and knew that
+it was a habit of hers; and to-night there was no one else to do it.
+
+"Ann," he said, coming close and looking around to make sure that
+there was no one else near, "Ann, I'm really sorry about what I said
+to that fellow, Morgan, this afternoon. Of course I didn't intend any
+aspersions upon his ability, but I suppose, according to their
+infernal ethics, it was--discourteous."
+
+I picked up a soft flannel case and wrapped a handful of heavy forks
+in it. "Yes, I dare say he considered it so," I agreed.
+
+"I've wondered what I can do to make amends," he continued. "Do you
+think I might double the amount of his fee?"
+
+"No, no," I begged earnestly, a sudden sense of disgust at the thought
+of such a thing. "No, don't try to offer Alfred _money_."
+
+Poor Richard! Was there nothing in the world he could do except
+trample upon people's feelings then offer to pay them to get in a good
+humor again? He had insulted Alfred, who was a hero, then suggested
+offering him money to wipe out the stain. He had neglected and
+offended me this miserable day--but he had given me a string of
+pearls!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE IDES OF MARCH
+
+
+"Love's second summer," was the name Mammy Lou bestowed on the
+troubled period of my engagement with Richard Chalmers which followed
+the portentous events chronicled in the last few chapters.
+
+"A love affair ain't no different from a baby," she would say to me
+sometimes, as her quick eye saw that all was not going well, and her
+maternal pity for me caused her to forgive the disappointment I had
+given her in my choice of a lover. "It's bound to have some miz'ry as
+well as joy mixed along with it. Why, you can't no more make true love
+run smooth than you can play a 'juice harp' with false teeth."
+
+True love! Oh the irony of the words! So many months have passed since
+the happenings that I last recorded that I can look back now and
+dispassionately dissect even the motives of many things which
+transpired during that gilded year. For it proved to be only a gilded
+year, while I thought at the time that it was a golden one. And I can
+see, among many other strange and bewildering things, that at the
+moment I saw Alfred Morgan stand up and bravely defy Richard's selfish
+tyranny, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes and I knew then which
+was the false and which the true. That I did not act upon this
+knowledge and follow the dictates of my intuition, I afterward
+regretted more poignantly than it often befalls the lot of a girl to
+rue a guiltless deed.
+
+On that November night when I stood in the dining-room and counted out
+and stored away the Chalmers' family silver while Richard stood by and
+suggested appeasing Alfred's outraged pride by a gift of money, I felt
+an almost overpowering desire to fly precipitately away from the
+great, gleaming house with its Midas-like master, who, as I remembered
+for the first time with a shudder, was also _my_ master.
+
+The storm without, which had broken so violently at the hour of the
+equally violent storm within, and between those two strong and
+determined spirits, had spent its force during the afternoon, and
+when the dreary night closed down there was a sharp wind from the
+east, and the rain changed into a driving sleet.
+
+Out into this Alfred went, and I stood at the door with him as we said
+good-by, until the piercing wind blew in and brought with it a little
+shower of light sleet, which it scattered over the inlaid floor.
+
+"I'll be in the city for a day or two next week," I said as he held
+out his hand and looked with a slight shiver out into the icy
+blackness through which he must pass. "I'll see you then."
+
+For the moment I had forgotten that Alfred and I no longer saw each
+other when I was in the city. I had failed to remember the fact, and
+also the circumstances leading up to it.
+
+"But I'm leaving for New York Saturday night," he said briefly, as he
+pulled a little closer the big storm collar of his heavy coat, and
+slipped on his long automobile gauntlets. He had left the city so
+hurriedly that he had not had time to exchange these for ordinary
+gloves. "--And I sail on the following Wednesday."
+
+"Oh! So this is good-by then?"
+
+"Yes--for all time, I suppose. You'll be married long before I get
+back."
+
+We were standing alone at the door which led out to the driveway and
+there was a motor-car a few feet away puffing softly a warning to
+hurry; Richard was somewhere near, in the front part of the house--but
+I thought not of his anger if he should find me in such a plight; I
+did not stop to remember that Alfred was in danger of missing his
+train; above all I did not recall that only a few months before I had
+had the chance of making a decision which, if differently made, would
+have put such a different aspect upon the world's cold blackness this
+miserable night--I remembered nothing, except that Alfred was going
+away from me--and I had already seen my mistake. Giving way completely
+as this mighty knowledge came bearing down upon the tired, aching
+nerves of my brain, which had already been working at over-tension for
+the past many days, I covered my face with my hands and gave vent to
+the sobs and tears which seemed to have been gathering in my heart
+since I had last seen Alfred. Now he was going away, and I was to see
+him no more!
+
+"Ann," he begged, as he quickly stripped off the long gauntlets and
+started to put out his hand, "_don't_! For God's sake don't cry! I've
+stood a lot to-day, but I'll swear I can't stand that."
+
+"If you've stood a lot, don't you think that I have, too?" I demanded
+in a low voice, the convulsive little catches in my throat making
+speech difficult. I had lost all power of self-control for the moment,
+and I think that if Richard had come out into the hall at that instant
+and demanded an explanation I should have frankly given it. Many times
+through the succeeding months I regretted bitterly that he had not.
+
+Alfred's hand started out toward me again at my passionate words, and
+caught mine this time, dragging them gently down from my face as he
+compelled my eyes to meet his.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Is he unkind to _you_, too?"
+
+"Oh, no, not unkind," I stammered, half frightened at the sudden turn
+of our conversation. "Certainly not unkind. He is the soul of
+generosity--but we don't--get along well--together." I broke down
+weakly in my speech, for the sense of disloyalty was strong upon me,
+and I felt that it was almost as grave a crime to recount the faults
+of a lover as those of a husband.
+
+But Alfred's face was very serious, and if my perfidy made any impress
+upon him it was lost in the mazes of a greater problem.
+
+"That is what I've been afraid of," he said in almost the same tones
+he had used when he made a similar remark upon my telling him I cared
+for Richard. "I thought you would find that your natures
+are--incompatible."
+
+"Incompatible? Oh, Alfred, if we marry we'll _fight_!" I sobbed,
+burying my face in my hands again, and forgetting the _lover_ Alfred
+in the dear friend whom I could always go to with a trouble. And I
+would be willing to stake anything in life that, in that moment, he,
+too, had forgotten that he was my lover.
+
+"Well, that is a very serious question, and one which you will have
+thoroughly to thresh out before it is too late," he said, his bright
+brown eyes anxious and troubled. He looked down upon me with infinite
+sympathy.
+
+"And you are going away so soon--and for so long?"
+
+"Well, if I were not going away I could no longer be a--a friend to
+you, Ann; for I am not capable of giving you unbiased advice, and that
+is what you need. It would be a great temptation to make capital for
+myself out of your troubles with--him; and I can't lower myself this
+way. So don't grieve over my going away, and--take council with your
+mother and Mrs. Clayborne. I am not the one to advise you in this
+case."
+
+So he went out into the blackness!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From New York, the day he sailed, he wrote me a note saying that he
+could not leave without telling me some things which he could not
+honorably speak of while we were in Richard Chalmers' house that
+night; and those things were that his own feeling for me would never
+change; if years passed before I ever felt that I needed him I was to
+send for him just as confidently as I would to-day. No matter what
+decision I came to in regard to my marriage with Richard Chalmers he
+would never approach me again in the light of a lover until I sent for
+him, the note ran on; and, as I read this last I looked up and smiled
+into vacancy over the thought of how proud and high-minded he is. He
+gave me the address of a London hospital and said that if I cared to
+write to him at any time within the next few weeks the letter would
+reach him there.
+
+But I did not write to him within the next few weeks.
+
+On the morning after Alfred's departure from Charlotteville I came
+down-stairs early and found Richard in the breakfast-room. He was
+smiling radiantly as he looked up and saw me; then he threw aside his
+morning paper and pulled up a chair close to the fire.
+
+"Evelyn is doing splendidly; the political news is to my liking; there
+are fresh trout for breakfast, and--here's a rose for your hair, my
+lady-love," he said, holding out to me a perfect bud of pearly
+whiteness. A box of them had come on the early train from a friend of
+Evelyn's in the city, and Richard had purloined the most beautiful one
+for me.
+
+The ground outside was white and there was the sharp little sound of
+sleet against the window-pane, but the breakfast-room was a scene of
+glowing cheer. A Japanese tea-service was on the table, and the trout,
+which Richard had been fortunate enough to secure from a passing
+fisherman that morning, was broiled to a most delicious brown and
+seemed to be enjoying its repose upon its bed of water-cress. A
+steaming pot of hot water was presently brought in and placed beside
+my plate, and the tea-ball was brought to me. I was to make the tea
+and Richard and I were to breakfast together.
+
+"This strikes me as being a happy arrangement," he said, smiling what
+I had often called his "twenty-one-year-old smile," for when he wore
+it it was difficult for me to believe that he was as far advanced in
+the thirties as I knew him to be. "This looks quite married and
+home-like, doesn't it--Mrs. Chalmers?"
+
+Richard seldom jested about our marriage, and he never, but this one
+time, made reference to the name which would be mine when we married.
+Such a jest on the morning before, when he had just come in from his
+trip and was the personification of gentlemanly grouch, would have
+made all the world radiant to me; but, as it was, I blushed painfully
+as he spoke the name--and he took the blush at its face value.
+
+"Ah, madam, I see that the thought pleases you!" he kept on
+banteringly as my hand trembled a little over the tea-ball. "Perhaps
+this is my opportunity for pressing my suit--isn't that what they call
+it in novels? It smacks too much of the tailor shop to suit my taste,
+however.--But honestly, Ann, I do want us to make arrangements for our
+marriage the first minute this nomination business is over. What do
+you say, dear heart?"
+
+Again, if the question had been asked yesterday morning it would have
+made a startlingly different impression, but, as it was this morning,
+I parried.
+
+"I say that we are two very selfish and thoughtless young people to be
+talking about such things while Evelyn is lying up-stairs so ill--and
+your mother in such distress, Richard," I answered.
+
+"Well, we'll not say another word about it, if it troubles you,
+sweetheart," he said gently. Then after a moment he added: "I never
+expect to do anything to hurt you, even a little bit, again."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean as I did yesterday--about Morgan, you know. Did you notice how
+I stayed clear away last night while you went to the door with him?
+But," resuming his tone of persiflage, "you were there an unreasonable
+time, it seems to me. Now, tell your rightful lord what you two
+cronies were talking about."
+
+"About his trip," I said quickly, spilling a little tea upon the cloth
+and vigorously mopping it up with my napkin. "He's going to Europe
+next week."
+
+"Well, he's a pretty decent chap, although he does look deucedly young
+to be cutting into people--don't you think so?" he asked, not that he
+really did think so, for Alfred is quite old-looking for his years,
+but he thought it would place him in a better light--the way he acted
+yesterday.
+
+"Oh, you'd like a bearded old surgeon who learned so much technique
+before the war that he hasn't needed to learn any since," I answered,
+and the breakfast-hour passed away with this kind of light, bantering
+talk.
+
+From that day Richard set about being the most agreeable companion
+when we were together, and the most devoted lover when we were
+separated that it has ever been my lot to meet in fact or fiction. I
+left Charlotteville the next day and he followed me up to the city on
+the fourth day thereafter, as soon as the doctors pronounced Evelyn
+out of danger. I had not intended stopping over in the city any length
+of time, but I found Cousin Eunice in a state of despair over the
+progress, or lack of progress, of her new book.
+
+"Do stay," she begged, as I announced this intention to her, "at least
+until I get through with the proposal. It's as hard to get your hero
+to propose nicely as it is to get the gathers of a sleeve to set
+right. There's always either too much or too little in a given spot.
+And it's so provoking, when I'm right in the midst of such a delicate
+situation, to have Pearl call out to me from the foot of the steps:
+'Mrs. Clayborne, here's a jepman at the do' want's to know if your
+husban's a householder and a freeholder.'
+
+"'Tell him yes, and a _slave-holder_,' I yell back at her; for any
+woman who really keeps house _is_ a slave."
+
+"What do 'jepmen' want to ask such fool questions for?" I asked
+wonderingly.
+
+"To avoid election frauds. You see there is so much deviltry right now
+in politics that the law-enforcement faction is sending men around all
+over the city to find out every voter, and if he has the right to
+vote."
+
+"Well, what good does it all do?"
+
+"None; but it gives the poor, overworked housewives one more trip to
+the front door, in the course of the day.--Then there are agents
+selling non-rustible wired bust-forms. Pearl never knows what to say
+to them, either."
+
+"Mercy, what should one say?" I demanded, thinking all of a sudden
+that maybe my task was going to be too large for me.
+
+"Say anything that comes to your mind, just so it's unfit for
+publication--nothing milder will do for them," she answered bitterly.
+
+"And Waterloo doesn't give you any trouble while you're trying to
+work, does he?" I inquired.
+
+"Happily no, for Grapefruit is his consolation and his joy. Never were
+there such ways of a nursemaid with a man child. Never has anybody
+invented such tales and games--"
+
+"And spitting contests," I interpolated.
+
+"It's true she taught him that ugly habit," she responded with some
+dignity, "but all boys learn it sooner or later."
+
+So I stayed and the book grew like a soap-bubble the first week. Then
+Pearl's brother got into that condition which is always described by
+our colored servants with much gusto and rolling of white eyeballs as
+"'bout ter die," and, whether he ever dies or not, is a matter that
+the housekeeper knows nothing of. But the servant always leaves, and
+she did in this case; and upon the Sunday morning thereafter the gas
+stove in the Clayborne home looked as if gangrene had set in on it. I
+had magnanimously insisted on doing the cooking; and I didn't know
+before that a gas stove had to be washed as often as a new-born baby.
+
+Cousin Eunice came out of her cataleptic state on Sunday morning, for
+she is ashamed to write on the type-writer that day for fear Waterloo
+will tell it at Sunday-school--and she showed me how to dispose of the
+week-old egg-shells and concentrated soup cans which had accumulated
+amazingly around the fenders of the range.
+
+"Oh, I think a literary ambition is an evil thing sometimes," she said
+with a deep sigh, looking around at the house, which she declared was
+enough to give us all bubonic plague.
+
+"It is--er, disheartening to have you shut up all the week in the
+little back room up-stairs," Rufe admitted, fishing one of his best
+gloves out from behind the coal-box. "When you're locked away up there
+the house looks as empty as a hotel bureau-drawer--and that's the
+emptiest thing on earth."
+
+"I know it," she answered, looking at him sympathetically. "--Besides,
+it's wearing to have a book for ever in your mind. Inspiration is so
+uncertain--and so urgent. I've had it strike me while I was washing my
+hair; and it's far from pleasant to have to dash the soap out of your
+eyes while you search all over the house for your note-book and
+pencil--and the water drips down all over the furniture."
+
+"It must be," Rufe agreed.
+
+"And here lately I've grown so absent-minded that when I go down-town
+for a little shopping I have to dress with my memorandum in my mouth
+to keep from going off and forgetting it."
+
+But on Monday morning genius was burning again, and I stayed through
+that week, but only in the capacity of a protection against
+interruptions. We got another cook, for Pearl's brother, like Charles
+II., was "an unconscionable time a-dying." Richard came every day and
+every night and was so attentive to the whole family that Rufe rather
+sarcastically asked one day: "Ann, is Chalmers courting you or me?"
+
+Rufe's words meant little to me then, but later they kept recurring to
+my mind with a persistency that would make Banquo's ghost appear like
+a tame and laggard thing. Was Richard hoping to gain, through his
+friendship with me, the support of the _Times_? He knew that if Rufe's
+personal influence could not bring about an actual support of him in
+the coming campaign it would be a factor in having the paper judge his
+manipulations with a lenient eye.
+
+And now this finally brings me up to that miserable day the following
+spring, the Ides of March, it was, when the skies fell; and they never
+fell upon a more wretched, more humiliated, more bitterly disciplined
+young woman.
+
+As I have said, Richard had made an ideal fiancé throughout the time
+which followed that miserable parting with Alfred, and I had occasion
+many times to wonder if, after all, I might not have been mistaken
+about the incompatibility of our natures. Besides, the fascination of
+the handsome, physical Richard Chalmers was still there; perhaps it
+was never so strongly and bitterly there as on the fifteenth of March
+that I have just mentioned.
+
+As the winter wore away, Richard's visits down home here, in the
+country, had been much further apart, especially since the time for
+the actual political fight drew nearer; and, from this fact and from
+the newspapers' more volcanic outbursts, I knew that a gubernatorial
+contest was about to take place.
+
+But I should never have known it from the man who was most concerned
+in the race, for, during all this time, Richard never confided one
+hope nor fear of his to me; and I see now that it was not because he
+"didn't want to bother my pretty little head about such things," as
+he occasionally stated, with a fond smile, but because he judged me to
+be exactly of the same intellectual stripe as his mother and Evelyn.
+He thought that I would not have sense enough to understand the
+situation.
+
+Richard had been out of town a good deal lately on business trips, and
+the meeting that morning in March, at Rufe's office, was in the nature
+of an accident. Richard had not known that I was in the city for a
+day's shopping, so when we accidentally ran across each other on the
+street, the _Times_ building was the nearest place we might drop into
+for a little talk.
+
+"Well, you are taking your campaign hard," I said, as I looked at him
+critically after Rufe had assured us that we might have the whole
+morning without interruption, in his own particular little den, as he
+was going to be out in town. Then Richard had asked him to give orders
+that we were not to be interrupted, as he particularly wished for a
+little talk with me.
+
+"Ann, I've had enough to run any man crazy since I saw you last,
+dear," he said wearily, in answer to my comment on his looks. He
+dropped down into the nearest chair and put up one hand to shade his
+eyes from the brilliant morning glare. "This political business is the
+most infernal--"
+
+"What, Richard?"
+
+He was looking steadily into my eyes, but at my question he looked
+away; then after a moment moved his chair over closer and caught up my
+left hand.
+
+"I'm in a devil of a mess, love," he said after a little inward
+struggle--then with that charming directness of his he ventured--"I
+want you to promise to help me out."
+
+"Of course I will," I readily agreed.
+
+"Oh, that's not the kind of promise I want," he instantly objected.
+"Say it solemnly. Say, 'I'll promise to stick to you.'"
+
+"Why, Richard, you make me fear that something is seriously wrong," I
+cried in sudden alarm, for my sense of oneness with him had grown so
+amazingly since those months between the time of my visit to
+Charlotteville and then, and I felt as entirely identified with his
+interests as if we were already married. His attitude toward me at the
+breakfast-table the morning after Alfred's departure was a key-note to
+the manner in which he strove every day after that to cement this
+relation; and I know now that this was an immense factor in causing
+me to allow the engagement to exist through those days of doubt. I had
+always felt that an engagement was very nearly as binding as a
+marriage--and Richard had always exercised such a charming right of
+possession.
+
+"Something is seriously wrong, Ann," he said gravely, and his eyes
+held mine in a sort of fascinated wonder; "and I expect you to stand
+by me."
+
+His manner was very grave; and he seemed to be in a serious doubt as
+to whether or not I would stand by him.
+
+"Tell me about it," I suggested as patiently as I could, for I was
+trembling with uneasy eagerness.
+
+"Give me your hand and swear that you will stick to me."
+
+"Oh, sweetheart, I'll stick to you if you're a horse-thief," I said,
+trying to force a laugh.
+
+"Then listen! You know that I want to be governor of this state--"
+
+I nodded my head.
+
+"--And the temperance party is about to go back on me because they
+think that Major Blake and I are going to form a separate faction and
+leave out the liquor question."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"Well, that is just what we are going to do--to save the state from
+the Republicans."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And Blake is going to work up the campaign _for me_--on the
+condition--"
+
+My blood was pounding like fire through my veins, but I felt
+absolutely unable to move. I knew what he was going to say and my
+heart was pleading for mercy, but my lips were mute. They could not
+even move enough to say, "I know it all. Don't say the hideous words."
+Richard had grown painfully embarrassed, and he stammered awkwardly:
+
+"--on the condition that I become his son-in-law."
+
+Just what happened after this I do not know. I might sit here all
+night trying to recall his explanations and protestations, but I shall
+get through with it all as speedily as possible, for all I really
+remember about that terrible day is that I felt dreadfully ill--and
+_benumbed_. I listened in a sort of trance to his recital of how
+Berenice Blake had labored under an hallucination for some time that
+he cared for her; and she had learned to return the fancied affection;
+how very ill she was, so ill that when she came home for Thanksgiving
+it was found that she would have to go right back to Denver--
+
+"And you went as far as St. Louis with them--and brought me a string
+of pearls," I said in a dazed fashion.
+
+"Yes, I always think of you first--no matter where I am," he answered,
+looking at me fondly. "And our love-affair will not even be suspended
+for very long," he went on. "She can't possibly live six months; and
+her father wants, above everything on earth, that she shall be happy
+for the little while that she has to live."
+
+"By marrying you."
+
+"By being engaged to me. I would _not_ marry her--there is no
+necessity for that."
+
+"And you are asking me to release you?"
+
+"I am _not_," he said very firmly. "I am asking you to give me--a
+leave of absence."
+
+Some unknown power seemed to put the words into my mouth, for I was
+not conscious of any effort toward thinking.
+
+"But I release you, Richard. I could not be--mixed up in that kind of
+thing."
+
+He sprang from his chair and caught me violently in his arms.
+
+"That's just what you're not going to do. You are _mine_. You are
+going to stick to me."
+
+"I said that I would stick to you if you were a horse-thief," I said
+slowly. "--But not--_this_."
+
+"Oh, Ann, you are breaking my heart," he cried, as he caught me close
+to him and buried his head on my shoulder. "You can't mean to throw me
+over."
+
+"You are kind to put it that way, Richard," I said.
+
+"You are a sensible girl," he exclaimed suddenly as he raised his head
+and looked at me again. "You must listen to reason and do exactly as I
+tell you in this matter. Then all will be well. The affair will be
+nothing more than a make-believe between us all, for Major Blake knows
+that I do not love the poor, homely, half-dead creature; the betrothal
+will have no more feeling in it than a stage kiss. The only deception
+you will have to practise will be to announce your own engagement to
+some one else this week, so that--"
+
+"This week? My own engagement? Richard, what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean just this, my poor little girl," he began, his deep gray eyes
+full of tears, and his hands, as they held mine, trembling piteously,
+"--that if the story gets noised abroad that I--I hate even to
+suggest such a thing, Ann, it is so far from truth, darling--but if
+the story gets noised abroad that I jilted you it will harm my
+prospects, as well as being a humiliation to you."
+
+"Oh, I see."
+
+"So I thought you might announce your engagement to some one else--of
+course, just for a pose, but--"
+
+"But there isn't any one else."
+
+His eyes glanced into mine for a moment, then sought the floor.
+
+"I've thought of all that," he said easily. "But you know that Alfred
+Morgan would--would--"
+
+"Would let me use his name?"
+
+"Oh, Ann, don't look so queer and unnatural, dear; you frighten me!
+You're not going to faint, nor--anything, are you?" he began, looking
+around helplessly.
+
+"I'm not going to faint," I assured him with a little smile that was
+forced up from somewhere in the depths of my misery. "But I'm not
+going to use Alfred's--nor any other man's name in the way you
+suggest."
+
+"It is only to save yourself humiliation, dear," he said, looking
+annoyed and relieved at the same time.
+
+"Oh, I'll take the humiliation for my part," I said but with no
+evidence of anger nor reproach. I was still stunned and benumbed. "I
+can stand the humiliation--but I hate a liar."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So it ended this way--that beautiful dream of mine; and I should not
+tell the truth if I pretended that I did not wish many times in the
+bitter weeks which followed to close my eyes to the cruel reality and
+dream again, even knowing all the while that it was a dream.
+
+No, there was no sense of thankful relief that I had found my knight
+of the lion heart to be a poor-spirited, craven, selfish thing. Not
+then! At the time of the revelation and for many days following I gave
+myself up to a bitter, longing sorrow for the man whom I had created
+out of my own fancy and had named King Richard. I had made the image
+as entirely as ever Pygmalion made Galatea, and I had worshipped it. I
+had loved it so that if its coming to life could have been brought
+about through my giving up my own I should gladly have let it live.
+But it would not come to life, for it was nothing--it was a
+dream-creature. Even as such, its image continued with me, and I
+sorrowed for it with such an aching, lonely hopelessness that more
+times than once during the spring months of that year I felt that it
+was not within my nature to keep up the struggle any longer. I must
+give it up and send for Richard to come back.
+
+The pale blue of the flowers which came up and blossomed in thousands
+along the hillsides of the "garden" back of the village, and the deep
+blue of the April skies were both turned to gray this spring--the
+cold, piercing gray of his eyes. They had not been cold for me!
+
+And then a little later there was the "humiliation" he had mentioned.
+Possibly he did what he could to make this as light as it might be
+made, for his engagement to Major Blake's daughter was not publicly
+announced until several weeks after I felt sure the understanding had
+been reached. But he could not ask her to keep the betrothal a secret,
+as he had asked me, for his capital must be quickly and surely made
+from its brief existence.
+
+Taking a new lease on life from this sudden and mighty happiness of
+hers, the poor, dying creature came home from Colorado and set about a
+feverish enjoyment of the brief span of time which was left her.
+There were crowded arrangements made for the wedding, which was
+announced for June--after the primaries were well over--and she had
+the satisfaction of having her full-length picture appear in all the
+prominent newspapers of the state, all bearing the legend that she was
+Mr. Richard Chalmers' fiancée. The sight of these pictures, homely as
+they were, was no consolation to me, for I had never been jealous of
+her. And now I felt an infinite pity.
+
+I used often to think with a laugh of scorn of the man I had imagined
+Richard Chalmers to be, making love to the poor, ugly, emaciated
+thing, in hopes of gaining her father's political favor! For of course
+he had made love to her all along, just as he had to me, in the same
+beautiful language, and with the same beautiful smile--but he had not
+kissed her. I could fancy him telling her of his great admiration and
+his mighty respect, and how unworthy he was to touch the hem of her
+garment--when all the while he was thinking how ugly she was and what
+a risk there might be of his catching tuberculosis!
+
+Poor girl! She was happy, though, for her little while, tagging around
+the country with her father and Richard, and watching him adoringly as
+he made his pretty speeches to the enthusiastic crowds of
+constituents. But she played the game too quick and fast, and with
+such a studied disregard for consequences that it was no wonder the
+end came so soon. She spent the most uncertain, changeable weeks of
+the time which is ever an ominous one for consumptives in driving
+through long stretches of damp country roads, then sitting for hours
+in stuffy, ill-ventilated little assembly rooms, where the foul air
+did its deadly work for her. She contracted pneumonia and died; and
+Mr. Chalmers canceled all speaking dates for one week!
+
+But she died still thinking her Richard was a lion-hearted king, so
+who can say that Fate was not kind to her?
+
+That there was an aftermath to my own affair with Richard was almost
+inevitable, for only in books do such bubbles burst and vanish
+entirely, leaving nothing in their wake. But this is the true record
+of what happened that spring and summer, and undignified and
+inartistic enough these happenings ofttimes were. If Fate had wished
+to bring the matter to a beautiful and aesthetic close she would never
+let Richard and me meet again in this world, for oh, those
+after-meetings are bitter dregs of romance! But we met again--on the
+night of his defeat, a strange chance meeting it was, for he was
+standing at the door of his headquarters hotel, which is just across
+the street from the _Times_ building, trying to make way for his
+mother and Evelyn, when I passed with the Claybornes. Evelyn saw me
+and called out a surprised greeting, so I was forced to stop for a
+moment, while Rufe and Cousin Eunice, never missing me, continued
+threading their way slowly across the street.
+
+Richard stood very pale and weary looking, with his hat in his hand,
+while I spoke to Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn; then seeing that I had been
+left alone he gravely suggested that I could never make my way through
+the crowd by myself, so he sent his mother and sister up-stairs and
+constituted himself my temporary knight errant. His hand, which
+tightly clutched my arm, as we struggled on, was icy cold; and the
+lines around his eyes made him look decidedly middle-aged. Clearly he
+had already realized his defeat, although the returns were only
+beginning to be flashed before the eyes of the cheering throng.
+
+He walked with me to the elevator of the _Times_ building, and the
+great mirror in the back of the car held our two images a moment as he
+lifted his hat and turned to leave me. The reflection held a wholesome
+lesson as I gazed for an instant upon the features of the handsome,
+blasé, middle-aged man, then glanced at myself in my short-sleeved
+white gown, with my rounded elbows showing youthfully. Yes, I was
+undeniably _young_; and I felt, even in the midst of my sorrow for
+him, a little thrill of satisfaction that it was so.
+
+It was a week or two after his defeat that Richard began a renewal of
+his lover-like attitude toward me, calling me on the telephone and
+asking permission to come, and again bombarding the express office
+with boxes of candy and flowers. When I gave abnormally polite
+refusals to these requests he would usually acquiesce with his half
+amused smile, which I could see just as plainly as if only a few feet
+lay between us, instead of many miles.
+
+"You are a stubborn little vixen," he would say sometimes. "How long
+do you expect to keep this up?"
+
+And if he had studied the matter over carefully and tried to hit on a
+means of curing me of my fancy for him he could never have found
+anything more effectual than this. Then one day in the early autumn
+when all the world was dreary and the state was so evidently going
+Republican that no doubt he had cause for his odd temper, Richard
+called me again and asked that a meeting might be arranged, either at
+home or in the city. I began giving my usual reasons for not seeing
+him, when he cut me short with quick impatience.
+
+"Oh, that's all right, if you don't want to see me," he said harshly,
+his rich drawl entirely obliterated in the sudden anger which tinted
+his speech. "And I'll promise never to give you the chance again of
+turning me down. But, my dear Ann, you must remember there was a time
+when I didn't have to _beg_ you for every little favor I got."
+
+"There was a time!" Ungenerous, despicable as this was, coming from
+Richard, I took it with a sort of calmness born of the knowledge that
+it was only what I deserved. For I don't believe that a woman ever
+acts a fool over a man but that she lives to have the unwholesome fact
+cast up to her while she is drinking the dregs of her folly. "There
+was a time," the man is always ready to remind her, ofttimes hoping
+to use this memory as a lever to remove the aftergrowth of
+indifference or positive hatred.
+
+In this case the words caused me to feel something very nearly akin to
+hatred for Richard, and I quickly ran away up-stairs, where I threw
+myself across my bed and gave way to the storm of tears which had been
+brought on by the angry selfishness of his act. But tears, while they
+are bitter and scalding, are also _cleansing_, and they acted that day
+as a purifying flood which washed my soul clean from all thoughts of
+Richard Chalmers. When, late in the afternoon of that rainy day, I
+arose from my bed I was weak from weeping, and unutterably saddened
+over this final, ugly blow which Reality had dealt the fragments of my
+house which was built upon the sands; but, weak and sad and
+world-wise, as I felt myself to be, there was a great joy singing in
+my heart, for I knew, for the first time, I _knew_ that I was free.
+
+The next day I wrote a letter to Jean asking her to get me several
+boxes of the latest style gold-edged note paper with my monogram
+embossed thereon, and insisted that she have the stationer hurry the
+order through. "I want the very newest and most exquisite style you
+can find," I wrote her, "for I am about to begin a most particular
+correspondence and if you will take pity upon my loneliness enough to
+run down any time within the next few weeks I'll tell you the name of
+my distant correspondent. Yet, for fear you will not be able to get
+here before your curiosity consumes you, I'll let you into the secret
+enough to satisfy you that the gentleman is a 'medicine man' and he is
+now wandering on a foreign strand. And if you should hear that I have
+done such an unladylike thing as to _send_ for him, you will know in
+your heart that it is not entirely on account of father's rheumatism
+and Mammy Lou's still threatening right side.
+
+"But come, dear Jean, if you love me, for I am very lonesome, with
+absolutely nobody but Neva and her mother to divert my mind."
+
+Poor little Neva! I must not wind up this chapter without some little
+word about her, for there is going to be only one more chapter after
+this, and there will be no room for Neva in that. This final word may
+be written next week--it may not be written until a whole year has
+passed, but whenever it is it will be the last, for I know that if
+Mammy Lou's definition of the period is correct it will wind up the
+age of Eve.
+
+But Neva! We left her a lovelorn lass grieving over the perfidies of
+Hiram, the fickle. We find her again a college girl, breathing
+academic atmosphere from the tassel of her mortar-board down to the
+rubber heel of her "gym" shoes. She cares for nothing but school, and
+the sororities therein. She knows all the places up in the city where
+one is most likely to come across the college boys one desires most to
+see; and the class of ices that take the longest time to consume while
+one is sitting watching these boys pass by. She sometimes does not
+know the name of a certain desirable young man, but she always knows
+the name of his high-sounding Greek letter brotherhood.
+
+"She don't talk about nothing but 'frats' and 'spats' and things like
+that," her mother one time complained after a brief visit from Neva.
+"And she calls some of her mates by the curiousest names I ever heard.
+There's one she likes a good deal that she says is a _new Phi Chi_;
+and another one that she has to look to some because she's a '_old
+Tau!_'"
+
+"The stage has to be passed through," mother said to Mrs. Sullivan
+comfortingly, "for it's as certain and as harmless as chicken-pox."
+
+But Mammy Lou takes a much more serious view of Neva's collegiate
+career and high-flown talk.
+
+"Education ain't no good for girls," she often declares emphatically,
+"for it spoils their powers of emmanuel labor. You can just as shore
+count on a educated girl makin' a lazy wife as you can count on damp
+weather makin' a baby's hair curl an' a ol' woman's feet hurt!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MAY DAY
+
+
+"'For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
+appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the
+voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'"
+
+I quoted this bit of classic loveliness softly as I looked out this
+morning very early from my bedroom window and feasted upon the scene
+of sweet spring beauty which was everywhere spread before my eyes. Yet
+the cause of the verse coming to my mind at the moment was due much
+more to the feeling in my heart than to the scenery all about me,
+although each seemed a reflection of the other.
+
+"How many years ago to-day was it that we looked down into the old
+well in the lot and tried to see our future husband's face?" Jean
+inquired with a wistful little smile as she came over to the window
+and dropped her chin on my shoulder, peering out upon the fresh green
+landscape. One of her arms slipped affectionately around me, while
+with the other hand she toyed with the fresh white curtain at the
+window. It was upon this hand that there gleamed the ring which
+Guilford had at last persuaded her to let him place there.
+
+"More years than we are proud to own, considering that we are still
+spinsters," I answered lightly and a little at random, for my thoughts
+were wandering, though I am glad to state that they did not have such
+a long journey to travel now as formerly. Each of my foreign letters
+lately has borne a postmark a little nearer home.
+
+"I'm not going to be a spinster long, thank you," she responded
+quickly, holding her left hand close to her face so that she could
+catch some of the myriads of tiny rainbows in her eyes. "And I don't
+any longer need to look down into an old well upon this magic day to
+catch a glimpse of my future husband's face."
+
+"Still--let's do it again to-day!"
+
+"All right," she agreed readily, smiling at the enthusiasm of my eyes.
+"I'm in for anything that will take us out into this glorious
+sunshine."
+
+Throughout the course of the morning we managed to dig out from
+ancient trunks of debris two white sunbonnets which Mammy Lou
+graciously freshened for us, plying her "raw starch" and sound advice
+with equal vigor during the task. We accepted the bonnets and
+admonitions gratefully, and donning short skirts and low-collared
+blouses we prepared for a tramp through the woods before the hour for
+the phenomenon in the well.
+
+We had skirted around back of the orchard fence and had found an ideal
+resting-place under a clump of softly green sweet-gum trees, where we
+might sit in the delicate shade and read the magazines we had brought
+with us, when there was the sharp, piercing whistle of the eleven
+o'clock train as it sped close by our secluded little nook and drew up
+pantingly a few moments afterward at the village station.
+
+"Doesn't that whistle sound _close_ on these clear, still mornings?"
+Jean remarked with a little start, as she looked up from her magazine
+and watched the column of smoke mount into the sunny, blue sky.
+
+"Close, and decidedly cheerful, I always think," I answered, allowing
+my eyes also to wander after the smoke up into the dizzy heights. "You
+city people can't realize what the coming of the trains mean to us who
+are tucked away in the little country towns. Our first thought always
+is, 'Is there a letter on that train for me?' Or, rather, that is my
+first thought always. It's a pity we're dressed this way or we might
+walk down to the post-office and see. The whistle sounded so unusually
+musical this morning that there may be a very important one. The last
+one I had was from Liverpool--there ought to be one very soon from New
+York!"
+
+"But the old well!" Jean cried in sudden alarm, for she is a sadly
+sentimental creature and would not have missed the little
+superstitious performance this morning for several letters--bearing
+_my_ name and address. "We are not going to give that up now."
+
+"Well, we would better be moving upon the field of operation then," I
+suggested, closing my book and starting to my feet. "That train
+wanders into the village at any hour which suits it best, so there's
+no telling just what time of the beautiful May morning it is. Let's
+hurry on down to the lot so that we shall be on the spot when the
+first twelve o'clock whistle blows."
+
+We hurried back in the direction of home, taking a short cut which led
+us through one end of the orchard and soon landed us beside the clump
+of ancient lilac bushes which form a kind of hedge along the barbed
+wire fence of the disused horse lot. In the center of this is the
+well, the uncovered frame top of which affords an excellent
+opportunity for this old-fashioned May-day indulgence.
+
+We rested a bit in the shade of the tall lilac hedge, but the noon-day
+whistles soon sounded and we scampered over to the well and laughingly
+peered in. There was nothing to be seen in its gloomy depths, but the
+day was so beautiful and we were so absurdly lighthearted over the
+divine order of all things in nature that we refrained from making any
+sarcastic remarks on our grown-up sophistication.
+
+"I don't see Guilford's face down there, but I'm glad we came out to
+look for it; for the walk has made me ravenously hungry," Jean said,
+as we straightened up and pushed our white bonnets back from over our
+eyes.
+
+"Then let's hurry on to the house, for I am starving, too--and I know
+that there are delicious things for dinner. Mammy Lou made me promise
+to get back in time to make the salad. There are tomatoes for it and
+the loveliest young lettuce you ever saw, with tiny, slender
+onions--not a bit bigger than my little finger. I can't bear them when
+they grow bigger--"
+
+"Ann, hush! Let's don't waste time talking."
+
+We hurried up through the side yard, and as we approached the house
+there were signs of an unwonted stirring in the vicinity of the
+dining-room and kitchen. My spirits fell at the sight and I
+intentionally slackened my steps.
+
+"Unexpected company to dinner," I announced dismally to Jean, as I saw
+mother flutter excitedly across the back porch, followed by Dilsey
+bearing a big bowl of strawberries to set in the refrigerator. Just
+then mother caught sight of us coming leisurely up the walk and she
+made a spasmodic motion for us to hurry.
+
+"Go on up-stairs and dress," she said in a stagy voice when we had
+come within earshot. "Dress _beautifully_."
+
+"Why, what on earth--" I started to ask, when I saw the transfigured
+face of Mammy Lou at the kitchen door. "Some august company to
+dinner?"
+
+"'Tain't dinner! It's luncheon," she replied grandly, "in _courses_.
+And the chil'ren o' Israel lookin' into Canaan and seein' the bunch o'
+grapes that it took two men to carry ain't saw nothin' compared with
+what I've saw this day."
+
+"Good gracious! Who _is_ here?" I demanded, much more impressed by her
+calling the meal "luncheon" than by the weightiness of her Biblical
+allusion.
+
+"Is there but _one_ man on earth I'd turn the name o' my vittles
+up-side-down'ards for?" she questioned meaningly, gazing upon me with
+a beatific glow. "--And he's the grandest that the Lord ever made and
+put on earth to be pestered with poll-taxes."
+
+"_Alfred!_" I cried, a sudden burst of understanding and joy sweeping
+over me; and leaving me very weak-feeling and happy. "Alfred is
+coming!"
+
+"Not coming, but already here," I heard his voice saying close behind
+me. His voice! It seemed a thousand years since I heard it last; and I
+knew in that moment that I could listen to it for a thousand years
+without ever once growing tired.--But as I turned and faced the big,
+bearded man coming through the hall doorway, the quick color flew to
+my face and I felt suddenly very small and insignificant. For it
+seemed in that instant that Alfred had grown into a giant, a great,
+bearded giant, over seas--and I have always had such an admiration for
+giants.
+
+"Well, have I stayed away long enough?" he demanded, as he came on the
+porch and took my hand. Mother and Jean had fled, but Mammy Lou
+steadfastly held her ground. "Are you glad to see me, Ann?"
+
+"Yes--yes," I stammered in a mighty confusion.
+
+"How glad? How glad, _darling_?" His brown eyes were deep and
+grave.--But the afternoon wore away and the spring twilight had fallen
+before I answered that question.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40316 ***