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diff --git a/45898.txt b/45898.txt deleted file mode 100644 index cbf101c..0000000 --- a/45898.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10317 +0,0 @@ - THE THREAD OF FLAME - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: The Thread of Flame -Author: Basil King -Release Date: June 06, 2014 [EBook #45898] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREAD OF FLAME *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - -[Illustration: "Oh, as for cheering people up--I don't know ... A woman -wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; -and when she discovers she isn't--"] - - - - - THE - THREAD OF FLAME - - - By BASIL KING - - Author of - "THE CITY OF COMRADES" "GOING WEST" - "THE INNER SHRINE" ETC. - - - - Illustrated - - - - Harper & Brothers - _Publishers_ - New York and London - - - - - THE THREAD OF FLAME - - Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers - Printed in the United States of America - Published August, 1920 - - - - - *ILLUSTRATIONS* - - -"Oh, as for cheering people up--I don't know.... A woman wants more than -anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; and when she -discovers she isn't--" . . . _Frontispiece_ - -She turned on me with a new flash in her blue eyes. "Look here! Tell me -honest, now. Are you a swell crook--or ain't you?" "Suppose I say -that--that I ain't." "Say, kid!" she responded, coldly, "talk like -yourself, will you? ... If you're not a swell crook I can't make you -out" - -All these minutes she had been observing me, with that queer, -half-choked cry as the result: "Oh, Billy, is this you?" - -I had begun on collars and neckties when Vio said, "What kind of a girl -was that who was here this afternoon?" - - - - - *PART I* - - - - *THE THREAD OF FLAME* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - -Without opening my eyes I guessed that it must be between five and six -in the morning. - -I was snuggled into something narrow. On moving my knee abruptly it -came into contact with an upright board. At the same time the end of my -bed rose upward, so that my feet were higher than my head. Then the -other end rose, and my head was higher than my feet. A slow, gentle -roll threw my knee once more against the board, though another slow, -gentle roll swung me back to my former position. Far away there was a -rhythmic throbbing, like the beating of a pulse. I knew I was on -shipboard, and for the moment it was all I knew. - -Not quite awake and not quite asleep, I waited as one waits in any -strange bed, in any strange place, for the waking mind to reconnect -itself with the happenings overnight. Sure of this speedy -re-establishment, I dozed again. - -On awaking the second time I was still at a loss for the reason for my -being at sea. I had left a port; I was going to a port; and I didn't -know the name of either. I might have been on any ocean, sailing to any -quarter of the globe. How long I had been on the way, and how far I had -still to go, were details that danced away from me whenever I tried to -seize them. I retained a knowledge of continents and countries; but as -soon as I made the attempt to see myself in any of them my mind recoiled -from the effort with a kind of sick dislike. - -Nothing but a dull hint came to me on actually opening my eyes. An -infiltration of gray light through the door, which was hooked ajar, -revealed a mere slit in space, with every peg and corner utilized. A -quiet breathing from the berth above my head told me that I shared the -cabin with some one else. On the wall opposite, above a flat red couch -piled with small articles of travel, two complete sets of clothing swung -outward, or from side to side like pendulums, according to the movement -of the ship. - -I closed my eyes again. It was clearly a cabin of the cheaper and less -comfortable order, calling up a faintly disagreeable surprise. It was -from that that I drew my inference. I judged that whoever I was I had -traveled before, and in more luxurious conditions. - -Through the partly open door, beyond which there must have been an open -porthole, came puffs of salt wind and the swish and roar of the ocean. -Vainly I sought indications as to the point of the compass toward which -we were headed. Imagination adapted itself instantly to any direction it -was asked to take. In this inside cabin there was no suggestion from -sun or cloud to show the difference between east and west. - -Because I was not specially alarmed I did my best to doze again. Dozing -seemed to me, indeed, the wisest course, for the reason that during the -freedom of subconsciousness in sleep the missing connection was the more -likely to be restored. It would be restored of course. I was -physically well. I knew that by my general sensations. Young, vigorous, -and with plenty of money, a mere lapse of memory was a joke. - -Of being young and vigorous a touch on my body was enough to give me the -assurance. The assumption of having plenty of money was more subtle. -It was a habit of mind rather than anything more convincing. Certainly -there was nothing to prove it in this cabin, which might easily have -been second-class, nor yet in the stuff of my pajamas, which was thick -and coarse. I noticed now, as I turned in my bunk, that it rasped my -skin unpleasantly. With no effort of the memory I could see myself -elegantly clad in silk night-clothing fastened with silk frogs; and yet -when I asked myself when and where that had been no answer was accorded -me. - -I may have slept an hour when I waked again. From the sounds in the -cabin I drew the conclusion that my overhead companion had got up. - -Before looking at him I tested my memory for some such recollection as -men sharing the same cabin have of their first meeting. But I had none. -Farther back than that waking between five and six o'clock I couldn't -think. It was like trying to think back to the years preceding one's -birth; one's personality dissolved into darkness. - -When I opened my eyes there was a man standing in the dim gray light -with his back to me. Broad, muscular shoulders showed through the -undershirt which was all he wore in addition to his trousers, of which -the braces hung down the back. The dark hair was the hair of youth, and -in a corner of the glass I caught the reflection of a chin which in -spite of the lather I also knew to be young. Waiting till he had -finished shaving and had splashed his face in the basin, I said, with a -questioning intonation: - -"Hello?" - -Turning slowly, he lowered the towel from his dripping face, holding it -out like a propitiatory offering. He responded then with the slow -emphasis of surprise. - -"Hel-lo, old scout! So you've waked up at last! Thought you meant to -sleep the trip out." - -"Have I been asleep long?" - -"Only since you came on aboard." - -It was on my tongue to ask, When was that? but a sudden prompting of -discretion bade me seek another way. - -"You don't mean to say I've slept more than--more than"--I drew a bow at -a venture--"more than twenty-four hours?" - -He made the reckoning as he rubbed his shining face with the towel. - -"Let me see! This is Friday. We came on board late Tuesday night. -When John-M'rie, our bedroom steward, brought me down to the cabin about -half past nine you were already in your bunk doing the opium act. -John-M'rie passed it up that you were a Frenchman, because you'd spoken -French to him; but now I see you're just an American like myself." - -So! I was an American but I could speak French. I could speak French -sufficiently well for one Frenchman to mistake me for another. I stowed -this data away, noting that if I had lost some of the power of memory -the faculty of reasoning was unimpaired. - -Weighing my questions so as to get the maximum of information with the -minimum of betrayal, I waited before hazarding anything else till he had -finished polishing a face which had the handsome ugliness of a pug. - -"When do you think," was my next diplomatic venture, "that we shall get -in?" - -"Oh, hang!" The exclamation was caused by finding himself pawing at the -foot of my berth in his search for the towel-rack. "Wednesday morning -with good luck," he went on, feeling along the wall till he touched a -kind of rod, behind which he tucked the towel. "With bad weather we'll -not pick up the Nantucket Lightship before Thursday night. The old -bucket's supposed to do it in eight days; but you know what that means -these times." - -I didn't know, since these times did not distinguish themselves in my -mind from any other times. But the Nantucket Lightship was a reference -I understood. We were sailing for New York. As an American I was -therefore on my way home, though no spot on the continent put forth a -special claim on me. I made brief experiments in various directions: -New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Seattle. -Nothing responded. The hills of New England, the mountains of -California, the levees of Louisiana were alike easy for me to recall; -but I was as detached from them as a spirit from another world. - -These ideas floated--I choose the phrase as expressive of something more -nebulous than active thinking--these ideas floated across my brain as I -watched the boy rinse his tooth-brush, replace the tumbler, and feel -along the wall for the flannel shirt hanging on a peg. He turned to me -then with the twinkling, doggy look I was beginning to notice as a -trait. - -"Say, you'd eat a whale, wouldn't you? Haven't had a meal since Tuesday -night, and now it's Friday. Any one would think you were up in the -Ypres region before the eats got on to the time-table. Pretty good grub -on board this old French tub, if you holler loud enough." - -While he went on to suggest a menu for my breakfast I endeavored to deal -with the new hints he had thrown out. He had spoken of Ypres. He had -referred to short rations. I remembered that there was a war. Whether -it was over, or whether it was going on, or whether I had taken part in -it or not, I couldn't say; but I knew there had been, and perhaps that -there still was, a war. - -I tested myself as to that while I watched him button his collar and put -on his tie; but all I drew forth was a sickening sense of noise, -mutilation, and dirt, which might have been no more than the reaction -from things I had read. Nothing personal to myself entered into these -associations; no scene of horror that I could construct took me in as an -actor. - -My light-hearted companion would not, however, allow me to follow my own -train of thought. - -"Say," he laughed, "I know your name, but I don't believe you know -mine." The laugh grew forced and embarrassed. "I've got the darnedest -name for kidding a guy ever got stuck on him. Sometimes it makes me mad, -and I think I'll go to law and change it; and more times I get used to -it, till some smart Aleck breezes in and begins to hang it all over me -again. What do you think it is? Give a guess now." - -He said he knew my name--and I didn't know it myself! That was the -first of my queer discoveries that appalled me. If I didn't know my own -name ... But the boy laughed on. - -"Give a guess now," he coaxed, buttoning up his waistcoat. "I'll give -you two; but they must be awful funny ones." - -Nothing funnier than Smith and Jones having occurred to me, he burst out -with: - -"Drinkwater! Isn't that the darnedest? I can't look sidewise at -anything that isn't water before the other guys begin to kid me all over -the lot. Many a time I _would_ drink water--and don't want anything but -water to drink--and I'll be hanged if I don't feel ashamed to have them -see me doing it--and me with that name! What do you know about that?" - -As I was too gravely preoccupied to tell him what I knew about that, he -began once more his curious pawing along the wall, till he seized a cap -which he pulled down on his head. - -"Oh, hang!" he muttered then. "That's yours." - -This, too, was information, enabling me to assume that the clothing -which hung on the same hook was mine also. I looked at it with some -interest, but also with a renewed feeling of discomfort. It was the -sort of suit in which I found it difficult to see myself. Of a smooth -gray twill, sleek and provincial, there was that about it which -suggested the rural beau. - -Having momentarily lost his orientation, the boy clawed in the air -again, touching first this object and then that, fingering it, -considering it, locating it, till once more he got his bearings. All -this he did with a slowness and caution that forced on me the -recognition of the fact, which I might have perceived before, that he -was blind. - -Nothing betrayed it but his motions. The starry eyes were apparently -uninjured. Only, when you knew his infirmity, you noticed that the -starriness was like that of an electric lamp, bright, but with a -brightness not connected with intelligence. It was an aimless -brightness, directed at nothing. The blaze of the quick pupils was like -that which a window flashes back to the sunset, all from outside, and -due to nothing in the house. - -Dressed now for leaving the cabin, he still had something to tell me. - -"Say, there's one man on board who'll be glad to hear you've waked up. -That's the doctor. Not the ship's doctor," he hastened to explain, "but -my doctor. Say, he's about the whitest!" - -My questions were inspired not so much by sympathy with him, though that -affected me, as by the hope of getting sidelights on myself. - -"Do you travel with a doctor?" - -"Came over with him just before the war. I was his stenog. Name of -Averill. Been in and out to see you five and six times a day ever since -we sailed. Tell you all about him after I've had my breakfast. Off now -to send in John-M'rie. Don't forget what I said about the griddle-cakes. -They can give 'em to you good and greasy if you kick; but if you don't -they'll just hand you out a pile of asbestos table-mats." - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - -Before getting up to make the investigations on which I was so keen I -waited to be rid of Jean-Marie. He came in presently--small, black, -wiry, not particularly clean, and with an oily smell, but full of an -ingratiating kindness. When I had trumped up an explanation of my -abnormally long sleep I set him to separating my hand-luggage from my -cabin-mate's, nominally for the sake of convenience, but really that I -might know which was mine. - -The minute he had left with my order for breakfast I sprang from my -bunk. I searched first the pockets of my clothes. There was nothing in -them but a handkerchief, a few French coins, and a card giving the -number of a cabin, the number of a seat at a table in the dining-saloon, -and the name of Mr. Jasper Soames. It was a name that to me meant -nothing. Referring it to my inner self, nothing vibrated, nothing rang. -It was like trying to clink a piece of money on wool or cork or some -other unresponsive material. - -My clothing itself was what I had guessed from the inspection made from -my berth. It suggested having been bought ready to wear, a suggestion -borne out by the label of what was apparently a big department store, -the Bon Marche, at Tours. My cap had the same label, and my hard felt -hat no maker's name at all. - -I began on the bags which Jean-Marie had segregated as my property. -There were two, a hand-bag and a suit-case, neither of them tagged with -a name. The hand-bag contained bottles, brushes, handkerchiefs, all of -the cheaper varieties. Where there was anything to indicate the place -at which they had been purchased it was always the Bon Marche at Tours. - -In the suit-case, which was unlocked, and which I opened feverishly, -there was a suit almost identical with that hanging on the hook, a -little linen, a few changes of underclothing, a small supply of socks, -collars, and other such necessities, all more or less new, some of them -still unworn, but with not so much as an initial to give a clue to the -owner. It struck me--and I made the observation with a frightened -inward laugh--that a man running away from detection for a crime would -fit himself out in just this way. - -Having repacked the bags, I stood at a loss, in the sense that for the -first time I felt stunned. The position was promising to be more serious -than I had thought it possible for it to become. There were so many -things to think of that I couldn't see them all before me at a glance. - -Standing in the middle of the narrow floor, steadying myself by a hand -on the edge of Drinkwater's bunk, I suddenly caught my reflection in the -glass. It was a new line to follow up. A look into my own eyes would -reforge those links with myself that had trembled away. I went closer, -staring at the man who now confronted me. - -It is an odd experience to gaze at yourself and see a stranger; but that -is what happened to me now. The face that gazed back at me was one -which, as far as I could tell, I had never seen in my life. I had seen -faces like it, hundreds of them, but never precisely this face. It was -the typical face of the brown-eyed, brown-haired Anglo-Saxon, lean, -leathery, and tanned; but I could no more connect it with my intimate -self than I could Drinkwater's face, or Jean-Marie's. - -It was that of a man who might have been thirty-two, but who possibly -looked older. I mean by that that there was a haggardness in it which -seemed to come of experience rather than from time. Had you passed this -face in the street you would have said that it was that of a tall, -good-looking young fellow with a brown mustache, but you would have -added that the eyes had the queer, far-away luminosity of eyes that have -"seen things." They would have reminded you of Drinkwater's eyes--not -that they were like them, but only because of their fixed retention of -images that have passed away from the brain. - -My next thought was of money. So far I had found nothing but the few -odd coins in my pockets; but that I had plenty of it somewhere I took as -a matter of course. I know now by experience that people in the habit -of having money and people in the habit of not having it are led by -different "senses." In the one case it is a sense of limitation; in the -other of liberty. It is like the difference between the movements of a -blind man and those of one who can see--a tactful feeling of every step -in contrast with the ease to come and go. Of all the distractions -induced by poverty and wealth it is one that appeals to me now as the -most significant. Merely to do without things, or merely to possess -things, is matter of little importance. A man's life consisteth not in -the abundance of the things which he possesseth, we are told on high -authority; but it does consist in his state of mind. To be always in a -state of mind in which restriction is instinctive is like always -creeping as a baby and never learning to walk. - -But as far as money went I was free. I had never been without it. I -had no conception of a life in which I couldn't spend as much as I -reasonably wished. As I had been in Europe, I probably had a letter of -credit somewhere, if I could only put my hand on it. On arriving in New -York I should of course have access to my bank-account. - -It occurred to me to look under my pillow, and there, sure enough, was a -little leather purse. That it was a common little purse was secondary to -the fact that it was filled. Sitting on the edge of the couch, I opened -it with fingers that shook with my excitement. It contained three -five-hundred-franc notes, two for a hundred, some hundred and fifty in -gold, and a little silver, nearly four hundred dollars in all. I seemed -to know that roughly it was the kind of sum I generally carried on my -person when abroad. - -After a hasty scrubbing up I crept back into bed, and waited for -Jean-Marie to bring my breakfast. - -It was my first thought that I must not let him see that anything was -wrong. I must let no one see that. The reason I had given him for my -extraordinary sleep, that of having long suffered from insomnia and -being relieved by the sea air, would have to pass, too, with -Drinkwater's friend the doctor, should he come to see me. No one, no -one, must suspect that for so much as an hour the sense of my identity -had escaped me. The shame I felt at that--a shame I have since learned -to be common to most victims of the same mishap--was overwhelming. -Rather than confess it I could own to nearly anything in the nature of a -crime. - -But it was no one's business but my own. I comforted myself with that -reflection amid much that I found disturbing. - -What I chiefly found disturbing was my general environment. I couldn't -understand this narrow cabin, these provincial foreign clothes. While I -was sorry for Drinkwater's blindness, I disliked the closeness of -contact with one I regarded as my inferior. I am not saying that I took -this situation seriously. I knew I could extricate myself from it on -arriving in New York. The element in it that troubled me was my -inability to account for it. What had I been doing that I should find -myself in conditions so distasteful? Why should I have wanted to -obliterate my traces? It was obvious that I had done it, and that I had -done it with deliberation. Being Somebody in the world, I had made -myself Nobody, and for that I must have had a motive. Was it a motive -that would confront me as soon as I had become Somebody again? That I -should have lost the sense of my identity was bad enough in itself; but -that I should reappear in a role that was not my own, and with a name I -was sure I had never borne, was at once terrifying and grotesque. - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - -It occurred to me that I could escape some of my embarrassment by asking -Drinkwater to stop his friend the doctor from looking in on me; but -before I had time to formulate this plan, and while I was sitting up -crosslegged in my berth, eating from the tray which Jean-Marie had laid -on my knees, there was a sharp rap on the door. As I could do nothing -but say, "Come in," the doctor was before me. - -"Good!" he said, quietly, without greeting or self-introduction. "Best -thing you could be doing." - -The lack of formality nettled me. I objected to his assumption of a -right to force himself in uninvited. - -I said, frigidly: "I shall be out on deck presently. If you want to see -me, perhaps it would be easier there." - -"Oh, this is all right." He made himself comfortable in a corner of the -couch, propping his body against the rolling of the ship with a -fortification of bags. "Glad you're able to get up and dress. I'm -Doctor Averill." - -To give him to understand that I was not communicative I took this -information in silence. My coldness apparently did not impress him, and, -sitting in the corner diagonally opposite to mine, he watched me eat. - -He was one of those men in whom personality disappears in the scientific -observer. His features, manners, clothing, were mere accidents. - -He struck you as being wise, though with a measure of sympathy in his -wisdom. Small in build, the dome of his forehead would have covered a -man of twice his stature. A small, dark mustache was no more -consciously a point of personal adornment than a patch of stonecrop to a -rock. When he took off his cap his baldness, though more extensive than -you would have expected in a man who couldn't have been older than -forty-five, was the finishing-touch of the staid. - -"You've been having a long sleep." - -"Yes." - -"Making up for lost time?" - -"Exactly." - -"Been at the front?" - -It was the kind of a question I was afraid of. I knew that if I said, -"Yes," I should have to give details, and so I said, "No." - -"Look as if you had been." - -"Do I?" - -"Often leaves some sort of hang-over--" - -"It couldn't do that in my case, because I wasn't there." - -He tried another avenue of approach. "Drinkwater told me you were a -Frenchman." - -"That seems to have been a mistake of our steward." - -"But you speak the language." - -"Yes, I speak it." - -"You must speak it very well." - -"Probably." - -"Have you lived much in France?" - -"Oh, on and off." - -"Had a position over there?" - -It seemed to be my turn to ask a question. I shot him a quick glance. -"What sort of position do you mean?" - -"Oh, I didn't know but what you might have been in a shop or an -office--" - -So I looked like that! It was a surprise to me. I had thought he might -mention the Embassy. My sense of superior standing was so strong that I -expected another man of superior standing to see it at a glance. -Contenting myself with a shake of the heads I felt his eyes on me with a -graver stare. - -"Must have found it useful to speak French so well, especially at a time -like this." - -I allowed that to pass without challenge. - -"If we should ever go into the war a fellow like you could make himself -handy in a lot of ways." - -We were therefore not in the war. I was glad to add that to my list of -facts. "I should try," I assented, feeling that the words committed me -to nothing. - -"Wonder you weren't tempted to pitch in as it was. A lot of our young -Americans did--chaps who found themselves over there." - -"I wasn't one of them." - -"Poor Drinkwater, now--he went over with me as my stenographer in the -spring of that year; and when the thing broke out--" - -"He went?" - -"Yes, he went." - -"And didn't get much good from it." - -"Oh, I don't know about that. Depends--doesn't it?--on what we mean by -good. You fellows--" - -I shot him another glance, but I don't think he noticed that I objected -to being classed with Drinkwater. - -"You fellows--" he began again. - -I never knew how he meant to continue, for a shuffling and pawing -outside the door warned us that Drinkwater, having finished his -breakfast, was feeling his way in. - -The doctor spoke as the boy pushed the door open and stumbled across the -threshold. - -"Morning, Harry! Your friend here seems to have waked up in pretty good -condition. Look at the breakfast he's been making away with." He rose -to leave, since the cabin had not room enough for two men on foot at the -same time. "See you on deck by and by," he added, with a nod to me; -"then we can have a more satisfactory talk." - -I waited till he was out of earshot. "Who is he, anyhow?" - -In giving me a summary of Averill's history Drinkwater couldn't help -weaving in a partial one of his own. It was in fact most of his own, -except that it included no reference to his birth and parentage. - -Drinkwater had worked his way through one of the great universities, -when laboratory research threw him in contact with Boyd Averill. The -latter was not a practising physician, but a student of biology. He was -the more at liberty to follow one of the less lucrative lines of -scientific work because of being a man of large means. Sketching the -origin of this fortune, my companion informed me that from his patron's -democratic ways no one would ever suppose him the only son, and except -for a sister the only heir, of the biggest banker in the state of New -Jersey. By one of those odd freaks of heredity which neither Sir -Francis Galton nor the great Plockendorff had been able to explain, Boyd -Averill had shown a distaste for banking from his cradle, and yet with -an interest equally difficult to account for in bacteria. - -On the subject of Averill's more personal life all my friend could tell -me was that he had married Miss Lulu Winfield, once well known on the -concert stage. - -"And, say," he went on, enthusiastically, "she's about the prettiest. -You'll see for yourself when you come up on deck. She'll speak to you. -Oh yes, she will," he hastened to assure me, when I began to demur. -"She won't mind. She's not a bit aristocratic, and Miss Blair says the -same." - -To make conversation I asked him who was Miss Blair, learning that she -was the young lady whom Miss Averill had brought over to Europe to act -as stenographer to her brother when Drinkwater had gone to the war. - -"You see," he continued to explain, "Averill's been white with me from -the start. When I left him in the lurch--after he'd paid my expenses -over to Europe and all that--because the war broke out, he didn't kick -any more than a straw dummy. When I told him I felt mean, but that this -war couldn't be going on and me not in it, he said that at my age he'd -have felt the same. One of these days I've got to pay him back that -fare. I'll do that when I've got to work in New York and saved a bit of -dough." - -I asked him what he meant to work at. - -"Oh, there'll be things. There always are. Miss Blair wants me to -learn the touch system and go in for big stenography. Says she'll teach -me. Say, she's some girl. I want you to know her." He reverted to the -principal theme. "Big money in piano-tuning, too, though what I'm -really out for is biology. But after all what's biology but the science -of life?--and you can pick that up anywhere. Oh, I'm all right. I've -had the darnedest good luck, when I've seen my pals--" He left this -sentence unfinished, going on to say: "That was the way when I got mine -at Bois Robert. Shell came down--and, gee whizz! Nothing left of a -bunch of six or eight of us but me--and I only got this." - -A toss of his hand was meant to indicate his eyes, after which he went -on to tell how marvelously he had been taken care of, with the -additional good luck of running across Boyd Averill in hospital. Best -luck of all was, now that he was able to go home, the Averills were -coming, too, and had been willing to have him sail by their boat and -keep an eye on him. He spoke as if they were his intimate friends, -while I had only to appear on deck to have them become mine. - -"In the jewelry business?" he asked me, suddenly. - -I stared in an amazement of which he must have recognized the tones in -my voice. "What made you ask me that?" - -"Oh, I don't know. Speak like it. Thought you might have been in -that--or gents' furnishings." - -After he had gone on deck, and Jean-Marie had taken away the tray, I got -up and dressed. I did it slowly, with a hatred to my clothes that grew -as I put them on. How I had dressed in the previous portion of my life -I couldn't, of course, tell; but now I was something between a country -barber and a cheap Latin Quarter Bohemian. In conjunction with my -patently Anglo-Saxon face nothing could have been more grotesque. - -I thought of trunks. I must have some in the hold. Ringing for -Jean-Marie, I asked if it would be possible to have one or two of them -brought up. If so, I could go back to bed again till I found something -more presentable. The steward, with comic compassion stealing into his -eye as he studied me, said that of course it was possible to have -monsieur's trunks brought up if monsieur would give him the checks or -receipts, which would doubtless be in monsieur's pockets. But a search -revealed nothing. The bags and my purse revealed nothing. My dismay at -the fact that I had come on board without other belongings than those on -the couch almost betrayed me to the little man watching me so wistfully. -I was obliged to invent a story of hurried war-time traveling in order -to get him out. - -My predicament was growing more absurd. I sat down on the couch and -considered it. It would have been easy to become excited, frantic, -frenzied, with my ridiculous inability. Putting my hands to my head, I -could have torn it asunder to wrest from my atrophied brain the secret -it guarded so maliciously. "None of that!" I warned myself; and my -hands came down. Whatever I did I must do coolly. So not long after the -eight bells of noon I dragged myself to the deck. - -All at once I began to find something like consolation. The wild beauty -of sky and water beat in on me like love. I must have traveled often -enough before, so that it was not new to me; but it was all the more -comforting for that. I had come back to an old, old friendship--the -friendship of wind and color and scudding clouds and glinting horizons -and the mad squadrons of the horses of Neptune shaking their foamy -manes. Amid the raging tempests of cloud there were tranquil islands of -a blue such as was never unfolded by a flower. In the long, sweeping -hollows of the waves one's eye could catch all the hues in pigeons' -necks. Before a billow broke it climbed to a tip of that sea-water -green more ineffable than any of the greens of grass, jades, or -emeralds. From every crest, and in widening lines from the ship's sides -as we plowed along, the foam trailed into shreds that seemed to have -been torn from the looms of a race more deft and exquisite than ours. - -Not many men and women love beauty for its own sake. Not many see it. -To most of us it is only an adjunct to comfort or pride. It springs -from the purse, or at best from the intellect; but the hidden man of the -heart doesn't care for it. The hidden man of the heart has no capacity -to value the cloud or the bit of jewel-weed. These things meet no need -in him; they inspire no ecstasy. The cloud dissolves and the bit of -jewel-weed goes back to earth; and the chances are that no human eye has -noted the fact that each has externalized God in one of the myriad forms -of His appeal to us. Only here and there, at long intervals, is there -one to whom line and color and invisible forces like the wind are -significant and sacred, and as essential as food and drink. It came to -me now that, somewhere in my past, beauty had been the dominating -energy--that beauty was the thread of flame which, if I kept steadily -hold of it, would lead me back whence I came. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - -From the spectacle of sea and sky I turned away at last, only because my -senses could take in no more. Then I saw beauty in another form. - -A girl was advancing down the deck who embodied the evanescence of the -cloud and the grace of the bit of jewel-weed in a way I could never -convey to you. You must see me as standing near the stern of the boat, -and the long, clean line of the deck, with an irregular fringe of people -in deck-chairs, as empty except for this slender, solitary figure. The -rise and fall of the ship were a little like those of a bough in the -wind, while she was the bird on it. She advanced serenely, sedately, -her hands jauntily in the pockets of an ulster, which was gray, with -cuffs and collar of sage-green. A sage-green tam-o'-shanter was -fastened to a mass of the living fair hair which, for want of a better -term, we call golden. Her awareness of herself almost amounted to -inference; and as she passed under the row of onlookers' eyes she seemed -to fling out a challenge which was not defiant, but good-natured, -defiant but good-natured was the gaze she fixed on me, a gaze as lacking -in self-consciousness as it was in hesitation. A child might have -looked at you in this way, or a dog, or any other being not afraid of -you. Of a blue which could only be compared to that in the rifts in the -cloud overhead, her eyes never wavered in their long, calm regard till -they were turned on me obliquely as she passed by. She did not, -however, look back; and reaching the end of the promenade, she rounded -the corner and went up the other way. - -Thinking of her merely as a vision seen by chance, I was the more -surprised when she entered the dining-saloon, helping my friend -Drinkwater. I had purposely got to my place before any one else, so as -to avoid the awkwardness of arriving unknown among people who already -have made one another's acquaintance. Moreover, the table being near to -one of the main entrances, my corner allowed me to take notes on all who -came in. Not that I was interested in my fellow-passengers otherwise -than as part of my self-defense. Self-defense, the keeping any one from -suspecting the mischance that had befallen me, seemed to me, for the -moment, even more important than finding out who I was. - -Transatlantic travel having already become difficult, those who entered -were few in number; and as people are always at their worst at sea, they -struck me as mere bundles of humanity. Among the first to pass my table -was Boyd Averill, who gave me a friendly nod. After him came a girl of -perhaps twenty-five, grave, sensible, and so indifferent to appearances -that I put her down as his sister. Last of all was she whom Drinkwater -had summed up as "one of the prettiest." She was; yet not in the way in -which the vision on the deck had been the same. The vision on the deck -had had no more self-consciousness than the bit of jewel-weed. This -richly colored beauty, with eyes so long and almond-shaped that they -were almost Mongolian, was self-conscious in the grain--luxurious, -expensive, and languorous. - -My table companions began to gather, turning my attention chiefly on -myself. I had traveled enough to know the chief steward as a -discriminating judge of human nature. Those who came asking for seats -at table he sized up in a flash, associating like with like, and rarely -making a mistake. On journeys of which no record remained with me I had -often admired this classifying instinct, doubtless because any -discrimination it may have contained was complimentary to myself. -To-day I had occasion to find it otherwise. - -On coming on board I must have followed the routine of other voyages. -Before turning into my bunk for my long sleep I had apparently asked to -be assigned a seat at table, and given the name of Jasper Soames. -Guided by his intuitive social _flair_, the chief steward had -adjudicated me to a side table in a corner, where to-day my first -companion was a lady's maid. The second was a young man whom I had no -difficulty in diagnosing as a chauffeur, after whom Drinkwater and the -vision of the deck came gaily along together. She probably informed him -that I was already in my place, for as he passed me to reach his chair -at the head of the table, he clapped me on the shoulder with a glad -salute. - -"So, old scout, you've got ahead of us! Bully for you! Knew you'd eat -a whale when once you got started. Say, what we'd all like to sit down -to now is a good old-fashioned dinner of corned beef and cabbage instead -of all this French stuff." He had not, however, forgotten the -courtesies of the occasion. "Miss Blair, let me make you acquainted -with Mr. Soames. Mr. Soames, Miss Mulberry; Mr. Finnegan, Mr. Soames." - -For the ladies I half rose, with a bow; for Mr. Finnegan I made a nod -suffice. Mr. Finnegan seemed scarcely to think I merited a nod in -return. Miss Mulberry acknowledged me coldly. As for Miss Blair, she -inclined her head with the grace of the _lilium canadense_ or the -nodding trinity-flower. In the act there was that shade of negligence -which tells the worldly wise that friendliness is not refused, but -postponed. - -We three formed a group at one end of the table--Drinkwater having Miss -Blair on his right and myself on his left--while Mr. Finnegan and Miss -Mulberry forgathered at the other. The table being set for eight, there -was a vacant seat between Miss Mulberry and Miss Blair, and two between -myself and Mr. Finnegan. This breaking into sets was due, therefore, to -the chief steward, and not to any sense of affinity or rejection among -ourselves. - -After a few polite generalities as to the run and other sea-going topics -the conversation broke into dialogues--Mr. Finnegan and Miss Mulberry, -Mr. Drinkwater and Miss Blair. This seeming to be the established -procedure, it remained for me to take it as a relief. - -For again it gave me time to ask why I was graded as I found myself. A -man who knows he is a general and wakes up to see himself a private, -with every one taking it for granted that he is a private and no more, -would experience the same bewilderment. What had I done that such a -situation could have come about? What had I been? How long was my -knowledge of myself to depend on a group of shattered brain cells? - -I had not followed the conversation of Mr. Drinkwater and Miss Blair, -even though I might have overheard it; but suddenly the lady glanced up -with a clear, straightforward look from her myosotis eyes. - -"Mr. Soames, have you ever lived in Boston?" - -The husky, veiled voice was of that bantering quality for which the -French word _gouailleur_ is the only descriptive term. In Paris it -would have been called _une voix de Montmartre_, and as an expression of -New York it might best be ascribed to Third Avenue. It was jolly, -free-and-easy, common, and sympathetic, all at once. - -My instinct for self-defense urged me to say, "No," and I said it -promptly. - -"Or Denver?" - -I said, "No," again, and for the same reason. I couldn't be pinned down -to details. If I said, "Yes," I should be asked when and where and how, -and be driven to invention. - -"Were you ever in Salt Lake City?" - -A memory of a big gray building, with the Angel Moroni on the top of it, -of broad, straight streets, of distant mountains, of a desert twisted -and suffering, of a lake that at sunset glowed with the colors old -artists burned into enamels--a memory of all this came to me, and I -said, "Yes," I said it falteringly, wondering if it would commit me to -anything. It committed me to nothing, so far as I could see, but a -glance of Miss Blair's heaven-colored eyes toward her friend, as though -I had corroborated something she had said. She had forgotten for the -moment that Drinkwater was blind, so that of this significant look I -alone got the benefit. What it meant I, of course, didn't know; I could -only see it meant something. - -The obvious thing for it to mean was that Miss Blair knew more about me -than I knew myself. While it was difficult to believe that, it -nevertheless remained as part of the general experience of life which -had not escaped me, that one rarely went among any large number of -people without finding some one who knew who one was. That had happened -to me many a time, especially on steamers, though I could no longer fix -the occasions. I decided to cultivate Miss Blair and, if possible, get -a clue from her. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - -That which, in my condition, irked me more than anything was the -impossibility of being by myself. The steamer was a small one, with all -the passengers of one class. Those who now crossed the Atlantic were -doing it as best they could; and to be thrown pell-mell into a -second-rate ship like the _Auvergne_ was better, in the opinion of most -people, than not to cross at all. It was a matter of eight or ten days -of physical discomfort, with home at the other end. - -I knew now that the month was September, and the equinox not far away. -It was mild for the time of year, and, though the weather was rough, it -was not dirty. With the winds shifting quickly from west to northwest -and back again, the clouds were distant and dry, lifting from time to -time for bursts of stormy sunshine. For me it was a pageant. I could -forget myself in its contemplation. It was the vast, and I was only the -infinitesimal; it was the ever-varying eternal, and I was the sheerest -offspring of time, whose affairs were of no moment. - -Nevertheless, I had pressing instant needs, or needs that would become -pressing as soon as we reached New York. Between now and then there -were five or six days during which I might recover the knowledge that -had escaped me; but if I didn't I should be in a difficult situation. I -should be unable to get money; I should be unable to go home. I should -be lost. Unless some one found me I should have to earn a living. To -earn a living there must be something I could do, and I didn't know that -I could do anything. - -Of all forms of exasperation, this began to be the most maddening. I -must have had a profession; and yet there was no profession I could -think of from which I didn't draw back with the peculiar sick recoil I -felt the minute I approached whatever was personal to myself. In this -there were elements contradictory to each other. I wanted to know--and -yet I shrank from knowing. If I could have had access to what money I -needed I should have been content to drift into the unknown without -regret. - -But there was a reserve even here. It attached to the word home. On -that word the door had not been so completely shut that a glimmer didn't -leak through. I knew I had a home. I longed for it without knowing -what I longed for. I could see myself arriving in New York, fulfilling -the regular dock routine--and going somewhere. But I didn't know where. -Of some ruptured brain cell enough remained to tell me that on the -American continent a spot belonged to me; but it told me no more than -the fact that the spot had love in it. I could feel the love and not -discern the object. As to whether I had father or mother or wife or -child I knew no more than I knew the same facts of the captain of the -ship. Out of this darkness there came only a vision of flaming eyes -which might mean anything or nothing. - -I was unable to pursue this line of thought because Miss Blair came -strolling by with the same nonchalant air with which she had passed me -before lunch. I can hardly say she stopped; rather she commanded, and -swept me along. - -"Don't you want to take a walk, Mr. Soames? You'd better do it now, -because we'll be rolling scuppers under by and by." - -For making her acquaintance it was too good an opportunity to miss. In -spite of my inability to play up to her gay cheerfulness I found myself -strolling along beside her. - -I may say at once that I never met a human being with whom I was more -instantly on terms of confidence. The sketch of her life which she gave -me without a second's hesitation came in response to my remark that from -her questions to me at table I judged her to have traveled. - -"I was born on the road, and I suppose I shall never get off it. My -father and mother had got hitched to a theatrical troupe on tour." - -A distaste acquired as a little girl on tour had kept her from trying -her fortunes on the boards. She had an idea that her father was acting -still, though after his divorce from her mother they had lost sight of -him. Her mother had died six years previously, since which time she had -looked after herself, with some ups and downs of experience. She had -been a dressmaker, a milliner, and a model, with no more liking for any -of these professions than she had for the theatrical. In winding up -this brief narrative she astounded me with the statement: - -"And now I'm going to be an adventuress." - -"A what?" I stopped in the middle of the deck to stare at her. - -She repeated the obnoxious noun, continuing to walk on. - -"But I thought you were a stenographer." - -"That's part of it. I'm deceiving poor Miss Averill. She's my dupe. I -make use of people in that way--and throw them aside." - -"But doing the work for Doctor Averill in the mean time." - -"Oh, that's just a pretext." - -"A pretext for what?" - -"For being an adventuress. Goodness knows what evil I shall do in that -family before I get out of it." - -"What do you mean by that?" - -"Oh, well, you'll see. If you're born baleful--well, you've just got to -be baleful; that's all. Did you ever hear of an adventuress who didn't -wreck homes?" - -I said I had not much experience with adventuresses, and didn't quite -know the point of their occupation. - -"Well, you stay around where I am and you'll see." - -"Have you wrecked many homes up to the present?" I ventured to inquire. - -"This is the first one I ever had a chance at. I only decided to be an -adventuress about the time when Miss Averill came along." - -That, it seemed, had been at the Settlement, to which Miss Blair had -retired after some trying situations as a model. Stenography being -taught at the Settlement, she had taken it up on hearing of several -authenticated cases of girls who had gone into offices and married -millionaires. The discouraging side presented itself later in the many -more cases of girls who had not been so successful. It was in this -interval of depression on the part of Miss Blair that Mildred Averill -had appeared at the Settlement with all sorts of anxious plans about -doing good, "If she wants to do good to any one, let her do it to me," -Miss Blair had said to her intimates. "I'm all ready to be adopted by -any old maid that's got the wad." That, she explained to me, was not -the language she habitually used. It was mere pleasantry between girls, -and not up to the standard of a really high-class adventuress. -Moreover, Miss Averill was not an old maid, seeing she was but -twenty-five, though she got herself up like forty. - -All the same, Miss Averill having come on the scene and having taken a -fancy to Miss Blair, Miss Blair had decided to use Miss Averill for her -own malignant purposes. - -For by this time the seeming stenographer had chosen her career. A -sufficient course of reading had made it clear that of all the women in -the world the adventuress had the best of it. She went to the smartest -dressmakers; she stayed at the dearest hotels; her jewels and furs -rivaled those of duchesses; her life was the perpetual third act of a -play. Furthermore, Miss Blair had yet to hear of an adventuress who -didn't end in money, marriage, and respectability. - -Having been so frank about herself, I could hardly be surprised when she -became equally so about me. As the wind rose she slipped into a -protected angle, where I had no choice but to follow her. She began her -attack after propping herself in the corner, her hands deep in her -pockets, and her pretty shoulders hunched. - -"You're a funny man. Do you know it?" - -Though inwardly aghast, I strove to conceal my agitation. "Funny in -what way?" - -"Oh, every way. Any one would think--" - -"What would any one think?" I insisted, nervously, when she paused. - -"Oh, well! I sha'n't say." - -"Because you're afraid to hurt my feelings?" - -"I'm a good sort--especially among people of our own class. For the -others"--she shrugged her shoulders charmingly--"I'm an anarchist and a -socialist and all that. I don't care who I bring down, if they're up. -But when people are down already--I'm--I'm a friend." - -As there was a measure of invitation in these words I nerved myself to -approach the personal. - -"Are you friend enough to tell me why you thought you had seen me in -Salt Lake City?" - -She nodded. "Sure; because I did think so--there--or somewhere." - -"Then you couldn't swear to the place?" - -"I couldn't swear to the place; but I could to you. I never forget a -face if I give it the twice-over. The once-over--well, then I may. But -if I've studied a man--the least little bit--I've got him for the rest -of my life." - -"But why should you have studied me--assuming that it was me?" - -"Assuming that that water's the ocean, I study it because there's -nothing else to look at. We were opposite each other at two tables in a -restaurant." - -"Was there nobody there but just you and me?" - -"Yes, there was a lady." - -My heart gave a thump. "At your table or at mine?" - -"At yours." - -"Did she"--I was aware of the foolish wording of the question without -being able to put it in any other way--"did she have large dark eyes?" - -"Not in the back of her head, which was all I saw of her." - -Once more I expressed myself stupidly. "Did you--did you think it -was--my wife--or just a friend?" - -She burst out laughing. "How could I tell? You speak as if you didn't -know. You're certainly the queerest kid--" - -I tried to recover my lost ground. "I do know, but--" - -"Then what are you asking me for?" - -"Because you seem to have watched me--" - -"I didn't watch you," she denied, indignantly. "The idea! You sure have -your nerve with you. I couldn't help seeing a guy that was right under -my eyes, could I? Besides which--" - -"Yes? Besides which--?" I insisted. - -She brought the words out with an air of chaffing embarrassment. "Well, -you weren't got up as you are now. Do you know it?" - -As I reddened and stammered something about the war, she laid her hand -on my arm soothingly. - -"There now! There now! That's all right. I never give any one away. -You can see for yourself that I can't have knocked about the world like -I've done without running up against this sort of thing a good many -times--" - -"What sort of thing?" - -"Oh, well, if you don't know I needn't tell you. But I'm your friend, -kid. That's all I want you to know. It's why I told you about myself. -I wanted you to see that we're all in the same boat. Harry Drinkwater's -your friend, too. He likes you. You stick by us and we'll stick by you -and see the thing through." - -It was on my lips to say, "What thing?" but she rattled on again. - -"Only you can't wear that sort of clothes and get away with it, kid. Do -you know it? Another fellow might, but you simply can't. It shows you -up at the first glance. The night you came on board you might just as -well have marched in carrying a blue silk banner. For Heaven's sake, if -you've got anything else in your kit go and put it on." - -"I haven't." - -"Haven't? What on earth have you done with all the swell things you -must have had? Burned 'em?" - -The question was so direct, and the good-will behind it so evident, that -I felt I must give an answer. "Sold them." - -"Got down to that, did you? What do you know? Poor little kid! Funny, -isn't it? A woman can carry that sort of thing off nine times out -often; but a fat-head of a man--" - -She kept the sentence suspended while gazing over my shoulder. The lips -remained parted as in uttering the last word. I was about to turn to -see what so entranced her, when she said, in a tone of awe or joy, I was -not sure which: - -"There's that poor little blind boy coming down the deck all by himself. -You'll excuse me, won't you, if I run and help him?" - -So she ran. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - -Beyond this point I had made no progress when we landed in New York. I -still knew myself as Jasper Soames. Miss Blair still suspected that I -was running away from justice. That I was running away from justice I -suspected myself, since how could I do otherwise? All the way up the -Bay I waited for that tap on my shoulder which I could almost have -welcomed for the reason that it would relieve me of some of my -embarrassments. - -Those embarrassments had grown more entangling throughout the last days -of the voyage. The very good-will of the people about me increased the -complications in which I was finding myself involved. Every one asked a -different set of questions, the answers I gave being not always -compatible with each other. I didn't exactly lie; I only replied -wildly--trying to guard my secret till I could walk off the boat and -disappear from the ken of these kindly folk who did nothing but wish me -well. - -I accomplished this feat, I am bound to confess, with little credit; but -credit was not my object. All I asked was the privilege of being alone, -with leisure to take stock of my small assets and reckon up the -possibilities before me. As it was incredible that a man such as I was -could be lost on the threshold of his home I needed all the faculties -that remained to me in order to think out the ways and means by which I -could be found. - -So alone I found myself, though not without resorting to ruses of which -I was even then ashamed. - -It was Miss Blair who scared me into them. Coming up to me on deck, -during the last afternoon on board, she said, casually: - -"Going to stay awhile in New York?" - -It was a renewal of the everlasting catechism, so I said, curtly: - -"I dare say." - -"Oh, don't be huffy! Looking for a job?" - -"Later, perhaps; not at once." - -In her smile, as her eye caught mine, there was a visible significance. -"You'll be a good kid, wont you? You'll--you'll keep on the level?" - -I made a big effort on my own part, so as to see how she would take it. -"If I'm not nabbed going up the Bay." - -"Oh, you won't be. It can't be as--as bad as all that. Even if it -was--" She left this sentiment for me to guess at while she went on. -"Where do you expect to stay?" - -I was about to name one of New York's expensive hotels when it occurred -to me that she would burst out laughing at the announcement, she would -take it as a joke. I realized then that it struck me also as a joke. -It was incongruous not only with my appearance, but with my entire role -throughout the trip. I ended by replying that I hadn't made up my mind. - -"Well, then, if you're looking for a place--" - -"I can't say that I'm that." - -"Or if you should be, I've given Harry Drinkwater a very good address." - -It was only a rooming-house, she explained to me, but for active people -the more convenient for that, and with lots of good cafes in the -neighborhood. She told me of one in particular--Alfonso was the name of -the restaurateur--where one could get a very good dinner, with wine, for -seventy-five cents, and an adequate breakfast for forty. Moreover, Miss -Blair had long known the lady who kept the rooming-house in question, a -friend of her mother's she happened to be, and any one whom she, Lydia -Blair, sent with her recommendation would find the place O.K. - -I was terrified. I didn't mean to go to this well-situated dwelling, -"rather far west" in Thirty-fifth Street; I only had visions of being -wafted there against my will. So much had happened in which my will had -not been consulted that I was afraid of the kindliest of intentions. -When at dinner that evening Miss Mulberry apologized across the table -for her coldness toward me during the trip, ascribing it to a -peculiarity of hers in never making gentlemen friends till sure they -were gentlemen, and offering me her permanent address, I resolved that -after that meal none of the whole group should catch another glimpse of -me. - -For this reason I escaped to my cabin directly after dinner, packed my -humble belongings, and went to bed. When, toward eleven, Drinkwater -came down, putting the question, as he stumbled in, "'Sleep, Jasper?" I -replied with a faint snore. For the last two or three days he had been -scattering Jaspers throughout his sentences, and I only didn't ask him -to give up the practice because of knowing that with men of his class -familiarity is a habit. Besides, it would be all over in a few days, so -that I might as well take it patiently. - -And yet I was sorry that it had to be so, for something had made me like -him. During the days of the equinoctial bad weather it had fallen to me -to steer him about the staggering ship, and one is naturally drawn to -anything helpless. Then, too, of all the men to whom I ever lent a hand -he was the most demonstrative. He had a boy's way of pawing you, of -sprawling over you, of giving your hand little twitches, or affectionate -squeezes to your arm. There was no liberty he wouldn't take; but when -he took them they didn't seem to be liberties. If I betrayed a hint of -annoyance he would pat me on any part of my person he happened to touch, -with some such soothing words as: - -"There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muvverums and -have his 'ittle cry." - -But I had to turn my back on him. There was no help for it. I -understood, however, that people in his class were less sensitive to -discourtesy than those in mine. They were used to it. True, he was -blind; but then it was not to be expected that I should look after every -blind man I happened to run against in traveling. Besides all this, I -had made up my mind what I meant to do, and refused to discuss it -further even with myself. - -He was hoisting himself to the upper bunk when he made a second attempt -to draw me. - -"You'll have people to meet you to-morrow morning?" - -"Oh, I suppose so," I grunted, sleepily. "Some of 'em will be there." A -second or two having passed, I felt it necessary to add, "Same with you, -I suppose?" - -He replied from overhead. "Sure! Two or three of the guys 'll be -jazzing round the dock. There'll be--a--Jack--and--a--Jim--and--a--well, -a pile of 'em." He was snuggling down into his pillow as he wound up -with a hearty, "Say, Jasper, I'll be--I'll be all right--I'll be -_fine_." - -Deciding that I wouldn't call this bluff, I turned and went to sleep. -Up with dawn, I slipped out of the cabin before the blind man had -stirred. Early rising got its reward in a morning of silver tissue. -Silver tissue was flung over the Bay, woven into the air, and formed all -we could see of the sky. Taking my place as far toward the bow as I -could get, I watched till two straight lines forming a right angle -appeared against the mist, after which, magical, pearly, spiritual, -white in whiteness, tower in cloud, the great city began to show itself -through the haze, like something born of the Holy Ghost. - -Having nothing to carry but my bag and suitcase, I was almost the first -on shore. So, too, I must have been the first of the passengers ready -to leave the dock. But two things detained me, just as I was going to -take my departure. - -The first was fear. It came without warning--a fear of solitude, of the -city, of the danger of arrest, of the first steps to be taken. I was -like a sick man who hasn't realized how weak he is till getting out of -bed. I had picked up my bags after the custom-house officer had passed -them, to walk out of the pen under the letter S, when the thought of -what I was facing suddenly appalled me. Dropping my load to the dusty -floor, I sank on the nearest trunk. - -I have read in some English book of reminiscences the confession of -dread on the part of a man released after fifteen years' imprisonment on -first going into the streets. The crowds, the horses, the drays, the -motors, the clamor and gang, struck him as horrific. For joining the -blatant, hideous procession already moving from the dock I was no more -equipped than Minerva would have been on the day when she sprang, -full-grown and fully armed, from her father's head. - -Looking up the long lines of pens, I could see Miss Blair steering -Drinkwater from the gangway toward the letter D. I noticed his -movements as reluctant and terrified. The din I found appalling even -with the faculty of sight must have been menacing to him in his -darkness. He was still trying to take it with a laugh, but the merriment -had become frozen. - -Seizing my two bags again, I ran up the line. - -"Oh, you dear old kid!" Miss Blair exclaimed, as I came within speaking -distance, "I'm sure glad to see you. I was afraid you'd been--" - -Knowing her suspicion, I cut in on her fear. "No; it didn't happen. -I--got off the boat all right. I--I've just been looking after my -things and ran back to see if there was anything I could do--" - -"Bless you! There's everything you can do. Harry's been crying for you -like a baby for its nurse." - -"Where is he?" - -The words were his. Confused by the hub-bub, he was clawing in the -wrong direction, so that the grab with which he seized me was like that -of a strayed child on clutching a friendly hand. - -In the end I was in a taxicab, bound for the rooming-house "rather far -west" in Thirty-fifth Street, with my charge by my side. - -"Say, isn't this the grandest!" - -The accent was so sincere that I laughed. We were out in the sunlight -by this time, plowing our way through the squalor. - -"What's grand about it?" - -"Oh, well, Miss Blair finding me that house to go to--and you going -along with me--and the doctor coming to see me to-morrow to talk about a -job--" - -"What job?" - -"Oh, some job. There'll be one. You'll see. I've got the darnedest -good luck a guy was ever born with--all except my name." - -"What about the fellows you said would be jazzing around the dock to -meet you?" - -I was sorry for that bit of cruelty before it had got into words. It -was one of the rare occasions on which I ever saw his honest pug-face -fall. - -"Say, you didn't believe that, did you?" - -"You said it." - -"Oh, well, I say lots of things. Have to." - -We jolted on till a block in the traffic enabled him to continue without -the difficulty of speaking against noise. "Look here! I'm going to -tell you something. It's--it's a secret." - -"Then for Heaven's sake keep it." - -"I want you to know it. I don't want to be your friend under false -pretenses." - -It seemed to me an opportunity to clarify the situation. We were on -land. We were in New York. It was hardly fair to these good people to -let them think that our association could continue on the same terms as -at sea. Somewhere in the back of my strained mind was the fact that I -had formerly classed myself as a snob and had been proud of the -appellation. That is, I had been fastidious as to whom I should know -and whom I should not know. I had been an adept in the art of cutting -those who had been forced or had forced themselves upon me, and had -regarded this skill as an accomplishment. Finding myself on board ship, -and in a peculiar situation, I had carried myself as a gentleman should, -even toward Mr. Finnegan and Miss Mulberry. - -That part had been relatively easy. It was more difficult to dispose of -the kindly interest of the Averills. He had made more than one approach -which I parried tactfully. Mrs. Averill had contented herself with -disquieting looks from her almond eyes, though one day she had stopped -me on deck with the condescending inquiries as to my health that one -puts to a friend's butler. Miss Averill had been more direct--sensible, -solicitous, and rich in a shy sympathy. One day, on entering the -saloon, I found her examining some rugs which a Persian passenger was -displaying in the interests of trade. Being called by her into council, -I helped her to choose between a Herati and a Sarouk, the very names of -which she had never heard. My connoisseurship impressed her. After that -she spoke to me frequently, and once recommended the employment bureau -of her Settlement, in case I were looking for work. - -All this I had struggled with, sometimes irritated, sometimes grimly -amused, but always ill at ease. Now it was over. I should never see -the Averills again, and Drinkwater must be given to understand that he, -too, was an incident. - -"My dear fellow, there are no pretenses. We simply met on board ship, -and because of your--your accident I'm seeing you to your door. That's -all. It doesn't constitute friendship." - -"You bet it does," was his unexpected rejoinder. "I'm not that kind at -all. When a fellow's white with me, he's white. I'm not going to be -ashamed of him. If you ever want any one to hold the sponge for you, -Jasper--" - -I repeated stupidly, "Hold the sponge?" - -"Go bail for you--do anything. I couldn't go bail for you on my own, of -course; but I could hustle round and get some one to do it. Lydia Blair -knows a lot of people--and there's the doctor. Say, Jasper, I'm your -friend, and I'm going to stand by the contract." - -The taxi lumbered on again, while I was debating with myself as to what -to say next, or whether or not to say anything. One thing was clear, -that no matter what fate awaited me I couldn't have Drinkwater holding -the sponge for me, nor could I appear in court, or anywhere else, with a -man of his class as my backer. - -We were lurching into Broadway when he grasped me suddenly by the arm, -to say: - -"Look here, Jasper! To show what I think of you I'm going to make you -listen to that secret. I--I wasn't expecting any one to meet me. -There's no one _to_ meet me. Do you get that?" - -I said that I got it, but found nothing peculiar in the situation. - -"Oh, but there is, though. I've got--I've got no friends--not so much -as a father or a mother. I never did have. I was--I was left in a -basket on a door-step---twenty-three years ago--and brought up in an -orphans' home in Texas. There, you've got it straight! I've passed you -up the one and only dope on Harry Drinkwater, and any guy that's afraid -he can't be my friend without wearing a dress-suit to breakfast--" - -It was so delicate a method of telling me that I was as good as he was -that it seemed best to let the subject of our future relations drop. -They would settle themselves when I had carried out the plan that had -already begun to dawn in me. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - -Miss Goldie Flowerdew, for that was the name on our note of -introduction, was at home, but kept us waiting in a room where I made my -first study of a rooming-house. It was another indication of what I had -_not_ been in my past life that a rooming-house was new to me. - -This particular room must in the 'sixties have been the parlor of some -prim and prosperous family. It was long, narrow, dark, with dark -carpets, and dark coverings to the chairs. Dark pictures hung on dark -walls, and dark _objets d'art_ adorned a terrifying chimneypiece in -black marble. Folding-doors shut us off from a back room that was -probably darker still; and through the interstices of the shrunken -woodwork we could hear a vague rustling. - -The rustling gave place to a measured step, which finally proceeded from -the room and sounded along the hall, as if taken to the rhythm of a -stone march like that in "Don Giovanni," when the statue of the -Commander comes down from its pedestal. My companion and I -instinctively stood up, divining the approach of a Presence. - -The Presence was soon on the threshold, doing justice to the epithet. -The statue of the Commander, dressed in the twentieth-century style of -sweet sixteen and crowned by a shock of bleached hair of tempestuous -wave, would have looked like Miss Goldie Flowerdew as she stood before -us majestically, fingering our note of introduction. - -"So she's not coming," was her only observation, delivered in a voice so -deep that, like Mrs. Siddons's "Will it wash?" it startled. - -"Did you expect her?" I ventured to say. - -The sepulchral voice spoke again. "Which is the blind one?" - -Drinkwater moved forward. She, too, moved forward, coming into the room -and scanning him face to face. - -"You don't look so awful blind." - -"No, but I am--for the present." - -"For the present? Does that mean that you expect to regain your sight?" - -"The doctors say that it may come back suddenly as it went." - -"And suppose it don't?" - -"Oh, well, I've got along without it for the past six months, so I -suppose I can do it for the next sixty years. I've given it a good try, -and in some ways I like it." - -"You do, do you?" - -"Yes, lady." - -"Then," she declared, in her tragic voice, "I like you." - -He flushed like a girl flushes, though his grin was his own specialty. - -"Say," he began, in confidential glee, "Miss Blair said you would--" - -"Tell Lydia Blair that she's at liberty to bestow her affections when -and as she chooses; but beg her to be kind enough to allow me to dispose -of mine. You'd like to see her room." - -She was turning to begin her stone march toward the stairs, but -Drinkwater held her back. - -"Say, lady, is it--is it her room?" - -"Certainly; it's the one she's always had when she's been with me, and -which she reserved by letter four weeks ago. I was to expect her as -soon as the steamer docked." - -"Oh, then--" the boy began to stammer. - -"Nonsense, my good man! Don't be foolish. She's gone elsewhere and the -room is to let. If she hadn't sent me some one I would have charged her -a week's rent; but now that she's got me a tenant she's at liberty to go -where she likes. She knows I'd rather have men than women at any time -of day." - -"Oh, but if it's her room, and she's given it up for me--" - -"It isn't her room; it's mine. I can let it to any one I please. She -knows of a dozen places in the city that she'll like just as well as -this, so don't think she'll be on the street. Come along; I've no time -to waste." - -"Better go," I whispered, taking him by the arm, so that the procession -started. - -The hall was papered in deep crimson, against which a monumental -black-walnut hat-and-umbrella stand was visible chiefly because of the -gleam of an inset mirror. The floors were painted in the darkest shade -of brown, in keeping with the massive body of the staircase. Up the -staircase, as along the hall, ran a strip of deep crimson carpet, -exposing the warp on the edge of each step. - -A hush of solemnity lay over everything. Clearly Miss Flowerdew's -roomers were off for the day, and the place left to her and the little -colored maid who had admitted us. Drinkwater and I made our way upward -in a kind of awe, he clinging to my arm, frightened and yet adventurous. - -The long, steep stairs curved toward the top to an upper hall darker -than that below, because the one window was in ground glass with a -border of red and blue. Deep crimson was again the dominating color, -broken only by the doors which may have been mahogany. All doors were -closed except the one nearest the top of the stairs, which stood ajar. -Miss Flowerdew pushed it open, bidding us follow her. - -We were on the spot which above all others in the world Lydia Blair -called home. When the exquisite bit of jewel-weed drifted past me on -the deck of the _Auvergne_ this haven was in the background of her -memory. - -Through the gloom two iron beds, covered with coarse white counterpanes, -sagged in the outlines of their mattresses, as beds do after a great -many people have slept in them. A low wicker armchair sagged in the -seat as armchairs do after a great many people have sat in them. A -great many people had passed through this room, wearing it down, wearing -it out; and yet there was a woman in the world whose soul leaped toward -it as the hearth of her affections. Because it was architecturally dark -a paper of olive-green arabesques on an olive-green background had been -glued on the walls to make it darker still; and because it was now as -dark as it could be made, the table, the chest of drawers, the -washstand, like the doors, were all of the darkest brown. Miss -Flowerdew pointed to their bare tops to say: - -"Lydia has her own covers, and when she puts her photographs and -knickknacks round it makes a home for her." - -"Say, isn't it grand!" Drinkwater cried, looking round with his -sightless eyes. - -"It's grand for the money," Miss Flowerdew corrected. "It's not the -Waldorf-Astoria, nor yet is it what I was used to when on the stage; but -it's clean"--which it was--"and only respectable people have roomed -here. Come, young man, and I'll show you how to find your way." - -Miss Flowerdew may have been on the stage, but she ought to have been a -nurse. Not even Lydia Blair could take hold of a helpless man with such -tenderness of strength. Holding Drinkwater by the hand, she showed him -how to find the conveniences of this nest, pointing out the fact that -the bath-room was the first door on the right as you went into the hall, -and only a step away. - -"I hope I sha'n't give you any more trouble, lady, after this," the -blind boy breathed, gratefully. - -"Trouble! Of course you'll give me trouble! The man who doesn't give a -woman trouble is not a man. I've had male roomers so neat and natty -you'd have sworn they were female ones--and I got rid of 'em. When a -man doesn't know whether to put his boots on the mantelpiece or in the -wash-basin when he takes them off, I can see I've got something to take -care of. I guess I may as well cart these away." - -The reference was to two photographs that stood on the ledges of the -huge black-walnut mirror. - -"I put 'em out to give Lydia a home feeling as soon as she arrived. -That's her father, Byron Blair," she continued, handing me the picture -of an extremely good-looking, weak-faced man of the Dundreary type, "and -that's her mother, Tillie Lightwood, as she was when she and I starred -in 'The Wages of Sin.'" I examined the charming head, with profile -overweighted by a chignon, while Miss Flowerdew continued her -reminiscences. "I played Lady Somberly to Tillie's Lottie Gwynne for -nearly three years on end, first here, on Broadway, and then on the -road. Don't do you any good, playing the same part so long. Easy work -and money, but you get the mannerisms fixed on you. I was a good -utility woman up to that time; but when I came back to Broadway I was -Lady Somberly. I never could get rid of her, and so ... I'll show you -some of my notices and photographs--no, not to-day; but when you come -round to see your friend--that is"--she looked inquiringly--"that is, if -you don't mean to use the other bed." - -This being the hint I needed, I took it. With the briefest of farewells -I was out on the pavement with my bags in my hands, walking eastward -without a goal. - -Once more I had to stifle my concern as to Drinkwater. I saw him, when -Miss Flowerdew would have gone down-stairs, sitting alone in his -darkness, with nothing to do. His trunk, the unpacking of which would -give him some occupation, would not arrive until evening; and in the -mean time he would have no one but himself for company. He couldn't go -out; it would be all he could do to feel his way to the bathroom and -back, though even that small excursion would be a break in his -monotony.... - -But I took these thoughts and choked them. It was preposterous that I -should hold myself responsible for the comfort of a boy met by chance on -a steamer. Had I taken him in charge from affection or philanthropy it -would have been all very well; but I had no philanthropic promptings, -and, while I liked him, I was far from taking this wavering sympathy as -affection. I was sorry for him, of course; but others must take care of -him. I should have all I could do in taking care of myself. - -So I wandered on, hardly noticing at first the way I took, and then -consciously looking for a hotel. As to that, I had definitely made up -my mind not to go to any of those better known, though the names of -several remained in my memory, till I had properly clothed myself. -Though in a measure I had grown used to my appearance, I caught the -occasional turning of a head to look at me, and once the eyebrows of a -passer-by went up in amused surprise. - -I discovered quickly enough that I knew New York and that I knew it -tolerably well; and almost as quickly I learned that I knew it not as a -resident, but from the point of view of the visitor. Now that I was -there, I could see myself always coming and always going. From what -direction I had come and in what direction I turned on leaving still -were mysteries. But the conviction of having no abiding tie with this -city was as strong as that of the spectator in a theater of having no -permanent connection with the play. - -Coming on a modest hotel at last, I made bold to go in, finding myself -in a lobby of imitation onyx and an atmosphere heavy with tobacco. I -crossed to the desk, under the eyes of some three or four colored boys -who didn't offer to assist me with my bags, and applied for a room. A -courteous young man of Slavic nationality regretted that they were "full -up." I marched out again. - -Repeating this experience at another and another, I was saved from doing -it at a fourth by a uniformed darky porter, who, as I was about to go up -the steps, shook his head, at the same time sketching in the air an oval -which I took to be a zero. I didn't go in, but I was oddly -disconcerted. It had never occurred to me till then that hotels had a -choice in guests, just as guests had a choice in hotels. I had always -supposed that a man who could pay could command a welcome anywhere; but -here I was, with nearly four hundred dollars in my pockets, unable to -find a lodging because something strange in my clothes, or my eyes, or -in my general demeanor, or in all together, stamped me as unusual. -"Who's that freak?" I heard one bell-boy ask another, and the term -seemed to brand me. - -The day was muggy. After the keen sea air it was breathless. When I -could walk no longer I staggered into a humble eating-house that seemed -to be half underground. There was no one there but two waitresses, one -of whom, wearing her hair _a la madone_, came forward as I closed the -door. She did not, however, come forward so quickly but that I heard -her say to her companion, "Well, of all the nuts--!" The observation, -though breathlessly suspended there, made me shy about ordering my -repast. - -And when it came I couldn't eat it. It was good enough, doubtless, but -coarse and ill served. I think the young lady who found me a nut was -sorry for me when it came to close quarters, for she did her best to -coax my appetite with other kind suggestions. All I could do in -response was to flourish the roll of notes into which I had changed my -French money on board and give her an amazing tip. - -But a new decision had come to me while I strove to eat, and on making -my way up to daylight again I set out to put it into operation. Reaching -Broadway, I drifted southward till I came on one of the large -establishments for ready-to-wear clothing which I knew were to be found -in the neighborhood. On entering the vast emporium I adopted a new -manner. No longer shrinking as I had shrunk since waking to the fact of -my misfortune, I walked briskly up to the first man whom I saw at a -distance eying me haughtily. - -"See here," I said, in a good-mixer voice, "I've just got back from -France, and look at the way they've rigged me out. Was in hospital -there, after I'd got all kinds of shock, and this is the best I could do -without coming back to God's country in a French uniform. Now I want to -see the best you can do and how pretty you can make me look." - -On emerging I was, therefore, passable to glance at, and after a -hair-cut and a shave I was no longer afraid to see my reflection in a -glass. I had, too, another inspiration. It occurred to me that I might -startle myself into finding the way home. Calling a taxi, I drove -boldly with my bags to the Grand Central Terminal, trusting to the inner -voice to tell me the place for which to buy my ticket. With half the -instinct of a horse my feet might take the road to the stable of their -own accord. - -I recognized the station and all its ways--the red-capped colored men, -the white-capped white ones, the subterranean shops, the gaunt marble -spaces. I recognized the windows at which I must have taken tickets -hundreds of times, and played my comedy by walking up first to one and -then to another, waiting for the inner voice to give me a tip. I found -nothing but blank silence. The world was all before me where to -choose--only Providence was not my guide. Or if Providence was my -guide, His thread of flame was not visible. - -I suppose that in that station that afternoon I was like any other man -intending to take a train. At least I could say that. So pleased was I -with myself that more than once during the two hours of my test I went -into the station lavatory just for the sake of seeing myself in the -glass. It was a long glass, capable of reflecting some dozen men at a -time, and I was as like the rest as one elephant is like another. Oh, -that relief! Oh, that joy! Not to be a freak or a nut made up for the -moment for my sense of homelessness. - -When tired of listening for a call that didn't come, I went into the -waiting-room and sat down. Again I was like all the other people doing -the same thing. Propped up by a bag on each side, I might have been -waiting for a train to any of the suburbs. I might have had a family -expecting me to supper. The obvious reflection came to me. To all -whose glances happened to fall on me I was no more than an unstoried -human spot; and yet behind me was a history that would have startled any -one of them. So they were unstoried human spots to me; and yet behind -each of them there lay a drama of which I could read no more than I -could see of the world of light beyond the speck I called a star. Was -there a Providence for me, or them, or any other strayed, homeless dog? -As I glanced at the faces before me, faces of tired women, faces of -despondent men, young faces hardened, old faces stupefied, all faces -stamped with the age-long soddenness of man, I asked if anywhere in the -universe love could be holding up the lamps to them. - -Like millions of others who have asked this question, I felt that I had -my trouble for my pains; but I got another inspiration. As it was now -the middle of the afternoon, the folly of expecting help from the inner -voice became apparent. I must resort to some other expedient, and the -new suggestion was a simple one. - -Checking my bags in the parcel-office, I made for the nearest great -hotel. The hall with its colossal furnishings was familiar from the -moment of my entry. The same ever so slightly overdressed ladies might -have been mincing up and down as on the occasion of my last visit there; -the same knots of men might have begun to gather; the same orchestra -might have been jigging the same tunes; if only the same men were at the -office desk I might find my ingenuity rewarded. - -"I wonder if there are any letters for me here? I'm not staying in the -house; but I thought--" - -"Name?" - -No one said, as I hoped, "I'll see, Mr. Smith," or, "I'll find out, Mr. -Jones," as often happens when a man has been a well-known guest. - -Nevertheless, it was a spot where strangers from other places -congregated, and I knew that in the lobbies of hotels one often met old -friends. I might meet one of mine. Better still, one of mine might -meet me. At any minute I might feel a clap on the shoulder, while some -one shouted, "Hello, old Brown!" or, "Why, here's Billy Robinson! -What'll we have to drink?" These had been familiar salutations and -might become so again. - -So I walked up and down. I was sorry I had neither stick nor gloves, -but promised to supply the lack at once. In the mean time I could -thrust my hands into my pockets and look like a gentleman at ease -because he is at home. Having enjoyed this sport for an hour or more, I -went out to make my purchases. - -Fortified with these, I repeated my comedy in another hotel, and -presently in a third. In each I began with the same formula of asking -for letters; and in each I got the same response, "Name?" In each I -receded with a polite, "Never mind. I don't think there can be any, -after all." In each I paraded up and down and in and out, courting the -glances of head waiters, bell-hops, and lift-men, always in the hope of -a recognition and a "How do, Mr. So-and-so?" that never came. - -But by six o'clock the game had played itself out for the day and I was -not only tired, but depressed. I was not discouraged, for the reason -that New York was full of big hotels, and I meant to begin my tramp on -the morrow. There were clubs, too, into which on one pretext or another -I could force my way, and there were also the great thoroughfares. Some -hundreds of people in New York at that moment would probably have -recognized me at a glance--if I could only come face to face with them. -All my efforts for the next few weeks must be bent on doing that. - -But in the mean time I was tired and lonely. There were two or three -things I might do, each of which I had promised to myself with some -anticipation. I could go to a good restaurant and order a good feed; I -could go to a good hotel and sleep in a good bed; I could buy the -evening papers and find out what kind of world I was living in. - -As to carrying out this program, I had but one prudential misgiving. It -might cost more money than it would be wise for me to spend. My visit -to the purveyor of clothing in the afternoon had not only lightened my -purse, but considerably opened my eyes. Where I had had nearly four -hundred dollars I had now nearly three. With very slight extravagance, -according to the standards of New York, it would come down to nearly two -and then to nearly one, and then to ... But I shuddered at that, and -stopped thinking. - -Having stopped thinking along one set of lines, I presently found myself -off on another. I saw Harry Drinkwater sitting in the dark as I was -sitting in the hall of a hotel. That is, he was idle and I was idle. -He was eating his heart out as I was eating out mine. - -It occurred to me that I might go back to Thirty-fifth Street and take -him out to dinner. Alfonso, recommended by Miss Blair, might be no more -successful as a host than the lady with tresses _a la madone_ who had -given me my lunch; but we could try. At any rate, the boy wouldn't be -alone on this first evening in New York, and would feel that some one -cared for him. - -And then something else in me revolted. No! No! A thousand times no! -I had cut loose from these people and should stay loose. On saying -good-by to Drinkwater that morning I had disappeared without a trace. -For any one who tried to follow me now I should be the needle in a -haystack. What good could come of my going back of my own accord and -putting myself on a level to which I did not belong? - -Like many Americans, I was no believer in the equality of men. For men -as a whole I had no respect, and in none but the smallest group had I -any confidence. Looking at the faces as they passed me in the hall, I -saw only those of brutes--and these were mostly people who had had what -we call advantages. As for those who had not had advantages I disliked -them in contact and distrusted them in principle. I described myself -not only as a snob, but as an aristocrat. I had worked it out that to -be well educated and well-to-do was the normal. To be poor and ill -educated was abnormal. Those who suffered from lack of means or -refinement did so because of some flaw in themselves or their -inheritance. They were the plague of the world. They created all the -world's problems and bred most of its diseases. From the beginning of -time they had been a source of disturbance to better men, and would be -to the end of it. - -It was the irony of ironies, then, that I should have become a member of -a group that included a lady's maid, a chauffeur, and two stenographers, -and been hailed as one of them. The lady's maid and the chauffeur I -could, of course, dismiss from my mind; but the two stenographers had -seemingly sworn such a friendship for me that nothing but force would -cut me free from it. Very well, then; I should use force if it was -needed; but it wouldn't be needed. All I had to do was to refrain from -going to take Drinkwater out to dinner, and they would never know where -I was. - -And yet, if you would believe it, I went. Within half an hour I was -knocking at his bedroom door and hearing his cheery "Come in." - -Why I did this I cannot tell you. It was neither from loneliness, nor -kind-heartedness, nor a sense of duty. The feet that wouldn't take the -horse to the stable took him back to that crimson rooming-house, and -that is all I can say. - -Drinkwater was sitting in the dark, which was no darker to him than -daylight; but when I switched on the light his pug grin gave an added -illumination to the room. - -"Say, that's the darnedest! I knew you'd come in spite of the old lady -swearing you wouldn't. I'd given you half an hour yet; and here you -are, twenty-five minutes ahead of time." - -The reception annoyed me. It was bad enough to have come; but it was -worse to have been expected. - -"How have you been getting on?" I asked, in order to relieve my first -anxiety. - -"Oh, fine!" - -"Haven't you been--dull?" - -"Lord, no!" - -"What have you had to do?" - -"Oh, enjoy myself--feeling my way about the house. I can go all round -the room, and out into the hall, and up and down stairs just as easily -as you can. It's a cinch." - -"Have you heard anything of Miss Flair?" - -"Sure! Called up about an hour ago to say she'd found the swellest -place--in Forty-first Street. But, say, Jasper, what do you think of a -girl who gives up the room she's reserved for a month and more, just -to--" - -I broke in on this to ask where he'd had his lunch. - -"Oh, the old girl made me go down and have it with her. She's not half -a bad sort, when you come to know her. I've asked her to come out to -dinner with me at Alfonso's. Lydia Blair says it's a dandy place--and -now you can join the party." - -"No; I've come to take you out." - -"Say, Jasper! Do you think I'm always going to pass the buck, just -because ... You and little Goldie are coming to dinner with me." - -Not to dispute the point, I yielded it, asking only: - -"What made you think I was coming this evening?--because, you know, I -didn't mean to." - -"Oh, I dunno. Like you to do it. You're the sort. That's all." - -So within another half-hour I found myself at Alfonso's, on Drinkwater's -left, with little Goldie opposite. Little Goldie seemed somehow the -right name for the Statue of the Commander, now that she wore a lingerie -hat and a blouse of the kind which I believe is called peek-a-boo. She -was well known at Alfonso's, however, her authority securing us a table -in a corner, with special attentions from head and subordinate -waitresses. - -How shall I tell you of Alfonso's? Like the rooming-house, it was for -me a new social manifestation. It was what you might call the home of -the homeless, and the homeless were numerous and noisy. They were very -noisy, they were very hot. The odor of food struck upon the nostrils -like the smell of a whole burnt sacrifice when they offered up an ox. -The perfume of wine swam on top of that food, and over and above both -the smell of a healthy, promiscuous, perspiring humanity, washed and -unwashed, in a festive hurtling together, hilarious and hungry. - -The food was excellent; the wine as good as any _vin ordinaire_ in -France; the service rapid; and the whole a masterpiece of organization. -I had eaten many a dinner for which I paid ten times as much which -wouldn't have compared with it. - -During the progress of the meal it was natural that Miss Flowerdew, -whose eye commended the change in my appearance, should ask me what I -had been doing through the day. I didn't, as you will understand, find -it necessary to go into details; but I told her of my unsuccessful -attempts to find a room. - -"Did you try the Hotel Barcelona, in Fourth Avenue?" - -I told her I had not. - -"Then do so." Fumbling in her bag, she found a card and pencil. "Take -that," she commanded, when she had finished scribbling, "and ask for Mr. -Jewsbury. If he isn't in, show it to the room clerk, but keep it for -Mr. Jewsbury to-morrow. I've told them you must have a room and bath, -not over two-fifty a day--and clean. Tell them I said so." - -"Is Mr. Jewsbury a friend of yours?" I asked, inanely, after I had -thanked her. - -"He used to be my husband---the one before Mr. Crockett. I could be -Mrs. Jewsbury again, if I so chose; but I do not so choose." - -With this astonishing hint of the possibilities in Miss Goldie -Flowerdew's biography I saw the value of discretion, and as soon as -courtesy permitted took my leave to visit the Hotel Barcelona. - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - -After a delicious night I woke in a room which gave the same shock to my -fastidiousness as the first glimpse of my cabin on board ship. I woke -cheerfully, however, knowing that I was in New York and that not many -days could pass before some happy chance encounter would give me the -clue of which I was in search. Cheerfully I dressed and breakfasted; -cheerfully I sat down in the dingy hall to scan the morning's news. - -It was the first paper I had opened since landing. It was the first I -had looked at since... - -I had no recollection of when I had read a newspaper last. It must have -been long ago; so long ago that the history of my immediate time had -lapsed into formlessness, like that of the ancient world. I knew there -was a world; I knew there were countries and governments; I knew, as I -have said, that there was a war. Of the causes of that war I retained -about the same degree of information as of the origin of the Wars of the -Roses. - -Bewilderment was my first reaction now; the second was amazement. -Reading the papers with no preparation from the day before, or from the -day before that--with no preparation at all but the vague memory of -horrors from which my mind retreated the minute they were -suggested--reading the papers thus, the world seemed to me to have been -turned upside down. Hindus were in France, Canadians in Belgium, the -French in the Dobrudja, the Australians in Turkey, the British and -Germans in East Africa, and New-Zealanders on the peninsula of Sinai. -What madness was this? How had the race of men got into such a -tragi-comic topsy-turvydom? A long crooked line slashed all across -Europe showed the main body of the opponents locked in a mutual death -embrace. - -I had hardly grasped the meaning of it when, looking up, I saw a figure -of light standing in the lobby before me. It was all in white serge, -with a green sash about the waist, and the head wreathed in a white -motor veil. - -"Hello, kid!" The husky, comic, Third Avenue laugh was Lydia Blair's. -I had just time to rehearse the series of irritations I knew I should -feel at being tracked down, and to regret my folly for having gone back -to Drinkwater on the previous evening. Then I saw the heavenly eyes -surveying me with an air of approval. "Well, you look like a nice -tailor's dummy at last. Takes me back to Seattle or Boston or Salt Lake -City--and the lady." As she rattled on, a pair of dark eyes began to -flash on me from the air. "We haven't got _her_ to-day, but there's -some one else who perhaps will fill the bill. Come on out." - -Wondering what she could mean, and whether or not the longed-for clue -might not be at hand, I suffered myself to be led by the arm to the door -of the hotel. - -At first I saw nothing but a large and handsome touring-car drawn up -against the curb. Then I saw Drinkwater snuggled in a corner--and then a -brown veil. I couldn't help crossing the pavement, since Lydia did the -same, and the brown veil seemed to expect me. - -"Miss Blair thought you might like a drive, Mr. Soames, so we came round -to see if we could find you." - -"Come on in, Jasper," Drinkwater urged; "the water's fine." - -"Come on. Don't be silly," Miss Blair insisted, as I began to make -excuses. - -Before I knew what I was doing I had stumbled into the seat opposite -Miss Averill. She sat in the right-hand corner, Drinkwater in the left, -Miss Blair between the two. I occupied one of the small folding -armchairs, going backward. In another minute we were on our way through -one of the cross-streets to Fifth Avenue. - -Having grasped the situation, I was annoyed. Miss Averill was taking the -less fortunate of her acquaintance for an airing. Though I could do -justice to her kindliness, I resented being forced again into a position -from which I was trying to struggle out. - -Then I saw something that diverted my attention even from my wrongs. -The pavements in Fifth Avenue were thronged with a slowly moving crowd -of men and women, but mostly men, that made progress up or down -impossible. Looking closely, I saw that they were all of the nations -which people like myself are apt to consider most alien to the average -American. Of true Caucasian blood there was hardly a streak among them. -Dark, stunted, oddly hatted, oddly dressed, abject and yet eager, -submissive and yet hostile, they poured up and up and up from all the -side-streets, as runlets from a mountain-side into a great stream. For -the pedestrian, the shopper, the _flaneur_, there was not an inch of -foot room. These surging multitudes monopolized everything. From -Fourteenth Street to Forty-second Street, a distance of more than a mile -along the most extravagantly showy thoroughfare in the world, these two -dense lines of humanity took absolute possession, driving clerks back -into their shops and customers from trade by the sheer weight of -numbers. - -"Good heavens! What's up?" I cried, in amazement. - -Miss Averill, who was doubtless used to the phenomenon, looked mildly -surprised. - -"Why, it's always this way!" she smiled. "It's their lunch-hour. They -come from shops and workshops in the side-streets to see the sights and -get the air." - -"But is it like this every day?" - -"Sure it is!" laughed Miss Blair. "Did you never see the Avenue -before?" - -"I've never seen this before. I'm sure they didn't do it a few years -ago." - -Miss Averill agreed to this. It was a new manifestation, due to the -changes this part of New York had undergone in recent years. - -"But how do the people get in and out of the shops?" - -Miss Blair explained that they couldn't, which was the reason why so -many businesses were being driven up-town. There was an hour in the day -when everything was at a standstill. - -"And if during that hour this inflammable stuff were to be set ablaze--" - -Miss Averill's comment did not make the situation better. "Oh, the same -thing goes on in every city in the country, only you don't see it. New -York is unfortunate in having only one street. Any other street is just -a byway. Here the whole city, for every purpose of its life, has to -pour itself into Fifth Avenue, so that if anything is going on you get -it there." - -We did not continue the subject, for none of us really wanted to talk of -it. In its way it went beyond whatever we were prepared to say. It was -disquieting; it might be menacing. We preferred to watch, to study, to -wonder, as, in the press of vehicles, we slowly made our way between -these banks of outlandish faces, every one of which was like a -slumbering fire. If our American civilization were ever to be blown -violently from one basis to another, as I had sometimes thought might -happen, the social TNT was concentrated here. - -But we were soon in the Park. Soon after that we were running along the -river-bank. Soon after that we came to an inn by a stream in a dimple -of a dell, and here Miss Averill had ordered lunch by telephone. It was -a nice little lunch, in a sort of rude pavilion that simulated eating in -the open air. I noticed that all the arrangements had been made with as -much foresight as if we had been people of distinction. - -So I began to examine my hostess with more attention than I had ever -given her, coming to the conclusion that she belonged to the new variety -of rich American whom I had somewhere had occasion to observe. - -Sensible and sympathetic were the first words you applied to her, and -you could see she was of the type to seek nothing for herself. Brown -was her color, as it so often is that of self-renouncing characters--the -brown of woodland brooks in her eyes, the brown of nuts in her hair, and -all about her an air of conscientiousness that left no place for -coquetry. - -Conscientiousness was her aura, and among the shades of -conscientiousness that in spending money easily came first. I was sure -she had studied the whole question of financial inequality from books, -and as much as she could from observation. Zeal to make the best use of -her income had probably held her back from marriage and dictated her -occupations. It had drawn her to working-girls like Lydia Blair, to -struggling men like Harry Drinkwater, and now indirectly to me. It had -suggested the drive of this morning, and had bidden her gather us round -her table as if we were her equals. She knew we were not her equals, -but she was doing her best to forget the fact, and to have us forget it, -too. With Harry and Lydia I think she was successful. But with me... - -She herself knew she was not successful with me, and when, after the -coffee, the working-girl had taken the blind man and strayed with him -for a few hundred yards into the woods, Miss Averill grew embarrassed. -The more she tried to keep me from seeing it the more she betrayed -it--not in words, or glances, or any trick of color, but in inner -hesitations which only mind-reading could detect. - -As we still sat at the table, but each a little away from it, she -gathered all her resources together to be the lady in authority. - -"I'm glad of a word alone with you because--" Apparently she could get -no farther in this direction, and so took another line. "I think you -said your business was with carpets, didn't you?" - -"Somebody may have said it for me--especially after our little talk -about the rug--but it didn't come from me." - -Her hazel eyes rested on me frankly. "And it's not?" - -"No, it's not." - -"Oh, then--" Her tone was slightly that of disappointment. - -"Did you want it to be?" I smiled. - -"It isn't that; but my brother thought it was--" - -"I'm sure I don't know why--except for the rug. But one can know about -rugs and not have to sell them, can't one?" - -"It's not a usual branch of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and -artists--" - -"Oh, well!" - -"So my brother thought if you were in that kind of work he'd give you a -note to a friend of his---at the head of one of the big carpet -establishments in New York--" - -"It's awfully kind of him," I broke in, as she drew a letter from the -bag she carried, "and if I needed it I'd take it; but--but I don't need -it. It--it wouldn't be any good to me. I thank him none the less -sincerely--and you, too, Miss Averill--" - -She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost resting on her -cheek. - -"I must seem to you very officious, but--" - -"Not in the slightest. I'm extremely grateful. If I required help -there's nobody--" - -"You don't live in New York?" - -"I'm going to stay here for--for the present." - -"But not--not to work?" - -"That I shall have to see." - -"I suppose you're a--a writer--or one of those things." - -"No, I'm not any of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we -laughed. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - -We got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the -hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made -myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet. - -For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of -men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon -began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching -each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though -the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to -lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely -together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there -was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion -of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was -the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra -that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms, -nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his -wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples -dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a -hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge -shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I -mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious -absence, they indicated a socially new America. - -It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a -corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I -felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder. - -In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two -possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was -running away might have found me out--or some friend had come to my -deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest -I should learn my name and history. - -"Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea." - -I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and -sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of -invitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling -without purpose. - -It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the bored _voix trainante_ of one who -has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had -seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as -now--a woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions -of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from -the inflection of her sentences. - -She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall -up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a -well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to -Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had -been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a -song--Goethe's "_Ueber allen Gipfeln_." - -"The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how -I should have my tea. - -"No, the Hugo Wolff." - -I began to hum in an undertone: "'_Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh; in allem -Wipfeln hoerest du kaum einen Hauch_.' Is that the one?" - -The ladies exchanged glances; Averill kept his eyes on my face. - -"Yes, that's the one," Mrs. Averill said, as if nothing unusual had -happened. "So you sing." - -"No; I--I just know the song. I've--I've heard a good deal of music at -one time and another." - -"Abroad?" - -"Yes--abroad--and here." - -"Where especially here?" - -"Oh, New York--Boston--Chicago--different places." I did my best to be -vague. - -I noticed for the first time then a shade of wistfulness in Mildred -Averill's brown eyes as she said: - -"You seem to have moved about a good deal." - -"Oh yes. I wanted--I wanted to see what was happening." - -"And you saw it?" - -Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully. - -"Enough for the present." - -There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the -unuttered question of all three, "Why don't you tell us who you are?" -It was a kindly question, with nothing but sympathy behind it. It was, -in fact, a tacit offer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More -plainly than they could have expressed themselves in words, it said: "We -like you. We are ready to be your friends. Only give us the least -little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know. -Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion." - -When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random. -She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my -chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would be respected, -but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was -saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days -previously. - -And of that she spoke with an intonation that associated me with -herself. She and I had taken two nice young people of the -working-classes for an outing. Let me hasten to say that there was no -condescension in what she said; condescension wasn't in her; there was -only the implication that whatever the ground she stood on, I stood on -that ground, too. She threw out a hint that as New York in these -September days was barely waking from its summer lethargy, and there was -little to fill time, we might all four do the same again. - -In this she was reserved, nunlike, yet--what shall I say? What is there -to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't -supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old -Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or -a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at -the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be -visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the -light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the -green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in -that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and -came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to -changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of -view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like -a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw -the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood -what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known--that -the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because -it was banked down. - -That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me -all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so -I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did -not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the -following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. -I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She -wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I -guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from -me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own -accord. - -But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in -doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have -more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social -life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on -isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of -medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man -there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of -acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I -had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was -to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up -a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, -wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast -of Norway or off that of Mexico. - -So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs. -Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I -should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for -knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of -bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on -all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money -and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much -better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too -closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance. - -Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars -had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing -that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any -minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while -conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with -which I should have associations. - -It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with -some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness -came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was -putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar -listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto -I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by -the change. - -"You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. -"Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill--" - -"Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself." - -"Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here." - -It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume -her own responsibilities. - -So long a time had passed since I had seen the interior of an American -house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out -of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capacity to do it. -Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background -more or less elaborately furnished may be in their minds, but they have -not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful -arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard -jumble. - -In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern -side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy -American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kind of helplessness. -Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't -planned, the street outside. - -A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because -they were monumental. A dining-room behind it was full of high-backed -Italian chairs because they were high-backed and Italian. The stairs -were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid -a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the -floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture -still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the -front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with -plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures -there were but two--modern portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no -difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the -mother I knew nothing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the -father Miss Blair had given me the detailed history as told in _Men Who -Have Made New Jersey_. - -Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving -school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as -clerk or as office-boy into a bank. He chose the bank. Ten years later -he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after -that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City. -Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young -financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name -was honored by those who count in Wall Street. It was the history of -most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of. - -There was no packing-case in the library, but a number of objects -recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed -of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelain and pottery, -both Chinese and European. I had not the time to appraise the things -with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in. - -She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I suppose was tan-colored linens, -she seemed just to have come in from the street. - -"My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday. -I've been good and have been to church." - -We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on -both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her -eyebrows and long curving lashes were black, striking the same discreet -yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the -topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her -chain of amber beads. - -After a little introductory talk she began telling me of the help Miss -Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called -"big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it, -as well as the knack of transcribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had -bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward -to the day when Harry should resume his old job connected with -laboratory work. - -"And what's to become of Miss Blair?" - -My companion lowered her fine lashes, speaking with the seeming shyness -that was her charm. - -"I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I -take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She -understands the kind of people I like to work among--" - -"Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here." - -"I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but -one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think -so?" - -"Oh, of course!" - -"A man--like you, for instance--can be so free; but a woman has to live -within exact limitations. The only way she can get any liberty at all -is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic -to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that -stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be -wonderful to do as one likes--to experiment with different sorts of -life--and get to know things at first hand." - -So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those moderns -with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs. -She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she could sympathize with my -methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words -she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was -what she would have liked herself. - -Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation, -too, the reason of Averill's coldness. They had discussed me a good -deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the -burden of the proof of my innocence lay with me. I might be all -right--and then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to -my probity I was a person to watch with readiness to help, but not one -to ask to luncheon. He would not have invited me to tea a few days -before, and had allowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his -wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she -carried her curiosity to the point of bringing me there that day. - -Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; she would have been -amazed to know that I inferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had -I not seen her brother and partially read his mind. - -But my hostess came trailing in--the verb is the only one I can find to -express her gracefully lymphatic movements--and I was obliged to submit -to a welcome which was overemphasized for the benefit of the husband who -entered behind her. - -"We're really not equipped for having any one come to us," she -apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this -house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to -entertain again--" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear, _couldn't_ -some one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the -array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a -lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames -must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things -when she's got them home." - -I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch -as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by -saying: - -"That's a good thing--that Rouen _saladier_. You don't often pick up one -of that shape nowadays." - -"I saw it in an old shop at Dreux," Mrs. Averill informed me, in her -melting tone. "I got this pair of Ming vases there, too. At least, -they said they were Ming; but I don't suppose they are. One is so taken -in. But I liked them, whatever they are, and so--" - -She lifted one up and brought it to me--a dead-white jar, decorated with -green foliage, violet-blue flowers, and tiny specks of red fruit. - -Something in me leaped. I took the vase in my hand as if it had been a -child of my flesh and blood. I was far from thinking of my hearers as I -said: - -"It's not Ming; but it's very good K'ang-hsi.'" - -I had thrown another little bomb into their camp, but it surprised them -no more than it did me. A trance medium who hears himself speaking in a -hitherto unknown tongue could not have been more amazed at his own -utterance. I went on talking, not to give them information, but to -listen for what I should say next. - -They had all three drawn near me. "How can you tell?" Miss Averill -asked, partly in awe at my knowledge, and partly to give me the chance -to display it. - -"Oh, very much as you can tell the difference between a hat you wear -this year and one you wore five years ago. The styles are quite -different. Ming corresponds roughly to the Tudor period in English -history, and K'ang-hsi to the earlier Stuarts--with much the same -distinction as we get between the output of those two epochs. Ming is -older, bolder, stronger, rougher, with a kind of primitive force in it; -K'ang-hsi is the product of a more refined civilization. It has less of -the instinctive and more deliberate selection. It is more -finished--more self-conscious." I picked up the Rouen salad-dish and a -Sevres cup and saucer, putting them side by side. "It's something like -the difference between these--strength and color and dash in the one, -and in the other a more elaborately perfected art. You couldn't be in -any doubt, once you'd been in the habit of seeing them." - -Mrs. Averill's question was as natural and spontaneous as laughter. - -"Where have you seen them so much, Mr. Soames?" - -"Oh, a little everywhere," I managed to reply, just as we were summoned -to luncheon. - -At table we talked of the pleasures of making "finds" in old European -cities. I had evidently done a lot of it, for I could deal with it in -general quite fluently. When they pinned me down with a question as to -details I was obliged to hedge. I could talk of The Hague and Florence -and Strasbourg and Madrid as backgrounds, but I could never picture -myself to myself as walking in their streets. - -That, however, was not evident to my companions, and as Mrs. Averill's -interests lay along the line of ceramic art I was able to bring out much -in the way of connoisseurship which did not betray me. With Averill -himself I scored a point; with Mildred Averill I scored many. With Mrs. -Averill, beneath a seeming ennui that grew more languorous, I quickened -curiosity to the fever-point. - -"What a lot of things you must have, Mr. Soames." - -My refuge being always in the negative, I said, casually: "Oh no! One -doesn't have to own things just because one admires them." - -"But you say yourself that you've picked them up--" - -As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to -give away--and that kind of thing." - -Averill's eyes were resting on me thoughtfully. "Sell?" - -"No; I've never sold anything like that." - -"But what's the use," Mrs. Averill asked, "of caring about things when -you can't have them? I should hate it." - -"Only that there's nothing you can't have." - -"Do you hear that, Boyd?" I caught the impulse of the purring, velvety -thing to vary the monotony of life by scratching. "Mr. Soames says -there's nothing I can't have. Much he knows, doesn't he?" - -"There's nothing you can't have--within reason, dear." - -"Ah, but I don't want things within reason. I want them out of reason. -I want to be like Mr. Soames--free--free--" - -"You can't be free and be a married woman." - -"You can when you have a vocation, can't you, Mr. Soames? I suppose Mr. -Soames is a married man--and look at him." She hurried beyond this -point, to add: "And look at Sydna, whom we heard the other afternoon! -She's a married woman and her husband lives in London. He lets her sing. -He lets her travel. He leads his life and lets her ... Mr. Soames, what -do you think?" - -I said, tactfully, "I shall be able to judge better when you've sung to -me." - -Miss Averill, taking up the thread of the conversation here, we got -through the rest of the luncheon without treading in difficult places, -and presently I was alone with Averill, who was passing the cigars. - -The constraint which had partially lifted during the conversation at -luncheon fell again with the departure of the ladies. I had mystified -them more than ever; and mystery does not make for easy give and take in -hospitality. To Averill himself his hospitality was sacred. To -entertain at his own board a man with no credentials but those which an -adventurer might present was the source of a discomfort that amounted to -unhappiness. He couldn't conceal it; he didn't care to conceal it. -While fulfilling all that courtesy required of a host, he was willing to -let me see it. I saw it, and could say nothing, since he might easily -be right; and an adventurer I might be. - -As, with his back to the open doorway into the hall, he sat down with -his own cigar, I felt that he was saying to himself, "I wish to God you -were not in this house!" I myself was responding silently by wishing -the same thing. - -It was the obvious minute at which to tell him everything. I saw that -as plainly as you do. Had I made a clean breast of it I should have -become one of the most interesting cases of his experience. Such -instances of shell-shock were just beginning to be talked about. The -term was finding its way into the newspapers and garnishing common -speech. Though I knew of no connection between my misfortunes and the -Great War, I could have made shift to furnish an illustration of this -new phase among its tragedies. - -During a pause in our stilted speech I screwed myself up to the point. -"There's something--" But his attention was distracted for the moment, -and when it came back to me I couldn't begin again. No! I could fight -the thing through on my own; but that would be my utmost. A confession -of breakdown was impossible. - -Then, all at once, I got a glimpse of what was in the back of his mind, -though something else happened simultaneously, of which I must tell you -first. Into the open space between the portieres behind him there -glided a little figure clad in amber-colored linen, the monochrome with -the sun-spots beneath it. She didn't speak, for the reason that Averill -spoke first. - -"You're--" He struck a match nervously to relight his cigar--"you're -a--a married man?" - -Once more negation had to be my refuge. If I admitted that I was he -might ask me whom I had married, and when, and where. I spoke with an -emphasis that sprang not from eagerness of denial, but from anxiety that -the topic shouldn't be discussed. - -"No." - -The question and answer followed so swiftly on Mildred Averill's arrival -on the threshold that she caught them both. Little sparks of gold shone -in the brown pools of her eyes, and her smile took on a new shade of -vitality. - -"Boyd, Lulu wants you to bring your cigars up-stairs. The coffee is -there, and she'd like to talk to Mr. Soames about the old Chinese things -before she begins to sing." - -He jumped to his feet. He was not less constrained, but some of his -uneasiness had passed. I could read what was in his mind. If the worst -came to the worst I was at least a single man; and the worst might not -come to the worst. There might be ways of getting rid of me before his -sister... - -He led the way up-stairs. I followed with Miss Averill, saying I have -forgotten what. I have forgotten it because, as we crossed the -low-ceiled hall with its monumental bits of furniture, two gleaming eyes -stood over me like sentinels in the air. - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - -Within a fortnight my nearly two hundred dollars had come down to nearly -one, and this in spite of my self-denials. - -Self-denials were new to me. I knew that by my difficulties in -beginning to practise them. Such economics as staying at the Barcelona -instead of a more luxurious hotel, or as buying ready-made clothes -instead of waiting for the custom-made, I do not speak of as -self-denials, since they were no more than concessions to a temporary -lack of cash. But the first time I made my breakfast on one egg instead -of two; the first time I suppressed the eggs altogether; the first time -I lunched on a cup of chocolate taken at a counter; the first time I -went without a midday meal of any kind--these were occasions when the -saving of pennies struck me as akin to humiliation. I had formed no -habits to prepare me for it. The possibility that it might continue -began at last to frighten me. - -For none of my artful methods had been successful. I frequented the -hotels; I hung about the entrances to theaters; I tramped the streets -till a new pair of boots became a necessity; but no one ever hailed me -as an old acquaintance. Once only, standing in the doorway of a great -restaurant, did I recognize a face; but it was that of Lydia Blair, -dining with a man. He was a big, round-backed, silver-haired man, with -an air of opulence which suggested that Miss Blair might be taking the -career of adventuress more seriously than I had supposed. Whether or -not she saw me I couldn't tell, for, to avoid embarrassment both for -herself and me, I withdrew to another stamping-ground. What the young -lady chose to do with herself was no affair of mine. Since a pretty -girl of facile temperament would have evident opportunities, it was not -for me to interfere with her. Had she belonged to my own rank in life I -might have been shocked or sorry; but every one knew that a beautiful -working-girl... - -As to my own rank in life a sense of going under false pretenses added -to my anxieties, though it was through no fault of my own. Miss Averill -persisted in giving me the role of romantic seeker for the hard facts of -existence. She did it only by assumption; but she did it. - -"There's nothing like seeing for oneself, is there? It's feeling for -oneself, too, which is more important. I'm so terribly cut off from it -all. I'm like a bird in a cage trying to help those whose nests are -being robbed." - -This was said during the second of the excursions for which Miss Blair -captured me from the lobby of the Barcelona. Her procedure was exactly -the same as on the first occasion, except that she came about the middle -of the afternoon. Nothing but an unusual chance found me sitting there, -idle but preoccupied, as I meditated on my situation while smoking a -cigar. My first impulse to refuse Miss Averill's invitation point-blank -was counteracted by the thought of escape from that daily promenade up -and down the halls of hotels which had begun to be disheartening and -irksome. - -Of this the novelty had passed. The expectations that during the first -week or two had made each minute a living thing had simmered away in a -sense of futility. No old friend having recognized me yet, I was -working round to the conviction that no old friend ever would. If I -kept up the tramp it was because I could see nothing else to do. - -But on this particular afternoon for the first time I revolted. The -effect was physical, in that my feet seemed to be too heavy to be -dragged along. They were refusing their job, while my mind was planning -it. - -Thus in the end I found myself sharing the outing given nominally for -the blind boy, but really planned from a complication of motives which -to Miss Averill were obscure. It did not help to make them clearer that -her wistful, unuttered appeals to me to solve the mystery surrounding my -personality passed by without result. - -The high bank of an autumn wood, the Hudson with a steamer headed -southward, more autumn woods covering the hills beyond, a tea-basket, -tea--this was the decoration. We had alighted from the motor somewhere -in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Tea being over, Miss Blair and -Drinkwater, with chaff and laughter, were clearing up the things and -fitting them back into the basket. - -"She's very clever with him," Miss Averill explained, as she led the way -to a fallen log, on which she seated herself, indicating that I might -sit beside her. "She seizes on anything that will teach him the use of -his fingers, and makes a game of it. He's very quick, too. The next -time he'll be able to take the things out of the tea-basket and put them -back all by himself." - -So we had dropped into her favorite theme, the duty of helping the -helpless. - -She was in brown, as usual, a brown-green, that might have been a Scotch -or Irish homespun, which blended with the wine shades and russets all -about us with the effect of protective coloration. The day was as still -as death, so breathless that the leaves had scarcely the energy to fall. -In the heavy, too-sweet scents there was suggestion and -incitement--suggestion that chances were passing and incitement to seize -them before they were gone. - -I wish there were words in which to convey the peculiar overtones in -Miss Averill's comparison of herself with a bird in a cage. There was -goodness in them, and amusement, as well as something baffled and -enraged. She had been so subdued when I had seen her hitherto that I -was hardly prepared for this half-smothered outburst of fierceness. - -"If you're like a bird in a cage," I said, "you're like the one that -sings to the worker and cheers him up." - -Her pleasure was expressed not in a change of color or a drooping of the -lids, but in a quiet suffusion that might most easily be described as -atmospheric. - -"Oh, as for cheering people up--I don't know. I've tried such a lot of -it, only to find that they got along well enough without me. A woman -wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; -and when she discovers she isn't--" - -The sense of my own apparent superfluity in life prompted me to say: - -"Oh, it isn't only women who discover that." - -Her glance traveled down the steep wooded bank and over the river, to -rest on the wine-colored hills on the other side. - -"Did you--did you ever?"--she corrected herself quickly--"I mean--do -men?" - -"Some men do. It's--it's possible." - -"Isn't it," she asked, tackling the subject in her sensible way, -"primarily a question of money? If you have enough of it not to have to -earn a living--and no particular duties--don't you find yourself edged -out of the current of life? After all, what the world wants is -producers; and the minute one doesn't produce--" - -"What do you mean by producers?" - -She reflected. "I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or -indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs -in living. Wouldn't that cover it?" - -I admitted that it might. - -"And those who don't do that, who merely live on what others produce, -seem to be excluded from the privilege of helpfulness." - -"I can't see that. They help with their money." - -"Money can't help, except indirectly. It's the great mistake of our -philanthropies to think it can. We make a great many mistakes; but we -can make more in our philanthropies than anywhere else. We've never -taken the pains to study the psychology of help. We think money the -panacea for every kind of need, when as a matter of fact it's only the -outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. If you -haven't got the grace the sign rings false, like an imitation coin." - -"Well, what is the grace?" - -"Oh, it's a good many things--a blend--of which, I suppose, the main -ingredient is love." She gave me a wistful half-smile, as she added: -"Love is a very queer thing--I mean this kind of big love for--just for -people. You can always tell whether it's true or false; and the less -sophisticated the people the more instinctively they know. If it's true -they'll accept you; if it's only pumped up, they'll shut you out." - -"I'm sure you ought to know." - -"I do know. I've had a lot of experience--in being shut out." - -"You?" - -She nodded toward Drinkwater and Miss Blair. "They don't let me in. In -spite of all I try to do for them, they're only polite to me. They'll -accept this kind of thing; but I'm as far outside their -confidence--outside their hearts--as a bird in a cage, as I've called -myself, is outside a flock of nest-builders." - -"And assuming that that is so--though I do not assume it--how do you -account for it? - -"Oh, easily enough! I'm not the real thing. I never was--not at the -Settlement--not now--not anywhere or at any time." - -"But how would you describe the real thing?" - -"I can't describe it. All I know is that I'm not it. I'm not working -for them, but for myself." - -"For yourself--how?" - -"To fill in an empty life. When you've no real life you seek an -artificial one. As every one rejects the artificial, you get rejected. -That's all." - -"What would you call a real life--for yourself?" - -The fierceness with which she had been speaking became intensified, even -when tempered with her diffident half-smile. - -"A life in which there was something I was absolutely obliged to do. I -begin to wonder if parents know how much of the zest of living they're -taking away from their children by leaving them, as we say, well -provided for. When there's nothing within reason you can't have and -nothing within reason you can't do--well, then, you're out of the -running." - -"Is that the way you look at yourself--as out of the running?" - -"That's the way I _am_." - -"And is there no means of getting into the running?" - -"There might be if I wasn't such a coward." - -"If you weren't such a coward what would you do?" - -"Oh, there are things. You've--you've found them. I would do like -you." - -"And do you know what I'm doing?" - -"I can guess." - -"And you guess--what?" - -"It's only a guess--of course." - -"But what is it?" - -She rose with a weary gesture. "What's the good of talking about it? A -knight in disguise remains in disguise till he chooses to throw off his -incognito." - -"And when he has thrown it off--what does he become then?" - -"He may become something else--but he's--he's none the less--a knight." - -We stood looking at each other, in one of those impulses of mutual -frankness that are not without danger. - -"And if there was a knight who--who couldn't throw off his incognito?" - -She shrugged her shoulders. "Then I suppose he'd always be a knight in -disguise--something like Lohengrin." - -"And what would Elsa think of that?" - -Seeing the implication in this indiscreet question even before she did, -I felt myself flush hotly. - -I admired the more, therefore, the ease with which she carried the -difficult moment off. Moving a few steps toward Drinkwater and Miss -Blair, who were shutting up the tea-basket, she threw over her shoulder: - -"If there was an Elsa I suppose she'd make up her mind when the time -came." - -She was still moving forward when I overtook her to say: - -"I wish I could speak plainly." - -She stopped to glance up at me. "And can't you?" - -"Were you ever in a situation which you felt you had to swing alone? -You know you could get help; you know you could count on sympathy; but -whenever you're impelled to appeal for either something holds you back." - -"I never was in such a situation, but I can imagine what it's like. May -I ask one question?" - -I felt obliged to grant the permission. - -"Is it of the nature of what is generally called trouble?" - -"It's of the nature of what is generally called misfortune." - -"And I suppose I mustn't say so much as that I'm sorry." - -"You could say that much," I smiled, "if you didn't say any more." - -She repeated the weary gesture of a few minutes earlier, a slight -tossing outward of both hands, with a heavy drop against the sides. - -"What a life!" - -As she began to move on once more I spoke as I walked beside her. - -"What's the matter with life?" - -Again she paused to confront me. In her eyes gold lights gleamed in the -brown depths of the irises. - -"What sense is there in a civilization that cuts us all off from each -other? We're like prisoners in solitary confinement--you in one cell -and Boyd in another and Lulu in another and I in another, and everybody -else in his own or her own and no communication or exchange of help -between us. It's--it's monstrous." - -The half-choked passion of her words took me the more by surprise for -the reason that she treated me as if the defects of our civilization -were my fault. Joining Lydia Blair and taking her by the arm, she led -the way back to the motor, while I was left to pilot Drinkwater, who -carried the tea-basket. During the drive back to town our hostess -scarcely spoke, and not once to me directly. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - -But I was troubled by all this, and puzzled. That I couldn't afford the -complication of a love-affair will be evident to any one; but that a -love-affair threatened was by no means clear. As far as that went it was -as fatuous on my part to think of it as it would have been for -Drinkwater, except in so far as it involved danger to myself. - -For a few hours that danger did not suggest itself. That is, I was so -busy speculating as to Mildred Averill's meaning that I had no time to -analyze the way I was taking it. Weighing her words, her impulses, her -impatiences, I saw no more than that she might be offering her treasures -at the feet of a wooden man, a carved and painted figment, without -history or soul. - -That is, unless I mistook her meanings as Malvolio mistook Viola's! - -There was that side to it, too. It was the aspect of the case on which -I dwelt all through my lonely dinner. I had not forgotten Boyd -Averill's reception of me on the Sunday of the luncheon; I never should -forget it. There is something in being in the house of a man who is -anxious to get you out of it unlike any other form of humiliation. The -very fact that he refrains from pointedly showing you the door only -gives time for the ignominy to sink in. Nothing but the habit of doing -certain things in a certain way carried me through those two hours and -enabled me to take my departure without incivility. On going down the -steps the sense that I had been kicked out was far more keen than if -Averill had given way to the actual physical grossness. - -Some of this feeling, I admit, was fanciful. It was due to the -disturbed imagination natural to a man whose mental equipment has been -put awry. Averill had been courteous throughout my visit. More than -that, he was by nature kindly. Anywhere but in his own house his -attitude to me would have been cordial, and for anything I needed he -would have backed me with more than his good-will. - -Nevertheless, that Sunday rankled as a poisoned memory, and one from -which I found it impossible wholly to dissociate any member of his -family. Though I could blame Mrs. Averill a little, I could blame Miss -Averill not at all; and yet she belonged to the household in which I had -been made to feel an unwelcome guest. That in itself might give me a -clue to her sentiment toward me. - -As I went on with my dinner I came to the conclusion that it did give me -such a clue. I was the idiot Malvolio thinking himself beloved of -Viola. Where there was nothing but a balked philanthropy I was looking -for the tender heart. The dictionary teemed with terms that applied to -such a situation, and I began to heap them on myself. - -I heaped them on myself with a sense not of relief, but of -disappointment. That was the odd discovery I made, as much to my -surprise as my chagrin. Falling in love with anybody was no part of my -program. It was out of the question for obvious reasons. In addition -to these I was in love with some one else. - -That is to say, I knew I had been in love; I knew that in the portion of -my life that had become obscured there had been an emotional drama of -which the consciousness remained. It remained as a dream remains when -we remember the vividness and forget the facts--but it remained. I -could view my personality somewhat as you view a countryside after a -storm has passed over it. Without having witnessed the storm you can -tell what it was from the havoc left behind. There was some such havoc -in myself. - -Just as I could look into the glass and see a face young, haggard, -handsome, if I may use the word without vanity, that seemed not to be -mine, so I could look into my heart and read the suffering of which I no -longer perceived the causes. It was like looking at the scar of a wound -received before you can remember. Your body must have bled from it, -your nerves must have ached; even now it is numb or sensitive; but its -history is lost to you. It was once the outstanding fact of your -childish existence; and now all of which you are aware is something -atrophied, lacking, or that shrinks at a touch. - -In just that way I knew that passion had once flashed through my life, -but had left me nothing but the memory of a memory. I could trace its -path almost as easily as you can follow the track of a tornado through a -town--by the wreckage. I mean by the wreckage an emotional weariness, an -emotional distress, an emotional distaste for emotion; but above -everything else I mean a craving to begin the emotion all over again. - -I often wondered if some passional experience hadn't caused the -shattering of the brain cells. I often wondered if the woman I had loved -was not dead. I wondered if I might not even have killed her. Was that -the crime from which I was running away? Were the Furies pursuing me? -Was it to be my punishment to fall in love with another woman and suffer -the second time because the first suffering had defeated its own ends in -making me insensible? - -All through the evening thoughts of this kind, now and then with a -half-feverish turn, ran through my mind, till by the time I went to bed -love no longer seemed impossible. It was appalling; and yet it had a -fascination. - -So for the next few days I walked with a vision pure, unobtrusive, -subdued, holy in its way, which nevertheless broke into light and -passion and flame that nobody but myself was probably aware of. I also -gleaned from Lydia Blair, who had a journalistic facility in gathering -personal facts, that Mildred Averill's place in New York life was not -equal to her opportunities. - -"There are always girls like that," Miss Blair commented. "They've got -all the chances in the world, and don't know how to make use of them. -She's not a bad looker, not when you come to study her; and yet you -couldn't show her off with the dressiest models in New York." - -I ventured to suggest that showing off might not be Miss Averill's -ambition. - -"And a good thing too, poor dear. If it was it would be the limit. She -sure has the sense to know what she can't do. That's something. Look -here, Harry," she continued, sharply, "I told you before that if you're -going to take letters down from the dictaphone you've got to read them -through to the end before you begin to transcribe. Then you'll know -where the corrections come in. Now you've got to go back and begin all -over again. See here, my dear. If you think I'm going to waste my -perfectly good time giving you lessons that you don't listen to you've -got your nerve with you." - -It was one of my rare visits to Miss Flowerdew's dark front parlor, of -which Drinkwater had the use, and I was making the call for a purpose. I -knew there were certain afternoons when Miss Blair "breezed in," as she -expressed it, to give some special lesson to her pupil; and I had heard -once or twice that on such occasions Miss Averill, too, had come to lend -him her encouragement. Nominally she brought a cylinder from which -Drinkwater was to copy the letters her brother had dictated; but really -her mission was one of sympathy. Seeing the boy in such good hands, and -happy in his lot, I had the less compunction in leaving him alone. I -left him alone, as I have said, in order not to be identified more than -I could help with two stenographers. - -My visit of this day was notably successful in that I obtained from Miss -Blair her own summing up of the social position of the Averill family. - -As far as they carried a fashionable tag it was musical. Mrs. Averill -had a box at the opera, and was seen at all the great concerts. She -entertained all the great singers and all wandering celebrities of the -piano and violin. Before she went to Europe she had begun to make a -place for herself with her Sunday afternoons, at which one heard the -most renowned artists of the world singing or playing for friendship's -sake. In her own special line she might by now have been one of the -most important hostesses in New York had it not been for her -constitutional weakness in "chucking things." - -She had always chucked things just when beginning to make a success of -them. She had chucked her career as a girl in good society in order to -work for the concert stage. She had chucked the concert stage in order -to marry a rich man. She had chucked the advantages of being a rich -man's wife while in the full tide of social recognition. With immense -ambitions, she lacked steadiness of purpose, and so, according to Miss -Blair, she was always "getting left." Getting left implied that as far -as New York was concerned Lulu Averill was nowhere when she might easily -have been somewhere, with a consequent feeling on her part of boredom -and disappointment. - -It reacted on her husband in compelling him to work in unsettled -conditions and without the leisure and continuity so essential to -research. Miss Blair's expression was that the poor man never knew where -he was at. Adoring his wife, he was the more helplessly at her beck and -call, for the reason that he had long ago come to the knowledge that his -wife didn't adore him. Holding her only by humoring her whims, he was -just now struggling with her caprice to go back to the concert stage -again. - -To Mildred Averill all this made little difference because she had none -of the aims commonly grouped as social. Miss Blair understood that from -her childhood she had been studious, serious, living quietly with her -elderly parents at Mornstown, and acquiring their elderly tastes. "Its -fierce the way old people hamper a girl," Lydia commented. "Just -because they're your father or mother they think they've a right to suck -your life-blood like a leech. My mother died when I was sixteen," she -added, in a tone of commendation. "Of course you're lonely-like at -times--but then you're free." Freedom to Mildred Averill, however, was -all the same as being bound. She didn't know how to make use of liberty -or give herself a good time. When her father died she stayed on with -her mother at Morristown, and when the mother "punched the clock for the -next life"--the figure was Miss Blair's--she simply joined her brother -and sister-in-law in New York. After she went out of mourning she was -sometimes seen at a concert or the opera with Mrs. Averill. There was -no more to her social life than that and an occasional dinner. -"Gray-blooded, I call it," Miss Blair threw in again, "and a sinful -waste of good chances. My! if I had them!" - -"Perhaps you can have them," I suggested, Harry Drinkwater having gone -for a minute to his room. "Miss Averill told me one day that she -thought of taking a house and asking you to live with her." - -"Me? Do you see me playing second fiddle to a girl as sure bound to be -an old maid as I'm bound to be--" - -"An adventuress." - -"I'm bound to be an adventuress--if I like." - -"Oh, then there's a modification to your program. The last time we -talked about it you were going to do it. Now it's only--if you like." - -Her lovely blue eyes shot me a look of protest. "You wouldn't want me to -do it--if I didn't like. The worst of being an adventuress is the kind -of guys you must adventure with. You don't mean to thrust them down my -throat." - -"Oh, I'm not urging you at all. I did happen to see you one evening at -the restaurant Blitz--" - -She nodded. "I saw you. What were you doing there? You don't feed at -places like that." - -"How do you know I don't?" - -"Well, I don't know. That's just the trouble. Sometimes I think you're -a--" - -"I'm a--what?" - -"See here! You give me the creeps. Do you know it?" - -"How?" - -"Well, you saw that guy I was with at the Blitz." - -"Looked like a rich fathead." - -"Yes; but you know he's a rich fathead. He's as clear as a glass of -water. You're like"--she paused for a simile--"you're like something -that might be a cocktail--and might be a dose of poison." She turned on -me with a new flash in her blue eyes. "Look here! Tell me honest, now. -Are you a swell crook--or ain't you?" - -[Illustration: She turned on me with a new flash in her blue eyes. -"Look here! Tell me honest, now. Are you a swell crook--or ain't you?" -"Suppose I say that--that I ain't." "Say, kid!" she responded, coldly, -"talk like yourself, will you? ... If you're not a swell crook I can't -make you out.] - -"Suppose I say that--that I ain't." - -"Say, kid!" she responded, coldly, "talk like yourself, will you?" She -threw her hands apart, palms outward. "Well, if you're not a swell -crook I can't make you out." - -"But as a swell crook you could. Is that it?" - -"Why do you keep hanging round Miss Averill?" she asked, bluntly. "What -do you expect to get by that?" - -"What do you expect to get by asking me?" - -Her reply was a kind of challenge. "The truth. Do you know it?" - -I felt uncomfortable. It was one of the rare occasions on which I had -seen this flower-like face drop its bantering mask and grow serious. -The _voix de Montmartre_ had deepened in tone and put me on the -defensive. - -"I thought you told me on board ship that you looked on all people of -Miss Averill's class as the prey of those in--in ours." - -"I don't care what I told you on board ship. You're to keep where you -belong as far as she's concerned--or I'll give the whole bloomin' show -away, as they say in English vawdville." - -"There again; it's what you said you wouldn't do. You said you'd be my -friend--" - -"I'll be your friend right up to there--but that's the high-water mark." - -I thought it permissible to change my front. "If it comes to that, I've -done no hanging round Miss Averill on my own account. It's you who've -come for me to the Hotel Barcelona every time--" - -"Harry made me do that; but even so--well, you don't have to fall in the -water just because you're standing on a wharf." - -"It doesn't hurt the water if you do. You can get soaked, and make -yourself look ridiculous, but the beautiful blue sea doesn't mind." - -"You can make it splash something awful, and send ripples all over the -lot. Don't you be too sure of not being dangerous. You wouldn't be -everybody's choice--but you have that romantic way--like a prince-guy -off the level--and she not used to men--or having a lot of them around -her all the time, like--" - -"Like you." - -"Like me," she accepted, composedly; "and so if I see anything that's -not on the square I'll--I'll hand out the right dope about you without -the least pity." - -"And when you hand out the right dope about me what will it be?" - -"You poor old kid, what do you think it will be? If you make people -think you're a swell crook it's almost the same as being one." - -"But do I make people think I'm a swell crook?" - -"You make me." - -"What do I do to--" - -"It's not what you do, it's what you don't do--or what you don't say. -Why don't you tell people who you are, or what your business is, or -where you come from? Everybody can hitch on to something in a world, -but you don't seem to belong anywhere. If any one asks you a question -it's always No! No! No! till you can tell what your answer will be -beforehand. Surely there's a Yes somewhere in your life! If you always -hide it you can't blame people for thinking there's something to be -hidden." - -"And yet you'd be my friend." - -"Oh, I've been friends to worse than that. I wasn't born yesterday--not -by a lot. All I say is, 'Hands off little old Milly Averill!' but for -the rest you can squeak along in your own way. I'm a good sort. I -don't interfere with any one." - -Drinkwater being on the threshold and the conversation having yielded me -all I hoped to get, I made an excuse for going. Miss Averill had not -appeared, and now I was glad of it. Had she come I could not have met -her under Lydia's cold eye without self-consciousness. It began to -strike me, too, that the best thing I could do was to step out from the -circle of all their lives and leave no clue behind me. - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - -It was not a new reflection, as you know; and of late it had been -growing more insistent. The truth is that I needed to find work. My -nearly one hundred dollars was melting away with unbelievable rapidity. -Expenses being reduced to a rule of thumb, I could count the days after -which I shouldn't have a cent. Winter was coming. Already there were -mornings with the nip of frost in them. I should require boots, -clothes, warm things of all sorts. Food and shelter I couldn't do -without. - -It was the incredible, the impossible. Nebuchadnezzar driven from men -and eating grass like an ox couldn't have been more surprised to see -himself in such a state of want. Somewhere, out of the memories that had -not disappeared, I drew the recollection that to need boots and not be -able to afford them had been my summary of an almost inhuman degree of -poverty. I could remember trying to picture what it would be like to -find myself in such a situation and not being able to do so. I had -bought a new pair since coming to New York, and they were already -wearing thin. - -It came to me again--it came to me constantly, of course--that I could -save myself by going to some sympathetic person and telling him my tale. -I rejected now the idea of making Boyd Averill my confidant; but there -were other possibilities. There were doctors, clergymen, policemen. As -a matter of fact, people who suffered from amnesia, and who didn't know -their names, generally applied to the police. - -In the end I opted for a clergyman as being the most human of these -agencies. Vaguely I was aware that vaguely I belonged to a certain -church. I had tested myself along the line of religion as well as along -other lines, with the discovery that the services of one church were -familiar, while those of others were not. - -From the press I learned that the Rev. Dr. Scattlethwaite, the head of a -large and wealthy congregation, was perhaps the best known exponent in -New York of modern scientific beneficence, and by attendance at one of -his services I got the information that at fixed hours of every day he -was in his office at his parish house for the purpose of meeting those -in trouble. It was a simple matter, therefore, to present myself, and -be met on the threshold of his waiting-room by the young lady who acted -as his secretary. - -She was a portly young lady, light on her feet, quick in her movements, -dressed in black, with blond fluffy hair, and a great big welcoming -smile. The reception was much the same as in any doctor's office, and I -think she diagnosed my complaint as the drug habit. Asking me to take a -seat she assured me that Doctor Scattlethwaite would see me as soon as -he was disengaged. When she had returned to her desk, where she seemed -to make endless notes, I had leisure to look about me. - -Except for a large white wooden cross between two doors, it might have -been a waiting-room in a hospital. Something in the atmosphere -suggested people meeting agonies--or perhaps it was something in myself. -As far as that went, there were no particular agonies in the long table -strewn with illustrated papers and magazines, nor in the bookrack -containing eight or ten well-thumbed novels. Neither were agonies -suggested by the Arundel print of the Resurrection on one bit of -wall-space, nor by the large framed photograph of the Arch of -Constantine on another. All the same there was that in the air which -told one that no human being in the world would ever come into this room -otherwise than against his will. - -And yet in that I may be wrong, considering how many people there are -who enjoy the luxury of sorrow. I guessed, for example, that the -well-dressed woman in mourning who sat diagonally opposite me was -carrying her grief to every pastor in New York and refusing to be -comforted by any. Another woman in mourning, rusty and cheap in her -case, flanked by two vacant-eyed children, had evidently come to collect -a portion of the huge financial bill she was able to present against -fate. An extremely thin lady, with eyes preternaturally wide open, was -perhaps a sufferer from insomnia, while the little old man with broken -boots and a long red nose was plainly an ordinary "bum." These were my -companions except that a beaming lady of fifty or so, dressed partly -like a Salvation Army lassie and partly like a nun, and whom I took to -be Doctor Scattlethwaite's deaconess _en litre_, bustled in and out for -conferences with the fluffy-haired girl at the desk. - -I beguiled the waiting, which was long and tedious, by co-ordinating my -tale so as to get the main points into salience. It was about ten in -the morning when I arrived, and around half past ten the lady who had -first claim on Doctor Scattlethwaite came out from her audience. She was -young and might have been pretty if she hadn't been so hollow-eyed and -walked with her handkerchief pressed closely to her lips. I put her -down as a case of nervous prostration. - -The lady with the inconsolable sorrow was next summoned by the -secretary, and so one after another those who had preceded me went in to -take their turns. Mine came after the old "bum," when it was nearly -twelve o'clock. - -The room was a kind of library. I retain an impression of books lining -the walls, a leather-covered lounge, one or two leather-covered -easy-chairs, and a large flat-topped desk in the center of the -floor-space. Behind the desk stood a short, square-shouldered man in a -dark-gray clerical attire, with a squarish, benevolent, clean-shaven -face, and sharp, small eyes which studied me as I crossed the floor. -His aspect and attitude were business-like, and business-like was his -manner of shaking hands as he asked me to sit down. An upright -arm-chair stood at the corner of the desk, and as I took it he resumed -his seat in his own revolving-chair which he tilted slightly backward. -With his elbows on the arms and fitting the tips of his fingers -together, he waited for me to state my errand, eying me all the while. - -Relieved and yet slightly disconcerted by this non-committal bearing, I -stumbled through my story less coherently than I had meant to tell it. -Badly narrated, it was preposterous, especially as coming from a man in -seemingly full possession of his faculties. All that enabled me to -continue was that my hearer listened attentively, with no outward -appearance of disbelieving me. - -"And you've come to me for advice as to the wise thing for you to do," -he said, not unsympathetically, when I had brought my lame story to a -close. - -"That's about it," I agreed, though conscious of a regret at having come -at all. - -"Then the first thing I should suggest," he continued, never taking his -penetrating eyes from my face, "is that you should see a doctor--a -specialist--a neurologist. I'll give you a line to Doctor Glegg--" - -"What would he do?" I ventured to question. - -"That would depend on whether or not you could pay for treatment. I -presume, from what you've said of your funds giving out, that you -couldn't." - -"No, I couldn't," I assented, reddening. - -"Then he'd probably put you for observation into the free psychopathic -ward at Mount Olivet--" - -"Is that an insane-asylum?" - -"We don't have insane-asylums nowadays; but in any case it isn't what -you mean. It's a sanitarium for brain diseases--" - -"I shouldn't want to go to a place like that." - -"Then what would you suggest doing?" - -"I thought--" But I was not sure as to what I had thought. Hazily I -had imagined some Christian detective agency hunting up my family, -restoring my name, and giving me back my check-book. It was probably on -the last detail that unconsciously to myself I was laying the most -emphasis. "I thought," I stammered, after a slight pause, "that--that -you might be inclined to--to help me." - -"With money?" - -The question was so direct as to take me by surprise. - -"I didn't know exactly how--" - -"An average of about fifteen people come to see me every day," he said, -in his calm, business-like voice, "and of the fifteen about five are -men. And of the five men an average of four come, with one plausible -tale or other, to get money out of me under false pretenses." - -I shot out of my seat. The anger choking me was hardly allayed by the -raising of his hand and his suave, "Sit down again." He went on -quietly, as I sank back into my chair: "I only want you to see that with -all men who come telling me strange tales my first impulse must be -suspicion." - -Indignation almost strangled me. "And--and--am I to understand -that--that it's suspicion--now?" - -"So long as money is a factor in the case it must be--till everything is -explained." - -"But everything _is_ explained." - -"To your satisfaction--possibly; but hardly to mine." - -"Then what explanation would be satisfactory to you?" - -"Oh, any of two or three. Since you decline to put yourself under -Doctor Glegg, you might be able to offer some corroboration. - -"But I can't. I've kept my secret so closely that no one has heard it -but myself. The few people I know would be as incredulous as you are." - -"I don't say that I'm incredulous; I'm only on my guard. Don't you see? -I have to be." - -"But surely when a man is speaking the truth his manner must carry some -conviction." - -"I wish I could think so; but I've believed so many false yarns on the -strength of a man's manner, and disbelieved so many true ones on the -same evidence, that I no longer trust my own judgment. But please don't -be annoyed. If your mental condition is such as you describe, I'm -proposing the most scientific treatment you can get in New York. In -addition to that, I know that Doctor Glegg has had a number of such -cases and has cured them." - -"You know that?" - -"Perhaps I ought to say that they've been cured while under his care. I -think I've heard him say that as a matter of fact they've cured -themselves. Without knowing much of the malady, I rather think it's one -of those in which time restores the ruptured tissues, with the aid of -mental rest." - -"If that's all--" - -"Oh, I don't say that it's all; but as far as I understand it's a large -part of it. But then I don't understand very much. That's why I'm -suggesting--" - -"I could get mental rest of my own accord if--" - -"Yes? If--what?" - -"If I could find out who--who I am." - -"And you've no clues at all?" - -I shook my head. - -"Have you heard no names that were familiar to you--?" - -"Scores of them; but none with which I could connect myself." - -"And did you think I could find out for you what you yourself have not -been able to discover?" - -"I didn't know but what you might have means." - -"What means could I have? As far as I've ever heard, the only way of -tracing a lost man is through the police--with detectives--and -publicity--descriptions in the papers--photographs thrown on -screens--that sort of thing. I don't think there's any other way." - -I took perhaps two minutes, perhaps three, to ponder these -possibilities. In the end they seemed to magnify my misfortune. - -"Then, sir, that's all you can do for me?" - -"Remember that I should be doing a great deal if I got you to put -yourself under Doctor Glegg." - -"In the free psychopathic ward of a sanitarium for diseases of the -brain--to be watched." - -"To be under observation. There's a difference." - -"All the observation in the world wouldn't tell Doctor Glegg more than -I'm telling you now." - -"Oh yes, it would. It would tell him--it would tell me--you must excuse -me, you know--but the situation obliges me to speak frankly--it would -tell him--it would tell me--whether or not your story is a true one." - -"So you don't believe me?" - -"How can I believe you on the strength of this one interview?" - -"But how could I convince you in a dozen interviews?" - -"You couldn't. Nothing would convince me but something in the way of -outside proof--or Doctor Glegg's report." - -I rose, not as I did before, but slowly, and I hoped with dignity. - -"Then I see no reason, sir, for taking your time any longer--" - -He too rose, business-like, imperturbable. - -"My dear young man, I must leave that to you. My time is entirely at -your disposal and all my good-will." - -"Thanks." - -"And I'll go as far as to say this, that I think the probabilities are -in your favor. I will even add that if I hadn't thought so in a hundred -other cases, in which men whom I pitied--trusted--and aided--were making -me a dupe-- You see, I've been at this thing a good many years--" - -Managing somehow to bow myself out, I got into the air again. I -attributed my wrath to the circumstances of not being taken at my word; -but the real pang lay in the thought of being watched, as a type of mild -lunatic and a pauper. - - - - - *PART II* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - -I had made this experiment as a concession to what you will consider -common sense. Ever since landing in New York the idea that the natural -thing to do was to make my situation known had haunted me. Well, I had -made it known, much against the grain, with results such as I had partly -expected. I had laid myself open to the semi-accusation of trumping up -a cock-and-bull story to get money under false pretenses. - -So no one could help me but myself! I had felt that from the first, and -now I was confirmed in the conviction. It was useless either to -complain or to rebel. Certain things were to be done, and no choice -remained with me but to do them in the heartiest way possible. I had -the wit to see that the heartier the way the more likely I was to attain -to the mental rest which was apparently a condition of my recovery. - -From this point of view work became even more pressing than before, and -I searched myself for things that I could do. - -Of all my experiences this was the most baffling. In the same way that I -knew I had enjoyed a generous income I knew I had never been an idler. -That is, I knew it by the habit of a habit. I had the habit of a habit -of occupation. I got up each morning with a sense of things to do. -Finding nothing to be done, I felt thwarted, irritated, uneasy in the -conscience. I must always have worked, even if pay had not been a -matter of importance. - -But what had I worked at? I had not been a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a -clergyman, nor a banker, nor a merchant, nor a manufacturer, nor a -teacher, nor a journalist, nor a writer, nor a painter, nor an actor, -nor a sculptor, nor a civil engineer. All this was easy to test by the -things I didn't know and couldn't do. I could ride and drive and run a -motor-car. I had played tennis and golf and taken an interest in -yachting and aviation. I could not say that I had played polo, but I -had looked on at matches, and had also frequented horse-races. These -facts came to me not so much as memories, but as part of a general -equipment. But I could find no sense of a profession. - -Thrown back on the occupations I can only class as nondescript, I began -looking for a job. That is, I began to study the advertised lists of -"Wants" in the hope of finding some one in search of the special line of -aptitude implied by cultivation. I had some knowledge of books, of -pictures, of tapestries, of prints. Music was as familiar to me as to -most people who have sat through a great many concerts, and I had -followed such experiments as those of the Abbey Theater in Dublin and -Miss Horniman's Manchester Players in connection with the stage. - -Unfortunately, there was no clamor for these accomplishments in the -press of New York and the neighboring cities, the end of a week's study -finding me just where I began. For chauffeurs and salesmen there were -chances; but for people of my order of attainment there were none. I -thought of what Mildred Averill had said during our last conversation: - -"After all, what the world wants is producers; and the moment one -doesn't produce--" - -She left her sentence there because all had been said. The world wanted -producers and was ready to give them work. It would also give them pay, -after a fashion. One producer might get much and another little, but -every one would get something. The secret of getting most evidently lay -in producing the thing most required. - -I remembered, too, that Mildred Averill had defined the producer as he -seemed to her: I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or -indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs -in living. - -There again, the more vital the need, the greater the contribution, and -needs when you analyzed them were mostly elementary. The more elemental -you were, the closer you lived to the stratum the world couldn't do -without. That stratum was basic; it was bedrock. Wherever you went you -had to walk on it, and not on mountain-peaks or in the air. - -I was not pleased with these deductions. It seemed to me a gross thing -in life that salesmen and chauffeurs should be more in demand than men -who could tell you at a glance the difference between a Henri Deux and a -Jacobean piece of furniture, or explain the weaves and designs of a -Flemish tapestry as distinguished from a Gobelin or an Aubusson. I was -eager to prove my qualifications for a place in life to be not without -value. To have nothing to do was bad enough, but to be unfit to do -anything was to be in a state of imbecility. - -So I made several attempts, of which one will serve as an instance of -all. - -Walking in Fifth Avenue and attracted by the shop windows, I couldn't -help being struck by New York's love of the antique. To me the antique -was familiar. Boyd Averill had asked me if I hadn't sold it. I had -said I hadn't--but why not? Beauty surely entered into the sum total of -needs in living, and I had, moreover, often named it to myself as the -thread of flame by which I should find my way. - -All the same, it required some effort to walk into any of these -storehouses of the loot of castles and cathedrals and offer my services -as judge and connoisseur. On the threshold of three I lost my courage -and stepped back. It was only after stopping before a fourth, the -window severely simple with three ineffable moon-white jars set against -a background of violet shot with black, that I reasoned myself into -taking the step. It was a case of _de l'audace, de l'audace, et encore -de l'audace_. By audacity alone were high things accomplished and great -fortunes won. Before I could recoil from this commendable reflection I -opened the door and went in. - -I found myself in a gallery resembling certain venerable sacristies. -The floor was carpeted in red, the walls lined with cabinets paneled in -ebony, their doors discreetly closed on the treasures inside. In a -corner an easel supported a black-framed flower-piece, probably by -Huysmans. On a well-preserved Elizabethan table partly covered with a -square of filet lace was a tea-service of Nantgarw or Rockingham. -Nothing could have been more in accordance with my own ideas of -conducting a business than this absence of crude display. - -I had leisure to make these observations, because the only other visible -occupant of the shop, if I may use the word of a shrine so dignified, -was a young lady who moved slowly toward me down the gallery. She was -in the neatest black, with only a string of pearls for ornament. -Healthily pale, with fair hair carefully "marcelled," her hands resting -on each other in front of her, she approached me with a faint smile that -emphasized her composure. - -"You wish--?" - -I had not considered the words in which I should frame my application, -so I stammered: - -"I--I thought I--I might be of--of some use here." - -The faint smile faded, but the composure remained as before. - -"Some--what?" - -"Use. I--I understand these things. That tea-service, now, it's -Rockingham or Nantgarw, possibly Chelsea. The three moon-white jars in -the window, two of them gourd-shaped--" - -"Did you want to look at them?" - -"No," I blurted out, "to--to sell them." - -"Sell them? How do you mean? We mean to sell them ourselves." - -"But don't you ever--ever need--what shall I call it--an extra hand? -Don't you ever have a place for that?" - -She grew nervous, and yet not so nervous as to lose the power of keeping -me in play. - -"Oh yes! Certainly! An--an extra hand! I'll call Mr. Chessland. Mr. -Chessland! Please--_please_--come here. Lovely day, isn't it?" she -continued, as a short, thick-set figure came waddling from the back of -the premises. "We don't often have such lovely weather at this time of -year, though sometimes we do--we do very often, don't we? You never can -tell about weather, can you?" - -Mr. Chessland, who was more Armenian than his name, having come near -enough to keep an eye on me, she fell back toward him, whispering -something to which he replied only in pantomime. Only in pantomime he -replied to me, pursing his rosy, thick lips, and lifting his hands, -palms outward, as in some form of Oriental supplication, pushing me with -repeated gestures back toward the door. I went back toward the door in -obedience to the frightened little fat man's urge, since I was as -terrified as he. Though I was out on the pavement again the door didn't -close till I heard the girl ask, in an outburst of relief: - -"Do you think he was nervy, or only off his nut?" - -It came to me slowly that a man in search of work is somehow the object -of suspicion. The whole world being so highly mechanized, it admits of -no loose screw. The loose screw obviously hasn't fitted; and if it -hasn't fitted in the place for which it was made it is unlikely to fit -in another. - -Furthermore, a man is so impressionable that he quickly adopts of -himself the view that others take of him. Going about from shop to -shop, bringing my simple guile to bear first on one smooth-spoken -individual and then another, only in the end, in the phrase once used to -me, "to get the gate," I shrank in my own estimation. The gate seemed -all I was fit for. I began to see myself as going out through an -endless succession of gates, expelled by hands like Mr. Chessland's, but -never welcomed within one. For a man who had instinctively the habit of -rating himself with the best, of picking and choosing his own company, -of ignoring those who didn't suit him as if they had never existed, the -revolution of feeling was curious. - -Then I discovered that one point of contact with organized society had -been also removed. - -Early in December I went to look up Drinkwater, whom I hadn't seen for a -month. It was not friendliness that sent me; it was loneliness. Day -after day had gone by, and except for the people to whom I applied for -work I hadn't spoken to any one. - -True, I had been busy. In addition to looking for a job I had written -articles for the press and had made strenuous efforts to secure a place -as French teacher in a boys' school. This I think I should have got had -I been actually French; but when the decision was made a native -Frenchman had turned up and been given the preference. As for my -articles, some of them were sent back to me, and of the rest I never -heard. So I had been less lonely than I might have been, even if my -occupations had brought me no success. - -In addition to that I had refrained from visiting the blind boy from a -double motive: there was first the motive that was always present, that -of not wishing to continue the acquaintance of people outside my class -in life; then there was the reason that I was anxious now to avoid a -possible chance meeting with Miss Averill. - -I could easily have been in love with her. There was no longer a -question about that. It must be remembered that I was appallingly -adrift--and she had been kind to me. I had been grotesque, suspected, -despised--and she had been kind to me. She had gone out of her way to -be kind to me; she had been sisterly; she had been tender. Something -that was of value in me which no one else had seen, she had seen and -done justice to. In circumstances that made me a mystery to every one, -myself included, she had had the courage to believe me a gentleman and -to put me on a level with herself. As the days went by, and this -recognition remained the sole mitigation of a lot that had grown -infinitely bitterer than I ever supposed it could become, I felt that if -I didn't love her I adored her. - -For this reason I had to avoid her; I had to take pains that she should -not see me. Even if other circumstances had not made friendship between -us hopeless, my impending social collapse must have had that effect. No -good could ensue from our meeting again; and so I kept away from places -where a meeting could occur. - -But an afternoon came when some sort of human intercourse became -necessary to keep me from despair. It was the day when I lost my chance -at the boys' school. It was also a day when three of my articles had -fluttered back to me. It was also a day when I had made two gentlemanly -appeals for employment, losing one because I couldn't write shorthand, -and the other because the man in need of a secretary didn't want a -high-brow. - -Drinkwater was, then, a last resort. He would welcome me; he would tell -me of his good luck; he would call me Jasper; he would make a fuss over -me that would have the warmth of a lighted fire. - -But at the door I was met by Miss Flowerdew's little colored maid with -the information, given with darky idioms that I cannot reproduce, that -Mr. Drinkwater had gone to take his old position with Doctor Averill, -and was living in his house. Miss Blair had also found a job, though -the little maid couldn't tell me where. Miss Flowerdew knew, but, -unfortunately, she was spending a week in Philadelphia, "where her folks -was." - -It was a shock, but a shock with a thrill in it. If Drinkwater had gone -to Boyd Averill's, to Boyd Averill's I ought to follow him. That which -I had denied myself for one reason might, therefore, become unavoidable -for another. I forgot that I had been planning to drop Drinkwater from -the list of my acquaintances, for Drinkwater in Boyd Averill's house had -another value. - -He stood for a temptation. It was like wrestling with a taste for drink -or opium. At one minute I said I wouldn't go; at another I admitted -that I couldn't help myself. In the end I went. As I turned from Fifth -Avenue my heart pounded and my legs shook. I knew I was doing wrong. I -said I would do it just this once, and never any more. - -But I sinned in vain. The house was empty. In the window beside the -door hung a black-and-white sign, "To Let." - -CHAPTER II - -It would have been easy enough to find out where the Averills had moved -to, but I didn't make the attempt. It was best for me to lose sight of -them; it was best for them to lose sight of me. Now that the process -had begun I decided to carry it to the utmost. - -Nothing is simpler than being lost in a city like New York, so long as -it is to nobody's interest to find you. You have only to move round a -corner, and it is as if you had gone a thousand miles. The minute I -carried my bags away from the Barcelona without leaving an address I was -beyond the ken of any one inclined to follow me. - -I did this not of choice, but of necessity. In the matter of choice I -should have preferred staying where I was. Though it was a modest, -uncleanly place, I had grown used to it; and I dreaded another -expedition into the unknown. But I had come down to my last ten dollars, -with no relief in sight. A humbler abode was imperative even to tide me -over a few days. - -On the Odyssey of that afternoon I could write a good-sized volume. -Steps that would have been simple to a working-man were difficult - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - -It would have been easy enough to find out where the Averills had moved -to, but I didn't make the attempt. It was best for me to lose sight of -them; it was best for them to lose sight of me. Now that the process -had begun I decided to carry it to the utmost. - -Nothing is simpler than being lost in a city like New York, so long as -it is to nobody's interest to find you. You have only to move round a -corner, and it is as if you had gone a thousand miles. The minute I -carried my bags away from the Barcelona without leaving an address I was -beyond the ken of any one inclined to follow me. - -I did this not of choice, but of necessity. In the matter of choice I -should have preferred staying where I was. Though it was a modest, -uncleanly place, I had grown used to it; and I dreaded another -expedition into the unknown. But I had come down to my last ten dollars, -with no relief in sight. A humbler abode was imperative even to tide me -over a few days. - -On the Odyssey of that afternoon I could write a good-sized volume. -Steps that would have been simple to a working-man were difficult to me, -because I had never had to take them. Moreover, because the business was -new to me I went at it in the least practical way. Instead of securing -a bed in one place before giving it up in another, I followed the -opposite method. Paying my bill at the Barcelona, I went out in the -street with no definite direction before me. - -Rather, I had one definite direction, but that was only a first stage. -I had spotted on my walks a dealer in old clothes to whom I carried the -ridiculous suits I had brought with me from France. He was a little old -Polish Jew, dressed in queer, antiquated broadcloth, whose beard and -tousled gray hair proclaimed him a sort of Nazarite. - -When I mentioned my errand he shook his head with an air of despair, -lifting his hands to heaven somewhat in the manner of Mr. Chessland. - -"No, no! Open not," he exclaimed, as I laid the suit-case on the -counter in order to display my wares. "Will the high-born gentleman but -look at all the good moneys spent on these beautiful garments, and no -one buys my merchandise? Of what use more to purchase?" - -When I had opened the suit-case he cast one look at the contents, -turning away dramatically to the other side of the reeking little shop. -A backward gesture of the hand cast my offerings behind him. - -"Pah! Those can I not sell. Take 'em away." He came back, however, -fingering first one suit and then the other, appraising them rapidly. -"One dollar!" he cried, lifting a bony forefinger and defying me to ask -more. "One! One! One! No more but one!" - -I raised him to two, to three, and finally to five for each suit. In -spite of his tragic appeals to Ruin not to overtake him, he seized my -hand and kissed it. - -Thus I was out on the pavement, with twenty dollars in my pocket, and so -much liberty of action that I didn't know what to do. It was about -three in the afternoon of a sullen December day, and big flakes of snow -had begun to fall softly. It was cold only in the sense that my suit -had been bought for hot weather, and the light French box-coat, which -was all I had besides, added little in the way of warmth. Unable to -stand with my two bags in the doorway of a shop for second-hand clothes, -I moved on more or less at random. - -But one thought was clearly in my mind. I must find a house where the -sign "Rooms" was displayed in a window, and there I must go in. - -For the first half-hour I kept this purpose in view, walking slowly and -turning my head now to one side of the street, now to the other, so as -to miss no promising haven. A room being all I needed, any room within -my price would do. Having no experience, I could have no choice. If I -had choice, it would have been for Miss Flowerdew's; but that would have -brought me back into the circle from which I was trying to slip out. - -Miss Flowerdew's setting my only standard as to "Rooms," I had imagined -myself as walking into something of the kind, though possibly more -cheerful. It is hardly necessary to say that in this I was -disappointed. Drifting in and out of houses through most of that -afternoon, I saw women and conditions that almost shattered such faith -as I had left in human nature. The first to answer my ring at a doorbell -was a virago. An enormous creature, bigger if not taller than myself, -and clad in a loose pink-flannel wrapper that added to her bulk, she -challenged me to find a fault with the room I declined after having seen -it. "Better men than you have slept in that bed," she called after me -as I clattered down the stairs, "and any one who says different 'll -lie." The next was a poor, leering thing who smiled in a way that would -have been horrible if it had not been so sickeningly imbecile. The next -was a slattern, pawing her face and wiping it with her apron while she -showed me the doghole for which I was to pay seven dollars a week. -There were others of whom it is useless to attempt a catalogue further -than to say that they left me appalled. When the lights were being lit -I was still in the streets with my two bags, and the snow falling -faster. - -I was about to go back to the Barcelona for the night when something -happened which I tell to you just as it occurred. - -That morning I had read in a paper the account given by a young Canadian -officer of his escape from a German prison, of his beating his way to -the Rhine, and of his final swim across the river to Switzerland. But -the point that remained in my memory was his picture of himself as he -lay like a lizard with his nose to the stream and his feet in the -underbrush as the bank rose behind him. Listening to the current, he -could guess how strong it was; putting his hand in the water, he could -feel it cold. For over two hours he lay there in the darkness, resting, -wondering, and thinking of a little cemetery not far from Basel where -lay the bodies of the prisoners who had tried to make this swim. - -Then, as the minute approached at which he must give himself to these -difficult waters, he prayed. His account of the act was simple and -straightforward. He asked God to have him in His keeping while he made -this attempt, and to comfort those at home if he failed. With that he -slipped into the stream and struck outward. - -Well, standing somewhere in the neighborhood of Eighth Street and Sixth -Avenue I turned this over in my mind, considering its advisability. I -was not what would be called a praying man. As to that, I had not prayed -in years. I had sometimes told myself that I didn't know what prayer -was, that its appeal seemed to me illogical. Illogical it seemed to me -now, in the sense of imploring God to do what He wouldn't do of His own -accord. - -So, although I didn't pray, something passed through my mind that might -have been prayer's equivalent. As far as I can transcribe it into the -words which I did not use at the time it ran like this: - -"I know there is a God. I know that His will is the supreme law for all -of us. I know that that law is just and beneficent. It is not just and -beneficent for me to be standing here in the snow and the slush, -chilled, hungry, with wet feet, workless, and homeless. Consequently, -this is not His will. Consequently, I must give myself to discovering -that will as the first principle of safety. When I have got into touch -with that first principle of safety I shall find a home and work." - -Of this the immediate result was that I did not return to the Barcelona. -Something like a voice, the voice of another, told me that the thread of -flame led onward. Onward I drifted, then, hardly noticing the way I -went, hypnotized by the physical process of being on the move. It was -just on and on, through the slanting snowfall, through the patches of -blurred light, with feet soggy and heart soggier, a derelict amid these -hundreds of vehicles, these thousands of pedestrians, all bound from -somewhere to somewhere, and knowing the road they were taking. I didn't -know the road I was taking and in a sense I didn't care. Having given -up from sheer impotence the attempt to steer my ship, I was being borne -along blindly. - -When I lifted my head to look about me again I was in a part of New York -not only new to me, but almost refreshing to the eye. I mean that it -was one of those old-fashioned down-town regions where the streets -hadn't yet learned the short and easy cut to beauty of running only at -right angles. Two or three thoroughfares focused in an irregular open -space, which I saw by the signboard to bear the name of Meeting-House -Green. There was no meeting-house in the neighborhood now, and probably -nothing green even in spring. If it was like the rest of New York it -would be dirty in winter and fetid in summer, but after the monotonous -ground plan of the uptown regions its quaintness relieved the -perceptions to a degree which the thunder of the near-by Elevated -couldn't do away with. Just now all was blanketed in white, through -which drays plunged heavily and pedestrians slipped like ghosts. - -As I stared about me my eye was once more arrested by the magic notice -"Rooms," though this time with the qualifying phrase, "for gentlemen." -Rooms for gentlemen! The limitation seemed to fit my needs. It implied -selection and a social standard. - -The house, too, was that oasis in New York, an old-time dwelling in -gray-painted brick which progress has not yet swept away. Standing -where Wapping Street and Theodora Place ran together at a sharp angle, -it was shaped like a sadiron or a ship's prow. The tip of the ground -floor was given over to a provision dealer, while a barber occupied the -long slit in the rear. Between the two shops a door on the level of the -pavement of Theodora Place gave on a little inset flight of steps which -led up to the actual entrance. The vestibule was shabby, but, moved by -my experience in the early part of the afternoon, I observed that it was -clean. - -The woman who answered my ring was not only clean, but neatly dressed in -what I suppose was a print stuff, and not only neatly dressed, but -marked with a faded prettiness. What I chiefly noticed for the minute -was a pair of those enormous doll-blue eyes on a level with the face, as -the French say, _a fluer de fete_, which make the expression sweet and -vacuous. In her case it was resignedly mournful, as if mournfulness was -a part of her aim in life. A single gas-jet flickered behind her, -showing part of a hallway in which the same walnut furniture must have -stood for so many years that it was now groggy on its feet. To my -question about a room she replied with a sweet, sad, "Won't you step -in?" which was tantamount to a welcome. - -The floor of the hallway was covered with an oilcloth or linoleum which -had once simulated a terra-cotta tiling, and was now but one remove from -dust. On a mud-brown wall a steel-engraving of a scow, with Age at the -helm, and Youth peering off at the bow, sagged at an angle which -produced a cubist effect in its relation to the groggy-footed hat-rack. -The doors on the left of the hall were closed; on the right a graceful -stairway, lighted by a tall window looking out on Theodora Place, curved -upward to the floor above. - -At the sound of voices in the hall one of the closed doors opened, and a -second woman, a replica of the first, except for being older, came out -and looked inquiringly. She, too, was fadedly pretty; she, too, was -mournful; she, too, was saucer-eyed; she, too, was neatly dressed in a -print stuff. - -"This gentleman is looking for a room," was the explanation, sadly -given, of my presence. - -The ladies withdrew to the foot of the stairway for a whispered -conference. This finished, the elder came back to where I stood on the -door-mat. - -"We generally ask for references--" she began, with a glance at my -sodden appearance. - -"If that's essential," I broke in, "I'm afraid it must end matters. -I've only recently come over from France, and I'm a total stranger in -New York. I rang the bell because I saw the notice and I liked the look -of the house." - -As it happened, the last was the most tactful thing I could have said, -going to the hearts of my hostesses. Something, too, in my voice and -choice of words must have appealed to their sense of gentility. - -"It's a nice old house," the elder lady smiled, with her brave air of -having to overcome agony before being able to speak at all. "It's -old-fashioned, of course, and horribly in the wrong part of the city -nowadays; but my sister and I love it. We've always lived here, and our -dear father before us. He was Doctor Smith, quite a famous oculist in -his day; you may have heard of him?" - -"I've heard the name," I admitted, politely. - -"We've two good rooms vacant at present; but if you can't give -references"--a wan smile deprecated the unladylike suggestion--"I'm -afraid we should have to ask you for a week's rent in advance. I -shouldn't speak of it if it was not our rule." - -When I had agreed to this she led the way over the frayed cocoanut -matting of the staircase to an upper hallway, also carpeted in -pulverized oilcloth. With one sister ahead of me, and the other -shepherding me behind, I was ushered into a large prow-shaped room -immediately over the provision dealer, and smelling faintly of raw meat. -I could have borne the odor if the rent had not been six a week. - -"We've another room just over this," the spokeswoman informed me, "but -it's only half this size." - -"If it's only half this rent--" - -"It's just half this rent." - -So, marshaled as before, I mounted another stairway in cocoanut matting -to a slit of a room shaped like half a ship's prow, with its single -window placed squintwise. As the smell of raw meat was less noticeable -here, the squint of the window out into Meeting-House Green, and the -rent so low, I made my bargain promptly. - -In the days of the famous oculist the room must have been a maid's. It -was still furnished like a maid's in a house of the second order. A -rickety iron bedstead supported a sagging mattress covered with a cotton -counterpane in imitated crochet-work. A table, a washstand, a chair, -and a chest of drawers were perhaps drearier than they might have been, -because of the sick light of the gas-jet. On a drab wooden mantelpiece, -which enshrined a board covered with a piece of cretonne where once had -been a fireplace, stood the only decoration in the room, three large -fungi, painted with landscapes. The fungi were of the triangular sort -which grow about the trunks of trees. There was a big one in the middle -of the mantelpiece, and smaller ones at each end, giving glimpses of -rivers and bays, with castles on headlands, to one tired of the prospect -of Meeting-House Green. Taking the initiatory three dollars from my -purse, I bent to study these objects of art. - -Once more the act was ingratiating to my hostesses. - -"That's my work," said the little woman who had admitted me to the -house. Her tone was one of shy pride, of a kind of fluttered -boastfulness. - -"My sister's an artist," the elder explained, taking my three one-dollar -bills as if their number didn't matter, but making conversation in order -to count them surreptitiously. "She's a widow, too, Mrs. Leeming. I'm -Miss Smith. We've had great sorrows. We try not to complain too much, -but--" - -A long-drawn sigh with a quiver in it said the rest, while Mrs. -Leeming's eyes spilled tears with the readiness of a pair of fountain -cups. - -To escape the emotional I returned to my inspection of the landscapes, -at which I was destined to gaze for another two years. - -"Are these studies of--of Italy?" I asked, for the sake of showing -appreciation. - -Mrs. Leeming recovered herself sufficiently to be faintly indignant. - -"Oh no! I never copy. I work only from imagination. Landscapes just -come to me--and all different." - -Before they left me Miss Smith managed to convey a few of the principles -on which they conducted their house. - -"We've three very refined gentlemen at present, two salesmen and a -Turkish-bath attendant. One has to be so careful. We almost never take -gentlemen who don't bring reference; but in your case, Mr. Soames--well, -one can see." Her wan, suffering smile flickered up for a minute and -died down. "There's a sort of free-masonry, isn't there? We _have_ -taken gentlemen on that, and they've never disappointed us." - -I hoped I should not disappoint them, either. - -"Now, some young men--well, to put it plainly, if there's liquor we just -have to ask them to look for another room. Tobacco, with gentlemen, one -can't be too severe on. We overlook it, and try not to complain too -much. And, of course, only gentlemen visitors--" - -With my assurance that I should do my utmost to live within their -regulations, they were good enough to leave me to my single chair and -the fungi. Dropping into the one and staring at the other, it seemed to -me that I had reached the uttermost edge of the forlorn. I could bear -the extreme modesty of this lodging, seeing that it gave me a shelter -from the storm; I could bear being hungry, cold, and wet; I could bear -the wall of darkness and blankness that hemmed in not only my future, -but my past; what I found intolerable was the sense of being useless. -The blows of Fate I could take with some equanimity, but, not to be able -to "make good" or to earn a living cut me to the quick in my -self-esteem. - -And yet it was not that which in the end beat me to my knees beside the -bed, to bury my head against the counterpane of imitation crochet-work. -That was a more primal craving, a need as primal as thirst or the desire -for sleep. It was the longing for some sort of human companionship--for -the gay toleration of Lydia Blair, or Drinkwater's cheerfulness, or -Mildred Averill's.... - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - -But in the end I found work, so why tell of the paroxysm of loneliness -which shook me that night like a madness? Never before had I known -anything like it, and nothing like it has seized me since. I must have -remained on my knees for an hour or more, largely for the reason that -there was nothing to get up for. Though I had had no dinner, I didn't -want to eat, and what else was there to do? To eat and sleep, to sleep -and eat, that apparently would be my fate till my seventeen dollars gave -out. If the miracle didn't happen before then--but the miracle began to -happen not long after that, and this is how it came to pass: - -I got up and crept supperless to bed. There I slept with the merciful -soundness of fatigue, wakened by the crashing past my window of an -Elevated train to a keen sunny morning, with snow on the ground and the -zest of new life. - -As I washed, I could hear my neighbor washing on the other side of the -partition. The partition was, in fact, so thin that I had heard all his -movements since he got out of bed. The making of one man's toilet -taking about the same amount of time as that of another man in similar -conditions, we met at the doors of our respective rooms as we emerged to -go down-stairs. - -I looked at him; he looked at me. With what he saw I am concerned; I -saw a stocky, broad-shouldered individual, with smooth black hair, -solemn black eyes, bushy black eyebrows, a clean-shaven skin so dark -that shaving could not obliterate the trace of hair, and a general air -of friendliness. Putting on the good-mixer voice, which was not natural -to me but which I could assume for a brief spurt, I said: - -"Say, I wonder it you could advise a fellow where to get a breakfast? -Only breezed in last night--" - -Between working-people there is always that camaraderie I had already -noticed in Drinkwater and Lydia Blair, and which springs from the -knowledge that where there is nothing to lose there is nothing to be -afraid of. While I cannot say that my companion viewed me with the -spontaneous recognition he would have accorded to a man of his own -class, he saw enough to warrant him in giving me his sympathy. The man -of superior station down on his luck is not granted the full rights of -the stratum to which he has descended; but even when an object of -suspicion he is not one of hostility. Between moral bad luck and sheer -fortuitous calamity the line is not strictly drawn; and wherever there -is need there is a free inclination to meet it. - -"I'm on my way to my breakfast now," my neighbor said, after sizing me -up with a second glance. "Why don't you come along? It's not much of a -place to look at," he continued, as I followed him down-stairs, "but the -grub isn't bad. Most of the places round here is punk." - -Within ten minutes' time I found myself in a little eating-place that -must once have been the cellar kitchen of a dwelling-house, sitting at a -bare deal table, opposite a man I had never seen till that morning. - -"Don't take bacon," he advised, when I had ordered bacon and eggs; "it -'ll be punk. Take ham. Coffee 'll be punk, too. Better stick to tea." - -Having given me these counsels, he proceeded with those short and simple -annals of his history which I had already found to be the usual form of -self-introduction. An Englishman, a Cornishman, he had been twenty -years in America. He was married and had a family, but preferred to live -in New York while he maintained his household in Chicago. - -"Married life is punk," was his summing up. "Got the best little wife in -the state of Illinois, and three fine kids, a boy and two girls--but I -couldn't come it." - -"Couldn't come what?" - -"Oh, the whole bloomin' business--toein' the line like, bein' home at -night, and the least little smell of anythink on your breath--" - -A wave of his fork sketched a world of domestic embarrassment from which -he had freed himself only by a somber insouciance. A somber insouciance -might be called his key-note. Outwardly serious, ponderous, -hard-working, and responsible, he was actually light-hearted and -inconsequent. During the progress of the meal he recited the escapades -of a Don Juan with the gravity of a Bunyan. - -Still with my good-mixer air I asked: - -"How does a guy like me get a job in New York?" - -"Ever work in a Turkish bath?" He answered this question before I could -do it myself. "Sure you didn't--not a chap of your cut. It isn't a bad -sort of thing for a"--he hesitated, but decided to use the epithet--"for -a--gentleman. Only a good class of people take Turkish baths. Hardly -ever get in with a rough lot. A few drunks, but what of that? Could -have got you a place at the Gramercy if you'd ha' turned up last week; -but a Swede has it now and it's too late." - -By the end of breakfast, however, he had made a suggestion. - -"Why don't you try the Intelligence? They'll often get you a berth when -everything else has stumped you." - -I said I was willing to try the Intelligence if I knew what it was, -discovering it to be the Bureau of Domestic and Business Intelligence -conducted by Miss Bryne. You presented yourself, gave your name and -address, indicated your choice of work, told your qualifications for the -job, and Miss Bryne did the rest, taking as her commission a percentage -of your first week's pay. - -"But I don't know any qualifications," I declared, with some confusion. - -"Oh, that's nothing. Say clerical work. That covers a lot. Somethink -'ll turn up." - -"But if they ask me if I can do certain things--?" - -"Say you can do 'em. That's the way to pull it off. Look at me. Never -was in a Turkish bath in my life till I went to an employment-office in -Chicago. When the old girl in charge asked me if I had been, I said I'd -been born in one. Got the job right off, and watched what the other -guys did till I'd learned the trick. There's always some nice chap that -'ll show you the ropes. Gee! The worst they can do is to bounce you. -All employers is punk. Treat 'em like punk and you'll get on." - -With a view to this procedure I was at the Bureau of Domestic and -Business Intelligence by half past nine, entering, unfortunately, with -the downcast air of the employer who is punk, instead of the perky -self-assertion which I soon began to notice as the proper attitude of -those in search of work. Miss Bryne's establishment occupied a floor in -one of the older office-buildings a little to the south of Washington -Square. Having ascended in the lift, you found yourself, just inside the -narrow doorway, face to face with a young lady seated at a desk, whose -duty it was to ask the first questions and take the first notes. She -was a pretty young lady, bright-eyed, blond, with a habit of cocking her -head in a birdlike way as she composed her lips to a receptive smile. - -She so composed them, and so cocked her head, as I appeared on the -threshold, awkward and terrified. - -"Such as--?" - -I knew what she meant by the questioning look and the encouraging smile -of the bright eyes. - -"I'm--I'm hoping to find a job," I stammered to her obvious -astonishment. - -"Oh!" It was a surprised little crow. "To find one!" - -"Yes, miss; to find one." - -"Of--of what sort?" - -"Clerical work," I said, boldly. - -She bent her head over her note-book. "Your name?" - -"Jasper Soames." - -"Age?" - -"Thirty-one." - -"Occupation?" - -"I've told you. Any kind of clerical work. I suppose that that means -writing--and--and copying--and that sort of thing, doesn't it?" - -She glanced up from her writing. "Is that what you've done?" - -I nodded. - -"Where? Have you any references?" - -I confessed my lack of references, stating that I had just come over -from France, where I had worked with a firm whose name would not carry -weight in America. - -"What did they do--the firm?" - -I answered, wildly, "Carpets." - -Another young lady was passing, tall, graceful, distinguished, _air de -duchesse_, carrying a notebook and pencil. - -"Miss Gladfoot," my interlocutrice murmured, "won't you ask Miss Bryne -to step here?" - -Miss Bryne having stepped there, I found myself face to face with a -competent woman of fifty or so, short, square, square-faced, and astute. -She also had a pencil and note-book in her hand, and, seeing me, looked -receptive, too, though remaining practical and business-like. - -While the young lady at the desk explained me as far as she had been -able to understand my object, delicacy urged me out of earshot. I had, -therefore, not heard what passed when Miss Bryne came forward to take -charge of the situation. - -"What you are is a kind of educated handyman. Wouldn't that be it?" - -Delighted at this discriminating view of my capacities, I faltered that -it would be. - -"Well, we don't often have a call for your kind of specialty, and yet we -do have them sometimes. There might be one to-day, and then again there -mightn't be for another six months. Now you can either go in and wait on -the chance, or you can leave your address and we'll 'phone you if -anything should turn up that we think would suit." - -Encouraged by this kindly treatment and the possibility of a call that -day, I opted for going in to wait. - -"Then come this way." - -Following the Napoleonic figure down the narrow passageway, I was shown -into a little room, where five other men sat with the dismayed, -melancholy faces of dogs at a dog-show at minutes when they are not -barking. Dismayed and melancholy on my side, I took the seat nearest -the door, feeling like a prisoner in the dock or the cell, and wondering -what would happen next. - -Nothing happened next so far as I was concerned, but I had a gratifying -leisure in which to look about me. - -I was obliged to note at once that the Bureau of Domestic and Business -Intelligence was chiefly of Domestic. Women crowded the hall, the two -large rooms across the way, and the three small ones on our side, except -the coop in which we six men were segregated from the gay and chatty -throng. Gay and chatty were the words. The tone was that of what -French people call a _feeve o'clock_. Girls, for the most part pretty -and stylishly dressed, sat in the chairs, perched on the arms of them, -grouped themselves in corners, in seeming disregard of the purpose that -had brought them there. Unable at first to differentiate between -mistresses and maids, I soon learned to detect the former by their -careworn faces, shabbier clothes, apologetic arrival, and crestfallen -departure. Now and then I caught a few broken phrases, of which the -context and significance eluded me. - -"I told her that before I'd be after washin' all thim dishes I'd--" - -"Ah, thin, ye'll not shtay long in that plaace--" - -"Says I, 'You've got a crust, Mrs. Johnson, to ask me to shtay in when -it's me night--'" - -"With that I ups and walks away--" - -All this animation and repartee contrasted oddly with the low, cowed -remarks of my companions in the coop, who ventured to exchange -observations only at intervals. - -Where was your last? What did you get? How did you like your boss? Did -you leave or was you fired? Are you a single fella or a married fella? -Did you have long hours? Wouldn't he give you your raise? Did he kick -against the booze? These were mere starters of talk that invariably -died like seedlings in a wrong climate. Getting used to my mates, I made -them out to be a gardener, a chauffeur, a teamster, a decayed English -butler, and a negro boy who called himself a waiter. Talking about -their bosses, their tone on the whole was hostile without personal -malevolence. That is to say, there was little or no enmity to -individuals, though the tendency to curse the systems of civilized life -was general. I think they would have agreed with my Cornish friend that -"all employers is punk," and considered their feelings sufficiently -expressed at that. - -But as I sat among them, day after day, I began, oddly enough, to -orientate my vision to their point of view. They were, of course, not -always the same men. The original five melted away into jobs within -three or four days; but five or six or seven was about the daily average -in our little pen. They came, were cowed, were selected, and went off. -Twice during the first week I was called out in response to applicants -for unusual grades of help, but my manner and speech seemed to overawe -the ladies who wanted to hire, and I was remanded to my cell. "She said -she didn't want that _kind_ of a man." "He wouldn't want to eat in the -kitchen," were the explanations given me by Miss Bryne. In vain I -protested that I would eat anywhere, so long as I ate. The other -servants wouldn't get used to me, and so no more was to be said. - -But I was getting used to the other servants. That is my point. -Insensibly I was changing my whole social attitude. It was like the -difference in looking at the Grand Canon of Arizona--downward from El -Tovar, or upward from the brink of the Colorado. Little by little I -found myself staring upward from the bottom, through all sorts of ranks -above me. I didn't notice the change at once. For a time I thought I -still retained my sense of obscured superiority. I arrived in the -morning, heard from the lips of the birdlike young lady at the desk the -familiar "Nothing yet," passed on to the pen, nodded to those who were -assembled, some of whom I would have seen the day before, listened to -their timid scraps of talk, which hardly ever varied from a few worn -notes. - -At first I felt apart from them, above them, disdainful of their -limitations. My impulse was to get away from them, as it had been to -cut loose from Lydia Blair and Drinkwater. It was only on seeing them -one by one called out of the pen, not to come back again, that I began -to envy them. Sooner or later, every one went but me. I became a kind -of friendly joke with them. "Some little sticker," was the phrase -commonly applied to me. It was used in a double sense, one of which was -not without commendation. "Ye carn't stick like wot you're doin', old -son," a footman said to me one day, "without somethin' turnin' up, wot?" -and from this I took a grim sort of encouragement. - -But all I mean is that by imperceptible degrees I felt myself one of -them. After the first lady had turned me down, I began to adapt myself -to their views of the employer. After the second lady had repeated the -action of the first, I began to experience that feeling of dull -hostility toward the class in which I had been born that marked all my -companions in the coop. It was what I have already called it, hostility -without personal malevolence--hostility to a system rather than to -individuals. For a pittance barely sufficient to keep body and soul -together, leaving no margin for the higher or more beautiful things in -life, we were expected to drudge like Roman slaves, and not only feel no -resentment, but be contented with the lot to which we were ordained. The -clearest thing in the world to all of us was that between us and those -who would have us work for them some great humanizing element was -lacking--an element which would have made life acceptable--and that so -long as it was not there each one of us would, as a revolutionary -bookkeeper put it, "go to bed with a grouch." To me, as to them, the -grouch was growing intimate--and so was hunger. - -By the end of a fortnight I was down to one meal a day, the breakfast I -continued to take with Pelly, my Cornish friend, and over which he told -me his most intimate experiences, with an absence of reserve to which -conversation in the pen had accustomed me. Looking for some such return -on my part, he was not only disappointed, but a little mystified. I got -his mental drift, however, when he asked me on one occasion if I had -ever "hit the pipe," and on another if I had ever been "sent away." Had -these misfortunes happened to himself he would have told me frankly, and -it would have made no difference in his sympathy for me had I confessed -to them or to any other delinquency. What puzzled him was that I should -confess to nothing, a form of reserve which to him was not only novel, -but abnormal. - -Nevertheless, when through the thin partition I announced one morning -that I wasn't going to breakfast, giving lack of appetite as a plea, he -came solemnly into my room. - -"See here, Soames; if a fiver'd be of any use to you--or ten--or any -think--" - -When I declined he did not insist further; but on my return that evening -I found a five-dollar bill thrust under my door in an envelope. - -I didn't thank him when I heard him come in; I pretended to be asleep. -As a matter of fact, I thought it hardly worth while to say anything. It -was highly possible that the next day would say all, for I had reached -the point where it seemed to me the Gordian knot must be cut. One quick -stroke of some sort--and Pelly would get his five dollars back -untouched. - -A cup of chocolate had been all my food that day. Though I had still a -few pennies, less than a dollar, it would probably be all my food on the -next day. On the day after that my rent would be due, and I couldn't -ask the two good women who had been kind to me for credit. What would -be the use? A new week would bring me no more than the past weeks, so -why not end it once and for all? - -Next morning, therefore, I gave Pelly back his bill, bluffing him by -going out to our usual breakfast, on which I spent all I had in the -world but a nickel and a dime. I must get something to do that day, or -else-- - -Left alone, I tossed one of the two coins to decide whether or not I -should go back to "the Intelligence." Going back had not been easy for -the last few days, for I had noticed cold looks on the part of Miss -Bryne and Miss Gladfoot, with a tendency to take me for a hoodoo. Even -the young lady at the desk had ceased to say "Nothing yet," as I passed -by, or as much as to glance at me. But as this was to be the last time, -I obeyed the falling of the coin and went. - -I went--to receive a little shock. Miss Bryne was waiting for me near -the door, with a bit of paper in her hand. - -"You must remember, Soames," she said, in her business-like way, "that -this is not the only employment-office in New York. Here's a list of -addresses, at any of which you may find what we haven't been able to -secure for you." - -I took the paper, thanked her, and went on into the coop before the -significance of this act came to me. It was dismissal. It was not -merely dismissal from a place, it was dismissal from the possibility of -a dismissal. To have a place, even if only, as Pelly put it, to be -bounced from it, was something; but to be denied the chance of being -bounced... - -I ought to have got up there and then and walked out; but I think I was -too stunned. The chatty groups were forming all over the place, and -early matrons looking for maids were being refused first by one spirited -damsel and then by another. In the coop there was the usual low, -intermittent murmur, accentuated now and then by ugly words, and now and -then by oaths. To me it was no more than the hum of activity in the -streets in the ears of a man who is dying. - -Recovering from this state, which was almost that of coma, I began -feeling for my hat. I had to go out. I had to find a way to do the -only thing left for me to do. I had no idea of the means, and so must -think them over. - -And just then I heard a young fellow speaking, with low gurgles of fun. -He was at the end of the pen and was narrating an experience of the -afternoon before. - -"It was a whale of a rolled-up rug that must have weighed five hunderd -pounds. 'Carry that up-stairs,' says the Floater. 'Like hell I will,' -says I. He says, 'You'll carry that up or you'll get out o' here.' I -says, 'Well, Creed and Creed ain't the only house to work for in New -York.' 'You was damn glad to get here,' he says, madder 'n blazes. I -says, 'Not half so damn glad as I'll be to get somewhere else,' says I. -'You've had five men on this job in less than four weeks,' says I, 'and -now you'll have to get a sixth,' says I, 'if there's any one in the city -fool enough to take it. Carryin' rugs that 'd break a man's back,' I -says, 'is bad enough; but before I'd go on workin' under a blitherin' -old son of a gun like you--'" - -I didn't wait to hear more. I knew the establishment of Creed & Creed, -not far away, in the lower part of Fifth Avenue. Many a time I had -stopped to admire the great rugs hung in its windows as a bait to people -living in palaces. Not twenty-four hours earlier a place had been -vacated there, a hard place, a humble place, and it was possible, barely -possible... - -Up the street that led to Washington Square I ran; I ran through -Washington Square itself; for the two or three blocks of Fifth Avenue I -slackened my pace only in order not to arrive breathless. - -There it was on a corner, the huge gray pile, with its huge bright -windows--and my heart almost stopped beating. Breathless now from -another cause than speed, I paused, nominally to gaze at an immense -Chinese rug, but really to compose my mind to what might easily prove -the last effort of my life. This rug, too, hanging with a graceful -curve in which yellow deepened to orange and orange to glints of -acorn-brown, might easily prove the last beautiful thing my eyes would -ever rest upon. I remembered saying to myself that beauty was the -thread of flame that would lead me home; but the thread of flame had -been treacherous. I could have given an expert's opinion on a work of -art like this; and yet I was begging for the privilege of handling it in -the most laborious manner possible, just that I might eat. - -And as I stared at the thing, forming the words in which I should frame -my request for work, a soft voice, close beside me, said: - -"Surely it must be possible for me to be of use to you!" - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - -As I recall the minute now my first thought was of my appearance. I had -noticed for some time past that it was running down, and had regarded -the change almost with satisfaction. The more out at elbow I became the -less would be the difference between me and any other young fellow -looking for employment. It hadn't escaped me that I grew shabby less -with the honorable rough-and-tumble of a working-man than with the -threadbare, poignant poverty of broken-down gentility; but I hoped that -no one but myself would perceive that. I had thus grown careless of -appearances, and during the past forty-eight hours more careless than I -had been hitherto. Feeling myself a lamentable object, I had more or -less dressed to suit the part. - -I knew instantly that it was this that had inspired the words I had just -listened to. I knew, too, that I must bluff. Wretched as I looked, I -must carry the situation off, with however pitiful a bit of comedy. - -Turning, I lifted my hat, with what I could command of the old dignity -of bearing. - -"How early you are!" I smiled bravely. "I didn't know young ladies were -ever down-town by a little after ten." - -She nodded toward the neighboring bookshop. "I've been in there buying -something for Lulu to read. She's bored." She threw these explanations -aside as irrelevant to anything we had to say, now that we had met. -"Where have you been all these weeks? Why didn't you let me know--?" - -"How could I let you know? I called at your old house, and you were -gone." - -"You could have easily found out. If you'd merely called up Central she -would have told you the new address of our number. It wasn't kind of -you." - -"Sometimes we have things to do more pressing than just being kind." - -"There's never anything more pressing than that." - -"Not for people like you." - -"Not for people like any one. Listen!" she hurried on, as if there was -not a minute to spare. "One of my trustees came to me yesterday. He -said I had nearly thirty thousand dollars of accumulated income that -there's nothing to do with but invest." - -"Well? Don't you like to see your money invested?" - -"I like it well enough when there's nothing else to do with it." - -"Which you say that in this case there isn't." - -"Oh, but there is--if you look at it in the right way." - -"I don't have to look at it any way." - -"Yes, you do, when it's--when it's only common sense." - -"What's only common sense?" - -"My being--being useful to you." - -"Oh, but you're useful to me through--through your very kindness." - -"That's not enough. Surely you--you see!" - -I could say quite truthfully that I didn't see. "But suppose," I -continued, "that we don't talk of it." - -"Yes," she answered, fiercely, "and leave everything where we left it -the last time. You see what's come of that." - -"I see what's come, of course; but I don't know that it's come of that." - -There were so few people in the neighborhood, and we were so plainly -examining the Chinese rug, that we could talk together without -attracting attention. - -"Oh, what kind of people are we?" she exclaimed, tapping with one hand -the book she held in the other. "Here I am with more money than I know -what to do with; and here are you--" - -"With all the money I want." - -Her brown eyes swept me from head to foot. "That's not true," she -insisted. "When I first knew you I thought--I thought you were just -experimenting--" - -"And how do you know I'm not?" - -"I know it from what you said yourself--that last time." - -"What did I say?"' - -"That if it wasn't trouble it was misfortune." - -"Oh, that!" - -"Yes, that. Isn't it enough? And then I know it-- Well, can't I see?" - -I tried to laugh this off. "Oh, I know I'm rather seedy-looking, but -then--" - -"You're worse than seedy-looking; you're--you're--tragic--to me. Oh, I -know I haven't any right to say so; but that's what I complain of, -that's what I rebel against, that we've got our conventions so stupidly -organized that just because you're a man and I'm a woman I shouldn't be -allowed to help you when I can." - -"You do help me, with your great sympathy." - -She brushed this aside. "That's no help. It doesn't feed and clothe -you." - -I endeavored to smile. "That's very plain talk, isn't it?" - -"Of course it's plain talk, because it's a perfectly plain situation. -It isn't a new thing to me to see people who've been going without food. -At the Settlement--" - -I still kept up the effort to smile. "If I'd been going without food -there are a dozen places--" - -"Where they'd give you a meal, after they'd satisfied themselves that -you hadn't been drinking. I know all about that. But would you go? -Would you rather drop dead of starvation first? And what good would it -do you in the end, just one meal, or two meals, when everything else is -lacking? It's the whole thing--" - -"But how would you tackle that, the whole thing? It seems to me that if -I can't do it myself no one else--" - -"I'll tell you as straightforwardly as you ask the question. I should -give you, lend you, as much money as you wanted, so that you should have -time to reorganize your life." - -"And suppose I couldn't, that I spent your money and was just where I -was before?" - -"Then my conscience would be clear." - -"But your conscience must be clear in any case." - -"It isn't. When all you ask for is to help--" - -"But you can help other people--who need it more." - -"Oh, don't keep that up. I _know_ what you need. I've told you already -I've seen starvation before. Don't be offended! And when it's you, -some one we've all known, and liked-- Boyd liked you from the first." - -"But not from the last." - -"He thinks you're--you're strange, naturally. We all think so. I think -so. But that doesn't make any difference when you don't get enough to -eat." - -"And suppose I turned out to be only an adventurer?" - -She shrugged her shoulders, after a habit she had. "That would be your -responsibility. Don't you see? I'm not thinking so much about you as I -am about myself. It's nothing to me what you are, not any more than -what Lydia is, or a dozen others I could name to you. I think it highly -probable that Lydia Blair will take the road we call going to the bad--" - -"Oh, surely not!" - -This invitation to digression she also swept aside. "She won't do it -with her eyes shut, never fear! She'll know all about it, and take her -own way because it's hers. Don't pity her. If I were half so free--" - -"Well?" - -"Well, for one thing, you'd have another chance. If you didn't use it -that would be your own affair." - -"Why do you speak of another chance? Do you think--?" - -"Oh, don't ask me what I think. I take it for granted that--" - -"Yes? Please tell me. What is it that you take for granted?" - -"What good would it do for me to tell you?" - -"It would do the good that I should know." - -"Well, then, I take it for granted, since you insist, that you've done -something, somewhere--" - -"And still you'd lend me as much money as I asked for?" - -"What difference does it make to me? I want you to have another chance. -I shouldn't want it if you didn't need it; and you wouldn't need it -unless there was something wrong with you. There! Is that plain enough? -But because there is something wrong with you I want to come in and help -you put it right. I don't care who you are or what you've done, so long -as those are the facts." - -"But I'm obliged to care, don't you see? If I were to take advantage of -your generosity--" - -"Tell me truthfully now. Would you do it if I were a man, a friend, who -insisted on helping you to start again?" - -I tried to gain time. "It would depend on the motive." - -"We'll assume the motive to be nothing but pure friendship, just the -desire that you should have every opportunity to make good again, and -nothing else. _Absolutely nothing else_! Do you understand? Would you -take it from him then? Please tell me as frankly as if--" - -"I--I might." - -"And because I'm not a man but a woman, you can't." - -"It isn't the same thing." - -"Which is just what we women complain of, just what we fight against, -the stupid conventions that force us into being useless in a world--" - -"Oh, but there are other ways of being useful." - -"No other way of being useful compensates for the one which seems to you -paramount, above all others, and from which you are debarred." - -"But why should it? You and I never met till--" - -"You can't argue that way. You can't reason about the thing at all. -I'm not reasoning, further than to say that--that I believe in you, in -your power of--of coming back. That's the phrase, isn't it? And as, -apparently, I'm the only one in a position to go to your aid--" - -She threw out her hands with a gesture she sometimes used which implied -that all had been said. - -And in the end we compromised. That is, I told her I had one more -possibility. If that failed, I would let her know. This she informed -me I could do by telephone, as Boyd's name was in the book. If it -didn't fail ... But as to that she forgot to exact a promise, just as -she forgot to tell me her new address. Like most shy people who dash -out of their shyness for some adventure too bold for the audacious, she -retreated as suddenly. Springing into her motor as soon as we had -arrived at a temporary decision, she drove away, leaving me still at a -loss as to whether or not I was Malvolio. - -Dumfounded and distressed by this unexpected meeting, and the still more -unexpected offer made in it, my thoughts began to run wild. It was in my -power to live, to eat, to pay my way for a little longer. Of the money -at her disposal I need accept no more than a few hundred dollars, a -trifle to her, but to me everything in the world. Even if it did me no -more than a passing good, it would do me that. If I had in the end to -"get out," as I phrased it, I would rather get out in a month's time -than do it that very day. In the mean while there might be--the -miracle. - -It was the mad prospect of all this that sent me out of Fifth Avenue to -crawl along the side of Creed & Creed's establishment, which flanked the -cross-street, without noticing the way I took. For the minute I had -forgotten the errand that brought me to this particular spot in New -York. It had been crowded out of my memory by the fact that, after all, -it might not matter whether I found work or not. I could live, anyhow. -All I had to do was to take a telephone list, call up Boyd Averill's -number, say that I had changed my mind.... - -It was a temptation. For you to understand how fierce a temptation it -was you would have to remember that for a month I had been -insufficiently fed, and that for a week I had not really been fed at -all. Moreover, I could see before me no hope of being fed in the -immediate future. I was asking myself whether it would be common sense -on the part of a drowning man to refuse a rope because a woman in whom -there might be a whole confusion of complex motives had thrown it, when -I suddenly found my passage along the pavement blocked. - -It was blocked by what appeared to be a long cylindrical bar, some two -or three feet in diameter. Covered with burlap, it ran from a motor -truck, in which one end still rested, toward the entrance to that part -of Creed & Creed's establishment that lay slightly lower than the -pavement. It was a wide entrance, after which came two or three broad, -shallow steps, and then a cavern which was evidently a storehouse. Two -men were tugging at the long object, the one big, dark, brawny, clad in -overalls, and equal to the work, the other a little elf of an old man, -nattily dressed for the street, wearing a high soft felt hat, possibly -in the hope of making himself look taller. A gray mustache that sprang -outward in a semi-circle did not conceal a truculent mouth, though it -smothered his wrathful expletives. That he had once been agile I could -easily guess, but now his poor old joints were stiff from age or disuse. -It was also clear that he was lending a hand to an irksome task because -of a shortage of labor. - -While the younger man--he was about my own age--could manage his end -easily enough, the old one tugged desperately at his, finally letting it -drop. - -"Gr-r-r-r!" - -The growl was that of an irascible man too angry to be articulate. If -the thread of flame ever led me, it was then. Without a minute's -hesitation, I picked up the dropped end of the cylinder, with no -explanation beyond the words, "Let me have a try," and presently I was -finding my way down the steps and into the cavern. - -"Chuck it there, on top o' thim," my companion ordered, and our cylinder -lay as one of a pile of similar cylinders, which I could see from the -labels to have been shipped from India. - -"There's eight or tin more of thim things," the big fellow was -beginning. - -"Is that the Floater?" I asked in a hurried undertone, as the little man -hobbled down the steps and made his way toward us in the semi-darkness. - -"He sure is, and some damn light floater at that." - -Before I could analyze this reply the Floater himself stood in front of -me. - -"Who are you?" he demanded, sharply. - -"Do you mean my name?" - -"I don't care a damn about your name. What business had you to pick up -that rug?" - -"Only the business of wanting to help. I could see it wasn't a -gentleman's job--and--and I--I thought you might take me on." - -He danced with indignation. - -"Take you on? Take you on? What do you mean by that?" - -"You see, sir, it was this way. I've just run up from the Intelligence -where I heard a fellow gassing about"--I varied the story from that -which I had heard at Miss Bryne's--"about being kicked out of here." - -"Was he a gabby sort of a guy?" my big colleague inquired. - -"That would describe him exactly; and so I thought if I could reach here -in time, before you'd had a chance to get any one else--" - -"Chance to get any one else?" the little man snarled. "I can go out -into the street and shovel 'em in by the cartload. Dirt, I call 'em!" - -"Yes, sir; but you haven't done it. That's all I mean. I thought if I -got here first--" - -It was easy to size him up as a vain little terrier, and my respectful -manner softened him. He stood back for a minute to examine me. - -"You don't look like a fellow that 'd be after this sort of a job. Does -he, Bridget?" - -Bridget's answer, though non-committal, was in my favor: - -"Sure I've seen ivery kind o' man lookin' for a job at one time or -another. It's not his looks that 'll tell in handling rugs; it's his -boiceps." - -He tapped his own strong biceps to emphasize his observation, while I -endeavored to explain. - -"You're quite right, sir. You'd see that when lots of other men -wouldn't. As a matter of tact, this job or any other job would be new -to me. I had some money--but the war's got me stone-broke. I lived in -France till just lately. - -"If you lived in France, why ain't you fightin'?" - -Not having the same dread of inventing a tale as with Boyd Averill, I -said, boldly: - -"I did fight, till they discharged me. Got a blow on the head, and -wasn't any good after that. I was with the French army because my -people lived over there. When I got out of it, there was no provision -made for me, of course. My father and mother had died, my father's -business had been smashed to pieces--" - -"What was he?" - -Luckily my imagination didn't fail me. - -"An artist. He was just beginning to make a hit. I was to have -been"--I sought for the most credible possibility--"an architect. I was -to have studied at the Beaux Arts, that's the big school for architects -in Paris; but of course all that was knocked on the head when my father -died, and so I sailed for New York." - -"Haven't you got no relations here?" - -I remembered that Lydia Blair thought she might have seen me in Salt -Lake City, but I was afraid of the Mormon connotation. "My family used -to live in--in California; but they're all scattered, and we'd been in -Europe for so many years--" - -"Amur'cans should live in God's country--" - -"Yes, sir; so I've found out. If we had, I shouldn't be asking for a -job in order to get a meal. I'm down to that," I confessed, showing him -the nickel and the dime. - -He took a minute or two to reflect on the situation, saying, finally, -with a little relenting in his tone: - -"There's nine more rugs out in that lorry. If you help this man to lug -them in you'll get fifty cents." - -If it was not the miracle, it was a sign and a wonder none the less. -Fifty cents would tide me over the night. I should have sixty-five -cents in all, and it would be my own. I should not have cadged it from -a woman, whatever the motive of her generosity. It was that motive -which made me tremble. If it was what it might have been, if I was not -a mere fatuous fool, then there was no hole so deep that I had better -not hide in it, no distance so great that I had better not put it -between her and me. It would wound her if I did, but on every count -that would be preferable.... - -The Floater went off to regions where I couldn't follow him, and Bridget -spoke in non-committal but not unkindly tone. - -"Better take off that topcoat and hang it in Clancy's locker. Clancy -was the gabby chap you heard at Lizzie's. That's Lizzie Bryne. Sure I -moind her when her mother kep' a little notion store down by Grime -Street, and now the airs she gives herself! Ah, well, there's no law -ag'in' it! Come awn now. We'll get these other bits in, because Daly, -that's the driver, 'll have to be after goin' back to the station for -the Bokharas." - -"Will that be more to unload?" I asked, eagerly. - -"Sure it 'll be more to unload. Dee ye think they'll walk off the truck -by theirselves?" - -Vaguely afraid of something hostile or supercilious on Bridget's part, I -was pleasantly surprised to find him not merely good-natured, but -helpful and patient, showing me the small tricks of unloading long -burlap cylinders from a motor lorry, which proved to be as much an art -in its simple way as anything else, and enlivening the work by anecdote. -All that he knew of Creed & Creed I learned in the course of that -half-hour, though it turned out to be little more than I knew myself, -except as it concerned the minor personnel. Of the heads of the firm -and the managers he could tell me only as much as the peasants in the -vale of Olympus could have recounted of the gods on the mountain-top. -To Bridget they were celestial, shadowy beings, seen as they passed in -and out of the office, or stopped to look at some new consignment from -the Far East; but he barely knew their names. - -The highest flight of his information was up to the Floater; beyond him -he seemed to consider it useless to ascend. Of the gods on the summit, -the Floater was the high priest, and in that capacity he, alone, was of -moment to those on the lower plane. He administered the favors and -meted out the punishments. "He's It," was Bridget's laconic phrase, and -in the sentence, as far as he was concerned, or I was concerned, or any -salesman or porter was concerned, Creed & Creed's was summed up. - -Of the Floater's anomalous position in the establishment, the -explanation commonly accepted by the porters, the "luggers" they called -themselves, was that he was in possession of dark secrets, which it -would have been perilous to tempt him to divulge, concerning the firm's -prosperity. A mysterious blood-relationship with "Old Man Creed," who -had founded the house some sixty years before, was also a current -speculation. Certain it was that his connection with the business -antedated that of any one among either partners or employees, a fact -that gave him an authority which no one disputed and all subordinates -feared. - -The job finished, Bridget and I sat on the pile, while he shared his -lunch with me, and I waited for the Floater to bring me my fifty cents. -When he appeared at last, I stood to attention, though Bridget -nonchalantly kept his seat. I learned that if the little man was -treated as an equal in the office he was treated as an equal in the -basement. This circumstance gave to my politeness in standing up and -saying "sir" a value to which he was susceptible, though too crusty to -admit it. - -"There's another load coming, sir, isn't there?" I asked, humbly, after -I had been paid. - -"What's it to you if there is?" - -"Only that I might earn another fifty cents." - -"Earn another fifty cents! Why, fifty cents would pay you for two such -jobs as the one you've done." - -"Then I'd like to work off what you've paid me by unloading the other -lot for nothing." - -He lifted a warning finger as he turned to go up-stairs. "See here, -young feller! You beat it. If I find you here when I come down -again--" - -"You stay jist where y'are," Bridget warned me. "They're awful -short-handed above, and customers comin' in by the shovelful. They've -got to have four luggers to pull the stuff out for the salesmen to show, -and there's only six of us in all. When Clancy put the skids under -hisself last night I could see how it 'd be to-day. It was a godsend to -the little ould man when you blew in; but he always wants ye to think he -can beat the game right out of his own hand." - -Thus encouraged I stood my ground, and when the next load came I had the -privilege of helping Bridget to handle it. By the end of the day I had -not only earned a dollar and a half but had been ordered by the Floater -to turn up again next morning. - -"Ye're all right now," Bridget said, complacently. "Ye've got the job so -long as ye can hould it down. I'll give ye the dope about that, and wan -thing is always to trate him the way ye've trated him to-day. It's what -he wants of us other guys, and we've not got the trick o' handin' it -out. Men like us, that's used to a free country, don't pass up no soft -talk to no one. What's your name?" - -I said it was Jasper Soames. - -"Sure that's a hell of a name," he commented, simply. "The byes 'd -never get round the like o' that. Yer name 'll be Brogan. Brogan was -what we called the guy that was here before Clancy, and it done very -well. All right, then, Brogan. Ye'll have Clancy's locker; and moind -ye don't punch the clock a minute later than siven in the mornin', or -that little ould divil 'll be dancin' round to fire ye." - -So Brogan I was at Messrs. Creed & Creed's all through the next two -years. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - -No lighter-hearted man than I trod the streets of New York that evening. -I had breakfasted in the morning; I had shared Bridget's cold meat and -bread at midday; I could "blow myself in" to something to eat now, and -then go happily to bed. - -There was but one flaw in this bliss, and that was the thought of -Mildred Averill. Whether she would be glad or sorry that for the minute -I was landing on my feet, I could not forecast. And yet when I called -her up she pretended to be glad. I say she pretended, only because in -her first words there was a note of disappointment, perhaps of dismay, -though she recovered herself quickly. - -"But I can be easy in my mind about you?" she asked, after I had -declined to tell her what my new occupation was. - -"Quite easy; only I want you to know how grateful I am." - -"Oh, please don't. If I could have done more!" - -"Fortunately that wasn't needed." - -"But if it should be needed in the future--" - -"I hope it won't be." - -"But if it should be?" - -"Oh, then we'd--we'd see." - -"So that for now it's--" that note stole into her voice again, and with -a wistful question in the intonation--"for now it's--it's good-by?" - -"Only for now." - -She seemed to grasp at something. "What do you mean by that?" - -"Oh, just that--that the future--" - -"I hate the future." - -It was one of her sudden outbursts, and the receiver was hung up. - -After all, this abrupt termination to an unsatisfactory mode of speech -was the wisest method for us both. We couldn't go on sparring and there -was nothing to do but spar. Knowing that I couldn't speak plainly she -had ceased to expect me to do so, and yet... - -When I say that this was a relief to me, you must understand it only in -the sense that my situation was too difficult to allow of my inviting -further complications. Had I been free--but I wasn't free. The -conviction that somewhere in the world I had permanent ties began to be -as strong as the belief that at some time in my life love had been the -dominating factor. There had been a woman. Lydia Blair had seen her. -Her flaming eyes haunted me from a darkness in which they were the only -thing living. The fact that I couldn't construct the rest of the -portrait no more permitted me to doubt the original than you can doubt -the existence of a plant after you have seen a leaf from it. The best I -could hope for now was the privilege of living and working in some -simple, elemental way that would give me the atmosphere in which to -re-collect myself, _recueillement_, the French graphically name the -process, and grow unconsciously back into the facts that effort would -not restore to me. - -For that simple, elemental work and life the opportunity came to me at -last. I see now that it was opportunity, though I should not have said -so at the time. At the time it was only hard necessity, though hard -necessity with those products of shelter and food which in themselves -meant peace. I had peace, therefore, of a kind, and to it I am able now -to attribute that growth and progress backward, if I may so express -myself, which led to the miracle. - -My work next day lay in peeling off the burlap from the newly arrived -consignment, stripping the rolls of the sheepskins in which they were -wrapped inside, spreading the rugs flat, and sweeping them with a stiff, -strong broom. After that we laid them in assorted piles, preparatory to -carrying them up-stairs. They were Khorassans, Kirmanshahs, Bokharas, -and Sarouks, with a superb lot of blue and gold Chinese reproduced on -the company's looms in India. - -The good-natured Peter Bridget taking his turn up-stairs, my colleague -that day was an American of Finnish extraction, whose natural sunniness -of disposition had been soured by the thwarting of a strong ambition to -"get on." Combining the broad features of the Lapp with Scandinavian -hair and complexion, his expression reminded you of a bright summer day -over which a storm was beginning to lower. The son of one large family -and the father of another, he was at war with the world in which his -earning capacity had come to have its limitations fixed at eighteen -dollars a week. - -He was not conversational; he only grunted remarks out of a slow-moving -bitterness of spirit. - -"What's the good of always layin' the pipe and never gettin' no oil -along it? That's what I want to know. Went to work when I was -fourteen, and now I'm forty-two, and in exactly the same spot." - -"You're not in exactly the same spot," I said, "because you've got your -wife and children." - -"And the money I've spent on that woman and them kids!" - -"But you're fond of them, aren't you?" - -"No better wife no guy never had, and no nicer little fam'ly." - -"Well, then, that's so much to the good. Those are assets, aren't they? -They'll mean more to you than if you had money in the savings bank and -didn't have _them_." - -"I can't eddicate 'em proper, or send 'em to high-school, let alone -college, or give 'em nothin' like what they ought to have. All I can -leave 'em when I die is what my father left me, the right not to be able -to get nowhere--and yet you'll hear a lot of gabbers jazzin' away about -this bein' the best country for a working-man." - -During the lunch-hour we drifted into Fifth Avenue, joining the throng -of those who for sixty minutes were like souls enjoying a respite from -limbo. Limbo, I ask you to notice, is not hell; but it is far from -paradise. The dictionary defines the word as a borderland, a place of -restraint, and it was in both those senses, I think, that the shop and -the factory struck the imaginations of these churning minds. The shop -and the factory formed a borderland, neither one thing nor another, a -nowhere; but a place of restraint none the less. More than the physical -restraint involved in the necessity for working was implied by this; it -was restraint of the spirit, restraint of the part of a man that soars, -restraint of the impulse to seize the good things of life in a world -where they seemed to be free. - -Though I could understand little of the conversation around me--Yiddish, -Polish, Armenian, Czech--I knew they were talking of jobs and bosses in -relation to politics and the big things of life. - -"What's the matter with them guys at Albany and Washington that they -don't come across with laws--?" - -That was the question and that was the complaint. It was one of the two -main blends in the current of dissatisfaction. The other blend was the -conviction that if those who had the power didn't right self-evident -wrongs, the wronged would somehow have to right themselves. There was -no speechmaking, no stump oratory, after the manner of a Celtic or -Anglo-Saxon crowd; all was smothered, sullen, burning, secretive, and -intense. - -On our way back to the cavern the Finn remarked: - -"No man doesn't mind work. He'd rather work than loaf, even if he was -paid for loafin'. What he can't stick is not havin' room to grow in, -bein' squeezed into undersize, like a Chinese woman's foot." - -After all, I reflected, this might be the real limbo, not only of the -working-man, but of all the dissatisfied in all ranks throughout the -world--the denials of the liberty to expand. Mildred Averill was -rebelling against it in her way as much as the Finn in his, as much as -any Jew or Pole or Italian in all the crowd surging back at that minute -to the dens from which they had come out. Discontent was not confined -to any one class or to any one set of needs. Custom, convention, and -greed had clamped our energies round and round as with iron hoops, till -all but the few among us had lost the right to grow. It wasn't a -question of pay; it wasn't primarily a question of money at all, though -the question of money was involved in it. More than anything else, it -was one of a new orientation toward everything, with a shifting of basic -principles. The first must become last and the last must become -first--not in the detail of precedence but in that of the laws by which -we live--before men, as men, could get out of the prison-houses, into -which civilization had thrust them, to the broad, free air to which they -were born. The struggle between labor and capital was a mere duel -between blind men. It was bluff on the surface by those on both sides -who were afraid to put the ax to the root of the tree. No symbol was so -eloquent to me of the bondage into which the human elements in Church -and State had chained the spirit of man as the Finn's comparison of the -Chinese woman's foot. - -When the Floater paid me another dollar and a half that night he told me -that if I worked like a dog, was as meek as a mouse, and "didn't get no -labor rot into my nut" I could have Clancy's job as a regular thing. -But by this time I was beginning to understand him. I have already -called him a terrier, and a terrier he was, with a terrier's bark, but -with a terrier's fundamental friendliness. If you patted him, he wagged -his tail. True, he wagged it unwillingly, ungraciously, and with a fond -belief that you didn't know he was wagging it at all; but the fact that -he did wag it was enough for me. - -It was enough for us all. There was not a man among the "luggers" who -didn't understand him, nor among the salesmen either, as I came to -understand. - -"Dee ye know how to take that little scalpeen? He's like wan of thim -Graaks or Eytalians that's got a quare talk of their own, but you know -you can put it into our talk and make it mane somethin'. Wance I was at -a circus where a monkey what looked like a little ould man talked his -kind o' talk, and it made sinse. Well, that's like the Floater. He's -like the monkey what can't talk nothin' but monkey-talk; but glory be to -God! he manes the same thing as a man. Don't ye moind him, Brogan. -When he talks his talk, you talk it to yerself in yer own talk, and -ye'll kape yer timper and get everything straight." - -This kindly advice was given me by Denis Gallivan, the oldest of the -porters, and a sort of dean of our corps. Small, wiry, as strong as a -horse, with a wizened, leathery face that looked as if it had been dried -and tanned in a hot sunshine, there was a yearning in his blue-black -eyes like that which some of the old Italian masters put into the eyes -of saints. Denis, Bridget, and the Finn composed what I may call the -permanent staff, the two others, excluding myself, being invariably -restless chaps who, like Clancy, came for a few weeks and went off -again. With the three workers named I made a fourth, henceforth helping -to carry the responsibility of the house on my shoulders. - -It was a good place, with pleasant work. Two or three times I could -have had promotion and a raise in pay, but I had reasons of my own for -staying where I was. - -My duties being simple, I enjoyed the sheer physical exertion I was -obliged to make. Arriving about seven in the morning I helped to sweep -the floors, with a special sweeping of the rugs, druggets, and mattings -that had lain out overnight. If there was anything to be carried from -the basement to the upper floor I helped in that. Then, having "cleaned" -myself, as the phrase went, I took my place in the shop, ready to pull -out the goods which the salesmen panted to display to customers, and to -put them back again. - -For this there were always four of us in the spacious, well-lighted -shop, which must have been sixty feet long by thirty wide, and I liked -the dignity and quiet of all the regulation tasks. As a rule, we were -on the floor by nine, though it was generally after ten before we saw a -customer. During that hour of spare time we porters hung together at the -farther end, exchanging in low tones the gossip of the day, confiding -personal experiences, or discussing the war and the reconstruction of -society. Now and then one of the four or five salesmen would -condescendingly join with us, but for the most part the salesmen kept to -themselves, treating the same topics from a higher point of view. The -gods of Olympus did little more than enter by the main door from Fifth -Avenue, cross to their offices, after which we scarcely saw them. Only -the Floater moved at will between us and them, with a little dog's -freedom to be equally at home in the stable and the drawing-room. - -A flicker of interest always woke with the arrival of customers. They -entered with diffidence, confused by the subdued brilliance of the -Persian and Chinese colors hanging on our walls, by the wide empty -spaces, and their own ignorance of what they came in search of. - -"There's not tin women in New York 'll know the difference betwane a -Kirmanshah and an Anatolia," Denis said to me one day, "and it'd make ye -sorry for thim when they comes to furnishin'. Glory be to God, they'll -walk in here knowin' no more than that they want rugs, and it's all wan -to thim what ye puts before thim so long as it's the color they like and -it lays on the ground. If this wasn't the honestest house that the Lord -ever made there'd be chatin' till we was all in danger o' hell fire." - -But in spite of this ignorance, we received our visitors courteously, a -salesman going forward to meet all newcomers and conducting them to the -row of reproduced Louis Seize cane-bottomed chairs placed for their -convenience. Then it would be, "Bridget, bring that Khorassan--3246, -you know, that fine specimen." And Bridget would know, and call the -Finn to help him lay it out. Or it would be, "Brogan, can you find the -Meshed that came in yesterday--2947? I think madam would like to see -it." On this Denis and I would haul out the big carpet, stretch it at -the lady's feet, listen to comments which, as Denis put it, had the -value of a milliner's criticism of the make of a "floyin'-machine," and -eventually carry it back to the pile whence we had taken it. I may say -here that for customers we had little respect, except from the point of -view of their purchasing power. - -"Did ye ever see wan o' thim that could tell a Sehna knot from a -Giordes?" Denis asked, scornfully. "Did ye ever see wan o' thim that -knowed which rug had a woolen warp and which a cotton, or which rug 'd -wear, or which 'd all go up in flock? If a woman was to boy a shimmy -that 'll be in rags before it's been six toimes to the wash with as -little sinse as she'll boy a rug that ought to last for a hunderd years -her husband 'd be in jail for dit." - -But for me, customers had one predominant interest. Among them there -might be some one I could recognize, or some one who would recognize me. -As to the last, I had one fear and many hopes. My one fear was that -Mildred Averill or Lulu Averill might one day wander in; but as time -went on and they didn't, I ceased to dread the mischance. As it also -proved in the end it was the same way with my hopes. No one turned up -whom I could hail as an acquaintance; no one ever glanced at me with an -old friend's curiosity. - -So I settled down to the routine which, though I didn't know it then, -was the mental rest that, according to Doctor Scattlethwaite, I needed -for my recovery. The days were so much alike that I could no more -differentiate between them than can a man in prison. On eighteen -dollars a week I contrived to live with that humble satisfaction of -humble needs which I learned to be all that a man requires. Little by -little I accommodated myself to the outlook of my surroundings, and if I -never thought exactly like my companions I found myself able to listen -to their views complacently. With all three of my more important -co-workers--Denis, Bridget, and the Finn--my relations were cordial, a -fact due largely to their courteous respect for my private history, into -which none of them ever pried. Like Lydia, Drinkwater, and every one -else, they took it for granted that there was something I wanted to -hide, and allowed me to hide it. - -In this way I passed the end of the year 1916, the whole of 1917, and -all of 1918 up to the beginning of December. Though the country had in -the mean time gone to war it made little difference to us. Denis was -too old to be drafted; Bridget and the Finn were exempted as fathers of -large families; I was examined, and, for reasons I do not yet -understand, rejected. I should have made a very good fighting man; but -I think I was looked upon as of weak or uncertain mentality. - -During all those months I courted the obscurity so easy to find. -Between Creed & Creed's and my squint-eyed room with the fungi on the -mantelpiece I went by what you might call the back ways, in order to -risk no meeting with Mildred Averill or her family. Since they -frequented the neighboring book store, one of the best known in New -York, they might at some time see me going in or out, and so I kept to -the direction of Sixth Avenue. Though I often drifted out into the -midday throng of which I have spoken already there was little danger in -that, because I was swallowed in the crowd. In company for the most -part with Sam Pelly, I took my meals in places so modest that Lydia -Blair was unlikely to run across me; and I had no one else to be afraid -of. - -Peace therefore stole into my racked soul, though it was the peace of -death. While I had recurrences of the hope that my lost sense of -identity would one day be restored to me, I dropped into the habit of -not thinking much about it. I ate and drank; I had shelter and clothes. -The narrow margin on which other working-people lived came to seem -enough for me. Toward the great accidents of life, illness or -incapacity, I learned to take the same philosophic attitude as they, -trusting to luck, or to something too subtle and spiritual to put easily -into words, to take care of me. If I developed any deep, strong -principle of living it was along the lines of the wish that on a snowy -December afternoon had led me to Meeting-House Green. I knew that the -universe was filled with a great Will and tried to let myself glide -along on it in simplicity, and harmony. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - -On the morning of the eleventh of December, 1918, I had been in the -basement helping to unpack a consignment just come in from India, as I -had first done two years before. I had, therefore, not known what -passed on the floor above during the forenoon, and should have been -little interested had I been there. What I needed to know the Floater -told me when I appeared after lunch to take my shift on the main floor -with Bridget and the Finn. - -"You're to go with the two lads down-stairs"--the two of our six porters -who were always transient--"to this number in East Seventy-sixth Street, -and show the big Chinee antique, 4792, and the modern Chinee, 3628, to a -lady that's stayin' there, and explain to her the difference between -them. She'll take the new one if she thinks it's just as good, and -you're to show her that it isn't. She's not the lady of the house. Her -name is Mrs. Mountney, and she comes from Boston. She saw them both -this morning, but said she couldn't judge till she'd viewed 'em -private." - -It was not an unusual expedition, though it was new to me. For special -customers, or in cases of big bits of business, we sent out rugs on -approval or for private view, though I had never before been intrusted -with the mission. I didn't wholly like the job; but we were accustomed -to take both things we didn't like and things we did as all in the day's -work. - -At the house in East Seventy-sixth Street we found ourselves expected, -the footman explaining that we were to carry our wares to the music-room -and lay them out. The ladies were resting after lunch, but Mrs. -Mountney would come to us as soon as she left her room. With the -pleasant free-masonry of caste he confided to me, as with our burdens we -made our way into the hall, that Mrs. Mountney was a nice little bit of -fluff, though not so tony as he had looked for in an old girl out of -Boston. When it came to class, the lady of the house, whom I thought he -spoke of as Luke, could hang it all over her. - -It was so long since I had been in a house of the kind that I took notes -more acutely than was my habit, though my habit was always to be -observant. What struck me chiefly was its resemblance on a larger scale -to the last of its type I had visited. Perhaps the name Lulie had -turned my thoughts backward; but there was certainly the same square -hall, containing a few monumental bits of furniture because they were -monumental, the same dining-room opening out of it, full of high-backed -and Italian ... And then, across a corridor that ran to some region -behind the dining-room, I thought I saw a stocky figure grope its way -with the kind of movement I had not seen since the last time I had met -Drinkwater. A door opened and closed somewhere, and before we reached -the music-room I heard the distant click of a typewriter. - -That I was nervous goes without saying, but there were so many chances -of my fear being groundless that I did my best to dismiss it. The -music-room was simple, spacious, white-and-gold, admirably adapted not -only to the purpose it served but to that which had brought us there. -When our carpets were spread they made a magnificent gold spot in the -center of a sumptuous emptiness. - -A few minutes later the nice little bit of fluff tripped in, justifying -the description. She was one of those instances, of which we saw a good -many among our customers, where a merciful providence had given a great -deal of money to some one who would have been quite too insignificant -without it. A worn fairness of complexion was supplemented by -cosmetics, and an inadequate stock of very blond hair arranged in -artistic disarray in order to make the most of it. To offset the laces -and pearls of an elaborate negligee by a "democratic" manner, and so put -poor working-men at their ease, she nodded to us in a friendly, offhand -way, saying, briskly: - -"Now then! Let's see! Which is the modern one and which is the -antique? I can't tell; can you?" Looking at me archly, she changed her -tone to the chaffing one which the French describe as _blagueur_. "But -of course you'll say you can, because that's your business. You've got -them marked with some sort of secret sign, like a conjurer with coins, -so as to tell one from the other, without my knowing it." - -Having said this, she began to march round the two great gold-covered -oblongs with the movement of a prowling little animal. Keeping my eye -on the main doorway, I pointed out that while the modern piece would -please the ordinary eye only the antique would satisfy the elect. There -was no question but that the Indian reproduction was good. Any one who -took it would do more than get his money's worth, since it would tone -down with the years, while the hard wool of which it was woven would -make it stand comparatively rough usage. But--didn't madam see?--the -antique, made on the old Chinese looms, was of the softer, richer sheen -imparted by the softer, richer wool; and wasn't the heavenly -turquoise-blue of the ornaments and border of a beauty which the modern -dyes had not begun to reproduce? - -As I explained this and some other characteristics of rugs, I was more -or less talking against time. The suspicion that had seized me on -entering the house began to deepen, without my knowing why. - -"Y-yes; y-yes," the little lady agreed; "it _is_ lovely, isn't it? And -I suppose that if you're buying a good thing it's better to get the--" - -She paused, looking out through the great doorway into the hall. I, -too, looked out, to see Mrs. Averill in a tea-gown, gazing in at us -distraitly. - -"Oh, Lulu, do come here. This man, this gentleman, has just been -telling me the most interesting things--" - -She trailed into the music-room with the same graceful languor with -which she had trailed into the drawing-room on the occasion when we had -last met. The two other porters and myself being negligible figures in -the room, her almond eyes rested listlessly on the rugs, which she -studied without remark. - -"Lulu," Mrs. Mountney began again, with animation, "did you know that in -Persian rugs the designs are outlined in rows of knots, and in Chinese -by clipping with the scissors? _cisele_, this ma--this gentleman calls -it, and you can feel a little line! Do put your hand down." - -"Oh, I'm too tired," Mrs. Averill protested, in her sweet drawling -voice, "and this room's so stuffy. Mildred said she'd have it aired; -but I don't know what she's mooning over half her time. She's so -dreamy. I often think she ought to be in a convent, or something like -that." - -The little bit of fluff was more interested in rugs than in Mildred. - -"Do tell Mrs. Averill--I'm staying with her--what you've just been -saying about the wool. Did you know, Lulu, that Indian wool is hard and -Chinese soft?" She looked again toward the hallway, where a second -figure had come into view. "Mildred, do come here. There's the most -interesting things--I'm so glad I went to that place this morning--and -they've sent me the most interesting man--Lulu's like ice, but you're -artistic." - -Miss Averill, too, advanced into the room; but though I was in full view -she paid me and my comrades no particular attention. It was the easier -for me not to speak, or to draw any one's glance to myself, for the -reason that Mrs. Mountney chattered on, repeating for Mildred's benefit -the facts I had just been giving her. - -"Just think of having the patience to clip with the scissors round all -these designs, and it's the same in the modern rug as in the antique. -Do stoop down, Mildred, and let your fingers run along the ciseling; -that's what this--this gentleman calls it." - -As the girl stooped to satisfy Mrs. Mountney, I ventured to look at her -more closely. She was perhaps not older than when I had last seen her -two years before, but her face had undergone a change. It made you -think of faces chastened, possibly purified, by suffering. Where there -had been chiefly a sympathetic common sense there was now the beauty -that comes of elevation. - -Luckily for me Mrs. Mountney ran on, while we three men, with the lack -of individuality of employees before customers, remained -indistinguishable objects in the background. - -"That's the modern and that's the antique; and I'm sure no one but a -rug-man could tell the difference between them. This man--this -gentleman--says they can, but that's only business. Hundreds of dollars -difference in the price, almost as much as between a pair of real pearl -ear-rings and imitation ones. What do you say, Mildred? Would anybody -ever notice--?" - -"I suppose you'd be buying the best because it's the best, and not -because any one would notice--" - -"I should be buying it for what every one would see. What's the good of -having a thing if it doesn't show what it is? I hate the way some -people have of calling your attention to every fine thing they've got in -the house, as if you weren't used to fine things of your own. If I've -got to tell every one that that's a genuine old Chinese masterpiece -before they notice it--well, it isn't worth it. But at the same time -the effect is richer; and some people do know, and talk about it to -other people who know--there's that to consider." - -By this time I was conscious of something else. - -Having got through so many minutes without recognition I was beginning -to hope that, by blotting myself out, as it were, between my -fellow-workmen I might finally escape detection. No one had as yet -dissociated any of us from another, the very absence of personality on -our part reducing us to the place of mere machines. As a mere machine -Mrs. Averill and Mildred might continue to overlook me, passing out of -the room as unobservant as they had come in. - -But Lulu had begun a curious movement round the square of the carpets. -She seemed to be studying them; though with the long slits of her -Mongolian eyes her glance might be traveling anywhere. Having had the -opportunity to look me in the face, she moved to where she got me in -profile, afterward passing behind me and returning to her original -standpoint beside her sister and her friend. Without further reference -to Mrs. Mountney, she slipped her arm through Mildred's, leading her -toward the grand piano, against which they leaned. - -For me there was nothing to do but to stand still. A word, a sign, -might easily betray me, if I had not been betrayed already. As the -conversation went on, Mildred kept her back to me, but Mrs. Averill -stood sidewise, so as to be able to throw me an occasional appraising -glance. Apparently she was in some doubt, my position and my clothes -rendering absolute certainty difficult. - -But Mildred turned away from the piano at last, and without examining me -directly came slowly down the long room. Entirely mistress of herself -she walked with sedateness and composure. The shyness and brusqueness -which had given her a kind of aura in my thoughts during the past two -years seemed to have been overcome by experience. In this self-command -more than in any other detail I observed a change in her. - -Not till she reached the corner of the long carpet did she give me the -first clear, straightforward look. That recognition did not come -instantly told me that I, too, must have changed. Laborious work and a -rough way of living had doubtless aged and probably hardened me. I was -dressed, too, like any other working-man, though with the tidiness which -our position on the selling floor exacted. A working-man in his Sunday -clothes would perhaps have described me, while my features must have -adapted themselves to altered inward conditions with the facility which -features possess. - -"Is it really you?" - -She was standing in front of me now, singling me out from the two boys -who had fallen a little back. She didn't offer to shake hands; perhaps -she wasn't sure enough of my identity; but that the circumstances in -which she found me made no difference to her was the one fact apparent. -Any emotion she may have felt was expressed in the quiver of a faint -smile. - -"I hoped you wouldn't recognize me," was all I found to say. - -"Why?" - -"Oh, for all the reasons that--that almost anybody would see at a -glance." - -"Perhaps I'm not--not almost anybody." - -"No; you're not." - -"Have you been doing this ever since--?" - -I nodded. "It's the job I told you I might get. I did get it; and -so--" - -"Have you liked it?" - -"Extremely." - -"Is that true, or is it just--? - -"No; it's true. I could have had better jobs. They offered two or three -times to make me a salesman; you may remember that I knew a good deal -about rugs already--; but I preferred to stay where I am." - -"For what reason?" - -"I hardly know that I can tell you, unless it was to--to--" - -"To find your soul?" - -"Possibly." - -"And have you found it?" - -"I've found--something. I'm not sure whether it's my soul or not." - -All this was said within the space of perhaps two minutes, during which -I watched Mrs. Averill and Mrs. Mountney, toward whom Mildred turned her -back, putting their head together on a whispered conversation. That it -was about me I could have gathered from their glances; but a little crow -on the part of Mrs. Mountney left me no doubt about it. - -"Jasper Soames! Why, that's the name--" - -It was all I caught; but it was enough to put even Mildred Averill on a -secondary plane. - -"If you've found your soul--" she was saying. - -"Oh, I'm not sure of that. I only feel that I've found--something. I -mean that something has come, or gone, I'm not sure of which; only -that--" - -Mrs. Mountney wheeled suddenly from the piano, trotting back to the edge -of the carpet, across which she spoke to me. - -"Did you ever hear of Copley's great portrait of Jasper Soames?" - -I nodded, speechlessly. I had heard of it. In my mind's eye I saw it, -at the head of a great staircase, a full-length figure, wearing -knee-breeches of bottle-green satin, a gold-embroidered waistcoat, and a -long coat of ruby velvet with a Russian sable collar falling back almost -to the shoulders. A plate let into the foot of the frame bore the name -_Jasper Soames_, with the dates of a birth and a death. Somewhere in my -life the picture had been a familiar object. - -I had no time to follow up this discovery before Mrs. Mountney began -again: - -"Are you one of his descendants?" - -"No; but my wife is." - -The reply came out before I realized its significance. I hardly knew -what I had said till I heard Lulu Averill exclaim with as much -indignation as her indolent tones could carry: - -"But you told my husband that you were not a married man! Didn't he, -Mildred?" - -The situation was so unexpected that I felt myself like a bird swinging -in a cage. Nothing was steady; everything around me seemed to whirl. -Then I heard Mildred speaking as if her voice reached me through a poor -connection on a telephone. - -"Oh, that didn't matter. I knew he was married all along--at least I -was pretty sure of it. What difference could it make to us? - -"It made the difference," Mrs. Averill drawled, peevishly, "that we -believed him." - -But Mrs. Mountney intervened, waving the others aside with a motion of -the arm. - -"Wait!" She looked at me again across the carpet. "If you married a -descendant of Jasper Soames then it was Violet Torrance." - -The mist that had hitherto enshrined two flaming eyes seemed to part as -if torn by-lightning. The figure disclosed was not static like that of -Jasper Soames, but alive as the sky is a ive in a storm. It was that of -my wife as I had last seen her. My mind resumed its action at the point -where its memory of Vio had been shut ott. - -"And," Mrs. Mountney went on, pressing her facts, "you're Billy -Harrowby." - -I could only bend my head in assent. - -"That's my name." - -"Then why--why--?" - -She flung her hands apart, unable to continue. Lulu Averill, moving with -the tread of a tigress stalking silently, stole down from the piano to -the edge of the carpet. Mildred's eyes as she still faced me were all -amber-colored fire. I was like a man waking in the morning from a night -of troubled dreams. - -Little Mrs. Mountney dragged her laces across both the rugs to confront -me face to face, standing beside Mildred. - -"Do you know who I am?" - -I shook my head. - -"I'm Alice Tarporley." - -"Oh yes! You were a friend of Vio's before we were married. I've heard -her speak of you; but you lived in Denver." - -"I went back to Boston only two years ago, when poor Vio was in such -trouble because you were--" She cried out, with another wide motion of -the arms: "In the name of God, man, what does it all mean?" - -But I couldn't go into explanations. I didn't know where to begin. - -"Tell me first how Vio is--where she is." - -"She was perfectly well the day before yesterday, and at your own house -in Boston. But don't you know, don't you know--? Why, this is too -awful! The more I think of it the more awful it becomes. Don't you -know--?" - -"I--I don't know anything." - -She got it out at last. - -"Don't you know--Vio thinks you're--you're _dead_?" - -Iron clampings seemed to press me round the ribs. - -"No; I didn't know that. What made her think so?" - -"Who wouldn't think so? You were reported missing--and when weeks went -by--and no news of you--and then, when your uniform was found on the -bank of that river, near Tours, wasn't it? and your papers in the -pockets--and your letter of credit, and everything-- And here you are -in New York, going under another name, working like a stevedore, and -looking like a tramp! Why, it's enough to drive anybody crazy!" - -I could only stammer: "I shall explain everything, after I've seen Vio." - -"You can't explain in such a way that--" She swung toward her hostess. -"Lulu, I must go straight back to Boston to-night. There's a train that -gets you there in the morning, isn't there? I hate night traveling. I -never sleep, and I have a headache all the next day--but what's that -when--? If Vio hears this from any one but--" She turned to me again. -"Then it _was_ true that you'd been seen in New York hotels?" - -"Possibly; I don't know what you're referring to." - -"Oh, every now and then some report went round in Boston that So-and-so -had seen you in this hotel or that; but nothing of the sort has been -said for a year or two, and we thought that it was just the kind of fake -story that gets about. But now! Well, I must break the news to Vio--" - -"Why shouldn't I break it myself? I could call her up by long -distance." - -"Man, if she heard your voice like that it would kill her. You don't -_know_. No, I must go; there's no help for it, headache or no headache. -Mildred dear, won't you call Annette? I told her she could go to the -theater to-night, but now she'll have to get our tickets, and pack!" She -wrung her hands. "Oh, dear! When a man's dead, he'd better stay dead!" - -Mildred slipped from the room. A suspicion began to creep over me. - -"Is there any special reason for my staying dead?" - -"How _can_ you when you're alive? That's the important point. Vio will -never forgive you for being alive--and not telling her." - -"She will when she's heard." - -"She's got to hear right away, and I'm going to take charge of it. You -may say it's none of my business, but I'm making it mine. I've known -Vio Torrance since we were tots together." - -I ventured to remind her that Vio might be her friend, but that she was -my wife. - -"Wife!" she crowed, scornfully. "Have you treated her like a wife--to -be alive all this time and never let her know! When I tell you that -she's been in mourning for you and out again--positively out again-- -Well, you can imagine!" - -"I can imagine so many things--" - -But she jerked her little person away from me toward the two fellows who -were trying dully to follow the scene they were witnessing without being -able to seize its drift. - -"Take all this stuff back again to where you brought it from. I'm not -going to buy any of it. The idea of Billy Harrowby--" She repeated the -name with a squeal, "Billy _Harrowby!_ of all people in the world! Why, -it's enough to drive me out of my senses. I suppose you don't know," -she continued, switching back to me again, "that they've put a new man -in your place at the Museum, over a year ago, a Frenchman; and that Vio -has given them all your prints and etchings for a William Harrowby -Memorial--that's what she called it--she had to do something of the sort -after your tragic end, in common decency; and you considered a hero, -something like Rupert Brooke and Alan Seeger, and now what's it to -be--and you alive?" A dramatic gesture seemed to claim this confusion -as something for which Fate had made her specially responsible. "Lulu, -take me away, for Heaven's sake! I shall never look at a Chinese rug -again without thinking--" - -When the two ladies, with arms around each other's waist, had passed -into the hallway, and out of sight, I turned to my colleagues, saying -merely: - -"I think we'd better roll these up and beat it." - -Neither made any comment till we were in the lorry on our way back to -Creed & Creed's, when one of them said in an awe-stricken tone: - -"For the love o' Mike, Brogan, ain't your name--_Brogan_?" - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - -Two mornings later I was in Boston, sitting in the lobby of one of the -great hotels. I had come by order of a telegram from my brother-in-law, -Wolf Torrance. A note handed me on my arrival, late the previous -evening, requested me to wait for him before attempting to see Violet. -From her I had had nothing. - -I had come as I was, with the hundred and thirty dollars of my savings -in my pocket, but without taking the time to dress otherwise than in my -working-man's best. Examining myself closely, now that I was face to -face with my old life again, I could see that by imperceptible degrees -my whole appearance had taken on those shades which distinguish the -working-man from men in more sophisticated walks in life. Vio Harrowby -as the wife of a working-man, or of any one looking like a working-man, -was an inconceivable image. - -My leaving New York had been made simpler for me than I could have -ventured to hope. Whatever the tale told by the lads who had accompanied -me to East Seventy-sixth Street, it had awed the luggers, impressed the -salesmen, and reached the ears of the Olympian gods. It was not often, -I fancy, that Creed & Creed's was the scene of mystery. That there was -a secret about me every one knew, of course; but it had been connected -with vague romantic tales of squandering the family estate, of cheating -at cards, or of other forms of aristocratic misdoings. So long as I -didn't put on airs, and answered submissively to the name of Brogan, -this was not laid up against me or treated otherwise than as a -misfortune. Now that an explanation seemed to be coming to the light -the effect, for that morning at least, was to strike my comrades dumb. -They stared at me, but kept at a respectful distance, somewhat like -school-boys with one of their number smitten by domestic calamity. -Salesmen who, except for an order to pull out or put back a rug, had -never taken the trouble to notice me, came and engaged me in polite -conversation, while one or two of the partners made errands into the -shop on purpose, as I surmised, to get a look at me. The single moment -that could have been called dramatic fell to the Floater, who came in, -during the forenoon, with a telegram and a special-delivery letter in -his hand. They had been sent to Creed & Creed's, since that was my only -known address. - -"I suppose these wouldn't be for you," was the Floater's choice of -words, as he offered them for my inspection. - -The telegram was for William Harrowby, the letter to William Harrowby, -Esquire. - -"That's my name, my real name," I admitted, humbly. - -It was natural for him to hide his curiosity under a veil of sputtering -disdain. - -"Thought it'd be. Never did take stock in that damfool name you give -when you first come here. 'Twa'n't fit for a dog or a horse--and you -goin' just as easy by the name o' Brogan. Couldn't any one _see_?" - -As to what any one could see I didn't inquire, being too eager to open -my telegram. Though I scarcely hoped that it could be from Vio my heart -sank a little when I saw that it was not. - - -"Come at once. Stay at the Normandy. Wait for me before seeing Violet. -Explanations expected. J. DEWOLFE TORRANCE." - - -The spirit of the letter was different. Bearing neither formal -beginning nor signature, it was dated from the house in East -Seventy-sixth Street. - - -"I am so glad for your sake. Though I do not understand, I have -confidence. I have always had confidence--without understanding. Some -day, perhaps, you will tell me; but that shall be as you please. Just -now I only want you to know that almost from the beginning of our -acquaintance I thought you had a wife. I can't tell you how or why the -conviction was borne in on me; but it was. Possibly I was interested in -you for her sake a little, with that kind of secret sisterhood which -more or less binds all women together, and which is not inconsistent -with the small mutual irritations we classify as feline. In any case I -knew it--or I so nearly knew it as to be able to take it for granted. -If you go back to your home, then, you will have more than my good -wishes, you will both have them. Should there be anything to keep you -apart you will have more than my good wishes still. Don't ask me why I -say these things, because I scarcely know. Don't try to interpret me, -either, for you are extremely likely to be wrong. In our talks together -you must have seen that I am in rebellion against being bound by other -people's rules of conduct, and as far as I have the courage I brave the -inferences drawn from what I do. My weakness is that I have not much -courage. All the same, as I want to give you a kind of blessing in this -new turn in your life, I keep repeating of you some words which I think -must come from Tennyson: - - "'Go forth, and break through all, - Till one shall crown thee, far in the spiritual city.'" - - -This letter, too, made my leaving New York easier. Possibly it was -written with that intent. "Don't try to interpret me," she had said, and -I saw the wisdom of following the counsel. As a matter of fact the new -turn to the wheel taxed my mental resources to the utmost. - -As nearly as I could judge, those mental resources were normal again. -My return to the old conditions I can only compare to waking from a -drugged unconsciousness. The repair of a broken telegraphic or -telephonic connection might also give an idea of what had taken place in -me. Re-establishment effected, messages went simply; that was all I -could say. The mental rest induced by two years of physical exertion, -with little or no thought for the morrow from any point of view, had -apparently given the ruptured brain cells the time to reconstruct -themselves. Physiologically I may be expressing myself inexactly; but -that is of no moment. What is important is the fact that from the -instant when Alice Mountney said, "You're Billy Harrowby," the complete -function of the brain seemed to be resumed. There was no more in the -nature of a shock than there is in remembering anything else forgotten. - -More difficult to become accustomed to were the outward conditions. -Having accepted the habits of poverty, those of financial ease seemed -alien. They were uncomfortable, too, like an outlandish style of dress. -To sleep in a luxurious bed, to order whatever I chose for breakfast, -was as odd for me as a reversion to laces and ruffles in my costume. -There was a marvelous thrill in it, however, with a sense of trembling -anticipation. A soul on the outer edge of paradise, after a life of -vicissitude and stint, would doubtless have some such vision of -abundance and peace as that which filled my horizon. - -But before Christian arrives at the Celestial City which is in sight he -is reminded that a few difficulties remain to be faced, and in some such -light I regarded the interview with Wolf. He came at last, pushing -round the revolving door, and standing on the threshold with a searching -look in his silly, hungry eyes. Hatted and fur-coated, he had that air -of divine right to all that was best on earth which was one of the -qualities that, to me at least, had always made him unbearable. Perhaps -because I had had the same conviction about myself I could tolerate it -less in him. - -Every one called him Wolf, partly because of his name, but more because -he looked like the animal. With a jaw extraordinarily long and narrow, -emphasized rather than concealed by a beard trimmed carefully to a -point, his smile lit up a row of gleaming upper teeth best described as -fangs. His small eyes were at once eager, greedy, and fatuous; and yet -there was that in his personality which stamped him as of recognized -social superiority. In the same way that a picture can be spoken of as -a poor example of a good school, Wolf might have been reckoned as a -second-rate specimen of a thoroughbred stock. Even as he stood you -would have put him down as belonging to the higher strata in any -community, and in sheer right of his forebears a member of the best -among its clubs. - -Instead of going forward and making myself known I allowed him to -discover me. It was one more proof of my having changed that more than -once his eye traveled over me without recognition. It must be -remembered that I was no longer seedy; I was only different. It was not -the degree but the kind that put him out of his reckoning. - -When in the end he selected me from the crowd it was rather as a -possibility than as his very man. Coming forward with that inquiring, -and yet doubtful, air which people take on when scarcely able to believe -what they see, he halted with a bland, incredulous smile. - -"Well!" - -With feelings in no wise different from those of a man charged with a -crime of which he knows himself guilty, I struggled to my feet: - -"Hello, Wolf!" - -Wolfs small eyes roamed from my head to my feet and from my feet to my -head before he spoke again: - -"So you've decided to come back." - -The grin that accompanied these words was partly nervous, but partly due -to his pose of taking life as the kind of joke which he was -man-of-the-world enough to appreciate. - -"As you see," I responded, with a sickly grin on my own part. - -In some lifeless manner we shook hands, after which I asked him to be -seated. - -On his taking off his hat I observed that during the three years and -more since I had seen him last he had grown bald, while, with something -of a pang, I wondered for the first time if I should find a change in -Vio. - -"Why didn't you come before?" - -"I should have come if I could. As a matter of fact, I couldn't." - -"Couldn't--why?" - -"Didn't know where to go." - -"What's that mean?" - -"Exactly what it says." - -"That you didn't know where to--?" - -I tapped my forehead. "Had a--had a--shock--or something." - -His gleaming smile was saved from ferocity only by being inane. - -"Went dotty?" - -"If you like." - -"Great Scott! But why--why didn't some one let us know?" - -"They couldn't. I--I seem to have taken care of that. Perhaps I'd -better--better tell you all about it, that is, as far as I know." - -He nodded, taking out his cigar-case and offering me a cigar. When I -declined it he took one himself, bit off the end, lighted it, and in -general carried himself as if my approaching confidences wouldn't matter -much. I resented this the less, knowing it to be his attitude toward -every one and everything. All that I cared for was that he should be in -a position to give a correct account to Violet, in case she insisted on -hearing his report before seeing me. - -"You remember how I came to go over and join the American Ambulance -Corps in France?" - -He said he did not remember it. - -"Well, I didn't do it of my own accord. I--I loathed the idea. If we'd -been in the war at the time of course I should have done anything I -could; but we were not in the war. As a matter of fact, if Vio had only -let me wait I could have been of more use in my own particular line." - -"You mean what we used to call the old-woman line." - -"If you choose to put it that way." - -"Didn't you put it in that way yourself?" - -"As a feeble joke, yes. But we'll let that pass. All I mean is that as -head of the Department of Textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts I knew a -lot of a subject that became of great importance when we went into the -war; so that, if Vio had waited--" - -"Vio," he grinned, "was like a bunch of other women who'd caught the -fever of sacrifice, what? When all their swell lady friends in England -and France were giving up their dear ones, they didn't want not to be in -the swim. Don't think I didn't go through it, old chap. Vio was simply -crazy to give up a dear one. Before she'd got you she'd been after me. -When Hilda Swain drove her two sons into being stokers in the navy, and -killed one of them with the unaccustomed work, I thought Vio would go -off her chump with a sense of her uselessness to a great cause. Those -were days when to be Vio's dear one meant to go in danger of your life." - -A hundred memories crowded in on me. - -"Do you think that was it? It wasn't that--that she wanted to get rid -of me?" - -His answer struck me oddly. - -"Not a bit of it, not then. Lord, no!" - -I repressed the questions these words called up, taking a minute to -think the situation over. - -"At any rate, I went," I continued, with outward calm. "It was after a -rather stormy scene with Vio, in which she said she thought she had -married a man and not a nervous old lady." - -"Oh, she said worse than that to me, lots cf times, what?" - -"Yes, but you weren't her husband; and you were not desperately in love -with her." - -"Often thought Vio was like one of those queer-mixed cocktails that 'll -set chaps off their nuts who'll take a tumbler of whisky neat and never -turn a hair." - -"There's something in that," I agreed; "but it makes the kind of woman -whose contempt is the harder to put up with. When she began handing it -out to me--well, I went. That's all there is to be said about it. You -tell me that Vio wanted to sacrifice a dear one; and she did. I was no -more fit for the job I undertook than--than little Bobby would have been -if he'd lived till then." - -"That's another thing. Vio should have had more children, what?" - -"Ah, well! She didn't want them. When little Bobby went she said she -couldn't go through it all a second time, and so-- But I'm trying to -tell you what happened." - -"Well, go on." - -I narrated my experiences in the Ambulance Corps in words that have been -so often given in print that it is not worth while to repeat them. What -has not so frequently been recorded, because not every one has felt it -to the same degree, is the racking of spirit, soul, and body by the -unrelieved horror of the days and nights. I suppose I must own to being -in regard to all this more delicately constituted than the majority of -men. There were others like me, but they were relatively not numerous. -Of them, too, we hear little, partly because not all of those who -survived like to confess the weakness, and few survived. If it were -possible to get at the facts I think it would be found that among those -who sickened and died a large proportion were predisposed by sheer -inability to go on living any longer in this world of men. I could give -you the names of not a few in whom the soul was stricken before the body -was. They were for the most part sensitively organized fellows, lovers -of the beautiful, and they simply couldn't live. Officially their -deaths are ascribed to pneumonia or to something else; but the real -cause, while right on the surface, was beyond the doctor's diagnosis. - -I didn't sicken; and I didn't die; I wasn't even wounded. What happened -was that at Bourg-la-Comtesse a shell came down in the midst of a bunch -of us who were stretching our limbs and washing up after a night in a -stifling dugout ... and some time during the following twenty-four hours -I recovered consciousness, lying on my belly in the darkness, with my -face buried in the damp grass of a meadow, like a dead man. - -I lay for ten or fifteen minutes trying to reconstruct the happenings -that had put me there, and to convince myself that I was unhurt. Except -for a beast munching not far away, no living thing seemed to be near me. -On the left the ruined walls of Bourg-la-Comtesse were barely visible -through the starlight, while to my right a jagged row of tree-tops -fringed the sky-line. In the velvety blackness in front of me the stars -were dimmed by shells hanging over No Man's Land, Verey lights, darting -upward, and radiant bursts of shrapnel. I remembered that our section -had halted at an _abri_ a little to the west of the village, and -dragging myself from the ground forced my chilled limbs to carry me -toward the spot where some of my comrades might be left alive. - -But whether I mistook the way, or whether they had gone off leaving me -for dead, I was unable to explain to Wolf. I only know that I walked -and walked, and found no one. The world had been suddenly deserted. -Except for an occasional horse or cow, that paused in its grazing to -watch me pass, or the scurrying of some small wild thing through a -hedge, I seemed the only creature astir. Dead villages, dead chateaux, -dead farms, dead gardens, dead forests, dead lorries, dead tanks, dead -horses, dead men, and a dead self, or a self that had only partially -come back to life, were the features of that lonely tramp through the -darkness. - -With no other aim than a vague hope of joining up again with my section -I plodded on till dawn. Though my watch had run down, and there was no -change as yet in the light, I knew when dawn was approaching by a sleepy -twitter in a hedge. Another twitter awoke a few yards farther on, and -then another and another. Presently the whole countryside was alive, not -with song, but with that chirrupy hymn to Light which always precedes -the sunrise, and ceases before the sun has risen. Wandering away from -the front, by instinct, not on purpose, I was now in a region relatively -untouched by calamity, with grapes hard and green in the vineyards and -poppies in the ripening wheat-fields. - -Between eight and nine I reached a village, where I breakfasted at a -wine-shop, explaining myself as an American charged with a mission that -was taking me across country. Stray soldiers being common, I had no -harder task than to profit by the sympathy accorded to my -British-seeming uniform. So I tramped on again, and on, always with a -stupefied half-idea of finding my section, but with no real motive in my -mind. If I had a real motive it was in a dull, blind, animal instinct -to get away from the brutality in which I had been living for the past -six months, even though I knew I should be headed off and turned back -again. - -But I wasn't. In that land of agony I went my way unheeded. I also -went my way unheeding. It was the beginning of the more or less -pointless pilgrimages I made later in New York. To my anguished nervous -system there was a soothing quality in being on the move. So on the -move I kept, hardly knowing why, except that it was to get away from -what was right behind me. - -And yet I had clearly the impression that I was merely enjoying a -breathing spell. I didn't mean to run away. I knew I was Billy -Harrowby, and that for my very name's sake I must return to my task at -the first minute possible. It was only not possible, because as I -continued my aimless drifting along the roads I got farther away from my -starting-point. - -Absolute mental confusion must have come by such gradual transitions -that I have no memory of the stages of the change. I do recall that at -a certain time and place I came to an understanding with myself that -Billy Harrowby had been blown to bits by a shell near Bourg-la-Comtesse, -and that I, who wore his uniform and carried his letter of credit in my -pocket, was no more than his astral shape stalking through a world from -which he had departed. To get rid of this astral shape, to get rid of -everything that pertained to the man who had passed through horrors that -would turn all future living into nightmare, began to seem to me a -necessary task. Only by doing this could Billy Harrowby's ghost be -laid, and the phantasms that walked with it dispelled. By the time I -reached Tours the hallucination had assumed the form of a consecrated -duty, and to it I applied myself as to some holy ceremonial rite. - -In narrating this to Wolf some of the old vividness came back to me. I -saw myself again inspecting all the environs of -Tours--Plessis-les-Tours, Marmoutiers, Laroche-sur-Loire, and as far -away as the junction at St.-Pierre--for suitable spots in which to lay -Billy Harrowby down and become my real self. In the end I selected a -small stream, the Padrille I think it is called, which flows into the -Loire a mile or two beyond Plessis. There is a spot there where the -stream flows through a wood, and there is a spot on the stream's bank -where wood is denser than it is elsewhere. - -Having selected this as the scene of Billy Harrowby's exit, the rest of -my plans became easy. For two or three days I busied myself with -discreetly purchasing a new outfit. I remember that it was a point of -honor with me not to be too spendthrift with Billy Harrowby's cash, -seeing that for the man who was to survive, anything, however modest, -would be enough. Further than separating myself from the unhappy -ambulance-driver who had seen such dreadful things since arriving in -France I had no ambitions. - -The purchases made, it was a simple matter to carry them to the bank of -the Padrille and change completely. A soldier entered on one side of -the Bois de Guenes, a civilian came out on the other. Neither soldier -nor civilian was of interest to a people rejoicing in the news that the -French had captured that morning the whole line of the Dent de la -Ponselle. - -From the Bois de Guenes I walked to the junction with the main line at -St.-Pierre, and there the trail of my memories is lost. I have no -recollection of taking the name of Jasper Soames, though I can see -easily enough why I should have done it. When it became necessary to -call myself something I seized the first bit of wreckage from the past -that my mind could catch hold of. The name was there as a name, even -when all its associations had disappeared beneath the waves that had -swept over me. - -Of the interval between taking the train at St.-Pierre, probably to go -southward toward Bordeaux, and my waking on board the _Auvergne_ I have -as yet only such fragments of memory as one retains of dreams. Even -that which stands out is shadowy, uncertain, evanescent. It is without -context. No one fragment is substantial enough for me to be sure of it -as pertaining to a fact. - -Facts began for me anew at the instant when I opened my eyes in the -cabin and saw Drinkwater shaving. - -"Funny, isn't it?" - -Wolf did not make this observation till some minutes after I had ceased. -During the interval of silence, as during the half-hour of my narrative, -his grin played on me like a searchlight. As I have already said, I -didn't resent this because of knowing his smile to be a kind of nervous -rictus of the lips which he was no longer able to control; and yet the -silly comment nettled me. - -"What's funny about it?" I asked, coldly. - -"Oh, nothing! Just--just the whole thing." - -"If you think the whole thing's funny--" - -"Oh no, not in that sense, not comic." - -"What is it then?" - -"Nothing--nothing! I was only wondering--" - -But I didn't find out what Wolf was wondering till later. In the mean -while I gave him a brief account of my doings in New York, leading up to -the day when Alice Mountney had "discovered" me. When I came to that he -rose, eying me all over as he had done at first. - -"That's a queer kind of rig--" he began, with his everlasting -jocularity. - -"It's the kind of rig I've been wearing," I replied, sharply. "Good -enough for its purpose. I shall get something else as soon as I've had -time to go to the tailor." - -"I'd go soon," was his only remark, as he left me to repeat to Vio what -he could remember of my tale. - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - -It was after lunch before I was summoned to the telephone, to hear -Wolf's voice at the other end. Vio would see me at three. I was to -understand that my being alive had been a shock to her, and therefore -all this ceremonial! - -At a quarter to three I started to walk across the Common to the old -Soames house on Beacon Hill. It occurred to me then that if for the -living it is a strange sensation when the dead come back, for the dead -it is a stranger sensation still. Not till I set out on this errand had -I understood how dead I had been. I had been dead and buried; I had -been mourned for and forgotten; Vio had finished her grieving and -returned to every-day life. For anything I knew, she might be -contemplating remarriage. Alice Mountney had said that when people were -dead it was better for them to stay dead; and I began to fear it was. - -Beacon Hill, as I drew near it, struck me as an illustration of that -changing of the old order of which all the inner springs seemed to be -within myself. It was no longer the Beacon Hill of my boyhood. It was -not even the Beacon Hill of the year when I went away. To those who had -stayed on the spot and watched the transformation taking place little -difference might be apparent; but to me, with my newly awakened -faculties, it was like coming back in autumn to a garden visited in -spring. The historic State House had deployed a pair of huge white -wings, to make room for which familiar landmarks round about it had for -the most part disappeared. All down the slope toward the level land the -Georgian and Early Victorian mansions were turning into shops and clubs. -The old Soames house, with occasional panes of purple glass in otherwise -normal windows, was flanked on one side by a bachelors' chambers and on -the other by an antique-shop. One of the few old houses in Boston still -in the hands of people connected with the original owners, it had been -purchased by Vio's father from the heirs of his mother's family, while -Vio's trustees had in their turn bought out Wolf's share in it. -Four-square, red, with a fine white Doric portico over which a luxuriant -wistaria trained, it suggested, as I approached it now, old furniture, -old books, old pictures, old wines, old friendships, and all the easy, -well-ordered life out of which we were called by the pistol-shot of -Sarajevo. - -My nervousness in crossing the street and ringing the door-bell was -augmented by that sense, from which I was never free, of being guilty of -a stupidity so glaring as almost to amount to crime. No ex-convict -returning from the penitentiary could have had a more hangdog conviction -of coming back to where he was no longer wanted than I in wiping my -cheap boots on Vio's handsome door-mat. If I found any solace in the -moments of waiting for an answer to my ring it was in noticing that the -doorway needed paint and that nothing in the approach to the house was -quite so spick and span as formerly. I call this a solace only because -it helped to bring Vio nearer me by making her less supremely mistress -than she used to be of everything best in the world. I noticed the same -thing when the door was opened by a cheery English man-servant of -sixty-odd, who was too gaily captain of his soul to be the perfect -butler of the old regime. - -"Couldn't see you," was his offhand response, when I had asked for Mrs. -Harrowby. - -"I think she'll see _me_." - -"No, myte, and I'll tell you why. She's kind o' expectin' of 'er -'usband like. Excuse me." - -The politeness was called forth by his shutting the door in my face, -compelling me to speak plainly. - -"I'm Mrs. Harrowby's husband." - -The absurdities in my situation were dramatized in the expressions that -ran successively over the man's face. Amazement having followed on -incredulity, apology followed on amazement. As I was still too near to -Pelly, Bridget, and the Finn to separate myself from the servants hall, -my sympathy was with him. - -"That's all right, old chap," I found myself saying, with a hand on the -astonished henchman's shoulder. "Just tell Mrs. Harrowby I'm here. -She'll find me in the library." - -It was purely to convince Boosey, that was his name, of my right to -enter that I tossed my hat on the hat-rack peg and walked to the -coat-closet with my overcoat. With the same air of authority I marched -into the long, dim library, where my legs began to tremble under me and -my head to swim. - -Perhaps because I had not yet had time to think of this room in -particular, I experienced my first sensation of difficulty or unreality -in getting back the old conceptions. It was not alone my head that -swam, but the room. If you imagine yourself sailing through a fog and -drawing an approaching ship out of the bank by sheer mental effort of -your own, you will understand what I mean. In ordinary conditions you -have only to watch the ship making itself more and more distinct; in my -case the ship did nothing. It was as if I had to build it plank by -plank and sail by sail in order to see it at all. - -I could do this, even if I did it painfully. The room came into being, -mistily, tremblingly, while my head ached with the effort. Taking a few -steps here, there, gazing about me at haphazard, the remembered objects -appeared one by one--the desks, the arm-chairs, the rows of books, the -portraits, the fireplace, in which there was a slumbering fire. Over -the mantelpiece hung Zuloaga's portrait of Vio, which always raised -discussion wherever it was exhibited. - -I had reached this point at the end of the room when a low stifled cry -came from the corner by the fire. - -"Oh, Billy, is this you?" - -[Illustration: All these minutes she had been observing me, with that -queer, half-choked cry as the result: "Oh, Billy, is this you?"] - -Vio had been sitting there watching me. Had I been able instantly to -reconstruct the room I should have seen her instantly; but all these -minutes she had been observing me, with that queer, half-choked cry as -the result. - -I cannot tell you now how long we stared at each other, she in the -arm-chair, I on the hearth-rug; but once more the new brain-cells acted -sluggishly I knew that this slender, picturesque creature, swathed in -soft black satin, with a little white about the open throat line, was -Vio, and that Vio was my wife. But I knew it as something remembered, -not as an existing fact. I knew it as a ghost might know that another -ghost had married him, and that they had once lived intimately side by -side. - -You must not think from this that there was no emotion. There was -tremendous emotion, only it was not the emotion of love after long -separation. If it was that there were too many elements in it to allow -pent-up passion the immediate right of way. Pent-up passion was stemmed -by the realization of what my coming back must mean to the woman before -me. For her I had been three years in my grave. As Alice Mountney had -put it, she had been in mourning for me--and out again. It was the out -again that created this thickened atmosphere between her and me. What -had been all over, finished and done with she had to begin again. - -And I had not come back to her as I had gone away. I had come -back--entirely to the outward eye and somewhat in my heart--not as the -smart young fellow of Lydia Blair's recollection, but as a working-man. -The metamorphosis rendered me in some ways more akin to Boosey the -butler than to my former self. I had acquired an art that made it -possible for me to go into the servants' sitting-room and be at home in -the company I should find there. The people in the front of the house -had to some extent become to me as the Olympian gods at Creed & Creed's, -exalted beings with whom I had little to do outside the necessities of -work and pay. This change in me was more than superficial; and whatever -it was Vio saw it. For her the meeting was harder than for me; and for -me it was like a backward revolution of the years. - -But after she had clung to me and cried a little, the tensity was -broken. As I analyze now, I see the impulse that urged us into each -other's arms as one of memory. For her, I was the man who had been, as -she was the woman who had been, for me. She, however, had the help of -pity, while I was humble and overawed. - -It was one of those moments when so many things begin again that it is -hard to seize on any. The simplest being the easiest, she said, after -having detached herself from me and got back some measure of her -self-control: - -"What about your things? Have you brought them?" - -"The little I have is at the hotel." - -Both question and answer came out absently while we looked at each other -with a new kind of inspection. The first had been of the self within; -now it was of the outer self. I should have shrunk from the way in -which her eyes traveled over me had not my whole mind gone into the -examination I was making. - -Yes; she had changed, though I cannot say that it was in the way of -looking older. Rather she had grown to resemble Zuloaga's portrait of -her, which we had always considered too theatrical. Zuloaga had -emphasized all her most startling traits--her slenderness, sinuousity, -and fantastic grace--her immense black eyes, of which he alone of all -the men who had painted her had caught the fire that had been compared -to that of the black opal--the long, narrow face that was like Wolf's, -except for being mysterious and baffling--the mouth, haunted by memories -that might have survived from another incarnation, since there had been -nothing in her present life to correspond to them. You could speak of -her as being beautiful only in the sense of being strange, with an -appeal less to the eye than to the imagination. More akin to fire than -to flesh, she was closer to spirit than to fire. It might have been a -perverse, tortured spirit, but it was far from the merely animal. -Discriminating people called it her salvation to have married a humdrum -chap like me, since, with a man of more temperament, she would have -clashed too outrageously. High-handed and intense, she needed some one -seemingly to yield to her caprices, correcting them under the guise of -giving in. - -Like others of tempestuous nature, when she was gentle her gentleness -was heavenly. She was gentle in that way now. - -"Sit down, Billy, and let me look at you. Why didn't you bring your -things?" - -"I didn't know that you wanted me to do that, or that--that we were -to--to begin again." - -"Of course we shall begin again. What made you think we shouldn't?" - -"I didn't think so. I simply didn't know." - -"Did Alice Mountney, or Wolf, tell you anything?" - -There was a curious significance in the tone, but I let it pass. - -"Only that you'd--you'd given me up." - -"What else could I do?" - -We were sitting half turned toward each other on one of the library -sofas, and I seized both her hands. - -"But now that I'm back, Vio, are you--are you--glad?" - -Though she allowed her hands to remain in mine there was a flash of the -black-opal fire. - -"It's not so simple as being glad, Billy. The word isn't relevant." - -"Relevant to what?" - -"I mean that you can't sum up such a situation as this by being either -glad or sorry. We've other things to consider." - -"But surely that comes first. - -"Neither first nor second. The only question we've got to ask for the -minute is what we're to do." - -"But I thought that was settled--that you wanted me to come back." - -"It's settled in the way that getting up in the morning is settled; but -that doesn't tell you the duties of the day." - -"I suppose one can only meet the duties of the day by going on and -seeing what they are." - -"Exactly; and isn't that our first consideration--the going on? It -doesn't matter whether we're glad or sorry, since we mean to go on, or -try to go on--anyhow." - -Releasing her hands I dropped back into my own corner of the sofa, -scanning the refined features more at my ease, for the reason that her -face was slightly averted and her eyes turned to the floor. - -"I don't want you to go on, Vio, if--" - -"I've thought everything over," she declared in her imperious way, "and -made up my mind that it was the only thing for me to do." - -"Then you had thought that--that perhaps you--you couldn't." - -She nodded slowly, without looking up. - -"You'd made other--plans." - -"It wasn't that so much; it was--it was thinking of you." - -"Thinking of me--from what point of view?" - -"From the point of view of--of what you've done." She glanced at me -now, quickly, furtively, as if trying to spare me the pain of scrutiny. -"Oh, Billy, I'm so sorry for--for my share in it." - -"And what do you take your share to be?" - -"The share of responsibility. When I urged you to go--" - -"As it happened, I should have gone anyhow. When this country had -entered the war I should have been under the same obligation as any -other man." - -"That would have been different. When our men were taken there was -discrimination. Each was selected for what he was best fitted to do. A -great deal of pains was given to that, and I can't tell you how I -suffered when I saw that if I'd only left you alone you could have -contributed the thing you knew most about. That's why I feel so -strongly that, now you've come back--even in this sort of disguise--" - -"I'm not in disguise, Vio. The way you see me--" - -The motion of her long, slender hand was partly of appeal and partly of -dismissal. - -"I don't want to hear about that, Billy. If we're to begin again there -are things we mustn't talk about. Since you've done this extraordinary -thing, and I may be said to have driven you into it, I want to stand by -you. Isn't that enough?" - -There was so much in this little speech that I couldn't do it justice at -once. All I found myself able to say was: - -"Tell me, Vio: Is the extraordinary thing my staying away--or my coming -back?" - -Again there was that pleading, commanding gesture. - -"Oh, Billy, don't. I'm willing to try to pick up the past; but it must -be the past, not what's happened in the mean time." She rose with that -supple grace which suggested the Zuloaga pose. "Go back to the hotel and -get your things. I--I can't bear to see you looking as you are. When -you're more like yourself--" - -I tried to smile, but I know the effort was no more than a twisted -quivering. - -"You'll have to see me looking as I am for a few days yet, Vio. My kit -doesn't offer me much variety." - -"Oh, well--!" - -She accepted this as part of the inevitable strangeness in which she had -become enveloped, making silent, desperate concessions. Because of this -mood I was tempted to ask for five minutes' grace in order to look over -the old house. - -"You'll find things rather run down," she said, indifferently. "I've no -good servants any more. They said that when the war was over it would be -easier to get them; but it's a month now since the armistice was signed, -and it's just as bad as ever." - -"From that point of view, it will probably be worse," I remarked, when -about to pass from the library into the hall. "The world isn't going -back to what it was before the war. You can't stop an avalanche once it -has begun to slide." - -She watched me from where she stood before the fire, reproducing almost -exactly the attitude of the fascinating woman overhead. - -"Does that mean that you've come back a revolutionist, Billy? as well as -everything else?" - -"N-no; I haven't come back anything in particular. I'm just like you and -all the rest of the world, a snowflake in the avalanche. I suppose I -shall go tumbling with the mass." - -A sense of something outlived came to me as I roamed through the house -which Vio allowed me to visit by myself. After two years spent in a -squint-eyed room of which the only decoration was three painted fungi -this mellow beauty stirred me to a vague irritation. It was not a real -dwelling for real people in the real world as the real world had become. -It was too rich and soft and long established in its place. Three or -four generations of Soameses and Torrances had stored its rooms with -tapestries, portraits, old porcelains, and mahoganies; and for America -that is much. - -Over the landing where the stairway turned hung the famous Copley of -Jasper Soames. For a good two minutes he and I faced each other in -unspeakable communion. There was nothing between us but this stairway -acquaintance, formed during the three years Vio and I had lived -together; and yet somehow his being had stamped itself into mine. - -On the floors above there was the same well-chosen abundance of -everything, sufficiently toned down by use and time to merit the word -shabby. That was the note that struck me first, and surprised me. Vio -had never been what is commonly known as a good housekeeper; but she had -commanded and been obeyed. What the house betrayed now was a diminution -of the power of command. Doubtless money didn't go as far as it used -to; and there was a new spirit in the world as to taking orders. I -thought again of the garden revisited in autumn. The old house might be -said to have fulfilled its long mission, and to be ready to pass away -with the age of which it was a type. - -To go into my own room and find it empty and swept of every trace of my -habitation would have been a stranger experience than it was if every -experience that day had not been strange. I looked into the wardrobes; I -pulled open the drawers. There was not a garment, not a scrap of paper -to indicate that I had ever been alive. Not till I saw this did I -realize the completeness with which Vio had buried me. - -And not till I saw this did I realize that Vio herself was up against -the first big struggle of her life. She had never hitherto faced what -might be called a moral situation. Her history had been that of any -other well-off girl in a city like Boston, where money and position -entitled her to whatever was best in the small realm. American -civilization, like that of the Italy of the Middle Ages, being civic and -not national, the boundaries of Boston, with its suburbs and seaside -resorts, had formed the limits of Vio's horizon. True, she had spent a -good deal of time in Europe--but always as a Bostonian. She had made -periodical visits to Newport, Bar Harbor, Palm Beach, and White Sulphur -Springs--but always as a Bostonian. Once she had traveled as far on the -American continent as California--but still as a Bostonian. - -Boston sufficed for Vio, seeing that it was big enough to give her -variety, and swell enough to permit her to shine with little -competition. Competition irked her, for the reason that she despised -taking trouble. With the exception of a toilet exact to the last detail -of refinement, her life was always at loose ends. She rarely answered -letters; she rarely returned calls; she never kept accounts; if she -began a book she didn't finish it. Adoring little Bobby during the -months of his brief life, she found the necessities of motherhood -unbearable. That she was as a rule picturesquely unhappy was due to the -fact of having nothing on which to whet her spiritual mettle. Like a -motor working while the motor-car stands still, she churned herself into -action that got nowhere as a result. - -But now for the first time in her life she was face to face with a -great, big personal problem. How big and great the problem was I didn't -at the time understand. All I could see was that she was meeting her -baptism of fire, and that I was the means of the ministration. - -Pushing open the door between her room and mine I received again the -impression of almost awesome privilege I had got on our return from our -honeymoon. I had never been at my ease in this room; it was Vio's -sanctuary, her fastness. It was a Soames and Torrance sanctuary and -fastness, and to it I had only been admitted, not given its freedom as a -right. Possibly the feeling that always came to me on crossing its -threshold, that I stepped out of my own domain, betokened the missing -strand in the tie that had bound Vio and me together. - -It had been a trial to me that she should be so much better off than I. -Not only did it leave the less for me to do for her, but it created in -her a spirit of detachment against which I chafed in vain. Out of the -common fund of our marriage she made large reserves of herself, as she -might have made reserves--which she did not--of her income. Our beings -were allied, but they were not fused. For fusion she had too much that -she prized to give away. In such quantity as I could give she made -return to me; but having so much more than I to give, her reserves -became conspicuous. Of what she withheld this room was the symbol. It -was never my room. My comings and goings there had been made with a -kind of reverence, as if the place were a shrine. - -The only abiding note of my personality had been my photograph at the -head of Vio's bed. There was a photograph there now, but I saw that the -frame was different. Mine had been in a silver frame; this was in -red-brown leather. If it was still mine... - -But it was not mine. It was that of a colonel in an American uniform, -wearing British and French decorations. Big, portly, handsome, bluff, -with an empty left sleeve, he revealed himself as a hero. He was a -hero, while I ... It occurred to me that death was not the only means of -giving Vio her freedom, and that I ought to tell her so. - -To do that I was making my way down-stairs with the words framing -themselves on my lips. - -"Vio," I meant to say, "if you don't want me back, if anything has -happened to make it best for me to go away again forever, you've only to -say the word and I'll do it." - -But while I was still descending she swept into the hall. Her movements -were always rapid, with a careless, commanding ease. She was once more -the Zuloaga woman all on fire within. - -"How long do you think it will be, Billy, before your tailor can make -you look as you ought to?" - -I paused where I was, some three steps above her. "It may hardly be -worth while to consider that, Vio--" - -"Oh, but it is," she interrupted. "If we're going to put this thing -through we must do it with some dash. That's essential." - -"Why--why the dash?" - -"Because there's no other way of doing it. Don't you see? If you just -come in by the back door--" She left this sentiment to continue in her -own way. "Alice Mountney is going to give a big dinner and invite all -your old friends." - -My heart sank. - -"Is that necessary?" - -"Of course it's necessary. It isn't a matter of preference. As far as -that goes it will be as hard for me as for you. If I took my own way I -should never--" Once more she left me to divine her thought while she -added, firmly: "It has simply got to be done. We must make people -think--" - -"What?" I challenged, when she paused, not apparently from lack of words -but from fear of using them. A suspicion impelled me to say in -addition, "How much did Wolf repeat to you of the story I told him?" - -Her answer was made with the storm in the eyes that was always my -warning of danger. - -"As much as I'd let him. I didn't want to hear any more. I never -shall. That part of it is closed. I've told you already that I accept -the responsibility, and I do. You mayn't think it, but I have a -conscience of a kind; and I know that if it hadn't been for me you -wouldn't have done this thing; and so-- But there we are again. There -we shall always be if we allow ourselves to discuss it. You're my -husband, Billy; I'm your wife. We can't get away from that, whatever -has happened--" - -"We could get away from it, if you preferred." - -"What I prefer," she declared, with her old-time hauteur, "is what I'm -asking you to do. If I didn't prefer it I shouldn't ask for it. Go back -to the hotel and get your things. Go to the tailor and get more. Your -room is waiting for you. It will be the next room to mine, just as -before with only the door--" - -"The closed door, Vio?" - -"Between us," she finished, ignoring my question. "If other things -arrange themselves we can--we can reopen it--in time." - -So we left it, since it was useless to go on. That she should consider -my mental lapse so terrible a disgrace was a surprise to me; but as I so -considered it myself I could not blame another for taking the same point -of view. After all, a man should show a man's nerve. Thousands, -millions of men, had shown it to the limit and beyond. I hadn't; that -was all that could be said about it. How could Vio, how could any one -else, regard me as other than abnormal? - -As she was making so brave an attempt to put all this behind her, it -became my duty to help her. This I could do most easily by deflecting -the conversation to the large family connection, as to which I was -without news. She gave me this news as we stood at the foot of the -stairway, or while I got ready to go out again. - -It was a relief to learn that none of my brothers or sisters was in -Boston. George, who was older than myself, was on General Pershing's -staff, and had just been heard of from Luxembourg. Dan, my junior, had -the rank of lieutenant-commander and was somewhere in European waters. -Tom Cantley, who had married my sister Minna, was working on the War -Trade Board in Washington, and he and Minna had a house there. Their -eldest boy, Harrowby, had been killed at Chateau-Thierry, but as far as -any one ever saw Minna hadn't shed a tear. Ernestine, my unmarried -sister, being one of the founders of the Flag Raising League, had -patriotic duties which took her all over the United States. Her last -letter had been from Oklahoma or Spokane, Vio was not sure which, but it -was "one of those places out there." At any rate, they were all a -credit to a name the traditions of which I alone hadn't had the spirit -to live up to. Vio didn't say this, of course; but it was the -inference. - -It was the inference, too, with regard to a host of cousins of the -first, second, and third degrees, by blood and by marriage, who would -have made a small army in themselves. Some were Vio's kin, and some -were mine; some by the chances of Boston intermarriage were related to -us both. Not one of them but had been modestly heroic, the women not -less than the men. Some had given their lives, some their limbs or -eyesight; all, their time and money. Even Wolf and Vio had subscribed -to funds till reduced to what they considered indigence. It was a -distinguished clan; and I its one pitiable member. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - -Going back to the hotel, I had my first pang of regret for having waked -up on that midnight at Bourg-la-Comtesse. It was the same reflection; -the dead were so much wiser in staying dead. I guessed that during the -weeks when I was missing Vio had mourned for me with a grief into which -a new element had come when my clothes were found on the bank of the -Padrille. That was a mistake, that my clothes should be found there. A -missing man should be traced to a prison or a hospital, or remain -gloriously missing. He should have no interval of safety in which to go -in bathing, a hundred miles from the spot on which he had last been seen -alive, not even to be drowned. There was a mystery in that which might -easily become a flaw in a soldier's record, and which to a woman as -proud as Vio would be equivalent to dishonor. That there should be a -question of the kind with regard to her own husband... - -So I began to do justice to the courage she displayed. Rising to the -occasion in a way I could only call magnificent, she sank herself, her -opinions, and her plans--I called them plans to avoid a more definite -word--to meet the imperative in the situation. What lay in the back of -her mind I didn't dare inquire, notwithstanding the signs that betrayed -her. - -And yet the more splendid her gesture the deeper my humility at having -to call it forth. It made me like a man, once strong and active, -reduced to living on the doles of the compassionate. I could never be -independent again; I could never again have the mental freedom of one as -to whom there is nothing unexplained. By a process of bluff I might -carry the thing off; but to that I felt an unspeakable aversion. It was -not that I was unwilling to second Vio; it was incapacity. Having been -guilty of the indiscretion of waking at Bourg-la-Comtesse, I began to -regret the long, dull, peaceful routine of Creed & Creed's. - -I do not assert that these things were as clear in my mind on that day -as they are on this; but they were there confusedly. Every impression I -received that afternoon was either confused and painful or strikingly -vivid, as to one waking from an anesthetic. - -Of those more vivid one in particular stands out in my recollection. - -Returning from the hotel with my suit-case and bag--the same with which -I had landed from the _Auvergne_--I heard a man's voice in the -drawing-room up-stairs. The deep, soft tones told me it was not Wolf's. - -"Mrs. 'Arrowby said as you was to go right up, sir," Boosey informed me, -relieving me of my bags. "I 'ear as you was a prisoner in Germany, -sir," he continued, while making his way to the coat-closet with my -coat. "That's why I didn't know as it 'd be you when you come this -afternoon. Might I ask, sir, if they throwed beer in your face, or -anything like that?" - -With one foot on the stairs I looked after the waddling figure -retreating down the hall. - -"Who told you that I was a prisoner?" - -"Mr. Wolf's man, sir; but"--I am sure there was a veiled taunt in what -followed---"but if you wasn't, sir, or if it's a secret--" - -I lost the rest as he became engulfed in the closet, but I had heard -enough. Wolf had taken his own way to protect the honor of the family. - -It was not easy to enter the drawing-room and face one of Vio's friends; -but it was the sort of thing to which I must learn to steel myself. -Moreover, it might be one of my own friends come to welcome me back. -Vio had informed me that Wolf had taken steps to keep any mention of my -"discovery" and return out of the papers; but we were too well known in -Boston not to have the word passed privately. To any friend's welcome -there would be unspoken reserves; but that I must take for granted and -become accustomed to. - -But, as it happened, it was not a friend of mine; it was the colonel of -the photograph, who had apparently dropped in for a cup of tea--and -something more. What that something more might be I could only surmise -from Vio's way of saying, "Here's Mr. Harrowby now." They had seemingly -discussed me, it had seemingly been necessary for them to discuss me, -and taken a definite attitude toward me. That my wife should do this -with a man who was a stranger to me, that the circumstances should be -such that it was a duty for them to do it, was the extraordinary cup of -gall given me to drain. I drained it while Vio went on, with that ease -which no one knew better than I to be sustained on nerve: - -"Billy, I want you to know Colonel Stroud. He's just got back from -France, and has been explaining to me how the Allies are to occupy the -Rhineland. Our men are already reaching Mayence and Coblenz, and he has -heard, too, that the President arrived this morning at Brest. I suppose -it will be in the evening papers." - -So we were launched in talk that couldn't hurt any one; and if my -feelings were wounded it was only by drawing conclusions. They were the -easier to draw from the fact, as I guessed, that Vio directed the talk -in such a way that I could read between the lines. - -What I gleaned from the give and take of banalities that dealt on the -surface with the current gossip of the armistice was that Vio and her -colonel had been intimate before he went to France, and now that he was -back with medals and only a right arm, the friendship had taken the turn -to which such friendships are liable. That he was one of the Strouds of -the famous Stroud Valley in northern New York put him into the class -with which people like ourselves made social alliances. When Vio, in -the early days of her supposed widowhood, had met him at Palm Beach -there was nothing to prevent their being sympathetic to each other. How -far that sympathy had gone I could only conjecture; but it was easy to -see it had gone pretty far. - -As to what did not come so directly to the surface, vague recollections -began to form themselves in my mind. I seemed to remember the Stroud -Valley Strouds as a family with a record. Of the type which in America -most nearly resembles the English or Irish country gentleman, they made -the marrying of heiresses and the spending of the money thus acquired -almost a profession. Horsy, convivial, and good-looking, they carried -themselves with the cheery liveliness that acknowledges no account to be -given to any one; and when they got into the divorce court, as they did -somewhat often, women as well as men, they came out of it with aplomb. -I seemed to recall a scandal that a few years before had diverted all -the clubs.... - -But I couldn't be sure that this was the man, or of anything beyond the -fact that the central figure of that romance had been a Stroud Valley -Stroud. That this particular instance of the race had had a history was -stamped all over him; but it was the kind of history which to a man of -the world imparts fascination. It was easy to see that he had "done -things" in many lines of life. A little the _beau male_ of the French -lady novelist, and a little the Irish sporting squire, he was possibly -too conscious of his looks and his power of killing ladies. A bronzed -floridness, due partly to the open air and partly to good living, was -thrown into striking relief by the silver hair and mustache not -incompatible with relative youth. He couldn't have been much over -forty. - -His reception to me was as perfect as if regulated by a protocol and -rehearsed to the last shade. There was nothing in it I could complain -of--and yet there was everything. A gentleman ignoring a disgraceful -situation of which every one is conscious would have carried himself -with just this air of bland and courteous contempt. - -Perhaps it was to react against this and to assert myself a little that -I ventured once to cross swords with him. We had exhausted the -movements of troops on the Rhine, the possible reception of the -President in Pans, and he had given the Peace Conference six months in -which to prepare the treaty for signature. - -"Then we shall see," he laughed, in his rich, velvety bass. - -He brought out the statement so emphatically that I was moved to ask: - -"What shall we see?" - -"What Mrs. Harrowby and I have been talking about, the end of all this -rot as to the war having created a new world." - -"That's putting the cart before the horse, isn't it?" I asked, -maliciously. "The war didn't create the new world; the new world -created the war." - -Vio's exquisite eyebrows went up a shade. - -"Does that mean anything?" - -"Only that the volcano creates the explosion; not the explosion the -volcano. Given all the repressions and suppressions and injustices, the -eruption had to come." - -"The eruption had to come," the colonel declared, hotly, "because the -Germans planned it." - -"Oh, that was only a detail." - -"You might call the whole war only a detail--" - -"I do." - -"I don't get you," he said, stiffly, leaning forward to place an empty -cup on the table in front of Vio. - -In her I read something surprised that didn't, however, disapprove of -me. Thus encouraged, I went on. If I hadn't thought these things out -in the monotonous, unoccupied hours at Creed & Creed's, my stunned brain -would not have been master of them now. - -"I only meant that the war was but one of the forces, one of the -innumerable forces, which the new world in the making--it isn't made yet -by any means--has put into operation. If a house collapses it shatters -all the windows; but you can't say that the shattering of the windows -made the house collapse." - -I could see by his stare he was literally minded. - -"But what--what house is collapsing?" - -"The house all round us, the house of this particular form of -civilization. It's sliding down. It's been sliding down for years. You -might say that it began to slide down as soon as it was put up, because -it was wrongly constructed. A building full of flaws begins to settle -before they get the roof on, and though it may stand for years the -ultimate crash is only a question of time. War came as soon as our -building began to split; the building didn't begin to split because the -war came. It was splitting anyhow." - -"That seems to me--" he sought for a sufficiently condemnatory -word--"that seems to me sheer socialism." - -"Oh, I don't think it is. The Socialists wouldn't say so. It isn't -anything in particular. It's just--just fact." - -"Only?" Vio smiled, with her delicate, penetrating sarcasm. - -"Only," I echoed. "But as we belong to a world that doesn't like fact -it isn't of much importance." - -Bewilderment brought a pained expression to the handsome, rather stupid, -countenance. - -"What the--what on earth do you mean by that?" - -"Only that we've a genius for dodging issues and shutting our eyes to -what's straight before us." - -"Do you mean the ruin straight before us?" - -"Not necessarily, Vio. The collapse of this particular form of -civilization wouldn't mean ruin, because we'd get a better form. I -suppose it's coming into existence now." - -"I don't know about that," the colonel objected. "As far as I see, -things are pretty much the same as they've always been, and they're -getting more so." - -"I suppose none of us sees more than we have our eyes open to. Things -of the greatest importance to us happen, and we don't know that they're -going on." - -"I hope that that kind of song and dance isn't going on--the breakdown -of our civilization. It wasn't for that we gave 'em hell at -Chateau-Thierry." - -"Oh, none of us knows what anything is for, except in the vaguest way. -All we can do is to plod ahead and follow the thread of flame." - -"Follow the thread of what?" - -I was sufficiently master of myself to indulge in a mild laugh. - -"That's just an expression that's been in my mind during the time when -I've been--been floundering about. Name I invented for--for a -principle." - -In this, however, he was not interested. - -"Yes, but your collapsing house--" - -"It may not come down altogether. I'm neither a prophet nor a prophet's -son. All I can see is what I suppose everybody sees, that our -civilization has been rotten. It couldn't hold together. It hadn't the -cohesive strength. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that it was falling -down; it's more as if we were pulling it down, to build up something -better. It's our blind instinct toward perfection--" - -But refusing to listen to any more, he got up to go. A brave man in the -presence of enemies of flesh and blood, intellectual foes frightened -him. At the first sound of their shells he rushed for his mental dugout -which he burrowed in the ground of denial. "I don't believe that" and -"All tommyrot" seemed to him shelters from any kind of danger. - -But the main point to me was that I had in a measure not only held my -own but got on to superior ground. I had been able to talk; in doing so -I had got him at a slight disadvantage. The bit of self-respect inspired -by this achievement enabled me to play the host and accompany him to the -door with the kind of informal formality to which I had been so long -unaccustomed. - -And in performing this small duty I made a discovery. As he preceded me -down-stairs I remembered seeing the back of his head once before. It -was the kind of head not easily forgotten. Moreover, I had seen it in -circumstances that had caused me to note it in particular. Where and -when and how were details that did not at once return to me; but I knew -that the association was sinister. - -As I returned from my mission in showing him to the door I heard Vio -speaking. - -"Come in here, Billy. There's something I want to say." - -She was still behind the tea-table, pensive rather than subdued, -resolute rather than unhappy. - -"I liked your talking like that," she began at once, without looking up -at me. "It's--it's the way we shall have to play the game." - -A box of cigarettes stood on the tea-table. I took one and struck a -match, the usual stage-trick for gaining a little time. - -"What game do you mean?" I asked, when I had carefully blown out the -match and deposited it in an ash-tray. - -"What game can I mean but--but that of your coming back?" - -"Oh, is that a game?" - -"Only in the sense of giving us something to play. We can't just--just -live it." - -"Why can't we?" - -With a quick movement she was on her feet, flinging out her hands. - -"For all the reasons that I should think you'd see." She came and stood -on the hearth-rug, confronting me. "Billy, I wonder if you have the -faintest idea of what I'm doing for your sake?" - -"I've more than the faintest idea, Vio. Some day, when we're able to -talk more easily than we are as yet, I shall tell you how grateful I am. -Just now I'm--I'm rather dazed. I have to get my bearings--" - -She, too, had taken a cigarette, lighting it nervously, carelessly, -puffing rapidly at the thing and moving about the room. - -"And there's another thing," she began, taking no notice of what I was -trying to say; "I don't mind your talking as you did just now, so long -as it's--as it's through your hat; but if it isn't--" - -"I can't say that it is." - -"That's just what I was afraid of. In the places where you've been--I -don't want to know anything about them," she interjected, with a -passionate gesture of the hand that held the cigarette, "but in such -places men do pick up revolutionary ideas, just as they do in prisons!" - -"I don't know that it's a question of getting revolutionary ideas, Vio, -so much as it's one of living in a revolutionary world." - -"And that's what I want to warn you against. It won't go down, Billy, -not from you." - -"Why not from me, in particular?" - -"Oh, why do you make me explain things? Isn't it perfectly clear? If -you're coming back among your old friends you'll have to be, after -what's happened, more--how shall I put it?--more conservative, more like -everybody else--than any one. _You_ can't afford to have wild ideas, -because people will only say that you re trying to drag us along the way -you went yourself." - -I renounced this discussion to ask the question that was chiefly on my -mind. - -"Vio, who's that man that just went out?" - -She threw me a look from the other side of the room. - -"You heard. He's--where can you catch on? He's Emmy Fairborough's -brother." - -"Wasn't there--wasn't there a divorce?" - -"Emmy's? Yes; Lord Fairborough and she are divorced, but what -difference does that make?" - -"I wasn't thinking of Lady Fairborough. I forgot she had been a Stroud. -I meant--I meant him." - -"Oh, he? Yes, I think he was." - -"Divorced?" - -"Yes, divorced. What of it?" - -"To whom had he been married?" - -"How should I know? It was to--to some low creature, an actress or -something, the sort of thing men do when they're young and--and--" - -"And wild?" - -"Wild, if you like. Why are you asking?" - -But I was not sure of being ready to tell her, so many things had to be -formulated first. To gain more time I lighted another cigarette, and -she spoke while I was doing it. Holding her own cigarette delicately, -as if examining its spark, she said, with a staccato intonation that -emphasized each word: - -"Billy, you remember what I said earlier this afternoon? I can go back -to our past and try to pick it up. I can't go back to anything that -comes after that past and--and before to-day. Do you understand? It's -more than three years since they told me your section was blown to -pieces at Bourg-la-Comtesse. Most of your comrades were found---and -buried. You were missing; but missing with very little hope. As the -weeks went by that little hope dwindled till there was none. Then came -the news that--that all that time you had been--alive." - -"And I suppose that Wolf told you..." - -"He told me a story, or as much of it as I could listen to. But that's -not what I meant to speak about now. I want to say that--that I bury -all that, deep, deep; only that I can't do it unless you consent to -bury--" - -"Everything there's been on your side. Is that it, Vio?" - -"I shall ask no questions." - -"Not even if I'm ready to answer them?" - -"Not even if you're ready to answer them; but I shall expect you not to -ask questions of me." - -"So that between us there will be a gulf of silence." - -She inclined her head without speaking. - -"But why, Vio? Why?" - -She swept up to me, throwing away her cigarette, and laying both her -hands on my shoulders. - -"Because, old boy, I'm your wife, and I'm trying to help you. I'm -trying to help you because--because--" - -Her nearness, the scent of her person, the black-opal mystery and fire -were like hypnotic enchantment. - -"Because you used to--to care for me a little, Vio? Is it possible -that--that I can think that?" - -She nodded. - -"That's part of it, of course. I don't forget it. But what I remember -more is what I've told you already, that, whatever you did, I sent you -to do it. Now, if there's expiation to be made, I come in for that as -well as you." - -"So that we make it together?" - -"So that we make it together." - -Having already been bold I grew bolder. Lifting my hands to my shoulders -I laid them on hers. - -"And will you--will you let me kiss you on that, Vio?" - -"Once," she consented; "but--but don't--don't touch me." - - - - - *PART III* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - -So we began what Vio called the expiation, and what to me was no more -than the attempt to persuade our friends that they didn't know what they -knew. This, according to Vio's calculations, could be best achieved by -never for an instant showing the white feather of an uncomfortable -conscience. Our assurance was to be something like the Stroud aplomb on -emerging from the courts of bankruptcy or divorce. To be unaware of -anything odd in one's conduct helped others to be unaware of it, too. A -high spirit, a high head, a high hand carried one through difficult -situations regardless of the strife of tongues. - -I didn't think it necessary to remind Vio that the strife of tongues -could go on even if we didn't hear it. Nothing else was possible when -Wolf's fatuity blew the trumpet and beat the drum if the clamor showed -signs of dying down. It wasn't that he told the truth, but that he told -lies so easy of detection. Alice Mountney did tell the truth as far as -she knew it; but where she didn't know it she supplied the deficiency by -invention. That those so near us should be in conflict naturally called -for comment, especially when Vio refused to let me speak. - -For the first few weeks I was too busily occupied to think of what any -one was saying, seeing that the details I had to arrange were so -unusual. Of the steps taken to become a living citizen again, and get -back my property from my heirs, I give no account further than to say -that they absorbed my attention. My standing in the community I was -thus unable to compute till we were into the new year. - -By this time I had taken part in a number of family events on which I -shall touch briefly. At Christmas we had gone to Washington to spend -the festival with Minna and Tom Cantley. There we had met Ernestine, in -one of the intervals of her flag-raising, and on the way back to Boston -my brother Dan's ship had unexpectedly arrived in New York. A series of -domestic gatherings had therefore taken place, at all of which Vio had -worked heroically. As she had generally hitherto ignored my family's -existence this graciousness was not without its effect. Where she did so -much for my rehabilitation, those close to me in blood could hardly do -less than follow her example. - -They followed it almost to the letter. That is to say, none of them -asked me any questions, presumably wishing to spare both themselves and -me embarrassment. Once or twice, when I attempted to speak of my -experiences, the readiest plunged in with some topic that would lead us -away from dangerous ground. If I yielded to this it was because -speaking of myself at all was the deliberate exposure of nerves still -raw and quivering. I could do it, but I couldn't do it willingly. - -Between Minna and myself there had never been much sympathy, largely -because I was of the dreamy temperament and she of the sharp and -practical. That I should make beauty a career in life, and take -advantage of the fact that our father had left me a modest sufficiency -to give my services to a museum of fine arts, shocked her to the heart. -A man should do a man's work, she said, not that of an old Miss Nancy. -When I pointed out that many of the manufacturers in New England, whose -work had to do with textiles, came to me for advice, she replied that -she didn't believe it. Her attitude now was that I had done no worse -than she had always foretold and any one might have expected. - -Ernestine, to do her justice, was as tolerant of me as she was of any -one who wasn't a flag. The Flag having become her idol and she its -high-priestess, she could talk of nothing else. The nation had -apparently gone to war in order that the cult of the Flag should be the -more firmly established; and all other matters passed outside the circle -of her consideration. She knew I had been dead and had somehow become -alive again; but as the detail didn't call for the raising of a flag she -couldn't give her mind to it. As she could give her mind in no greater -measure to Minna's canteen-work or Vio's clothes, I profited by the -generous nature of her exclusions. - -For Dan, when I met him, I hardly existed, but that might have been so -in any case, as we had never been really intimate. Recently he had been -working with English naval officers and had taken on their manners and -form of speech. - -"Hello, old dear. Top-hole to see you looking so fit. I say, where can -I find a barber? Got a mane on me like a lion." - -That was our greeting, and the extent to which our confidences went. He -sailed for Hampton Roads without a word as to my adventures. - -This he did, I am sure, in a spirit of kindness. They were all moved by -the spirit of kindness, and the axiom of the less said the better. I -confess that I was mystified by this forbearance, and a little hurt. -Though I had been a fool, I had not been a traitor; yet every one -treated me as one. I should never have spoken of my two years of -aberration of my own accord; yet when all avoided the subject, as if it -opened the cupboard of the family dishonor, I resented the implication. - -It was Tom Cantley with whom I was most at ease, perhaps because he was -not a blood relation. A big, genial, boresome fellow, he found me useful -as a listener. His rambling accounts of the doings and shortcomings of -the War Trade Board, and what he would have accomplished there if given -a free hand, I pretended to follow, because it left me free to pursue my -own thoughts. As he never asked for comments on my part, being content -when he could dribble out his own, the plan worked well. - -And yet it was Tom who awakened me to the true meaning of my situation. -That was on the day we left Washington, in the station, as Vio and I -were about to take our train. Vio was ahead with Minna, when Tom -suddenly clutched me by the arm. - -"Say, old sport; what about clubs? Boston clubs I mean. I suppose -you're a member of the Shawmut and the Beacon Hill just as before you -went away. No action has ever been taken in the matter as far as I've -heard. But I wouldn't press the point, if I were you, not for a while -yet. Later ... when everything blows over ... we can ... we can see." - -I nodded speechlessly. It was the most significant thing that had been -said to me yet. - -"Yes," I assented, weakly. "When everything blows over we can see." - -What I saw at the minute was that if I attempted to resume my membership -in either of my clubs there would be opposition. My case was as grave -as that; though why it should be I hadn't an adequate idea. Annoyed -hitherto, I became deeply troubled and perplexed. - -Nevertheless, when we arrived in Boston again it was to experience -nothing but the same widespread kindness. True, it was largely from -relatives or from friends of Vio's as admired her pluck. The tragedy of -her life being plain, those who appreciated it were eager to stand by -her; and to stand by her meant courtesy to me. I could be invited to a -dinner to which I went under my wife's banner; but I couldn't be -admitted to a club where I should stand on my merit as a man. The -distinction was galling. - -Equally so I found my position with regard to Colonel Stroud. He made -himself our social protector, filling in what might be considered -unoccupied ground and defending anything open to attack. He did this -even in our house. Without usurping my place as host, he fulfilled those -duties which a companion performs for an invalid lady, passing the -cigars and cigarettes after dinner, and seeing that our guests had their -favorite liqueurs. Though our friends came nominally to lunch or dine -with Vio and me, it seemed in effect to be with Vio and him. Every one -knew, apparently, that he and she had been on the eve of a romantic act, -which my coming back had frustrated. Something was due them, therefore, -in the way of compensation; and considering what I had done they had the -public sympathy. - -That my mind was chiefly on this situation, however, I cannot truthfully -say. I thought of it more than incidentally, and yet not so much as to -make it a sole preoccupation. More engrossing than anything personal to -myself was the plight of the world and the future immediately before us. -With the gathering of the Conference round the table of the Quai -d'Orsay, the new world, of which one of the phases had been war, was -entering on still another phase even more momentous. To the mere -onlooker, supposing oneself to be an onlooker and no more, it would be -an exhibition of the grandeur and impotence of man on a scale of -spectacular magnificence. The January of the armistice will be -remembered as a month of dramatic occurrences illustrating the -yearnings, passions, and fatalities of the human race with an almost -theatrical vividness. In its very first days the old era sighed itself -out in the death of Theodore Roosevelt, while on the soil over which the -Caesars had ridden in their Triumphs, a New World citizen and President -was hailed as the herald of an epoch altogether new. Almost at the same -moment, blood was flowing in the streets of Berlin, working up about the -middle of the month to the assassination of Liebknecht and Rosa -Luxembourg. The Americans in Paris, having secured on one day the right -of way for their League of Nations, the antiphon of opposition burst -forth from Washington on the next. - -Events like these, and they were many, were as geysers springing from a -caldron in which the passions and ideals of mankind were seething -incoherently. The geysers naturally caught the eye, but if there had -been no boiling sea they would not have spouted up. More than the -geysers I watched the boiling sea, and that I saw all around me. - -That others didn't see it, or saw it as less ebullient, made no -difference to me, for the reason that I had been in its depths. Vio -didn't see it; Wolf didn't see it; Stroud didn't see it. Of my family, -only Tom Cantley had vague apprehensions of what he called "labor -unrest"; but this he regarded as no more than a whirlpool in an ocean -relatively smooth. In Boston generally, as probably throughout the -Union, the issue was definite and concrete, expressing itself in the -question as to whether America would back a league of nations or would -not. That was the burning topic of debate; but to me it seemed like -concentrating on the relative merits of a raft or a lifeboat when the -ship is drifting on the rocks. That our whole system of labor, pleasure, -religion, finance, and government was in process of transformation I had -many reasons for believing; but I couldn't speak of that without being -scouted as a Bolshevist, or laughed down as pessimistic. - -I mention these circumstances in order that you may see that nothing -personal could be wholly absorbing. His exact social status means -little to a man on the deck of a ship that any minute may go down. His -chief concern is to save himself and his fellow-passengers, with natural -speculation as to the haven they will find when the rescued have -scrambled to the shore. - -Thus, during that month of January, I saw myself as the victim of -circumstances that mattered less than they might have done had we not -been on the eve of well-nigh universal change. The life I was leading -with Vio was not satisfactory, but even that was not permanent. The -thread of flame, I was convinced, had not led thus far without meaning -to lead me farther still, and I counted on that to show me the way. I -counted on that not merely in my own affairs, but in those of our -disintegrating world. We should not be impelled to pull down our -present house till the materials were at hand for building up a better -one. Vio, Wolf, Stroud, and the bulk of the American people were right -in not fearing disaster, though wrong in not anticipating a radical -shifting of bases. Their desperate clinging to worn-out phases of -existence might be futile; but the futility would become apparent in the -ripeness of time. It was not an aspect of the case that troubled me. - -What did trouble me was Vio's relation to Stroud. It troubled me the -more for the reason that in proportion as the vapors cleared from my -intelligence I saw myself with my old rights as her husband. The old -passion was back with me, with the old longings and claims, even though -she disregarded them. According to the judgment I was beginning to -form, she disregarded them the more for seeing that her efforts to -re-establish me in Boston hadn't been successful. As far as she could -positively carry me, I went; but I could cover no ground by myself. The -minute I was alone, I was let alone, simply, courteously, but -unanimously dropped. It was the sort of general action it is useless to -reason with or fight against; and Vio saw it. There came a day when I -drew the conclusion that she was giving up the struggle, and that the -offer I had meant to make on the first afternoon of my return would be -accepted if renewed. I was not sure; she was not communicative, and the -signs were all too obscure to give me more than a vacillating sense of -guidance. My general impression was that she didn't know the way she -was taking, while Stroud was sure of it. As an adroit player of a game -of which she didn't know the elementary principles, he was leading her -on to a point at which she would have to acknowledge herself beaten. - -This, in the main, I could only stand by and watch, because I was under -a cloud. It was a cloud that settled on me heavier and blacker as -January passed and February came in. The world-seething had its -counterpart in the seething within myself. There were days when my -inner anguish was not less frenzied than that of Germany or Russia, in -spite of my outward calm. I was still following Vio from house to house, -with Stroud as our guide or showman; but the conviction was growing that -I must soon have done with it. Not a day nor an hour but seared my -consciousness with the fact that he was the man whom Vio loved. - -"This is not a life," I began to tell myself, bitterly. It became my -favorite comment. I made it when I got up in the morning, and when I -went to bed at night. I made it when Vio and I engaged in polite -conversation, and when she informed me of our engagements for the day. -I made it when I entered other people's drawing-rooms, and when other -people entered ours. A life was a reality; a life was work; a life -involved above all what Mildred Averill called production. When one -didn't produce there was no place for one. There was no place for me -here. With Pelly, Bridget, and the Finn I had touched the genuine, the -foundational; in lugging carpets I had done work of which the usefulness -was in no wise diminished by the fact that any other man could have done -it just as well. In my room with the fungi, on my eighteen dollars a -week, I had slept soundly and lived complacently, in harmony with -whatever was basic and elemental. It began to dawn in me as a hope that -perhaps the windings of the thread of flame would lead me back to what -was a life, with a new appreciation of its value. - -And then one day, when I was on the stairs of our own house, coming down -from the third to the second story, I saw Lydia Blair standing on the -landing, outside of Vio's door. Boosey was beside her, and she was -taking a parcel from his hands. - -"Hello, kid," she said, nodding in my direction. "Thought I should see -you round here some day. Wonder I didn't do it before." She addressed -Boosey, with another nod toward me. "He and me were at school together. -Weren't we?" she continued, with her enchanting smile, as I reached the -lowest step. - -"Yes," I managed to gasp, "the school of adversity." - -"And a mighty good school, too, for a sport. Do you know it?" - -"But, Lydia," I began, "what in the name of--?" - -"Sh-h! Don't swear," was all she said, as taking Boosey's parcel she -opened Vio's door. Going in softly she closed it behind her. - -Once more Boosey's expression dramatized my situation. That the master -of the house in which he exercised his functions--even such a master as -I--should be called "kid" by a girl like Lydia created a social -topsyturvydom defying all his principles. For perceptible seconds he -stared in an astonishment mingled with disdain, after which he turned on -his heel to tell the news in the kitchen. - -But I was too puzzled by Lydia's reappearance to tear myself away. What -had she to do with Vio? How did she get the right to go in and out of -Vio's room with this matter-of-course authority? - -In a corner of the hall, beside the window looking over the Common, was -an armchair in which Vio often sat when taking her breakfast up-stairs -and glancing over her correspondence. I sank into it now, and waited. -Sooner or later Lydia must come out again. - -This she did, some twenty minutes later, dainty and nonchalant. - -"Lydia," I cried, springing to my feet, "what in the name of Heaven are -you doing here?" - -"You see." - -The parcel she had taken from Boosey was now undone, revealing some -three or four pairs of corsets. Laying the bundle on the table Vio used -for her breakfast-tray the girl began to roll the corsets neatly. - -There were so many questions I wanted to ask that I hardly knew where to -begin. - -"How long have you been coming to--to see my wife?" - -"Oh, not so very long, a month perhaps." - -"Did you know I was here?" - -"Why, sure." - -"Is that what brought you?" - -She glanced up sidewise from her work, with one of those glances she -alone could fling. - -"Well, you _have_ got a nerve. Suppose I said yes?" - -"Who--who told you where to find me?" - -"Who do you think?" - -"Miss Averill?" - -"No; it wasn't Miss Averill. As far as I can make out little old Milly -doesn't give you a second thought, now that she knows you're in the -bosom of your family." - -"Is that true?" - -"Why, of course it's true. Did you want to think she was pining away?" - -"Well, who did tell you?" - -"Why should I want any one to tell me? Ever since I've been with -Clotilde I'm always on the lookout for new customers. I get a -commission on every pair." - -"But it wasn't for the commission you came to see Mrs. Harrowby." - -"Well, what was it for then?" - -"That's what I want you to tell me." - -"How much did you tell me when you disappeared from the Barcelona over -two years ago?" - -"I told you as much as I could tell any one." - -"You didn't tell me your name was Harrowby." - -"I didn't know it." - -She swung round from her work with the parcel. "You didn't--what?" - -I tapped my forehead. "Shell-shock. I'd--I'd forgotten who I was." - -A flip of her slender hand dismissed this explanation, as she resumed -her task. - -"Ah, go on!" And yet she veered back again, with a dash of tears in her -blue eyes. "Say, kid, I know all about it. You needn't try to put -anything over on me. I know all about it, and I'm sorry for you. -That's what I want to say. Do you remember how I used to tell you I was -your friend, and that Harry Drinkwater was your friend, too? Well, we -are--even now. There's something about you we both--we both kind o' took -to. I don't know what it is, but it's there. It was there when I -thought you might be a swell crook; and if I didn't mind that I don't -mind--this. The only thing I'm thinking is that you're up against it -awful thick; and so I told Dick Stroud that whoever shook you the sad -hand of farewell I'd be on the spot as the ministering angel." - -There were so many points here that I could only seize the one lying, as -it were, on top. - -"So you--you know Dick Stroud?" - -She had gone on with her work again. - -"_Know_ him? Well, I should say!" - -"Have you known him long?" - -"Known him ever since ... Say, I'll tell you when it was. It was after -we all came back on that ship together, and I was still doing the stenog -act for Boydie Averill, before I got Harry back on the job again. Well, -one day _that_ guy floated in, towed by little Lulu. He sure is her -style for fair, or he used to be before he went to France." - -"Did--did Mrs. Averill introduce him to you?" - -"He didn't wait for that. He introduced himself with a look. I didn't -need a second one before I'd read him like a headline. When I started -to go home that evening he was waiting at the corner to take me in a -taxi." - -"Did you let him?" - -"Sure I let him. It was a ride. When he asked me to dinner at the -Blitz I let him do that, too. You saw us. Don't you remember that nut? -that's what you called him afterward." - -It came to me, that sleek mass of silver, distinguished and sinister at -once. - -"So that was he!" - -"That was Dick, sure thing!" - -"You call him Dick?" - -"What else would I call him when he wants me to? But that's giving him -away." - -"Giving whom away?" - -Vio had come out of her room without our having heard her. In a -tea-gown of black and gold she stood before us in an almost terrifying -dignity. - -That is, it was almost terrifying to me, though Lydia was equal to the -situation. - -"Oh, madam, I didn't know you heard. Mr. Harrowby was just kidding me -about Colonel Stroud." - -"Indeed!" Moving forward with the air of an astonished queen, Vio -seated herself in the armchair. "But why should Mr. Harrowby be--what -was the word?--kidding you about anything?" - -"Oh, we're old friends. Ain't we?" She turned to me for corroboration. - -"Very good old friends," I said, with some warmth. - -"Really! And you never told me." - -"Madam never asked me. She never asked me if I knew Colonel Stroud, -either. How could I tell that she wanted to know?" - -"Oh, but I don't want to know. I'm only interested--" she looked toward -me--"that you and--and this young lady should be so--so intimate." - -"I hope madam doesn't mind." - -"Let me see," Vio began to calculate. "It's about four or five weeks -since Mrs. Mountney sent you to me." - -"And Mrs. Averill had sent me to her. You see, madam, I get a -commission on every pair, and so--" - -"And so it was a good opportunity to--" - -"To improve myself. Yes, madam." - -Vio's brows came together in a frown. "To ... what? I don't understand -you." - -"You see, madam, it's this way. I've only taken this corset job to--to -get an insight. I'm not really a saleswoman at all. I'm an -adventuress." - -It was the only moment at which I ever saw Vio nonplussed. - -"Oh, you are!" was all she could find to say. - -"Well, not exactly yet; but I'm going to be. Only, if you're an -adventuress you've got to be a swell adventuress. There's only one -kind, and it's that. But you see, madam, I've never had enough to do -with ladies to be the real thing; and so when Clotilde put me on to this -corset stunt, I thought it 'd give me a chance to study them." - -"To study--ladies?" - -"Yes, madam. An adventuress has got to be that much of a lady that she -can put it over on a duchess or she might just as well stay out of the -business. Any boob in the movie line would tell you that." - -"You interest me," Vio said, almost beneath her breath. - -"I generally interest people, madam, when I get a-going. Colonel Stroud -says that if I was to go in for--" - -"That's not what I want to hear. Tell me if--if your studies have -taught you what you wanted to know." - -Having completed her package, Lydia stood in the attitude of a neat -French maid in a play. - -"It's the model, madam. That's where the trouble is. An adventuress -has got to be ... well, just so. Did madam ever see Agnes Dunham as the -Russian Countess in 'The Scarlet Sin'? Well, she's it, only she's too -old. She must be thirty-five if she's a day. I don't know how many -times I didn't go see her; but I couldn't be that old, and then she -talked with a French accent, so that settled it. Colonel Stroud said -that if I was ever going to do the thing there was only one woman in the -world--" - -"He took a professional interest in you, then?" - -"Oh, my, yes; professional and every other way. Still does. Awful kind -he can be when he likes; but when he doesn't like! My!" - -I was sorry for Vio. With bloodless lips and strained eyes she sat -grasping the arms of her chair in the effort to keep her self-mastery. -Had I loved her less I could have been glad of this minute, because it -was giving me what might be called my revenge. But I loved her too -much. It was clear to me, too, that I loved her more than I ever did. -My return had been a shock to her, and she had made a strenuous effort -to be game. She _was_ game. She had not fallen short of the most -sporting standard, except in matters over which she had no control. - -"Stroud is always like that," I endeavored to smile, "giving every one a -helping hand. He mayn't be the wisest old dog in the world, but no one -can say that he isn't kind and faithful." - -As it happened I had better have kept quiet. Vio sat upright, all the -force of her anger turned upon me. - -"Has this girl been anything to you?" - -"Yes, madam; a mother." - -In her endeavor to control herself Vio uttered a hard pant, eying the -girl up and down. - -"Oh? Indeed? You're young to be ... a mother!" - -"Only a little younger than you, madam; and not half so beautiful. -Madam knows that any woman worth her salt is mother to any man down on -his luck. I don't care who he is, or who she is." - -"Thank you for the information. I hope Mr. Harrowby has appreciated -your maternal care." - -"Well, he did and he didn't, madam. Just when I thought he was going to -buck up he--he cleared out, and I thought he must be dead. Now, I find -that--" - -"That he's alive. If you had come to me I could have told you -that--that clearing out was his specialty. You might say he had a -genius for it, if you weren't compelled to call it by another name." - -I took a long stride toward her. - -"Vio, do you mean anything by that?" - -"What should I mean but--but the fact? You're a mystery to me, Billy, -just as you've evidently been to--to this young lady. At the very -minute when we hope, as she so picturesquely puts it, that you're going -to buck up, you--you clear out. You must have a marvelous eye for your -opportunities in that respect. That's why I say it is like genius. No -one who didn't have a genius for clearing out, still to call it that, -could so neatly have seen his chance at Bourg-la-Comtesse!" - -"Vio!" - -I don't know what I was about to do, because with my own shout ringing -in my ears I became aware that Lydia had caught me by the arm. - -"Oh, kid, please don't!" - -"Yes; let him." Vio's face was strained upward toward me, but otherwise -she hadn't moved. "Men who run away from other men are always quick to -strike women." - -My arm fell. I bent till my face was close to hers. - -"When did I ever run away?" - -Her hand was thrown out in the imperious gesture of dismissal I had seen -two or three times already. - -"Please, Billy! We won't go into that. You'll--you'll spare me." - -"Vio, you believe _that_?" - -She inclined her head slowly. - -"That I was a--a coward--a deserter?" - -She inclined her head again. - -"And that I--" the whole plan spread itself out before me--"that I -pretended to commit suicide in order to cover up my tracks?" - -Once more she bowed her head relentlessly. - -"You _believe_ that?" - -"Billy, I know it. Every one knows it. I've stood by you right up to -now. But now--" she rose with a kind of majesty from which I backed -away--"now that you've brought this woman here, into my house, where -I've been fighting your battles-- Oh, Billy, what kind of a man are you -to have--to have a wife like me?" - -I made no attempt to respond to this. I could only stand amazed and -speechless. Perhaps a minute had gone by, perhaps two or three before I -found myself able to say: - -"All right, Vio. Since it's--since it's that way, and with all the -other things--" - -But I couldn't go any farther. There was another speechless passage of -time, during which we could only stare at each other, regardless of the -white and wide-eyed spectator of the scene. Turning abruptly, I walked -down the long hall toward the door of my own room. As I did so Vio said -nothing, but Lydia uttered a little broken cry. - -"Oh, kid, _I_ don't believe it; Harry Drinkwater doesn't believe it -either. Nobody will believe it when they've had a word with me." - -But I didn't thank her. I didn't so much as look back. It was only by -degrees that I learned, too, what the two women said to each other when -I left them alone together. - -I was packing in my room when Boosey brought me a letter. As letters -had for so long been to me a thing of the past I took it with some -curiosity, recognizing at once the hand of my friend Pelly. - - -DEAR SOAMES,--I suppose I ought to call you Mr. Harrowby now, but it -don't somehow come natural. Soames you were to me and Soames you will -be till I get used to the other thing, which I don't think I shall. I -write you these few lines to let you know that I am well and going just -the same as ever, though I miss our old times together something fierce. -Would like to know how you are, if you ever get time to write. Expect -you are having a swell time with all the gay guys in Boston. Friends -say that Boston is some sporty town when you get with the inside gang, -which I don't suppose you have any trouble in getting. Miss Smith has no -one yet for your old room, which is all repapered and fine with a -brand-new set of toadstools, real showy ones. Mrs. Leeming is sure some -artist, and a nice old girl besides, when she doesn't cry. Had a very -nice time at Jim's the other night; just a quart between him and Bridget -and me; nothing rough-house, but all as a gentleman should. Bridget -could come, as his wife was away burying an uncle at Bing Hampton. Hope -you found your wife going strong as this leaves mine at present. Had a -very nice letter from her the other day, and answered it on the spot -telling her to be true to me and may God bring her and me together again -after this long parting. Now no more from - -your friend, - S. PELLY. Write soon. - - -It is impossible to tell you of the glow that warmed and lighted me on -reading these friendly lines. They were all the more grateful owing to -the fact that if Pelly believed of me what Vio and every one else -believed, as quite possibly he did, it would have made no difference. -Of the things taught me in my contact with the less sophisticated walks -in life, the beauty of a world in which there is comparatively little -judging was the most comforting. There were all kinds of jealousies -there, bickerings, sulkings, puerilities, and now and then a glorious -free fight; but condemnation was rare. The bruised spirit could be at -peace in this large charity, and in the spaciousness of its tolerance -the humiliated soul could walk with head erect. Its ideals and -pleasures might be crude; but they were not pharisaical. - -If I had any doubt as to my plans I had none any longer. The instinct -that urged me back to the room with the new set of toadstools was like -that of the poor bull baited in the ring to take refuge amid the dumb, -sympathetic herd of its own kind. I asked only to be hidden there, to -live and work, or, if necessary, die obscurely. - -Not that I hadn't had a first impulse to try and clear my name; but the -futility of attempting that was soon apparent. I had nothing to offer -but my word, and my word had been rejected. In the course of the two or -three hours since the scene with Vio and Lydia, while I had gone to the -station to secure a berth on a night train for New York and dined at a -hotel, I had come to the conclusion that the effort to explain would be -folly. The mere fact that my doings between Bourg-la-Comtesse and the -_Auvergne_ were still blurred in my memory would make any tale I told -incoherent and open to suspicion. In addition to that Vio knew, Wolf -knew, and others knew that I had not offered my services to the -Ambulance Corps of my own free will, while my letters had painted my -horror of the sights I witnessed with no thought of reserve. My -supposed suicide being ascribed to remorse, the discovery that I was -alive and well and in hiding in New York-- - -No; the evidence against me was too strong. The one witness who might -say something in my favor, Doctor Scattlethwaite, had himself not -believed me. He could say that the claim I was putting forth now I had -put forth two years previously; but there would be nothing convincing in -that. - -Besides, and there was much in the fact, I wanted to get away, to get -back among those who trusted me, and to whom I felt I belonged. If the -thread of flame had led me to my old life it was only to show me once -for all that there was no place for me in it. Knowing that, I could -take hold of the new life more whole-heartedly and probably do better -work there. Already new plans were springing to my mind, plans which I -could the more easily put into operation because of having some money at -my disposal. Mildred Averill would help me in that and perhaps I could -help her. If Vio secured a divorce, and I should put no obstruction in -the way of that-- - -But Vio herself came into my room with the calm manner and easy movement -which in no wise surprised me, as she was subject to such reactions -after moments of excitement. - -"What are you doing, Billy?" - -She seated herself quietly. - -A coat being spread before me on the bed, I folded the sleeves, and -doubled the breasts backward. - -"I'm packing." - -"What for?" - -"Because I'm going away." - -"When?" - -"To-night; in an hour or so." - -"Where to?" - -"New York first." - -"And then?" - -"I don't know yet. Possibly nowhere. I may stay in New York. Probably -I shall." - -"And not come back here any more?" - -"That's my intention." - -"What are you doing it for?" - -Taking the coat I had folded I laid it in my suit-case. - -"I should think you'd see." - -"Is it--is it because of--of what was said this afternoon?" - -"Partly." - -"Not altogether?" - -Pulling another coat from the closet I spread it on the bed. - -"No; not altogether." - -"What else is there?" - -"Oh, nothing that you'd be interested in. I--I just want to get away." - -"From me?" - -"Only in the sense that--that you're part of the whole." - -"The whole what?" - -"The whole life. It's not a life for me any more." - -She did not deny this or protest against it. For a minute or more she -said nothing, though as I crossed the room from the bed to the closet -for more clothes I saw in the glass that she furtively dashed away a -tear. Yesterday I would have been touched by that; but now that I knew -what she believed of me, what she had been believing of me during all -the weeks since I had come home, my heart was benumbed. Besides, if she -was in love with Dick Stroud there was no reason for my feeling pity. - -I had begun on collars and neckties when she said: - -"What kind of a girl was that who was here this afternoon?" - -[Illustration: I had begun on collars and neckties when Vio said, "What -kind of a girl was that who was here this afternoon?"] - -"You must have seen something of her for yourself. I understood from -her that she'd been coming to see you." - -"She's been here three times. Alice Mountney sent her, and I believe -Lulu Averill sent her to her. I had no idea that she had anything in -her mind than just to sell this new kind of corset." - -"And had she?" - -"Didn't she tell you?" - -"She didn't tell me. If she's said anything to you, I don't know what -it can be." - -"She's not--she's not crazy, is she?" - -"I shouldn't think so. Why do you ask?" - -"Then she's extremely peculiar." - -"We're all that in our different ways, aren't we?" - -"I don't know now whether to take her seriously or not." - -"What about?" - -"About--about--Dick." - -I went on with my packing without answering. - -"What do _you_ think?" she asked, at last. "I suppose you have an -opinion." - -"On what point?" - -"The point she brought up ... as to her knowing him ... so well." - -"I've no opinion about that. I know she knows him ... very well indeed. -At least, I take it for granted." - -"What makes you do that?" - -"Oh, just having seen them together." - -"Why didn't you tell me?" - -"Why should I have done that? Men don't--don't give each other away." - -"Then in his knowing her there was something to--to give away." - -"Evidently." - -"Then what about your knowing her yourself?" - -"That was different." - -"Different? How?" - -Since she was pressing the question I decided not to spare her. - -"I didn't wait for her at a street corner as a form of introduction." - -Expecting the question, "And did he?" I was surprised that she should -make it. "And would it be discreet to inquire what your form of -introduction was?" - -"I was presented to her in all propriety by a blind boy named -Drinkwater, you heard her mention him, who was my cabin-mate on the -_Auvergne_. He and Miss Blair and I, with some other people, happened -to sit at the same table." - -"And have you no interest in her besides that?" - -"Yes: she's been a very good friend to me. I haven't seen her for two -years and more; but that was my fault." - -"So I understand." - -"What do you mean by that?' - -"That if you had no interest in her she had an interest in you, strong -enough to--to impel her to make my acquaintance." - -"With some good end in view, presumably." - -"With the end in view of giving me the information that--that she knew -Dick." - -"And do you call that taking an interest in me?" - -"What do you think yourself?" - -Once more I declined to give my impressions. Where Stroud was concerned -I had nothing to say. Now that Vio knew something of the truth -concerning him I wished not to influence her in any way. The matter -seemed oddly far away from me. The tie between Vio and myself being -broken in fact, as it soon would be in law, I preferred to leave the -subject of my successor where it was. - -"Why do you say," she began after a brief pause, "that this is not a -life for you any more?" - -"Because it isn't." - -"But why isn't it?" - -"For one reason, because I don't like it." - -"Oh!" She was not expecting this reply and it displeased her. "What's -the matter with it?" - -"For me, everything. But it's nothing that you would understand." - -"I suppose I could understand if you explained to me." - -"No, you couldn't. Or, rather, I couldn't. The language isn't coined -that would give me the words to tell you. It's not the facts of the -life I dislike; it's the spirit of it." - -"Is there anything wrong with the spirit of it?" - -"I'm not saying so. I merely dislike it for myself. For me it's not a -real life any more. I belong to--to simpler people with less complex -ideas." - -"Less complex ideas about what?' - -"About honor for one thing." In my goings and comings round the room I -paused in front of her. "Among my friends, my real friends, you can be -a coward or a deserter, just as you could be a murderer or a thief, and -no one would pass judgment upon you." - -"And is that ... a virtue?" - -"I don't know anything about its being a virtue; but it is a -consolation." - -As I stood looking down on her she said, softly: - -"Have I passed judgment upon you?" - -"You've been a brick, Vio: you've been a heroine. The only difference I -should note between you and the people to whom I'm going back is that -you've suppressed your condemnation, and they didn't feel it." - -"Did they ... _know_?" - -"I can't tell you what they knew, for the reason that it wouldn't have -mattered. They knew there was something wrong with me, that I was -hiding something, that I was probably an outcast of good family; but -they gave me a great, big affection to live in, and thought no more -about it. You've given me--" - -There was an extraordinarily brilliant flash of her dark eyes as she -lifted them to mine. - -"What?" she interjected. "Have you any idea of what I've given you?" - -"You've given me," I repeated, "the great, big affection to live in, but -with something in it that poisoned the air. I'm grateful to you, Vio, -more grateful than I can begin to tell you, especially as I know now -what you've been thinking all the time; but you can easily understand -that I prefer not to live in an atmosphere laden with--" - -"If we purified that, the atmosphere? What then?" - -"It still wouldn't be everything. When I say I don't like the life, it -isn't just because it's cast me out; it's because for me--mind you, I'm -not speaking of any one else--it's become vapid and--and foolish, -and--and a throwing away of time." - -"And what do you find among the people you--you call your friends that's -more worth while?" - -"That's what it's hard to tell you. I find the simple and elemental, -something basic and fundamental that the new crisis in existence is -telling us to discover and--and rectify. You remember what I said a -month or more ago to Stroud, that our building was collapsing?" - -"Yes; and I hoped you were, as people say, talking through your hat." - -"Well, I wasn't. The building is coming down, right to the foundations. -Only the foundations will remain." - -"They're awfully crude foundations, aren't they?" - -"Exactly. That's just where the trouble is. The bases of our life are -ugly and unclean, and so we've turned away and refused to look at them. -I'm going back, Vio, to see what I can do to make them less ugly, less -unclean, and more secure to build on. How _can_ we erect a society on -foundations that already have the element of decay in them before we've -added the first layer of our superstructure?" - -Rising, she went to a window, leaning against it as if tired, and -looking out into the darkness. - -"But what can you do, all by yourself?" - -"Very little; but a little is something. It isn't altogether the -success or the failure that I'm thinking about; it's the principle." - -"Oh, if you're going to live by principles--" - -"We've got to live by something. When the world is coming down about -our heads." - -"If it's doing that, one man can't hold it up." - -"No; but a good many men may. I'm not the only one who's trying." - -"I never heard of any one trying it like that ... by going back to the -foundational, as you call it." - -"Oh, I think you have. The Man who more than any other has helped the -human race did just that thing. You're strict about going to church on -Sunday." - -She was slightly shocked. "I presume you're not going to try to be like -Him." - -"Perhaps not. I may not aim so high. I'm only pointing out the fact -that going back to the foundational and beginning there again was His -method. Others have followed it, a good many. All the work connected -with what we call Settlements--" - -"I never could bear them." - -"Possibly; but that isn't the point. I'm only saying that in their way -settlement workers have been feeling out the special weakness of our -civilization, and doing their best to meet it. I suppose our -politicians and clergymen and economists have been doing the same. The -trouble with them is that they so generally nip the symptom while -leaving the root of the disease that they don't accomplish much." - -"Did you accomplish much yourself when you were--?" - -"I didn't try. I didn't see what I was there for. It's only since -coming back here that I've begun to understand why I was led the way I -was." - -Half turning round, she said over her shoulder: - -"Do you call that being led?" - -I replied with a distinctness which I tried to make significant: - -"Yes, Vio; I call it being led. I didn't see it till I got back here; -and even here I didn't see it till--till this afternoon. And now--now -I've done with all this. I've done with the easy, gentlemanly life of -spending money and being waited on. I'm not saying it isn't all right; -it's only not all right for me. I've got something else to do. There -was a time, you know it as well as I do, when a poor man was an offense -to me, and an uncultivated person an abhorrence. I was a snob from every -point of view, and I was proud of being one. And now--" - -Pulling down the shade and turning completely round, she stood with her -back to the window. - -"Yes, Billy? And now?" - -"It's no use. I can't tell you. I couldn't explain if I used up all -the words in the dictionary. It's just a tugging in my heart to get back -where--" I had a sudden inspiration. "Read that," I said, taking -Pelly's letter from my pocket. - -She stood under the central bunch of electrics while I closed the -suit-case and fastened the straps. Having finished the letter, she -handed it back to me. - -"Well?" I asked. - -"It's just--just a common person's letter, as far as I see, and rather -coarse. Boosey might have written it, or Miles, the chauffeur." - -"And that's all you see in it?" - -"What more is there to see?" - -"That's just it. That's just where the inexplicable thing lies. I see, -or rather I feel, a tenderness in it that probably no one could detect -but myself. Even the reference to drinking--" - -"The quart." - -"Yes; the quart. You've got to remember how small the margin for -pleasure is in a life like Sam's, and how innocently he and Bridget and -Jim can do what they had much better let alone. They're not vicious; -they're only--how shall I say?--they're only undeveloped. We're not -such saints ourselves, even with our development; and when all -civilization has bent its efforts, church and state together, to keep -their minds as primitive as possible so that they'll do the most -primitive kinds of work, you can't blame them if they take their -pleasures and everything else primitively. We've got to have another -educational system." - -"But they say our educational system is very good as it is." - -"As far as it goes; but we still have one system for the rich and -another for the poor, and we shall never get equality of mind till we -have equality of educational opportunity. But that's only a detail. It -all hangs together. As far as I'm concerned, it sums itself up in the -urging that takes me back among simple people because--because I love -them, Vio; that's the only word for it, and in their way they've loved -me." - -She crossed the room aimlessly. - -"Other--other people have--have loved you, as you call it, who--who -mayn't have been simple." - -"Y-yes. But--but in the cup they handed to me there were bitter -ingredients. In the cup I'm talking of there was only ... love. It was -a blind, stumbling, awkward, mannish love, if you like; but it was ... -love. It was the pure, unadulterated thing, as unconscious of itself as -the air is. The girl who was here this afternoon is an example of it. -For anything I know, she was an idiot to have come; but she came, poor -soul, because she thought--" - -"Well, what did she think?" - -"That if Dick Stroud were out of the way I should have a better chance -with you." - -She was still moving aimlessly about the room, picking up small objects -and putting them down again. - -"She said--she said he'd been tagging around after her, it's her -expression, for nearly three years." - -"To my practically certain knowledge that is so." - -"She said, too, that she could marry him if she liked, but that she -didn't want to." - -"I don't know anything about that." - -"If she went with him at all, she said, it would probably be ... without -marriage, as she didn't wish to be bound to him." - -I looked up in curiosity. - -"And did she say there was any possibility of her going with him at -all?" - -"I think she did. That's what made me think her touched in her mind or -crazy. She said she hadn't decided, or something like that; but as she -was going to be an adventuress she had to begin some time, and perhaps -it might as well be with him as with any one else. She spoke as if it -rested entirely with her to take him or throw him away." - -Again I decided to be cruel. - -"It very likely does." - -She was standing now by my dressing-table, and as if my words had meant -nothing to her she said: - -"Aren't you going to take your hair-brush?" - -"Oh, I was forgetting to put it in. Thanks." - -When I went for it she was holding it in her hand. - -"What a queer, cheap-looking thing! Where on earth did you get it?" - -"I suppose it was at Tours, with the other things, when--" - -"Oh yes! I remember." She moved toward the door. "Your other brushes, -the ebony ones with the silver initials, that I gave you before--before -we were married, are here. They were with the things found on the bank -of that-- They forwarded them to me. Shouldn't you--shouldn't you like -them?" - -"Thanks, no. This sort of common thing suits me better." - -I was doing the last things about the room. She was standing with her -hand on the knob of the door, which was half open. - -"And when you're back in New York, Billy, doing that kind of thing you -talk about, shall you be all alone?" - -A second's reflection convinced me that it was best to be clear about -everything. - -"At first." - -"And later?" - -I pulled open a drawer from which I knew I had taken all the contents. - -"You mean when we're both ... free?" - -"Suppose I put it ... when _you're_ free?" - -"Oh, then there may be ... some one else." - -"Some one ... I know?" - -I delved into another drawer, hiding my face. "Some one you may have -heard of; but I don't--I don't think you know her." - -When I had pushed in the drawer I raised myself; but I was alone in the -room. Ten minutes later I had left the house without a good-by on -either side. - -On the door-step, in my working-man's costume, and with the everlasting -bag and suit-case in my hands, I looked up at a starry, windy sky, with -the trees of the Common tossing beneath it. - -"My God, what an end!" I cried, inwardly. - -But, as far as my knowledge or purpose went, an end it was. - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - -Noble intentions being easier to conceive than to carry out, it is -hardly surprising that on settling again in New York I found myself "let -down." The sense of adventure was out of it, while that of the mission -had crept in. The old friends were still the old friends; but if my -intercourse with them was not less spontaneous it was certainly more -self-conscious. Back in my squint-eyed room, with the new paper and the -more showy set of fungi, the knowledge that I was there because I chose -to be there, and not because I couldn't help it, marked all my goings -and comings with a point of interrogation. - -In some measure, too, it was a point of disapproval. That is to say, -those who welcomed me back took me somewhat in the spirit of a "returned -empty." - -"Why, yes, of course, if you want it," was Miss Smith's reply to my -request to have my old room back again; but her intonation was not -wholly that of pleasure. "We thought, my sister and I, that your social -duties in Boston would restrict your movements for the future." - -I had pricked their little bubble of romance, and they were -disappointed. That one who had been their lodger was now with the -Olympian gods was a tale to be told as long as they had a room to let, -and to every one who rented one. I saw at once that I couldn't ask them -to believe that I had come back of my own free will. The very magnitude -of my hopes compelled me to be silent with regard to them. - -"Punk!" was Pelly's comment, when I braced myself to tell him I had -found home life disillusioning. - -That was across the table of the familiar eating-house, as we took our -first meal together. I was obliged to explain myself for the reason -that in the back of his mind, also, I read the conviction that I hadn't -"made good." Compelled to be more primitive than I should have liked, I -had to base my dissatisfaction on the grounds of physical restriction -rather than on those of divine discontent. - -"Some of them Boston women will put the lid on a man and lock it down," -he observed further. "Punk, I call it. Well, now that you've broken -loose, and with your wad, I suppose you'll be givin' yourself a little -run." - -I allowed him to make this assumption, thankful that he should -understand me from any point of view; but it was not the point of view -of our former connection. That a man should be down on his luck was one -thing; but that, having got on his feet, he should deliberately become a -waster was another. In any light but that of a reversion to low tastes -I could never have made Sam see my return to the house in Meeting-House -Green. For low tastes he had the same toleration as for misdemeanors; -but he did not disguise the fact that for a man who had got his chance -he considered them low tastes. - -At Creed & Creed's I received a similar tempered welcome. - -"Sure here's Brogan," Bridget called out to the other men, on seeing me -enter the cavern where four of them were at the accustomed work of -sweeping a consignment that had just been unpacked. Burlap and -sheepskins were still strewn about the floor, so that I had to restrain -the impulse to pick things up and stack them. - -Perhaps I can best compare my return to that of a spirit which has -passed to a higher sphere and chooses to be for a short time -re-embodied. Denis, the Finn, and a small wiry man, a stranger to me, -all drew near to stare solemnly. My visit could only be taken as a -condescension, not as a renewed incorporation into the old life. From -that I had been projected forever by the sheer fact of not having to -earn a living in this humble way. - -"Aw, but it's well you're lookin'," Gallivan said, awesomely. - -"And why shouldn't he be lookin' well," Bridget demanded, "and him with -more butter than he's got bread to spread it on?" - -"It's different with us," the Finn said, bitterly, "with no butter and -not enough bread, and more mouths to feed than can ever be filled. I'll -bet you Brogan doesn't think of them, now that he's got his own belly -full." - -It seemed to me an opening. - -"Well, suppose I did? Suppose I'd come back to hand down some of the -butter?" - -"Aw, cut it out, Brogan," the Finn laughed, joylessly. "I was only -kiddin' you. We don't pass the buck, none of us don't. What you got, -keep; and if you don't, then the more fool you." - -In Denis's yearning eyes were the only signs of remote comprehension in -the company. - -"Sure ye don't have to pass the buck just because y' ask the saints to -pray for ye, do ye? Pray for us, Brogan. Ye've got nothing else to do." - -It was another opening. - -"I wish I had, Denis. I've found that I don't know how to loaf. If you -hear of anything--" - -He nodded, with beatified aspiration in his leathery old face. - -"Aw, then, if it's that way you feel, the Holy Mother 'll find ye -something, Protestant though y' are, just as sure as she showed ould -Biddy Murphy, and her a Protestant too, that me mother knew in Ireland -where there was two-and-sixpence lyin' in the mud, and she with the rent -comin' due the next mornin': This is the new Brogan," he continued, with -a wave of his hand toward the dark, wiry man, who responded with a grin. -"He can't talk our talk hardly not at all, not no more than the monkey I -used to tell you about. A Pole he calls hisself; but I nivver heard of -no such nation as that till I come to this country. We nivver had them -in Ireland at all--at all. There was Ulster men, and Munster men, and -men from the County Monaghan; but I nivver heard tell of no Poles. Do -you think they's have sowls like us? Or would they be like them Chinees -and Japansey men?" - -"For Gawd's sake, here's the Floater," Bridget warned, softly, and every -man got back to his work. - -Back at their work they had no time for further conversation; and in -some way, impossible for me to tell you in words, I felt myself -eliminated from their fellowship. They would always be friendly; but -the knowledge that I was bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, -which had once been the outcome of a common need, was no longer theirs -nor mine. I could look in at them in this non-committal way as often as -I chose; but I should never get any farther. - -Something of the sort was manifest when I next met Lydia Blair. Our -standing toward each other was different. Little as she had understood -me before, she understood me less in this new role than in any other. - -"You sure are the queerest guy I ever met," she said, at one time in the -course of the evening. "I sometimes wonder if you're all there." - -But that was after I had been foolish enough to try to make her see my -point of view toward life, and failed. Before that she had been -sympathetic. - -Our first conversation had been over the telephone, when I had called up -Clotilde's to ask if Miss Blair had returned from Boston. - -"Miss Blair at the 'phone," was the reply. "Who's this?" - -Somewhat timidly I said I was Mr. Harrowby, repeating the name twice -before she recognized it as mine. Having invited her to dine with me -and go to the theater I got a quavering, "Sure!" which lacked her usual -spontaneity. - -"You don't seem pleased," I said. - -"Oh, I'm pleased enough. I'm only wondering if--if you are." - -"Why shouldn't I be, when I've asked you?" - -"Well, I put my foot in it for fair, didn't I?" - -"You mean in Boston? Oh, that was all right. I know you meant to do me -a good turn; and perhaps you've done it." - -"Oh, I _meant_ to; but I sure did get a lesson. My mother used to tell -me to keep my fingers out of other people's pies; and I'm going to from -this time on." - -In the evening, seated opposite me at the little table at Josephine's, -with the din of a hundred diners giving us a sort of privacy, she told -me more about it. - -"You see, it was this way: He'd always been talking to me about this -rich young Boston widow he'd met at Palm Beach, trying to get my mad -up." - -"What did he say of her?" - -"Well, the sort of thing he _would_ say. He's a good judge of a woman, -you must admit; and he thought she was about the classiest. It was when -I began to tell him what I wanted to be that he sprang that on me, said -she was the model for me to study, and that when it came to the dressy -vampire Agnes Dunham wasn't in it. - -"Did he call this--this Boston lady a dressy vampire?" - -"Oh, he didn't mean that. It was only that for any one who wanted to be -a dressy vampire she was a smart style. A vampire mustn't look a -vampire, or she might as well go out of business. The one thing I -criticized in Agnes Dunham in 'The Scarlet Sin' was that a woman who -advertised herself so much as an adventuress wouldn't get very far with -her adventuring." - -"I see. You'd go in for a finer art." - -"I'd go in for pulling the thing off, whatever it was; but that's not -what I want to tell you. To go back to what he was always saying about -this Boston lady, it made me crazy to see her. In the corset business -I'd got intimate with a good many society women, and most of them were -gumps. For one good vampire there were a hundred with the kick of a -boiled potato. That made me all the crazier to see, and I thought about -it and thought about it. Then, one day, Harry called me on the 'phone -to say-- fxsYou see, he's living with the Averills, and when that Mrs. -Mountney-- Well, when he told me who you were, and that the lady wasn't -a widow any more than I am, well, I simply laid down and passed away. -To think that _you_, the fellow we'd been putting down as a mystery and -a swell crook--" - -"What did you put me down for then when you found out?" - -"We didn't get a line on it all at once. That was later. Mrs. Mountney -told Lulu, and Dick Stroud told me, and so--" - -"Did you all believe what you heard?" - -"It was pretty hard not to, wasn't it? after the queer things you'd been -doing. There was just one person who stuck it out that it wasn't true; -and that was little Milly. She didn't say much to the family; but to me -she declared that if all the armies in France were to swear to it, she'd -still know there was some mistake. She's another one I can't make out." - -"What can't you make out about her?" - -"Whether she's got a heart in her body, or only a hard-boiled egg." - -"Oh, I fancy she has a heart all right." - -"I used to fancy the same thing, or rather I took it for granted; but -ever since-- Well, she just stumps me." - -She reverted to her errand in Boston and what came of it. - -"It wasn't till I began to hear of what was going on there that it -seemed to me--" the veil of tears to which her eyes were liable -descended like a distant mist--"that it seemed to me a darned shame." - -"What seemed to you a darned shame in particular?" - -"Well, first that Dick Stroud should be pulling the wool over any other -woman's eyes, especially a rich one, and then that he should be -upsettin' your apple-cart when you'd had so much trouble already. After -that it all came easy." - -"What came easy?" - -"Getting to know Mrs. Harrowby, and all the rest of it. The first once -or twice I didn't see how to bring in Dick Stroud's name without seeming -to do it on purpose; but after I met you in the up-stairs hall, why it -was just natural. Say, you copped a peach when you got married; do you -know it?" - -"Why do you say that?" - -"Because I've got eyes in my head; and, say, she's the one I saw you -with that time I told you about, ever so long ago, and it must have been -in New York. I suppose some guy had taken me to a swell restaurant to -blow me in for a dinner; but anyhow she was the one. The minute I saw -her back I knew there were not two such _speaking_ backs in the world. -As for me modeling myself on her, well, an old hour-glass pair of stays -might as well try to be Clotilde's Number Three Coar Pearl. And, say, -she's some sport, isn't she? When I told her more about Dick Stroud and -me, after you'd gone away that afternoon, she never turned a hair. Mrs. -Mountney says she was going to marry him if you hadn't turned up, and -even now he's hoping to marry her; but when I let her have the whole -bunch of truth, she took it like a rag doll will take a pin-prick. -Never moved a muscle, or showed that it wasn't just my story, and not a -bit her own. Of course I took my cue from that--it was my line all -along--and was just the poor working-girl telling her life history to a -sympathetic lady, just as they hand it out in books; but she carried the -thing off something swell. In fact, she made me more than half think--" - -"What?" I questioned, when she held her idea suspended there. - -"I don't believe I'll tell you. There are things a man had better find -out for himself; do you know it?" - -"I sha'n't find out anything for myself," I said, "because--because I've -given up the fight." - -She stared at me with eyes wide open in incredulous horror. - -"You've given up the fight for a peach like that! Well, of all the poor -boobs!" Leaning back in her chair she scanned my appearance. "I thought -there was something wrong when I saw you got up like that. You can beat -Walter Haines, the quick-change man, when it comes to clothes, believe -_me_. What have you got on now?" - -I explained that it had been my Sunday suit during the time I had been -working at Creed & Creed's. - -"Then for Gawd's sake go and take it off, before we start for the -theater. I'll wait for you here. You can go and come in a taxi. I've -been looking at you all along, and thinking it must be the latest -wrinkle from Boston. Boston _has_ funny ways, now hasn't it? And so--" - -It was here that I ventured on the exposition of my new scheme of life, -getting no appreciation beyond the question as to my sanity quoted -above. Later in the evening as, after the theater, I drove her back to -Miss Flowerdew's in a taxi, she summed up the situation thus: - -"Look-a-here! I never did take stock in that bum story of your being a -quitter on the battlefield; but now I sure will if you walk out and hand -the show over to Dick Stroud. Why, he's worth two of you! Look how he -sticks! He'll get _me_ one of these days, just by his sticking, if I'm -not careful; and when it comes to a woman like that-- Why, I'm ashamed -to go round with such a guy. And say, the next time you ask me to -dinner, you'll not be got up like the bogie-man dressed for his wife's -funeral. You'll look like you did the other day in Boston, or the first -time I saw you, or it will be nix on little Lydia." - -Drinkwater's tone was similar and yet different. It was different in -that while his premises as to "sticking" coincided with Lydia's, his -conclusions were not the same. - -Perhaps he was not the same Drinkwater. More than two years having -passed since I had seen him, I found in him more than two years of -development. A crude boy when last we had met, association with a man -like Averill, combined with his own instinct for growth, had made him -something of a man of the world not the less sympathetic for his honest -pug-face and his blindness. The fact that he asked me to dine with him -at his university club was an indication of progress in itself. - -He gave me his confidences before I offered mine, sketching a career in -which stenography figured as no more than the handmaid to a passion for -biological research. From many of the details of research he was, of -course, precluded by his blindness; but his methodical habits, his -memory, and his faculty for induction had more than once put Averill on -the track of one thing when looking for another. It was thus that they -had discovered the _ophida parotidea_ while experimenting for the germ -of the Spanish influenza. Incidentally, his salary had been creeping -upward in proportion as he made himself more useful. - -"And Lydia's been a wonder," he declared, his face shining. "Talk about -sticking! The way that girl's stuck to me in every kind of tight place! -Always thinking of other people and how to pull them out of the holes -they get into! In the Middle Ages she'd have been a saint. Now she's -just an up-to-date New York girl." - -By the time he had finished this rhapsody I was ready to tell him a part -of my own life tale, on which I found him more responsive than any one I -had met. As to my mental misfortunes in France he accepted the -narrative without questioning. When I came to what I painted as -domestic conditions outlived on both sides he passed the topic over with -the lightness born of tact. You see it was an altogether older and more -serious Drinkwater with whom I had to deal; and yet one not less -enthusiastic. - -I discovered this when, with much misgiving, I hinted at the task to -which I wished to dedicate anything left in my life. - -"You've got it, old boy," he half shouted, slapping his leg. "There are -three or four big jobs through which we white Americans have got to save -our country, and among them the free play of class-contribution is -almost the first. Say, these fellows that go jazzing about class -welfare get my goat. Class co-operation is what we want; and it's what -classes come into existence to give. You can't suppress classes, not -yet awhile at any rate, in a country full of inequalities; but what we -can do is to get the classes that form themselves spontaneously to take -their gifts and pass 'em on to each other. Each works out something -that another doesn't, and so can benefit the bunch all round. Say, -Jasper, you'll hit the nail of one of our biggest national weaknesses -right on the head as soon as you've learned how to do it." - -"Yes, but the learning how to do it is just where the hitch seems to -come in. I've been in New York three weeks and I'm just where I was -when I came." - -"Say, I'll give you a line on that. Do you know how a young fellow in a -country town--I don't know anything about swell places like New -York--becomes a barber?" - -I said I didn't, that I had never given a thought to the subject. - -"Well, he doesn't learn, and nobody ever teaches him. He just sits -round in the barber shop, brushing hats and hanging up overcoats, and -wishing to the Lord he _was_ a barber, and all of a sudden he _is_ one. -He's watched the shaves and hair-clips, hardly knowing he's been doing -it, but wishing like blazes all the while, and at last it comes to him -like song to a young bird. Now you've got to sit round. Sit tight and -sit round. Wish and watch, and watch and wish, and the divine urge that -turns a youngster into a barber, because that's what he's got his heart -on, will steer you into the right way. This isn't going to be anything -you can learn, as you'd learn to drive a motor or dissect a dead body. -It won't be a profession, it'll be a _life_, that'll show you the trick. -Don't try to hurry things, Jasper; and don't expect that three weeks or -three months or three years are going to make this mum old world fork -you out its secrets. Just stick, and if you don't do the thing you're -aiming at you'll do another just as useful. Why, the doctor was going -to chuck all his experiments on the influenza bug when I persuaded him -to keep at it; and so he discovered the thing that scientists have been -after since Dockendorff thought he'd tracked it down as long ago as -1893. All _sticking_!" - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - -I confess that I was comforted by these hearty words, and braced in a -determination that was beginning to splutter out. Drinkwater's divine -urge was not unlike my own thread of flame and Denis's Holy Mother, who -was a light even to the feet of Protestants. It was the same -principle--that of a guide, an impulse, an illumination, which our own -powers could generate when lifted up to, and associated with, the -universal beneficence. I decided to take to formula, "Wish and watch, -and watch and wish," as the device of my knight-errantry. As a matter -of fact, by the sheer process of wishing I secured a secondary position -for myself in the textile department of the Metropolitan Museum, while -by that of watching I found that one of Bridget's boys and two of the -Finn's had aptitudes highly worth developing right along this line. It -wasn't much; but it was a beginning in the way in which I hoped to go, -and might lead to something more. - -In all this time, as you can imagine, Vio was my ruling thought, and -guessing her intentions my daily occupation. Since she presumably -wanted a divorce, there were doubtless grounds on which she could secure -one by going the right way to work; but as to whether she was doing this -or not nothing had yet been said to me. Nothing was said to me of any -kind. I had not written to her, nor had she to me; and my other -communication with Boston was only through my bankers. Even that was -growing more irregular since I had changed my business address to -Meeting-House Green. - -What I was chiefly seeking was forgetfulness. Lydia had reproached me -with being a "poor boob" in giving up the struggle for Vio's love; but -Lydia hadn't known the wound Vio had inflicted. The more I thought of -that the more I felt it due to the dignity of love to attempt neither -explanation nor defense. On mere circumstantial evidence Vio had -believed me guilty of the crime she would probably have rated as the -blackest in the calendar. I couldn't forgive that. I had no intention -of forgiving it. The more I loved her the less I could forget that she -had returned my love in this way. The most chivalrous thing I could do, -the most merciful toward her, and the most tender was what I was doing. -I could leave her without a contradiction, so justifying tacitly -whatever she may have thought, and putting no restraint on her future -liberty of action. - -I said so to Mildred Averill when we talked it over about the middle of -March. I had not intended to renew this connection unless a sign was -made from the other side; but it was given in the form of a line from -Miss Averill begging me to come and see her in the apartment she had -taken for herself in Park Avenue, where at last she had a little home. -Knowing that my duties kept me at the Museum on week-days she had fixed -the time for a Sunday afternoon. - -It will be remembered that we had met in the previous December, so that -I found little change in her now. As I had noticed then, she had grown -more spiritual, with an expression of restfulness and peace. - -"That's because I don't struggle so much," she explained, in answer to -my remark on this change; "I don't fight so much. I'm not nearly the -rebel I used to be." - -"Does that mean that you've made up your mind to let things go?" - -"No; to let things come. That's what I wouldn't do before. I wanted to -hurry them, to force them, to drag them along. I begin to see that life -has its own current upward, and that we succeed best by getting into it -and letting it carry us onward." - -"But doesn't that theory tend to take away one's own initiative?" - -"I don't know that initiative is any good if it's directed the wrong -way. Did you ever watch a leaf being carried down-stream? As long as -it's in the current it goes swiftly and safely. Then something catches -it and throws it into some little side-pool or backwater, where it goes -fretting and swirling and tearing itself to pieces and never getting -anywhere. Well, it's something like that. I was in a side-pool, lashing -round and round and churning my spirit, such as it is, into nervous -irritations of every kind, making myself the more furious because my -efforts were to no purpose." - -"And how did you get out into the current again?" - -"By wishing, in the first place. It began to seem to me such a foolish -thing that, being given all the advantages in the world, I could do -nothing but frustrate them. I was like a person with a pack of cards in -his hand, not knowing how to play any game. I longed to learn one, even -the simplest; and I think it was the idea of the simplest that saved -me." - -"I'm not sure that I get that, the simplest." - -"Oh, it's nothing abstruse or original. I suppose it's no more than the -accepted principle of doing the duty that's nearest. Hitherto, I'd felt -that nothing was a real duty but what was far away. Then I began to see -that right under our own roof-- You see, Boyd and Lulu weren't very -happy, and I'd been leaving them to shift for themselves while I tried -to do things for people like Lydia Blair and Harry Drinkwater, and a lot -of others who were perfectly well able to take care of themselves. So I -began to wonder if I couldn't ... and to wish.... And it's so curious! -The minute I did that the things I could do were right there just as if -they'd been staring me in the face for years, and I hadn't had the eyes -to see them." - -"What sort of things?" - -"Oh, hardly worth naming when it comes to words. Not big things, little -things. If Lulu wanted something she couldn't find in New York, a -particular sort of scarf or piece of music, no matter what, I'd tell -Boyd and he'd send for it; and, of course, you see! Or if Lulu said -anything nice about Boyd, which she did now and then, I'd make it a -point of telling him. That's the sort of thing, nothing when you come -to talk about it, and yet in practice-- That's what I mean by the -simplest, the easiest, and most natural; and so I formed a kind of -principle." - -"Do you mind telling me what it is?" - -"Only that, whoever you are, your work is given you; you don't have to -go into the highways and hedges to look for it. That queer boy, Harry -Drinkwater, gave me the secret of it first. I asked him one day how it -was that, in spite of all his handicaps, he managed to get on so well. -He said he had only one recipe for success, which was wishing and -watching, and watching and wishing. He said there was no door that -wouldn't open to you of its own accord if you stood before it long -enough with that Sesame in your heart. I remember his saying, too, that -in the matter of work, desire--desire that's not wrong, of course--was -our first point of contact with the divine, since the thing that we -urgently wish to do is the thing by which we re-express the God who has -first expressed Himself in us. The most important duty, then, is to -find out what we really want, and then to wish and watch. Most of us -don't know what we want, or, if we do, we're not clear enough about it, -and so we get lost in confusion, like travelers in a swamp. Of course -he said it all much more quaintly than I'm doing it; but that was the -gist, and it helped to put me into the line of thought in which -I've--I've found content." - -"That is, you analyzed first what it was you really wanted to do." - -"Exactly; and I discovered two things: first, that I didn't want -anything half so much as to help--I've told you that before--unless it -was the happiness of the people to whom I was nearest. I found, too, -that if I began at the beginning and followed the line of least -resistance I'd get farther in the end. Up to that time I'd begun in the -middle, and so could get neither backward nor forward, as I used to -complain to you." - -Having thought this over, I said: - -"You're fortunate in having the people to whom you're nearest close -enough to you for--for daily intercourse and influence." - -There was distinct significance in her response. - -"Perhaps I'm fortunate in never having turned my back on them as long as -they were in need of me. Do you remember how I used to want a home of -my own? Well, something kept me at least from _that_. Whenever I came -face to face with doing what I've felt free to do at last, there was -always a second thought that held me back. If Boyd and Lulu had had -children it would have been different. But Lulu didn't want any -till--till lately, and so I felt that something was needed to ease the -grinding of the wheels between them. I did recognize that. But now that -they've got the little boy--" - -"Got a little boy?" I said, in astonishment. - -"Why, yes. Didn't any one tell you? Two weeks old to-day, and such a -darling! One day he looks like Lulu, and the next like Boyd, and -they're both as happy as two children. That's why I've felt free to be -my own mistress, to this extent, at least. Things do work out, you -know, if you'll only give them half a chance, and stop fretting. That's -another thing," she smiled; "it came to me one day in church when they -were reading the Psalms, though I'd often heard the words before without -paying them attention. '_Fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to -do evil_.' I suppose people worried three thousand years ago just as we -do to-day; and had to be told not to. Well, I've tried not to _fret -myself_, and I've got on, oh, so much better." - -She was so serene that as I passed my cup for more tea I ventured on -something from which otherwise I should have shrunk: - -"I'm a little surprised that in your analysis of the things you really -wanted you've forgotten the one most people crave for first." - -She took this with her customary simple directness. - -"Oh no, I haven't. It's only that something seems to have been left out -of me that--that I don't demand it as much as many other women; and -then--it's hard to put into words--the conviction has come to me -that--that whenever I'm ready for it I shall get it. I'm not ready for -it, yet." Her amber eyes rested on me with the utmost truthfulness. -"It's odd; but I'm not. The very fact that I don't demand it yet, some -women, you know, are like that, and I suppose some men, but that very -fact shows that it's wiser not to congest one's life by tackling too -many things at a time. The one thing I'm growing certain of is that it -all depends on oneself as to whether or not the windows of heaven are -open to pour us out blessings, and that whatever I want, within reason, -I shall get in the long run." - -It was partly this theory of life, and partly a sense of assurance and -relief, that led me on to talk of my personal situation. As Drinkwater -had done, she dismissed my mental misfortunes as incidental, interesting -pathologically, but not morally decisive. As to my return to New York -after having actually found my way home I felt obliged to give her some -explanation. It was while I was doing this that she asked, as if -casually: - -"Do you like Colonel Stroud?" - -"No," I said, bluntly. "Do you?" - -"I can see that he has a sort of fascination ... for other women." She -nodded, more thoughtfully, "I don't trust him." - -"Neither do I." - -"I thought not. That's what makes me wonder--" - -She hesitated so long that I was compelled to say: - -"Wonder, what?" - -"Perhaps I had better not go on." - -"Please do." - -"I only will on condition that you authorize me." - -"I authorize you to say anything you choose." - -"Well, then, since you _don't_ trust him, I wonder how you could expose -any woman to--to his influence." - -"Oh, but I don't. The--the events all took place while I was away, and -I've no control over them." - -"No control, perhaps; but there are other things in life besides -control." - -"I know that; but what things, for instance, do you mean?" - -"Oh, lots of things." She looked about the room as if not attaching -much importance to her words. "Love, for one." - -"But in this case love has to be counted out." - -"Can you ever count out love? I thought that was the one permanent -factor in existence, though the skies were to fall." - -"It may be a permanent factor, and yet have to remain in abeyance." - -She laughed. - -"Nonsense! Who ever heard of love remaining in abeyance? You might as -well talk of fire remaining in abeyance when it's raging, or water when -it's bursting a dam, or any other element in active operation. If I -loved any one, no matter how little, I should want to save them from a -man like Colonel Stroud." - -"In spite of the fact that you'd been considered guilty of--" - -"Oh, what does it matter what any one thinks of so poor a thing as -oneself? I mean that oneself _to_ oneself is so very unimportant." - -"Oh, do you think so?" - -"Of course I know that there are other points of view, and that from -some of them oneself _to_ oneself is the most vital of all -considerations. But in the detail of what other people think of one--" - -"Even when the other people are those of whom you think most in all the -world?" - -"Let us think most of them then. Don't let us think most about -ourselves." - -"Do you suppose I'm thinking most about myself now? I assure you I'm -not." - -She laughed again, not lightly, but rather pitifully. - -"I must leave you to judge of that." - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - -I did judge of it, all through that spring, coming more and more to the -conclusion that I was right. It was not the only occasion on which -Mildred Averill and I talked the matter over; but it became at last a -subject on which agreeing to differ seemed our only course. The time -came when I remembered with an inward blush that I had once feared that -this clear-eyed, well-poised girl, who had really found herself, might -be in love with me. What her exact sentiment toward me was I have never -been able to name further than to put it under the head of a "deep -interest." Had circumstances been in our favor that interest might at -one time have ripened into something more; but from that she was saved -by the instinct which told her that, in spite of my assertions, as to -which she nevertheless didn't charge me with untruth, I was a married -man. - -One more detail I must add concerning her. - -On a Saturday afternoon in early May I had gone to her to talk over the -great news of the day, that the peace terms had been handed to the enemy -at Versailles. It must be remembered that she was the one person, -outside my colleagues in the Museum, with whom I could discuss the -topics nearest to my heart. With Pelly, Bridget, the Finn, and even -with Miss Smith, I had friendly arguments as to the League of Nations -and similar matters of public concern; but they rarely went beyond the -catchwords of the newspapers. - -"My dear father," Miss Smith would say, gently, "who was an eminent -oculist in his time, Doctor Smith, you may have heard of him, used to -say that his policy was to keep this country out of entangling -alliances. That was his expression, entangling alliances. I always -think of it when I see foreigners." - -"From awl I hear," Bridget informed me, "this here League o' Nations -they make so much talk about is on'y to help the English to oppress -Ireland." - -"Will it bring down prices?" the Finn demanded, if ever I spoke of it -with him, and when I confessed that I couldn't be sure that it would, he -dismissed the theme with, "Then that's all I want to know." - -"Punk, I call it," was Pelly's verdict, "unless Lloyd George is for it; -and whatever he says goes with me." - -This being the scope of my conversations on the subject it became a -special pleasure to air my opinions with one who, while not always -agreeing with me, took in such matters the same kind of interest as -myself. - -We were, therefore, in what is called the thick of it when a shuffling -and laughing were heard from the hall. Suspending our remarks to look -up in curiosity we saw Lydia come in leading Drinkwater. From the -festive note in their costumes Miss Averill leaped to a conclusion. - -"_No!_" she cried, as the two stood giggling sheepishly before her -tea-table. "You _haven't_?" - -"We _have_." - -The statement was his. - -"I talked him into it," Lydia declared, laughingly. "He didn't want to, -but I was afraid that if I didn't tie him by the leg he'd fly the coop." - -"But," I asked, "what about your great career?" - -"Oh, well, I've put that off a bit. I can always take it up again. -Anyhow, you never heard of an adventuress who wasn't married. She -doesn't have to stay married; but a single woman who's an adventuress -gets nowhere. The Russian countess in 'The Scarlet Sin' had been -married twice, first to a professor--that 'd be Harry--and then to a -count. I can begin looking forward to the count right now, because -Harry is what you may call a thing of the past." - -When they giggled themselves out again, to go and give the news to some -one else, Miss Averill said, whole-heartedly: - -"Well, I'm glad!" - -Thinking of Vio and Stroud I asked why. - -"Because Lydia is safe for a while anyhow." - -"Didn't you think she was safe already?" - -"Not wholly. There was _some one_." - -"Some one she liked?" - -"No, some one she didn't like. That was the funny part of it. But -about four or five months ago she came to me with so incoherent a tale -that I couldn't make anything out of it. There was a man, a gentleman -she said he was, who wanted her to go off with him; and to save some one -else she began to think she ought to do it. I really can't tell you -what it was, because I couldn't get it straight; only there was a wild, -foolish, lovely idea of self-sacrifice in it, and now it's over. _He_ -won't get her; and if ever any one deserved an exquisite thing like her -it's Harry Drinkwater. He can't see how pretty she is, of course; but he -gets the essence of beauty that is more than physical." - -We dropped the terms of peace and the League of Nations and frankly -discussed love. I had already told her that for me, notwithstanding all -the conditions, there was no woman in the world but Vio. - -"And for me," she laughed, "there's--there's Lohengrin." My expression -must have betrayed my curiosity, because she went on: "Haven't I told -you that it's all a matter for ourselves whether the blessings of -existence are ours or not; and what blessing is greater than a good -husband when one wants one? When Elsa was in need of a defender she -went down on her knees, a method of expressing her point of view, and he -came right out of the clouds. There's always a Lohengrin for every -woman born, and there's always an Elsa for every man, and whether or not -they find each other largely rests on their understanding of the source -from which Elsas and Lohengrins come." - -"And you're sure of your own Lohengrin?" - -She answered with a laughing air of challenge: - -"Perfectly. Whenever I give the right call I know he'll be on the way." - -But this optimism didn't weigh with me. Knowing all I did of love and -life, the simple performance of simple tasks began to seem to me the -most satisfying food for men. From nearly all of those whom I have -quoted I made the synthetic gleaning of bees in a garden of flowers, -building my own little cell for my soul and storing it. - -I needed such a cell. As May passed and June came in there was much in -the trend of public life to make those, who had yearned and hoped and -looked forward, cynical. The splendid spiritual freedom for which -people had given their efforts and their sons was plainly not to be -achieved. If the human race had moved higher it was not directly -apparent at Versailles or anywhere else in the world; while in America, -the home of the ideal, the land in which so many of the heart-stirring -watchwords had been coined, passion, selfishness, distortion, extortion, -and contortion were the chief signs of the new times. North of us -Canada, hitherto so tranquilly industrious, was threatened with internal -convulsion; south of us Mexico, which some of us had hoped was pacified, -was prey to new distress. For me, to keep my sanity amid all this -conflict of forces, a little secret temple of my own became a necessity, -and to it I retired. - -It wasn't much. Having built my shrine with what I had harvested from -Drinkwater, Lydia, Mildred Averill, and the rest, I hid myself there -with some half-dozen disciples. They were Bridget's boy, the Finn's two -sons, and three or four of their chums whom they had brought in. Not -only did their young affection give me something I sorely needed in my -inner life, but I had the hope that, building on them, I was doing -something for the future. Grown men and women were beyond my endeavors. -These fresh souls, with their nearness to God, understood my faltering -speech, which fell so far short of the ideas I was trying to interpret. - -They were simple ideas, connected with practical beauty. That is, with -the Museum as what we called our clubhouse, all man's treasures of -material creative art were ours. These we were taking in their order, -beginning with my own specialty of all things woven, from the crudest -specimens of ancient linens up to the splendors of the tapestries, and -going on to kindred and allied crafts. Not only art was involved in -this, but history, biography, travel, romance, and everything else that -adds drama to human accomplishment. To me, with the big void in my -life, it was the most nearly satisfying thing I knew to reveal to these -eager little minds something of the wonders with which the world was -full; to them, with their ugly homes, cramped outlooks, and misshapen -hopes, it was, I fancy, much what the marvels of the next world will be -to those accustomed to the dwarfed conceptions of this. - -Saturday afternoons were the days of our reunions, and we came to the -last in June. It was a fatal day, the 28th, marking the fifth -anniversary of the tragedy through which the new world began to -dissociate itself forever from the old. As contemporary history was a -large part of our interest, with the development of man's efforts stage -by stage, the occasion naturally came in for comment. - -On that particular day we were in the great room, which, as far as I -know, has no rival in any other museum in the world, where the whole -history of ceramic art is visually unfolded in order from the crude, -strong products of the Han, Tang, and Sung dynasties in China, up -through the manifold efflorescence of European art to such American -works as that of Bennington, Cincinnati, and Dedham, which may be the -forerunner of a new departure. - -We had come to that section of the room where were displayed the first -representative pieces brought back from the East by merchants and -ambassadors, and so voyages of discovery were in order. Marco Polo, -Vasco da Gama and the Dutch, English, and Portuguese explorers had been -discussed, and I was in the act of giving to my boys the story of the -origin of delftware as an attempt to reproduce in abundance what the -Oriental traders brought over only in small quantities. The specimens -of delft being on shelves but little above the floor, I was crouched in -a half-sitting position, with the lads hanging over my shoulders. Not -till I had finished this part of my exposition did I rise, to find on -turning that a lady was looking on. - -Recognition on my part lagged behind amazement. Tall, slender, -distinguished, dressed in black, and somewhat thickly veiled for a day -in June, it was the sort of apparition to make a man doubt the accuracy -of his senses. Before my lips could frame a word she held out something -toward me, saying simply: - -"Billy, I came to bring you this." - -The boys fell back, knowing by instinct that the moment was one of -dramatic significance to me and looking on overawed. - -What I had in my hand I saw at once to be nothing but a copy of one of -the New York papers that appear in the afternoon. That it contained -some announcement affecting me went without saying, and a half-dozen -terrors crowded into my mind at once. Without my knowing it she might -have got a divorce; she might have got a divorce and remarried; she -might have lost her money; I might have lost mine; some one near to us -might be dead. - -I held the paper stupidly, staring at her through the veil, and opening -the journal without seeing it. When my eyes fell on the first page it -was entirely a white blankness, except for a single word in enormous -letters: - - *PEACE!* - - -My eyes lifted themselves to hers; fell to that one word again; lifted -themselves to hers once more. She stood impassive, motionless, waiting. - -"So--so they've signed it," was all I could find to stammer out. - -"Yes; they've signed it. I--I thought you might like to know." - -"Of course." Further than this superficial fact, I was too dazed to go; -but I knew I must get rid of the boys. Turning to Patsy Bridget, I -said, "Patsy, could you take the other boys home and see them safely to -their doors?" - -"Sure!" Patsy answered, with the confidence of fifteen. - -"Aw, we don't want no one to take us home," the elder of the Finn's boys -protested. "Me and me kid bruvver go all over N'York. Don't we, -Broncho?" - -Another lad spoke up. - -"I come from me aunt's house in Harlem right down to East Thirty-fourth -Street all by meself and me little sister." - -It was Vio who arranged the matter to every one's satisfaction. With -her right hand on one boy's shoulder and her left on another's she said, -in a tone of quiet authority: - -"You see, this is the way it is: The war is over at last. They've just -signed the peace treaty, and I've come to tell Mr. Harrowby. But now -that we've got peace we've got to go on fighting, only fighting in a -better way and for better things. Now, you're a little army, with Mr. -Harrowby as your commander-in-chief, like Marshal Foch. But under him -you're all officers, according to your ages. Patsy is the general, and -you're the colonel," she continued to the elder Finn boy. - -"Aw, no, he's not, miss," one of the other lads declared, tearfully. -"I'm older'n him. He's only twelve goin' on thirteen, and I'm thirteen -goin' on fourteen." - -This, too, was adjusted, and with a dollar from Vio for ice-cream sodas, -the general traped out, followed by colonel, major, captain, and -lieutenants, each keeping to his rank by marching in Indian file. I had -never before seen Vio in this light, and something new and human that -had not entered into our previous relations suddenly was there. - -Left alone with her, I was in too great a tumult of excitement to find -words for the opportunity. - -"How did you know where to find me?" was the question I asked, stupidly. - -"Miss Averill told me. She said you'd be here with your boys, and she -thought you'd told her you'd be doing this particular subject. I went -through some of the other rooms first." - -"I didn't know you knew her." - -"I didn't till--till lately. I was interested in making her -acquaintance because of things Alice Mountney said, and you said." - -"What did I say?" - -"Oh, nothing of much importance, except for showing me that--that--she -was the one." - -"What one?" - -"The one you spoke of ... the ... the last evening. That's ... that's -what made me come to New York, Billy, to see if I could do anything ... -to ... to help out." - -"To help out how?" - -"Oh, Billy, don't make yourself dull. You know that nothing can be done -unless I, or you, or one of us, should take the first step." - -I asked, with a casual intonation: - -"How's Stroud?" - -Fire flashed right through the thickness of the veil, but she answered -in the tone I had taken: - -"I don't know. I haven't seen him since--since that girl--" - -"She's married." - -"Oh, is she? I hope it's to some one--" - -"It's to some one as true-blue as she." - -"She is true-blue, Billy. I see that now. She--she must be to have -wanted to do what she did for ... a woman like me, who--" - -She took a step or two toward one of the cases, where she pretended to -examine the luster of a great Moorish plaque. - -"She's an erratic little thing," I said, finding it easier to talk of a -third person rather than of ourselves, "all pluck, and high spirit, and -good heart, harum-scarum, and yet a great deal wiser than you'd think." - -She turned round from the plaque without coming nearer to me. - -"I just want to say that the things she told me, the things she -pretended to betray, were things I knew more or less already. I'd been -coming to the same conclusions for myself, only I hadn't quite reached -them.... And then you came back, and everything was so strange ... -after I'd been in mourning for you ... and given those prints as a -memorial in your name! I wish--" I detected something like a sob--"I -wish you could make some allowances for me, Billy." - -The minute was a hard one for me, but I stood my ground: - -"I make all allowances, Vio; I've no hard feelings whatever." - -She advanced toward me by a pace. - -"Then will you do this for me? If I can find a way to--to give you your -liberty will you--will you marry Mildred Averill, and--and be happy?" - -Though my heart was going wild I know my eyes must have been cold as I -said: - -"I can't promise you that, Vio, for a double reason. First, I'm not in -love with her; and then she's not in love with me." - -"Oh, but I thought she was. Everybody says so." - -"Who's everybody?" - -"Well--well, Alice Mountney." - -"I can see how Alice Mountney might make that mistake; but it is a -mistake, Vio, and please let my saying so convince you. I'll be quite -frank with you and say that I thought so once myself. I'll even go so -far as to say that at one time, if everything had been different, it -might have happened. But--but everything was as it was, and so-- Well, -the long and short of it is that there's nothing in it, and I must beg -you to take that as decisive." - -"Then--then, who is it?" - -"No one. I've found my work, a very humble work, as you've just seen." - -"A very fine and useful work." - -"I hope so; and I'm not--not unhappy, specially." - -She moved along the line of cases, as if carelessly examining the -contents. - -"What's that?" she asked, coming to a pause. - -Obliged to go close to her, I was careful not to touch so much as the -surface of her clothes. - -"It's just a cup and saucer, Ludwigsburg, an old Rhine valley factory -now extinct. They liked those little fancy scenes." - -"It seems to be a woman pleading with a man, doesn't it?" - -"It looks like that. It probably means nothing beyond a bit of -decoration." - -"And he seems so implacable, while she's down on her knees, poor thing!" -She looked round at me. "Are you busy here still?" - -"Oh, there are always things to do. Why?" - -"I thought you might walk back to--to the hotel with me." - -I took out my watch, though unable to read the time even when I looked -at it. - -"I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid--" - -"Oh no, you're not." There was a repetition of the catch in the tone -that suggested a sob. "Billy, aren't we--aren't we going to be friends?" - -I couldn't soften toward her. I felt no springs of forgiveness. - -"Why should you want to be friends with me?" - -"Because I can't help it, for one thing," she cried; "and for another--" -Turning away wearily she began to move toward the door. "Of course if -you don't want to, I can't urge it, and so must learn to get along by -myself." - -Something in the last phrase prompted me to say: - -"Is there anything specially wrong?" - -"No; only everything specially wrong. If you had come back to the hotel -with me I could have told you." - -"Can't you tell me now? Is it about--about Stroud?" - -"Oh no, Billy. Can't you forget about that? I have. He's dropped out -of my existence. That was all a mistake, like the other things." - -"What other things?" - -"All the other things." She pointed to the big word "PEACE" staring at -us from a chair to which I had thrown the newspaper. "Look at that. -Doesn't it make all the last five years seem unreal, like a nightmare -after you've got up? Well, that's the way I feel now ... about ... -about--" - -"About me?" - -"Of course. I never should have thought it at all, only that Wolf and -Dick Stroud, and even the military authorities-- But at heart I -_didn't_ believe them--" - -"Do you mean that--?" - -She nodded without waiting for me to finish the question. - -"But I want it very plainly, Vio." - -"I'll tell you as plainly as you like, Billy, but--but not now. I'm too -worried." - -"But what about? Is it--?" - -"Oh, everything!" she burst out, desperately. "Money for one thing. -Didn't you see how shabby the house was, and run down?" The sobs began -to come freely now, and without restraint. "And--and Lulu Averill has a -little boy, a perfect darling, and our little Bobby--" - -"I'll go back with you to the hotel," I said, quietly, "only, -don't--don't cry here, with people coming in and out." - -She dried her eyes, drew down her veil, and took her sunshade from a -corner. Picking up the paper she had brought, I folded it and slipped -it into my pocket. I began to wonder if it might not prove a souvenir. - -On the way to the main exit we passed through a corridor lined with -cases of old silver. - -"Do you think your boys would like a day with those things?" she asked, -with the slight convulsion of her throat that a child has after tears. - -"I'm sure they would." - -"I could--I could take them, some day, when you didn't want to go, if -you'd let me. It's one of the few things I know something about." - -"I'm afraid it would bore you." - -She paused for just an instant. "Bore me? Billy, nothing will ever bore -me again so long as you--you let me--" - -As she could say no more we resumed our walk. - -Out in the open a boy rushed up to us, a Slavic creature with huge -questioning eyes. - -"Peace, mister! Peace, miss! Buy one! Great historic 'casion!" - -They were like doves, all up and down the avenue, white, fluttering, -bearing the one blessed, magical word. They were in motor-cars, -carriages, and on the tops of omnibuses--all white, all fluttering, all -blessed, and all magical. Up and down and everywhere the cry burst from -hundreds of raucous little throats: - -"Peace! _Peace_! PEACE!" - -"It's like coming out into a new world, isn't it?" I said. - -"It _is_ a new world, for me. Do you remember saying that day when you -first came home that the new world made the war? Now it's made -something else, in which it seems to me there'll be just as much -struggle called for, only with a difference. Then the hard things were -done to break us down; now they may be just as hard, only they'll be to -build us up. The East isn't farther from the West, is it, than these -two motives? I've never wanted to build up anything in my life; but now -I feel as if--" - -Once more we walked silently among the doves, listening to that throaty, -lusty cry that was sheer music: - -"Peace! _Peace_! PEACE!" - -We had come to that avenue in the park sacred to little boys and girls, -when she said: - -"He's a darling, Lulu Averill's baby; and they--quite understand each -other--now." - -This second reference prompted me to give her a long sidewise look, but -she did not return it. - -"Perhaps--" I ventured. - -"Oh, Billy!" - -It was barely a sigh, but for the minute it was enough for me, as she -pressed forward, with veiled profile set, like one gazing into the -future. - - - - - THE END - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREAD OF FLAME *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45898 - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. 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