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diff --git a/49632-8.txt b/49632-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 96bf07a..0000000 --- a/49632-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16966 +0,0 @@ - THE LOVE CHASE - - - - -This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United -States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are -located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Love Chase -Author: Felix Grendon -Release Date: August 06, 2015 [EBook #49632] -Language: English -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE CHASE *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - - *THE LOVE CHASE* - - - BY - - *FELIX GRENDON* - - Author of - "Will He Come Back?", "Nixola of Wall Street," etc. - - - - BOSTON - SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1922 - - BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY - (INCORPORATED) - - - - Printed in the United States of America - - THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY - CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - - - - - *CONTENTS* - -PART I. Rebellion! - -PART II. Love Among the Outlaws - -PART III. Janet on her Own - -PART IV. Nemesis! - -PART V. Hearts and Treasures - - - - - *THE LOVE CHASE* - - - - "But who, alas! can love and still be wise?" - LORD BYRON - - "The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule - and not to wander in mere lawlessness." - GEORGE ELIOT - - - - - *PART I* - - *REBELLION* - - - *CHAPTER ONE* - - *I* - - -A young man of twenty-seven, a dashing Count d'Orsay type, was sitting -astride a chair in flat number fifteen, one of the three-room flats in -the Lorillard model tenement houses. He was alone in the room but -evidently not in the flat, for he was directing animated remarks at one -of two closed doors that flanked a projecting china cupboard. - -"It's to be a masked ball, Cornelia," he was saying, "and I'm going as -the head of John the Baptist." - -Two feminine voices, one from behind the door, laughed merrily. Much -pleased, the young man continued: - -"Or I might go as a Spanish cavalier. The costume in Whistler's -painting of 'Henry Irving as Philip II' would suit me to a T." - -"Claude, I know what you're thinking of," returned a well-pitched voice -behind the right door. "You're not thinking of the part of Philip II, -but of the part of Don Juan, in which you expect to be irresistible." - -"Gee," added kittenish tones behind the door. "It'd be a good sight -better if he went as a penitent friar." - -"Leading you attired as Salome, I dare say." - -"Oh, no, I mean to go as St. Cecilia." - -Claude burst into mocking laughter. - -"You'd need seven and seventy veils for that part, Mazie," he said. - -When he subsided, the same languid, purring tones replied from the left. - -"Say, Claude, you _have_ got a head. But so has a pin." - -"Naughty kitten, showing its claws in company!" - -"Lothario!" cried Cornelia, from the right. "No quarreling before -supper." - -"Oh, I need a little excitement to give me an appetite," said Claude. - -He got up, walked around the room several times and then stopped in -front of the left door. - -"I wish you'd hurry up, Mazie." - -"Mary, I'm on my fourth step," purred her voice in reply. - -"I can fairly see you dressing." - -Through Mazie's door came a coloratura shriek. - -"In my mind's eye, that is," added Claude, after a pause. - -Resuming his seat he addressed the right door again. - -"Cornelia, shall we go to the Turk's or to the Spaniard's?" - -"I'm sorry, Lothario, but I've got a date with 'Big Burley' for -tonight." - -"Hutchins Burley? Then have a good time!" - -As his skeptical inflection belied his words, Cornelia asked for an -explanation. - -"Hutch is in a devil of a temper," declared Claude grimly, "because Rob -covered him with ridicule at the Outlaw Club." - -"Leave it to Robert Lloyd!" - -This exclamation from the right door was followed by a peremptory -command from the left. - -"Say, wait a moment--I can't hear you, Claude--and I can't find my -garter." - -Ignoring Mazie's cries of distress, Claude proceeded to explain to the -right door that Burley's temper had been ruffled that afternoon at a -meeting of the Outlaws, a club for young radical and artistic people -which they all belonged to, and which, since the recent signing of the -armistice, had more than trebled its membership. Friction had arisen -from the contact of two facts: the need of money to provide the club -with larger quarters, and the proposal to hold a public masked ball as -an easy means of raising the money. - -Hutchins Burley, who had organized the Outlaws, sponsored this proposal, -but some of the members opposed it on the ground that, in the existing -state of public opinion, a radical club might get a black eye from the -improprieties or the hooliganism that outsiders could practice under -cover of the masks. "Big Burley" had flattened out most of the -opposition with his usual steam-rollering bluster, the Outlaws, like -more timid gentry, being victims of a popular superstition that a noisy -debater is always in the right. - -Leading the minority, Claude had moved the substitution of a restricted -costume ball for the free and easy masquerade. He was ably seconded by -his friend Robert Lloyd, whose short satiric speech won over many -supporters, so many that "Big Burley" fairly swelled with the venom of -frustration. Claude assured Cornelia that, if a narrow majority had not -finally declared itself in favor of the masked ball, Burley would -certainly have exploded. As it was-- - - - - *II* - - -Further explanations were cut short by the opening of the door on the -left. - -"Mary, I'm on my last step," announced the occupant, standing on the -threshold. - -Mazie Ross was taller and slenderer than her purring tones foreshadowed. -Her intimates knew that, in addition to being extremely pretty, she was -extremely bad. Young as she was, her looks were already enameled with -cruelty. A long procession of lovers had left her wholly incapable of -tenderness or shame. - -With the cadenced poses of a Ziegfield "Follies" girl, she walked to -Claude's chair and stood beside him invitingly. He opened his arms and -drew her on his lap. She struggled just enough to put zest into the -embraces he immediately engaged her in. - -"You haven't invited me yet," she said, pouting. "Do you think I don't -eat or drink?" - -"Goddesses and sylphs live on nectar and ambrosia, you know." - -"Now you're talking, old dear. But let me give you a tip. Those dishes -don't figure on the menu of a cheap Turkish restaurant in the gas house -district. I do believe you can get them at the Plaza or the Ritz, -though." - -Claude's reply to this hint was to launch into caresses so daring that -Mazie took alarm. She was in the habit of giving much less than she -received, and she had not as yet received very much from Claude. -Therefore she wriggled, with some difficulty, out of his grasp. Perhaps -she also desired to anticipate the entrance of her chum. At any rate, -Cornelia just then opened the door on the right. - - - - *III* - - -"Time I came in," she remarked; glancing significantly from one to the -other. - -"Yes," replied Mazie, looking the picture of wounded innocence. "Since -Claude came back from the firing line in France--or was it gay -Paree?--liberty and license look alike to him. All the same, my beamish -boy, there's a boundary between the two." - -"Boundaries exist only to be extended," chanted Claude, delighted with -his own audacity. - -"I don't know which of you is the more incorrigible flirt," said -Cornelia, half in reproach. - -"Listen to the pot calling the kettle black," cried the "Follies" girl. -"Somebody pass me a whiff of brandy to uplift me." - -"Don't be vulgar, Mazie." - -Mazie's answer was to tango to Cornelia's cupboard, singing -provocatively: - - "I learnt more from Billy, - On the day I stayed from school, - Than teacher could have taught me in a week." - - -She would have said and done much more than this to annoy Cornelia. But -she remembered in time that her sayings or doings might offend Claude -Fontaine who, in the words of a fellow Outlaw, was "rich, but refined." -She never knowingly gave offence to any form of wealth whilst there was -hope of exploiting its owner even on the smallest scale. Besides, she -was more than a little afraid of Cornelia. - -After helping herself to an undiluted drink, she pranced back to the -studio couch and flung herself upon it, face downwards, with the abandon -of a Russian ballet dancer. - -"Thank the Lord it's to be a masked affair," she called out to the -others. "What'd be the good of a regular look-and-see ball? Nowadays -men are that timid, you can't have a lark with them unless they don't -see what they're doing, nor who they're doing it with." - -"Are you throwing stones at me?" asked Claude. - -"No, at Robert Lloyd. What's he doing in these diggings, anyhow? Why, -he's a regular pale-face. If he's the new man--you know the kind--the -kind that won't kiss a girl in the dark without first asking her -permission--then give me the old Nick." - -"Don't blame it all on poor Cato," Cornelia intervened. - -Cornelia Covert was about thirty, blonde, loose-framed and of medium -height. Her rich golden hair sounded a dominant note of which her -pupils and her eyebrows were overtones. A firm, square chin heightened -an illusion of strength with which her form invested her, but which her -pale coloring and listless eye did not support. - -"Claude sided with the strait-laced party, too," she reminded Mazie. - -"Oh, well," said Claude, flushing slightly, "I'm really quite glad that -the minority lost. To tell the truth, what I chiefly objected to was -Hutchins Hurley's cockiness. Personally I prefer a masked ball. I -haven't got Robert's interest in backing the radicals or keeping their -reputation spotless. Let's risk it, I say. It's a case of nothing -venture, nothing have, isn't it?" - -"So Robert was the real leader of the rumpus all the time," said -Cornelia, sweetly. "I thought so. Still, I'm free to say that I admire -his courage in defying 'Big Burley.' Especially when I think how afraid -of Hutch all the Outlaws are." - -Claude rose to his full stature and walked to the head of the couch -where he stood, handsome and commanding. - -"Am I afraid of him?" he asked, amused. - -"Well, you generally agree with him, Lothario." - -He received this jab with a smile. He supposed Cornelia to be speaking -only of bodily fear, and as his physical courage and strength were -unusual, the shaft glanced off. - -"I mean," said Cornelia, "that, like Big Burley, you are an anarchist at -heart, only not such a wicked one. You work within the law, he works -without." - -Claude was preparing a vigorous assault on any theory that placed Burley -and himself in the same class, when a ring at the outer door took the -opportunity away. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWO* - - *I* - - -That part of the city of New York which the older charts describe as -Kips Bay, now encompasses the East Thirties, Forties, and Fifties. It -is a section of Manhattan famous in song and story. Here in 1635 came -Jacobus Kip, the learned Dutch patroon and, with bricks brought from -Holland, built a farmhouse on land where St. Gabriel's Park and an -astonishingly well-stocked library now flourish. Here Washington had -another site for his movable headquarters while, on the heights of -Murray Hill hard by, he rallied his troops against the redcoats. Here -in Artillery Park (at First Avenue and Forty-fifth Street), Nathan Hale -was executed. And here at Turtle Bay (where the East Forties now end) -the "Quality" had a fashionable bathing beach in the early -eighteen-hundreds. - -Of these historic memories the average Kipsian is ignorant, quite -contemptuously ignorant. Far livelier realities occupy his thoughts. -In the heart of modern Kips Bay there are slums, stables, hospitals, -asylums, and model tenement houses, five features ranged in an ascending -order of precedence from the neighborhood's point of view. Kips Bay is -keen on this order of precedence. No lady of the White House giving her -first State Ball could well be keener. - -Slums rank lowest in the neighborhood's appraisal because they are the -natural or routine habitat of the human species there. Stables go a peg -higher, not because they are dirtier, or because artists frequently turn -them into studios but because they serve as club houses for professional -gangsters, and because a crack gunman is at once the pride and the -terror of his district. Hospitals outclass the stables by the same law -of human nature that makes an extra holiday outclass a Sunday. For the -hospital is a sort of haven in which the true-born Kipsian expects, now -and then, to spend a furlough from the ravages of alcohol, from -undernourishment, or merely from the wear and tear of the industrial -machine. - -In their turn, the hospitals yield the palm to the several asylums -which, adjoining the hovels of the destitute, provide the infirm, the -defective, or the insane with all the comforts and luxuries of the rich. -Easily the handsomest buildings in the neighborhood, the asylums stand -unrivalled in aristocratic prestige. And this is not due to a Kipsian -gratitude for charity, nor to the growing artistic cultivation of the -masses. It is due to an inborn respect for plutocracy, a respect that -persists in the heart of every Kipsian, no matter how loudly he may -applaud the labor agitator who assures him that an asylum is at once a -monument to the uneasy consciences of donors and a sepulchre for those -soldiers of industry who do not perish in active service. - -It would be as difficult for the Kipsian to explain to the outside world -why his model tenements outrank asylums as for the outside world to -explain to the Kipsian why a civilian Secretary of the Navy can give -orders to the uniformed Admiral of the Fleet. In either case, the -simplest course the perplexed brain can pursue is to accept the facts on -faith. - -This is precisely what the Kipsian has done--he has accepted both the -civilian Secretary and the model tenements on faith. Nevertheless, the -facts quite pass his understanding. The model tenement, he has heard, -was built in his midst for the likes of himself, for toilers at the -border line of pauperism. It was built, moreover, to accustom him to -habits of cleanliness and thrift. Unfortunately, the rooms are too small -to hold his furniture, or the furniture is too bulky to leave room for -cleanliness. In any case, the rents are so high that only the -"aristocrats of labor" can afford to pay them, and the "aristocrats of -labor" are not so low as to merge their fortunes with the denizens of -Kips Bay. - -Because their habits, their pocketbooks, and their pride are thus -offended, native-born Kipsians have unanimously fought shy of the model -tenements. And these evidences of concern for the welfare of the masses -might have proven a poor investment for public benefactors, had not the -situation been saved by sundry artists, writers, actors, singers, -promoters, efficiency engineers, socialists, anarchists and dynamitards -who promptly rented every available apartment besides filling up a long -waiting list of impatient applicants. - -To the simple-minded natives of Kips Bay, the model tenementers stand -clean beyond the bounds of everyday belief. Here are people who plainly -hail from comfortable homes, and yet voluntarily set up housekeeping in -the slums; who neither work by day nor sleep by night; who flirt with -riches and coquet with poverty; and who go to and from their abodes, one -day in rags, the next in motor cars. By such contradictions respectable -Kipsians are completely mystified. But having grown accustomed to their -mystery, they have ceased to hate it. They have even begun to pay it -the compliment which idolatrous man usually pays the unfathomable: they -worship it above all the things that they can fathom. - -And thus it has come to pass that, within the confines of Kips Bay, the -model tenement lords it over the asylum for the insane. - -The model tenementers affect a lofty indifference to this high rank; -also to the slum-dwellers who confer it. They affect an even loftier -indifference to the existence of the newer model tenements in the East -End Avenue and John Jay Park neighborhoods. When comparisons are -instituted between these more modern, more luxurious structures and -their own, the Lorillarders smile superiorly and say: "Let Kips Bay -renegades with a sneaking preference for uptown respectability migrate -to John Jay Park, or better still, to Hell Gate! We want no truck with -them. The one and only Lorillard speaks for itself." - -If you probe further they will ask you to lift up your eyes at night to -their electrically lighted pagoda roof and then tell them why they -should not be content to be "a twinkling model set in a sea of slums." -No. Impossible to get them excited by sly disparagements or open -comparisons. - -Impossible, that is, unless your comparison brings in Greenwich Village. -Dare to assert that the model tenement district reminds you of Greenwich -Village or the Latin Quarter of Paris, and you will encounter an -explosion. You will learn to your sorrow that the cold model tenementer -is not cold at all, that he is a volcano covered with a very little -snow. - -He will bombard you with: "Greenwich Village me eye! Liken us to a fake -Bohemia, to a near-beer substitute for the Parisian Latin Quarter! Say, -where did you get that stuff? We don't imitate the Latin Quarter or any -other foreign quarter. We are an American quarter. We are the Kips Bay -model tenement quarter--and that is all there is to it." - -He will swear that the differences between Greenwich Village and Kips -Bay are too numerous to record. He will challenge you to scour the -Village for a parallel to the Kips Bay Outlaw Club with its professional -news-faker for president, its one-legged gunman for sergeant-at-arms, -and its purser-of-a-pirate-ship for treasurer. - -True, he may admit a superficial resemblance in the matter of devotion -to art. But he will point out that the artistic set in Greenwich -Village is almost the whole village, whereas the artistic set in the -model tenements is but a small part of Kips Bay. He will assure you -that: "The Village takes up _Love for Love's Sake_ and _Art for Art's -Sake_. We have no use for that kind of bunk. We take up Art and Love -for the sake of anything and everything but Love and Art; for the sake -of politics or money, or just for the sake of excitement." - -The way the purser-of-the-pirate-ship expresses the difference is: "We -go in more for powder than for paint." - -By powder he means gunpowder. - - - - *II* - - -It was in these Lorillard tenements (named after Westing Lorillard, the -well-known brewer and philanthrophist who endowed them) that Cornelia -Covert and Mazie Ross occupied apartment number fifteen, (two bedrooms, -kitchen and bath). And it was by a ring of number fifteen's bell that -Claude Fontaine was cut short. - -While Cornelia went to the door, Mazie transformed the kitchen as if by -magic. She wafted a heap of soiled dishes into a basin in the cupboard, -deftly concealed the stove behind a Japanese screen, and then converted -the washtubs into a table by covering them with a pretty denim cloth. -Tubs, in a sitting-room, offended her sense of propriety, even when they -were porcelain tubs, as these were, with fine zinc tops. But the denim -cover blotted out iniquity, on the principle that what the eye can't -see, the heart don't grieve! Fortunately. For the limitations of a -three-room apartment left no choice but to employ the one fair-sized -room in the triple capacity of kitchen, dining-room and sitting-room. - -Tapping her dainty hands against each other to brush away the dust, -Mazie faced the newcomer, a young man about Claude's age. - -"Why, it's only Rob!" she exclaimed. - -"By which Mazie means to say, Cato, that we trembled for fear you were -Hutchins Burley." - -"Do you expect him?" asked Robert, turning to Cornelia. - -"Burley's going to take me to supper." - -"That man foils me at every turn," said Robert with mock gravity. "I -wanted to take you to supper myself. Cornelia, you have no intuition -whatever." - -"Well, how do you do!" - -Cornelia had a whimsical way of using this salutation as a mild rebuke. - -Mazie, who was perched on the quondam tubs so that Claude could get the -full benefit of a very shapely pair of legs, made a grimace at Robert -Lloyd. - -"If that isn't the third invite this evening! Cornelia, you're a -perfect pig. Rob, pale face never won fair lady." - -"Mazie, your ignorance of human nature is appalling," said Robert. -"What you really ought to say is that pale faces never count their -chickens till they're hatched." - -"Is that so, Mr. Cleverdick? Well, listen to me. Cornelia likes her -men in three dimensions, not in two. That's why she's going out with -Hutch." - -"Well, if Rob is two dimensions," said Claude, "Hutch is eight or ten." - -Robert joined in the general laughter; Mazie's manner was really very -friendly to him, although the banter sounded spiteful. Cornelia now -insisted that they were all to join her and Burley at supper; and -Robert, under pressure, consented to make a fifth. - -Robert was by no means as unprepossessing as Mazie's brusque remarks -might have led one to infer. True, he was not handsome, dashing, and -meteoric like Claude Fontaine. He was of medium height and slender, -with a figure touched by poetry and grace. Women described him as "so -nice" until, scorched by his flaming spirit, they learnt that ideas, and -ideas alone, could make him incandescent. - -"Lucky you left after Hutchins bowled us over," he said to Claude. "The -rest of the meeting was dry as dust." - -"I thought as much," said Claude. "What happened?" - -"It was voted to supplement the main affair of the ball with a few side -features." - -"Like what?" - -"Like a raffle, a fish pond, and--several other things that I fear I -paid no attention to. All I remember is that I was deputed to get some -one to act as a fortune-teller." - -"Cornelia's the girl for that," cried Mazie. "She's a regular clip at -reading palms, men's palms especially. Oh, she can do it slick. Why, -she can give you a worse character than Chiro." - -"What luck. The fact is, Cornelia, the committee had you in mind. May -I count on you? You shall be mistress of a gypsy tent." - -"No, _Robert le Diable_, a thousand times, no! Don't you know my habits -better than to invite me to a ball?" - -It had pleased Cornelia to "live in seclusion" as she called it, for -some time past. - -"I know you don't go to dances, Cornelia. Neither do I. But think of -the opportunity we'll have of talking undisturbed and finding out what -other dislikes we have in common. While the rest go on with the dance, -our joy will be unconfined." - -"Indeed! And in return for your improving conversation, I'm to make up -characters for silly people who never had any? No, thank you. I don't -propose to spend half an evening letting tiresome people bore me, and -the other half watching the fine art of dancing degraded into an orgy of -fox-trots and jazz steps." - -Mazie stuck her tongue out when Cornelia wasn't looking, and Claude -responded with a sympathetic wink. - -"Don't be a spoil-sport, Cornelia!" said Mazie, hitting the nail on the -head. "What is Rob to do?" - -"Yes, what is poor Robin to do, poor thing?" echoed Claude. - -Cornelia plainly enjoyed the sensation her blank refusal created. But -her elation subsided when she caught a glimpse of Mazie and Claude in a -stealthy interchange of grimaces. - -"Do nothing," she replied tartly. "Or ask Mazie. She'd make a capital -gypsy with her dark hair and velvet paws. And she could eke out her -fortune-telling with her monkeyshines." - -"Thanks, old girl. But I'll take Claude's tip and go as Salome, and -I'll dance my feet off just to tantalize you. If the boys want me to, -I'll do the dance of the seven veils for them." - -"_All_ seven?" asked Claude, affecting an air of seasoned rakishness. - -"All _but_ the seventh will be one too many if Big Burley is present," -said Cornelia. - -"Just so, Cornelia," said Claude. "A good reason for you to come and -see that Mazie behaves herself. And that Big Burley does likewise. As -the Gypsy Queen you may be able to keep him in order by predicting dire -disasters for him. For he's a regular old screen villain: he fears -nothing but the fictitious." - -"Lothario, in the present state of my own fortunes, I'm not keen to tell -other people their fortunes." - -"Oh, but come anyhow. If not as a gypsy, then as a ballet dancer or a -columbine. Or anything else that takes your fancy. We won't let you -stay at home, so get that out of your head." - -"Silly boy," said Cornelia, with a prolonged, musical laugh. "A ballet -dancer's dress calls for the most cast iron of corsets. Do you see me -putting on those abominations? No. Not even for love of you, dear." - -She was fond of drawing to the attention of her men friends the fact -that a corset was an article she rigorously abjured. - -"Oh, the boys know you never wear the iron maiden," said Mazie tartly. -"All the Outlaws know it by heart. But they won't treat you any the -worse for it, Corny. Men like a girl to be squashy--" - -"Provided there's not too much to squash," Claude thrust in. - -"Your remarks are all highly illuminating," said Robert Lloyd addressing -the company. "But they don't help me out of my box. Remember, I -promised the committee to get Cornelia for the gypsy act." - -"What, my frisky youth," exclaimed Mazie. "Expect Cornelia to hide her -golden coiffure under a shopworn wig! Guess again." - -"Mazie's shot is a good one," said Robert. "Cornelia, you can't refuse -on no better ground than that helping us would put you out of -countenance." - -"Out of hair," corrected Claude. - -"Out of spite," added Mazie. - -"Well," replied Cornelia, reluctantly yielding to this concentrated -fire, "I won't go myself. But I'll get you some one else. I have a -dear little girl in mind who is as charming as she is original." - -"Who is this paragon?" interrupted Claude. - -"She's a Brooklyn girl. Her name is Janet Barr." - -"Janet Barr!" exclaimed Robert. "Why, you can't get _her_ to come to an -affair like this." - -"Indeed!" - -"Yes. I know her family well. She lives in an atmosphere of Puritan -blue laws perfumed with brimstone and sulphur. Her mother--" - -"She'll come," interrupted Cornelia, with supreme confidence. "But -Claude is bored, Mazie is making sheep's eyes, and I'm hungry--let's go -to supper." - -"What about Big Burley," protested Mazie. "Aren't you going to wait for -him?" - -"No. But _you_ may if you like. I'm too hungry." - -When Cornelia saw a chance of tormenting some one, she could move with -celerity. Her coat and hat were on in a twinkling, and she was ready to -go while Robert and Claude were still fumbling for their hats and coats, -and Mazie sat irresolute on the washtubs. - -"But really, Cornelia, if somebody doesn't wait for Burley--" - -"Bother Burley! He should have been here a quarter of an hour ago. If -it'll quiet you, however, I'll tack a note outside the door, telling him -to follow us to the Asia Minor Cafeteria." - -Secretly gloating over the prospect of Burley's chagrin, she suited the -action to the word. While she was writing the note, Claude said to -Robert: - -"I fear Big Burley will chalk up another black mark against you. He's -your boss on the _Evening Chronicle_, isn't he?" - -"Yes. His word is law there since he wrote up the Montana dynamite -trial." - -"Nonsense," said Cornelia. "He won't take it out on Robert. I'll see -to that. He has vicious bursts of temper, but he's not bad to the -core." - -"Cornelia, every tiger-tamer thinks his pets are full of the milk of -human kindness. You must excuse a layman for taking a more cautious -view. Rob's bread and butter depend on the _Evening Chronicle_." - -Robert cut him short. - -"Don't worry, Claude," he said. "I've nothing to lose but my chains, -and I've you and the girls and a merry evening to gain." - -"Good, Cato, good!" cried Cornelia. "I like your spirit. You shall go -with me. You, Claude, for being saucy, may stay behind and tarry till -your bonnie Mazie's ready. Or you may wait for Hutchins Burley and, if -possible, avert the wrath to come. Meet us at the restaurant, Mazie." - -With these words, Cornelia took Robert by the sleeve and marched out, -leaving Claude staring blankly after her. - -"Upon my word!" said the young man, as much amused as he was vexed. -"Look sharp, Mazie, will you?" he added, after a moment's pause. "We -may yet catch up to them, if you don't put too fine a point--on your -complexion." - - - - *III* - - -But despatch was not Mazie's forte. And so, while she was still -prinking in the bedroom, and Claude was cooling his heels in the -kitchen, Hutchins Burley arrived. When Claude opened the door, the -hulking Falstaffian form entered, puffing and panting, overheated with -liquor as well as with climbing the stairs. - -"Haven't kept the old girl waiting, have I?" he gasped, between breaths. - -"Oh, no," said Claude, evasively. "She has gone ahead." - -Burley, who had evidently not seen the note Cornelia had tacked on the -door, acted as if he had not heard Claude's remarks either. He tramped -to the door of the first bedroom, opened it unceremoniously and, when he -found it empty, stalked noisily to the second. - -"Where the devil is Cornelia?" he demanded, turning to Mazie. - -"She was hungry and went on to the Asia Minor." - -"Alone?" - -"Well, Robert Lloyd happened to be here. He went too." - -A sulphurous explosion of oaths testified to "Big Burley's" feelings. - -Hutchins Burley was a sinister personage both in newspaper and in -radical circles. Among artists who eked out their scanty talents with -alcoholic inspiration and took a serious view of the Bohemianism of the -Lorillard tenements, he cut a considerable figure. Others dreaded or -avoided him. - -Curious conclusions might have been drawn from the fact that, though he -hung out with parlor anarchists of the Outlaw type and was reputed to be -a close friend of real anarchists like Emma Goldman, he was an -all-important member of the staff of the sham-liberal _Evening -Chronicle_. - -But no one bothered to draw these conclusions. - -In truth, few people cared to think long or deeply about Hutchins -Burley. A great hulk of a man, with a pitted face and shifty eyes, he -was a dreadful and repellant figure, yet one that chained the attention. -Some said offhand that he knew more about Charles Edward Strong, the -editor and owner of the _Evening Chronicle_, than was good for either of -them. Others believed that his influence had been won by the -sensational hits he had made in "covering" the Lawrence strike and other -big labor outbreaks. - -One thing was certain. Newspaper Row hated and yet feared him; the Kips -Bay model tenementers eyed him askance and yet elected him to high -office in the Outlaw Club. A few shrewd observers troubled the placid -waters in both camps by enquiring from time to time: "Can Hutchins -Burley serve both Park Row and the Radicals?" - -Wine was not one of Burley's weak points: he could stand any quantity of -it. But women touched his Achilles' heel. On this point he was like -Falstaff, "corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire." - -Hence his explosion at Claude's news. The picture of Cornelia -gallivanting off with Robert made his great frame shake with rage. - -"What does she mean by going off with that puppy?" he snarled, ejecting -the words from the left side of his mouth. "Don't she know better than -to break an engagement without so much as a by-your-leave?" - -Mazie tried to coax him into a good humor. But the sweeter her -advances, the blacker grew his passion. - -"Oh, get over it, Hutch," said Claude at last. "After all, if you make -an appointment for seven, you can't expect Cornelia to wait until -eight." - -"She'd have waited but for that thundering young cad," shouted Burley. - -"Don't go on like that, Hutch," begged Mazie in a panic. "You know he's -Claude's friend." - -"Oh, that's nothing," said Claude urbanely. "Names won't hurt Rob. If -it relieves your feelings, Hutch, swear at me, too, from the bottom of -your heart." - -Claude had a temper of his own. But the chief instinct of his social -existence was to stave off the disagreeable--except where his own -desires were thwarted. - -"Ready, Mazie?" he continued. "Well, then, we might as well go. Calm -down, Hutch, and come along with us." - -"I'll be damned if I do. I won't eat with a girl that breaks an -engagement, or prefers a snorting, bouncing, snapping little cur to me. -Just wait till he comes snivelling along for the next assignment. I'll -show him what's what!" - -"Oh, cool off!" exclaimed Claude, whose patience was thoroughly -exhausted. - -For a second it looked as if Burley would hurl himself upon the younger -man. But as Claude's athletic frame seemed fully prepared for the -contingency, he picked up his hat, glared himself past Mazie, and fumed -his way to the door. He stopped at the threshold. - -"Just let the beggar sneak in tomorrow!" he shouted, his left jaw moving -with a grotesque, machine-like rhythm. "I'll kick him into kingdom -come!" - -Claude smiled disdainfully, turned his back on Burley, and went to -comfort Mazie, who was making the most of the pose of Dulcinea in -distress. - - - - - *CHAPTER THREE* - - *I* - - -One morning a letter addressed to Miss Janet Barr was delivered at a -house in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. The writing was legible -enough, but a new and somewhat flustered servant placed the letter next -to Miss Emily Barr's plate. This young lady, Janet's older sister, was -the first member of the family to reach the breakfast table. She was one -of those well-filled-out single women who abound in the better districts -of Brooklyn, and who look more matronly than a great many married women, -perhaps because their figures have not been pared down by wedlock in -middle-class circumstances. - -Casually she picked up the envelope and opened it. She laid the -enclosure down before she had read very far, took it up again, laid it -down a second time, and then surveyed it with painful indecision. -Finally she rang for the maid. - -"Laura, have you called Miss Janet?" - -"Not yet, Miss Emily. She told me not to call her before half past -eight this morning. She said--" - -"Never mind. Don't call her until I tell you to." - -"Very well, ma'am." - -After the girl had gone, Emily took the letter and went upstairs to the -back sitting room. She did not allow the turmoil within her to disturb -her dignity or quicken her pace. She found her mother seated in a -rocking chair and musing over a passage from the Bible that lay open on -her lap. - -"Good morning, my child," said Mrs. Barr, as her daughter entered. "You -must have made short work of breakfast. Are you late?" - -"No, mother, I've brought you a letter I opened by mistake. It is -directed to Janet." - -"Oh, well, just lick it together again," she said, with arid humor, "and -lay it beside Janet's plate. She'll never know the difference. You -know Janet." - -Mrs. Barr's levity appeared to distress Emily. - -"That's not what's troubling me, mother. I--" - -She hesitated and held out the envelope with a good imitation of -helplessness. Her mother stopped rocking and looked in some -astonishment from Emily to the letter. - -Mrs. Barr was a tall, well-set woman, whose rigid bearing was but little -softened by her refined surroundings. She was neither thin nor fleshy; -there was something solid and conservative about her that suggested the -Chinese wall. Solidity was her pronounced characteristic, solidity of -soul no less than solidity of body. Her face was hard; it was full of -lines that looked like razor edges drawn in gall. - -Mrs. Barr had been beautiful in her youth and might still have been so -had she not sacrificed everything--everything but her love of -comfort--to a greed for power. Experience had taught her that a fit of -sickness was a right royal prop to domestic tyranny. Thus she had -cultivated ill-health until nothing saved her from being a professional -invalid but her naturally strong constitution and an inherited -playfulness which still occasionally emerged between long fits of bad -temper. - -She was the president of the King's Daughters' Society in a local -Presbyterian church, and, as she was preparing for a meeting that day, -she cut Emily short. - -"Well, Emily, what do you want me to do?" she said, less amiably than -before. "I'll explain it to Janet if you like." - -"You don't understand, mother. I not only opened the letter, I read -part of it before I realized my mistake." - -"That's not a crime, dear." - -"No--But what I read amazed me. It seemed all of a piece with Janet's -strange behavior of late." - -"Indeed? Who is the letter from?" - -Emily flushed slightly. - -"Mother, I told you I didn't read as far as that. I couldn't help -seeing the first line, however. And that confirmed the suspicion we -have both had, that Janet has been falling under bad influences." - -"Emily, is some man corrupting her?" - -"It looks like a woman's hand to me. What do you think?" - -Emily gave the letter to her mother, who scrutinized the handwriting for -a moment. - -"Well," she said at length, "there can be no harm in your repeating to -me what you inadvertently saw." - -"I don't like to say anything that may turn out to Janet's -disadvantage," said Emily, with an effect of reluctance that deceived -even herself. "It will seem almost like betraying a confidence." - -"Nonsense, Emily. If evil threatens Janet, it is your duty as a sister -to warn me, and my duty as a mother to protect her. Our consciences -would reproach us if we failed in this." - -"But Janet and I were such good friends--would be still, if she had -never met those Lorillard tenement people." - -Emily said this with the bitterness of outraged feelings. - -It was in a studio in one of the model tenements in Kips Bay, three -weeks before, that Janet had met Cornelia and other people of radical -tendencies. Emily had once enjoyed a monopoly of Janet's heroine -worship. The friendship between the sisters had cooled some time ago, -but Emily had chosen, rather arbitrarily, to look upon the Lorillard -incident as the turning point. - -"I can understand your feelings, my dear," said Mrs. Barr. "Their -delicacy does you credit. But if these people you mention--anarchists -and Bohemians, I think you called them--are trying to lure my Janet into -wicked ways, it is time for a mother to interfere." - -In spite of these words, she hesitated to read Janet's letter, open -though the envelope was. Her domestic tyranny had its humanly illogical -side, and there were certain rules of good breeding which she observed -as scrupulously as she imposed them. Not once since her two girls -entered High School had she opened their letters or so much as read them -by stealth. - -"You are sure that it comes from one of those tenement persons?" she -asked, picking up the letter again. - -"Oh, yes. I'm sure I recognize the handwriting. But, mother, do you -think we ought to read it?" - -This was the very point Mrs. Barr had been mentally debating. Emily's -feeble protest had the effect of stimulating her to a quick decision. - -"Nothing could be further from my mind than any wish to pry into Janet's -legitimate private affairs," she said magisterially. "But here is a -letter opened by mistake. From what you read by accident we may infer -that it throws a light on those recent actions of your sister's that -have caused us all great pain. I shall never let considerations of -delicacy or etiquette deter me from an action that my conscience tells -me is right." - -A look of sanctified resignation passed over Emily's face as her mother -took out the enclosure and read the following: - - -Friday morning. - -Dear Araminta: - -Have you heard me speak of the Outlaws? They are artists and writers -who live beyond the pale of convention, and in an atmosphere painful to -the wealthy, purse-proud darlings of our nation. In order to enjoy -their outlawry unmolested, they wish to produce club quarters from which -artistic elegance is by no means to be banished. Such quarters cost -money. To raise the necessary funds a masked ball will take place two -weeks from today, and those who come to dance to the tunes must help to -pay the piper. - -This means that it has been proposed to add one or two tributary -features to the main function. Remembering your wizardry at palm -reading, I concluded that your raven locks and appealing eyes would be a -perfect match for a gypsy costume, and that a dear little gypsy who -could tell wise people their virtues and foolish people their fortunes -would be a priceless asset. I know you don't believe in palmistry any -more than I do, but isn't it your very scepticism that enables you to -practice the art with a dash of diablerie that carries conviction? - -If you won't accept, I may be obliged to play the gypsy myself. Can you -picture my straw-colored plaits in such an Oriental role? But I know -your artistic sense will not permit me to do with amateurish bungling -what you can do with professional skill. Besides, two peerless young -gentlemen, whom I could name if I chose, will pine away with melancholy -if you refuse. - -Before you answer "yes" or "no," come and spend Wednesday afternoon with - -Yours devotedly, - Cornelia. - - -Mrs. Barr turned the letter over to Emily, who read it while her mother -grimly closed the Bible and waited. - -"I thought as much!" cried the young lady, as she reached the signature. -"It's from Cornelia Covert." - -"Who is she, pray?" - -"Don't you remember the girl who created a scandal by running away with -Percival Houghton, the English artist?" - -"Who already had a wife and children in England?" - -"Yes, that was Cornelia Covert. You may recall that she was one of my -school friends, when we lived in McDonough Street." - -"Don't remind me of her past," said Mrs. Barr curtly. "Her present is -bad enough. Ring for Laura, please. How did Janet come to know her? -Through Robert Lloyd, perhaps. Has she been meeting him again, too?" - -"No. It came about in this way. Cornelia left Mr. Houghton not long -after their elopement. Or, more likely, he left her. At all events she -returned to New York. She was brazen enough to celebrate the occasion. -She invited Janet--Janet, though I was her classmate--to a big party in -the Lorillard tenements." - -"If I remember aright, Janet asked you to go with her?" - -"Yes. But I declined as soon as I heard that tenement artists, movie -actors and other queer people like Robert Lloyd were to be present at -the affair." - -"The party was given, so Janet assured me at the time, by some society -woman." - -"It was held in Miss Lucy Chandler Duke's studio. I did not know then -that the Chandler Dukes were radicals as well as millionaires. And, as -Janet begged me very hard not to tell you the particulars, I kept the -matter a secret." - -Mrs. Barr tingled with irritation at what she chose to view as Janet's -deceit. - -"She said a great deal about the Chandler Dukes!" she exclaimed -bitterly, "and nothing at all about Cornelia Covert or Robert Lloyd." - -"I did not think Janet would misuse the occasion to form a fast and -furious friendship with a person like Cornelia Covert," said Emily, -insidiously fanning the flame. - -"If she gave less thought to the pomps and vanities of the world, Emily, -she could have declined, as you did. But you should not have promoted -her deceit. See what comes from walking in the ways of ungodly people. -Janet hobnobs with unbelievers, you are deprived of a sister's -companionship, and I must give up an important meeting at the church. -That is how the flesh and the devil waste the Lord's time. I pray God -to help me bear with the weaknesses of your father and the sinfulness of -his daughters." - -Laura, the maid, came in just then and was despatched with an urgent -summons for Miss Janet. - -Mrs. Barr's resources of anger were so considerable that when one member -of the family displeased her, everyone else received a share of the -overflow of her wrath. The weaker the member the more generous the -share. Mr. Barr, by all odds the weakest member of the family of which -he was the Biblical head, usually bore the brunt of every domestic -storm. - -But he was in the fairly safe haven of his own room on the top floor. -In his absence Emily almost regretted the part she had just played. -Being the only available victim for the moment, she had to act as -lightning conductor, much against her will. - -The maid had not gone very far in her quest of Janet before that young -lady herself burst somewhat incontinently into the sitting room. Her -slender mobile body with the lustrous black hair and the gray eyes full -of life and intelligence, made her a striking contrast to her two -inflexible relations. - -"Good morning, children," she cried, without paying the atmosphere any -special attention. "How's this for the role of the early bird? Spare -your praises, Emily. It's papa's doing. He's getting up now. And I -suppose he's anxious to advertise the unearthly hour." - -The two petrified figures quite chilled her prattling. - -"Is anything the matter? You haven't swallowed a sour plum, Emily, have -you?" she asked, facing them both. - -"Janet," said Mrs. Barr, in a tone that would have frozen quicksilver, -"I wish to speak to you for a minute." - -"What have I done now?" asked Janet, sitting down and looking -speculatively from her mother to her sister. - -"By mistake Emily opened a letter addressed to you. Laura had put it -beside her plate." - -"Is that why you're so glum, Emily? How silly. Don't give, the matter -another thought, please." - -Emily looked very uncomfortable. - -"It's from Cornelia Covert," she said, averting her eyes from Janet's, -and the mother added with asperity: - -"It invites you to mingle with certain persons who call themselves -Outlaws." - -"Really? You and Emily have the advantage of me. I haven't read the -letter yet. May I?" - -Emily silently relinquished the missive and Janet calmly read it, while -the others looked on, keeping their vexation warm. Mrs. Barr spoke as -soon as Janet had finished. - -"Yes, I _have_ read the letter," she declared with emphasis. - -"Really, mother, you may read all my letters if you wish to. But I -think I might be allowed to see them first. I am twenty-four, old -enough, therefore, to get my correspondence uncensored." - -"You are my daughter, Janet, and if you were forty-four instead of -twenty-four, it would still be my duty to guard you against evil -influences, and to look after your spiritual welfare." - -"I don't see how your spiritual guardianship affects my legal right to -my own letters." She added scornfully: "Am I to consider Emily as one -of my moral guardians, too?" - -Janet was not easily aroused. When she was, she spoke in low cold tones -that irritated her listeners more than the sharpest abuse. - -"I read the first sentence accidentally--" began Emily indignantly. -Mrs. Barr interrupted her. - -"You know quite well that I have made it a rule not to interfere with -your correspondence," she said, acridly. "But I consider that what -Emily saw by chance justified me in making this case an exception, -especially as you have been so diligent lately in wasting the Lord's -time." - -This was a pet phrase of Mrs. Barr's. - -"I don't understand the charge," said Janet, like a prisoner in the -dock. - -"I refer to your recent godless behavior." - -"Godless!" - -"You know quite well what I mean: your flagrant absence from services, -your irreverent remarks when a religious topic is discussed, your -readiness to put frivolous pleasures before church duties, and your -studied avoidance of all the friends of the family." - -"Except Robert Lloyd," interjected Emily, pointedly. - -"Why drag in Robert?" said Janet, flashing a look at her sister. "You -got mamma to forbid him the house a whole month ago." - -"I had every reason to believe Mr. Lloyd to be an atheist," said Mrs. -Barr, who thus concisely classified all disbelievers in revealed creeds. -"That is why I requested you not to invite him here again." - -"Leaving me to the edifying companionship of Emily's stuffy pedagogue -friends," said Janet, in a white heat. - -"We needn't pursue that matter now, Janet. What I wish to say at -present is merely that a masked ball is out of the question. A masked -ball! What are you thinking of, my child? Not to say that the -invitation comes from people who are perfectly impossible." - -"Impossible!" cried Janet, bursting out under terrible pressure. -"They're quite possible for me. Do you expect me to chum up with -Emily's high school cats, or the old maids from the King's daughters, or -the decrepit old ladies from your missionary club?" - -Her mother fairly reeled at the impudence of the attack. - -This from Janet, of all people! The girl had always been a -mild-tempered and tractable child. That is, she had been entirely -tractable except for half a dozen fits of rebellion so scattered in -point of time and so completely suppressed in point of fact that they -could conveniently be overlooked. But a face-to-face defiance of a -maternal decree was a new and startling departure. It was an unheard of -act, such as Mrs. Barr could ascribe only to the promptings of the Evil -One, inducted into Janet's acquaintance by her Kips Bay friends. - -Mrs. Barr came of an old New England family with Puritan traditions -reaching back beyond Cotton Mather and the witch huntings. It was -inconceivable to her that a daughter should be allowed to address a -mother as Janet had just addressed her. It was inconceivable to her -even in the spring of 1919, when the civil war between parents and -children (or rather, the uncivil war between the young and the old), -though raging furiously in the dynamic centers of New York, London, -Paris and Berlin, had not produced so much as a ripple amongst the Barrs -of Brooklyn or the Barrs anywhere in the wide world. - -"That will do, Janet," she said, rising to her full stature and assuming -an expression that gave every line of her face its crudest edge. "Your -language confirms my worst fears. I shall say no more." - -Janet wished that this were true, but she knew it was a mere euphemism. -And, indeed, her mother continued with icy piety: - -"I shall pray that understanding may be given you to realize that -happiness comes from the spirit, not from the flesh, from an exaltation -of the heart, not from the pleasures of dances and parties. As for this -Cornelia Covert, her reputation is such that you should shrink from -linking your name with hers. A woman who has lived in an unholy -alliance with a man is no friend for an innocent girl." - -"Innocent! Am I more innocent than she is, or simply more ignorant?" - -"Janet!" remonstrated Emily, "how can you speak in this way--when our -sole object is to help you--" - -"Help me! Please don't make me laugh, Emily," Janet cut in, bitterly. -"A little more of this help of yours and mother will have no difficulty -whatever in arguing me down to the ground." - -"I don't propose to argue with you, my dear," said Mrs. Barr, motioning -to Emily, who flounced angrily upstairs. "I simply say that I don't -approve of this masked ball. One thing more. I wish you to promise not -to go." - -Janet was really terrified at her mother's icy tone, but as her -convictions were deeply involved, she replied with obstinate defiance: - -"I'm sorry, but I see no reason for giving such a promise." - -"Very well," said her mother, adding, with a veiled menace in the -harmless words: "Remember, you don't go with my approval." - -"Then I'll go without," muttered Janet under her breath, as her mother -majestically left the room. - - - - *III* - - -Janet stood alone, her hands clenched in nervous tension. How -passionately she resented her mother's domestic tyranny! In the narrow, -intolerant religious atmosphere of Brooklyn, she had endured it long -enough, endured it since childhood as one of the mysterious -dispensations of Providence. - -Her mind was flooded with hatred of the Barrs and all that they stood -for. - -The Barrs were a characteristic product of the American environment. -Mrs. Barr belonged to a decadent branch of an old Mayflower stock -connected with the Bradleys, the Saltonstalls, and other well-known New -England names. She had married the American born son of a Scotch -immigrant; but, as she ruled him with a rod of iron, few traces of his -gentler European parentage had slipped into the household or stayed -there long if they had. For Mrs. Barr charged the family atmosphere to -its full capacity with all the narrowness, harshness, and spitefulness -of her own Puritan inheritance. - -Robert Lloyd had assured Janet that her family was as typical an -American family as could be found east of the Alleghanies. Its Puritan -(or rather, Impuritan) tradition was depressed still further (if that -were possible) by contact with the low standard of living introduced -during a century of reckless and promiscuous immigration. Its leading -tradition was the enforcement of an absolute veto upon all social -experiments, a veto springing not from love of life or regard for the -community but from hatred of life and contempt for the individual. - -It was Robert, too, (in their brief acquaintance) who had pointed out -that families like the Barrs were to be found everywhere in the wide -world. But it was in backwater places like Brooklyn that they -congregated densely enough to work mischief. It was from such points of -concentration, all too numerous in America, that their outstanding -traits spread like an infectious miasma upon all surrounding efforts at -progress. - -Janet did not need to be told that one of these outstanding traits was a -devotion to the cult of doing nothing. Doing nothing with a restless -intermittency and an extravagant expenditure of undirected force. - -Doing nothing! Janet had learned that this was not the same as having -nothing to do. It was a religion of serried "thou shalt nots" applied -with passionate rigor to all adventurous departures from the routine of -everyday life. Doing nothing meant the avoidance of actions contrary to -custom, law, or the supposed requirements of comfort. As regards -herself, it meant a studied observance of restrictions, which your own -interpretation of law, or custom, or abstinent _appetite_ (with a light -accent on the _appetite_) prescribed for you. As regards your fellow -man, it meant his rigid observance of restrictions which not his, but -your, interpretation of law, or custom, or _abstinent_ appetite (with a -heavy accent on the _abstinent_) prescribed for _him_. - -It meant an aggressive policy of wholesale and indiscriminate -prohibition. - -Janet had often listened, at first unwillingly, later receptively, to -Robert's elaboration of the idea. His views had shaped themselves in -some such way as this. - -The tradition in which Janet's childhood was moulded was that baser, -narrower, lower class American tradition which has always been at grips -with the heroic patrician spirit of the Declaration of Independence. It -was a tradition of negation, restriction, deprivation; of deprivation -for yourself within reasonable limits, and of deprivation for your -neighbor within no reasonable limits at all. It was a tradition that -rallied opposition to Sunday newspapers, Sunday novels, Sunday theatres, -and Sunday sports, besides minutely networking itself through a thousand -insidious channels into all sorts of social behavior every day of the -week. It was a tradition, not of the magnificent _no_ of self-control -but of the demoralizing _no_ of compulsory rectitude. - -In short, it was the tradition from which the successive prohibition -movements--beer, sex, manners, and what not--have drawn their ethical -backing. - -Families like the Barrs were the moral backbone of a strong section of -American public opinion. Their prejudices, jealousies and pruderies -pitched the tone of national manners, fixed the standard of public -taste, curbed the flight of the country's artistic genius, and gave an -American the same cultural standing as against a European that a citizen -of Boonville held as against a full-fledged New Yorker. - -The same causes erected an Anthony Comstock into a national figure -better known than the President's cabinet, gave rise to episodes like -that of Maxim Gorky, and made a raid on the women bathers at Atlantic -City a topic of serious discussion throughout the country. - -In Robert's view, the Barrs of America prided themselves on the -cast-iron taboos they had laid on all decent and civilized -manifestations of sex. They had eliminated every natural, healthy and -spontaneous expression of the sex instinct from American books, music, -pictures and daily intercourse. This was their first contribution to -Western culture. - -Their second contribution--and they frankly gloried in it, too--was that -they had morally sandbagged all dissenters and almost completely crushed -the spirit of dissent. - -For they believed--these Barrs of America did--that force is the only -effective form of moral propaganda in the world. They believed this -with all the fanaticism of intolerance and stupidity. Force and -repression were the only two things they did sincerely believe in, -though they would have died sooner than acknowledge this. Not theirs -the aim of replacing lower forms of enjoyment by higher ones, baser -religions by nobler ones. Theirs was the modest if unavowed mission of -improving on the example of Jesus Christ. In a moment of divine (and -regrettable) weakness, Christ had suffered torture for his enemies. The -Barrs undertook the pious duty of counteracting this weakness by making -_their_ enemies suffer torture for Christ. - -In this atmosphere of moral taboos and sex repression, Janet had grown -up like an alien spirit in a foreign land. From the very first stirrings -of intelligence, some independent strain in her had set her in -antagonism to her environment. She had not been fully conscious of this -antagonism, much less of the issues involved, and she had seldom given -battle directly to her mother's despotism. But even when she had bowed -her head to the force of argument or to the argument of force, her heart -had remained untouched. She had knuckled under time and again, but her -service had been lip service and her homage the homage only of the knee. - -It was a situation she had but dimly realized when she first met Robert -Lloyd. His sensible views and galvanic realism had startled her out of -her half-hearted acceptance of a decrepit tradition and carried her at -one bound from the shadowy Brooklyn existence of the age of -Praise-God-Barebones to the vivid actuality of the age of the airplane. -The first novelty of contemporary life had been overwhelming. She felt -as though she had lost consciousness in the seventeenth century and, -like the fabled princess, had lain in a twilight sleep until Robert -Lloyd had awakened her to the throb and stir of the twentieth century. - -Her friendship with Robert had begun shortly after the end of the war, -the great World War from which the Barrs had learnt as much as a blind -man learns from a mirror. - -Chance had next thrown her into the arms of Emily's classmate, Cornelia -Covert. Cornelia had taken her in hand and brought her into the free -and easy atmosphere of the Lorillard model tenements in Kips Bay. Her -furtive visits to Cornelia's flat had led her by gradual stages into the -stress and clash of the metropolis until, what with one new experience -and another, she began to distinguish the trumpet-tongued voices of her -own generation and to feel in her soul the resurgent willfulness of the -modern age. - - - - *IV* - - -And now, here she stood, the fire of life stirring her blood, the long -arm of her mother's power fettering her movements. If only she were in -Emily's shoes! Emily had been sent to college and had later achieved -economic independence in the profession of high school teacher. But -Emily had always had an instinct for taking care of herself. Janet -wished she had half her sister's practical sense, and bitterly -reproached herself for having been fool enough to yield to her mother's -hankering after gentility. It was Mrs. Barr's belief that the family -prestige would fall irrecoverably below the rarified heights where the -Cabots or the Saltonstalls were presumed to move, unless one daughter, -at least, was kept free from the lower class stigma of earning her own -living. - -Thus, under pressure, Janet had stayed home to become a fine lady, -although the limited circumstances of the Barrs obliged her, in effect, -to become a domestic servant. For a year past, however, she had been -laying desperate plans for going out on her own. - -"Hello, little girl, good morning!" interrupted a cheery voice at her -side. - -"Good morning, father," replied Janet, to a tall, well-preserved, -stately man who kissed her very affectionately. - -"Your mother sent for me, Janet," said Mr. Barr anxiously. "What's the -matter?" - -"I'm the matter. She has been pitching into me for receiving an -invitation to a masked ball. _I've been wasting the Lord's time_!" - -"Did she blow you up?" - -"Down, father, down. I feel very small, I can tell you." - -Janet was of too cheerful a temperament to be sad very long. She and -her father habitually exchanged death-cell jests, and even her present -gloom was not too thick to be dispelled with a quip. Her father burst -into a loud and hearty laugh which he moderated considerably on -remembering that he still had his wife to face. His camel-like virtues, -which had carried him tolerably far in business--he was manager of a -small branch of the Wheat Exchange Bank--had not saved him from being a -thorough nincompoop at home. - -Mr. Barr had the form of a patrician but the spirit of an obedient -slave. Janet despised him for his complete submission to his wife, yet -she had one bond of sympathy with him. Though he dared not raise hand -or voice against the system of vetoes and taboos under which the Barr -family lived, he disliked the system and understood her hatred of it. -Janet often wondered whether he was not the passive carrier of some -rebellious British strain which, in herself, took the shape of active -insurgency against Mrs. Barr's American passion for denying the body and -mortifying the soul. - -"Mother is waiting for you upstairs," she said, trying to feel sorry for -him. "She means to give you a scathing address on the moral failings of -your youngest daughter." - -"I suppose _I'll_ get a piece of her mind, too." - -"Depend upon it. The same old _piece_ that passeth understanding." - -"Well, it's all in the day's work--it's family life," said the old -gentleman, trying to keep up a brave front. - -He shuffled off with a rueful smile. - -Janet almost felt ashamed of her malice as she watched his reluctant -steps and pictured his terror of her mother. His kindliness and good -nature had once endeared him to her. But she could not check a growing -contempt for his weakness of character. It was clearer to her every day -that her mother's cruel bigotry had not been half so fraught with tragic -consequences as her father's spinelessness and moral cowardice. - -"Family life--all in the day's work!" she repeated to herself with a -trembling lip. "Well, I don't mean to have a lifetime of days like -this." - -Then she went upstairs to her own room and wrote Cornelia Covert a note -of acceptance. - - - - - *CHAPTER FOUR* - - *I* - - -"There, isn't she sweet?" said Cornelia to Robert, as she put the last -touch to a pomegranate sash. - -She was referring to Janet, whom she had costumed with all her artistic -cunning as a sort of gypsy Carmen. The night of the Outlaws' ball was -at hand; and Cornelia's flat, number fifteen of the Lorillard model -tenements, was the rendezvous for several of the maskers. - -"Isn't she _beautiful_?" insisted Cornelia, pitching her languid voice -high. She pointed proudly to her handiwork (rather than to its wearer), -for she was determined to have it admired by all who stood near. - -"She is charming, and her voice is beautiful," said Robert, in cool -dispassionate appraisal. - -"No one ever called my voice beautiful before!" said Janet, with -unfeigned delight, in spite of the scientific detachment of Robert's -tone. - -"I shall make you conscious of _all_ your attractions, if you'll give me -time," added Robert, with much more fervor than before. - -"Ought we to be conscious of our attractions?" asked Janet dubiously, -for in the Barr environment it was bad form to call attention to -anything but detractions. - -The immemorial Barr practice bound members of the same family to make -the worst of one another's good qualities. - -"Decidedly," answered Robert. "A wise man should take care to know his -good points no less than his bad points, precisely as he takes care to -know his assets as well as his liabilities." - -"Yes, leave it to Cato," cried Cornelia mockingly. She had a nickname -for each of her friends. "He'll tell you all about yourself, until your -soul will cease to seem your own. He'll beautify you--" - -"Oh, if he only will!" cut in Janet, with one of her fluent graceful -gestures which it was a rare delight merely to see. "I can stand no end -of that." - -"He'll beautify you--morally, my dear," concluded Cornelia. "His -conversation is so improving. He re-creates people in his own image. -It's his specialty." - -Janet's fine gray eyes narrowed to a hostile glance. - -"It's my mother's specialty, too," she said, coldly. - -"Now, look here--" cried Robert, springing up from his chair in -impetuous protest. - -He had good reason to know how unflattering the comparison was. Before -he had a chance to say more, Cornelia hurriedly interposed. - -"There's one important difference, Araminta," she said. "Your mother -believes that beauty is simply goodness; Cato believes that goodness is -simply wisdom. He'll turn you into a likeness of Minerva, with your -wonderful raven locks metamorphosed into hissing feminist serpents." - -The outer door opened and Mazie Ross burst in attired as Salome and -looking as wicked and tempting as if she were a bacchante straight from -the Venusberg. - -"Hello, hasn't Carmen got her war paint on yet?" she called out, -frowning on the group. - -It was a pretty tableau she beheld. Robert, with folded arms, stood -before the two young women, posed for a tremendous vindication. -Cornelia, kneeling at her charge's feet, was absorbed in a final -adjustment of the skirt; Janet, with outstretched arms, had just wheeled -a full circle in response to her friend's touch. The two women were a -picturesque pair, Cornelia's golden hair and alabaster skin, vitalized -by the excitement, forming a vivid contrast to Janet's darker coloring. - -"Please page the olive complexion and the Castilian nose," continued -Mazie, in a merciless illumination of the favorite's two weak points. - -Janet certainly lacked the challenging physical beauty that makes men -forget the mental limitations of an Emma Hamilton or a Mme. de Recamier. -Not that she was poor in physical charm. Far from it. She was straight -and slender, with waving black hair, an exquisite complexion, and -expressive gray eyes. Hers was a face that sobered naturally into -thoughtful sympathy and softened readily into merriment or gentleness. -True, her features lacked a chiseled perfection, (if that is -perfection). But it was not for her body but for her spirit that she -both craved and inspired love. - -"Well, what's the big delay?" asked Mazie, flouncing somewhat -impatiently to the covered washtubs on which she perched herself in such -a way as to advertise extensively her new and pretty underthings. - -"Cato is about to exalt us to rare moral heights," said Cornelia, -resuming her scrutiny of the costume of Carmen. - -"She thinks I'm a hard-shelled Puritan," said Robert, appealing to Mazie -for support. "Do you agree with her?" - -"Oh, give us a cigarette and stop your spoofing," said Mazie, who had a -dread of high-flown talk. "I'm surprised that Rob's parson poses take -you in, Cornelia. Believe me, he's just like other men when you get him -alone on a starry night." - -Robert blushed, Janet's two rows of long lashes parted wider, and -Cornelia gave a queer coloratura laugh. But Mazie's satisfaction at -securing the spotlight was short lived; somehow or other, Janet speedily -became the center of attention again. - - - - *II* - - -Other Lorillarders bound for the Outlaws' ball now began to pass in and -out of Cornelia's flat. They were mostly young men and women who -represented the various social strata found in the Kips Bay tenements. -They brought with them gayety, laughter and high spirits, and spent -their time circulating boisterously through the apartment, gossiping on -the coming event, and comparing notes on the glamor and glitter of -costumes modeled upon every conceivable suggestion of history, legend or -myth. - -Janet was thrilled with the excitement, the infectious spirits and the -easy camaraderie. She noticed that there was no chaperonage or standing -on ceremony whatever, and she was struck with the entire absence of -self-consciousness between the sexes. Young men and women went in and -out as they pleased, helped themselves to Cornelia's ice box and piano -as fancy dictated, and bantered, flirted, kissed, or exchanged partners -without stint or scruple. On the face of it, all concerned seemed in -full accord with the scheme of "what's mine is yours, and what's yours -is everybody's." - -Nor could she help contrasting these cheerful faces, this genial -abandon, this entire lifting of social constraint, with the gloomy -looks, circumscribed permissions, and moral strait-jacketings of her -Brooklyn home. With all their faults, Cornelia Covert and Mazie Ross -appeared to suggest happiness and freedom as much as Mrs. Barr and Emily -suggested gloom and repression. And the model tenements lost nothing in -the comparison by having all the attraction of novelty. If at that -minute, Janet had had to choose between a Paradise of Barrs on the one -hand, and the flesh, the devil and the model tenements on the other, it -is not to the Paradise of Barrs that she would have given the palm. - -While Janet met Cornelia's friends in turn, and gave the men amongst -them a new sensation on account of her artless candor, Mazie coquetted -freely with the successive males that fluttered around her and displayed -unlimited skill in extricating herself from sundry intemperate advances. -Growing tired of this sport, she pushed her last admirer brutally off -the tubs and said: - -"Cornelia, what's the matter with Claude? He should have shown up ages -ago." - -"Oh, Lothario rang me up about half past eight," said Cornelia sweetly. -"He isn't coming." - -"Isn't coming! Why, he promised to be my escort," Mazie cried out in a -harsh strident voice. - -Mazie's voice was not her strong point. Whenever she opened her pretty -mouth, she shattered many illusions. - -"Oh, he's going to the ball. But he has changed his mind about coming -here first. I suppose he doesn't want any of you to know him by his -costume." - -Mazie's irritation was unbounded. - -"None of our crowd are keeping each other in the dark," she said. -"What's struck him? There'll be plenty of strangers to play the devil -with. If Claude has backed out, who's to take us, old girl?" - -"Well, Robert's here." - -"Robert! _He_ can't keep Hutchins Burley from persecuting me." - -"Or you from persecuting Hutchins Burley." - -"Don't be nasty, Cornelia," said Mazie, jumping angrily down. "You take -the cinnamon bun, anyway. Why didn't you pipe up sooner with the news -that Claude had rung up?" - -"I quite forgot to," said her friend, calmly. - -"Forgot to!" said Mazie, not concealing either her incredulity or her -vexation. "A fat lot you did. It's your spite. Your refusing to come -to the ball is spite, too. Just spite. I suppose you think that since -you can't have Claude, nobody else shall have him, either." - -"I don't think about Lothario at all," said Cornelia, demurely placid, -as she could afford to be in view of the infuriated state in which Mazie -burst from the room. - -The silence which had fallen on the scene during this conflict was soon -broken, and gayety was gradually restored. - -"Who is Lothario?" asked Janet, recovering her spirits more slowly than -the others. - -"That's Claude Fontaine, the son of Fontaine the jeweler. You know -Fontaine's, the big jewelry and art establishment on Fifth Avenue?" - -"Oh, yes." - -"Well, he's _that_ Fontaine. Very good looking as well as very rich. -All the Lorillard girls are dippy about him. So am I. And so will you -be." - -"Do you think so?" asked Janet, hopefully, for she was thirsting for any -new experience. - -"I'm sure of it. But I hope you won't dream of marrying Lothario. -Chiefly for the reason that it would be useless. He comes here too well -armed and well seasoned against matrimonial schemes." - -She added that, in spite of this obvious fact, nearly all the Lorillard -girls of the Outlaw brand had their caps set at the young millionaire. - -"On principle, they're all opposed to marriage," she proceeded. "But -they're all ready to sacrifice this principle in such a very profitable -cause." - -This bitter remark was the first hint Janet received of a cleavage -between Cornelia's theories and the theories or practices of the other -model tenementers. - -"And Mazie wants to marry him, too?" she asked. - -"Marry him?--Well, _get_ him," answered Cornelia languidly. "Mazie has -the mating instincts of a pussy cat and the brains of a pigeon. Hello, -where's Robert?" she added, missing him. "He slips away the moment -one's eyes are taken off him." - -As if in answer to her call, Robert came back, bringing Mazie in tow. -Shortly after her wrathful exit, he had unobtrusively gone out to smooth -down her ruffled feelings. An explosion of Mazie's temper was like the -backfire of a motor car; there was a loud report and much smoke, but no -damage done or permanent hard feeling caused--at least, not to herself. -Thus, a good dose of flattery, which Robert skillfully administered, had -set her going equably again; for, besides being dependent on Cornelia, -Mazie was too much occupied with the satisfaction of her desires to -prolong a quarrel in support of her rights. - -A symphony of cooings re-established peace and good will amongst the -three young ladies; and these dulcet sounds blended easily with the -mirth of the other masqueraders in the flat. In an access of joy, Mazie -took Janet romping through the rooms. Robert used this occasion to -whisper in Cornelia's ear: - -"I satisfied Mazie that you weren't staying home to meet Claude, by -convincing her that you had an engagement with me," he said. - -"Have I?" She tried to hide her pleasure, immense as it was. - -"I hope so," he replied, using far less tact with her than he had with -Mazie. "These entertainments don't interest me at all. And, as I'm -pledged to bring the girls home, it will be much more fun to spend the -interval chatting with you than being bored at the ball." - -Cornelia's face fell. With admirable self-control she said she meant to -stay up for the girls, and would be glad of his company, though he might -feel free to change his mind if he chose. - -Janet now detached herself from Mazie, put her arm through Robert's, and -begged him to hasten and join the merry-makers who were already filing -out. This was her first ball, anticipation had cast a glamor over -everything that was or was to be, and excitement had set all her nerves -a tingle. - -There was a last concerted effort to dissuade Cornelia from remaining -alone. It was unsuccessful. - -Then Janet drew Robert through the doorway and, as she joined the -procession of celebrants, her heightened senses quite transfigured her. -This fact was not lost on Cornelia or Mazie. - -"What a pretty pair!" said the latter mockingly. "Just watch them doing -that snappy stuff with the eyes." - -Mazie had stayed behind for a moment to give Cornelia a parting shot. - -"You'd better change your mind, Corny. A swell chance there is of -Robert coming back here now that Janet's got him hooked. Come along, -dearie, do. See here, I'll give you a tip. You can rile a good many -more people by going to the ball than you can by staying here." - -Cornelia shook her head disdainfully at this satire on her motives. Yet -disdain was not her strongest emotion, Mazie's shaft having struck too -deep for an answer. - - - - *III* - - -Towards midnight, the Outlaws' Ball in the old Murray Hill Lyceum on -34th Street had almost hit its stride. Two bands, an Hawaiian Jazz and -the Kips Bay Roughnecks, furnished the music, and what with the crash -and blare of instruments, the dazzle of costumes, the clouds of -confetti, and the swirl of dancers, masked and unmasked, the dense -motley crowd appeared to be squeezing the last ounce of pleasure out of -its mad adventure in search of "a good time." - -Janet's appearance in her Spanish robes with the genuine Castilian -mantilla, the high tortoise shell comb, and the silk Andalusian shawl -flaming brilliantly against her dark hair, was one of the sensations of -the evening. Robert's somber monk's cowl at her side subtracted nothing -from this sensation. He conducted her through the mazes of the upper -dancing floor and then brought her back to the gorgeous gypsy tent that -had been set up on the floor below. - -There she began to play the gypsy fortune teller with as much subtlety -as the professional exertions of the musical Roughnecks permitted. - -Robert stood near the tent as a sort of self-constituted watchman and -bodyguard extraordinary. As John Barleycorn was being liberally -dispensed in the refreshment room, a number of tipsy masqueraders soon -turned up, and some of these roistered into Janet's tent despite -Robert's efforts to fend them off. - -Hutchins Burley was among those who presently appeared on the scene. It -was after Mazie Ross had repeatedly toyed with his erotic instincts and -incited his hot pursuit only to defeat him at a point just short of -possession. In a fury of frustration, he had descended to the first -floor to inflame his passions further at the public bar. Thus -inspirited, he propelled his Falstaffian proportions into the gypsy tent -and requested Janet to read his palm. - -His breath alone would have decided Janet to refuse. But when he -interrupted her first sentence by tearing off her mask and importuning a -closer acquaintance with the face behind it, she pushed abruptly past -him and, running outside the tent, waited for him to leave it. - -With surprising alacrity Hutchins Burley bundled after her. - -"You're a lively little kipper," he shouted, filled with liquor and -desire. And he wildly reached out one arm to clasp her around the -waist. But Janet, uttering a low cry, dodged and slipped past him, -while Burley's flopping arms were caught firmly by two men who had -sprung forward for this purpose. - -One of these was Robert. The other was a tall, unobtrusive man who had -quietly but deftly detached himself from the throng. - -The attention of several people had been arrested by Janet's cry and -flight, and these now pressed forward to learn what the trouble was. A -confusion of queries, blusterings and exclamations followed, during -which the Roughnecks struck up the "Nobody Home" rag. - -Hutchins Burley had recovered some of his wits under the compulsion of -several menacing faces around him. Seeing him become tractable, Robert -contemptuously flung off the arm he held and walked away towards Janet. -Burley followed his receding steps with a malevolent glare, and then -turned savagely on the tall quiet stranger who was still holding his -other arm in a grip of steel. - -"Leggo my arm," he bellowed. - -"A word in your ear, Mr. Burley," said the quiet one, relaxing his grip. -"Plain clothes men are in the crowd. If you kick up a shindy, you'll be -giving them what they're looking for." - -"And who the devil are you?" sputtered Burley, with the air of a man who -is not to be easily frightened. - -"Oh, nobody in particular," said the quiet man in a low voice. And, -before he could be questioned further, he had melted unobtrusively into -the crowd. - - - - *IV* - - -A little later, Robert led three jovial young maskers into the gypsy -tent. The foremost was dressed as _Charles Surface_ and had quite -enough gay confidence to do justice to the part. - -"So here's the Outlaws' piece of resistance," he called out merrily. -"We'll see whether she can do half as much justice to my palm as to her -lovely gypsy shawl." - -He sat down at Janet's little table and held out his hand. She took it, -examined it gravely for some seconds, and then, in her fine clarinet -tones she reported swiftly, without a pause, and getting almost -breathless towards the end: - -"You are handsome, graceful, false and cruel. You've been a good -soldier, but you'll become a poor poet. I see you divided into three -parts: part one--Charles Surface; part two--Joseph Surface; part -three--Sir Peter Teazle. What a pity your name isn't Henry! For you are -as dashing as Henry the Fifth, as amorous as Henry of Navarre, and as -kind to women as Henry the Eighth. You will be married twice, but how -many hearts you will break I dare not reveal. Your own heart is a safe -deposit vault, fireproof and loveproof both. Hapless and witless -damsels without number will try to blow it up or melt it--without -success. One girl alone will refrain from the attempt, realizing the -utter uselessness of piercing this too, too solid flesh--" - -"Here," cried the young man, drawing away his hand, the laughter and -jibing endorsements with which his comrades greeted the several -revelations, proving too much for him. "I don't call this a fortune: I -call it a raw deal." - -"No use abusing the cards," said Janet, still affecting the utmost -gravity. "The cards never lie." - -"Oh, don't they, Miss Gypsy? That's where your professional prejudice -blinds you. Take your discovery that I'm a poor poet, for instance. -Well, the fact is, I'm no poet at all. I never so much as wrote a -couplet to a girl in all my life." - -"I said: you _will become_ a poet," remarked Janet, gently correcting -him. - -"And when will that be, pray?" - -Janet hastily cut the cards anew, dealt out five cards, and held out the -Queen of Spades to the onlookers. - -"When a dark lady enters your life," she said. - -"A dark lady _has_ entered my life," he said, his voice vibrating -seductively. "Entered it with a very poor opinion of me, it seems. But -I shouldn't call her the Queen of Spades. I should call her Janet, the -Queen of Clubs." - -"Clubs, because I scored so many good hits?" - -"No, because a Queen of Spades must have lustrous black eyes, and yours -are heavenly gray. Come, let's unmask, and see who's the better fortune -teller of the two." - -Claude pulled off his mask and stood, handsome and challenging, waiting -for her to follow suit. - -He was very good to look upon. Handsome, graceful and proud, there was -just enough disdain in his perfect manner to make every woman adore him -and long to enslave his flawless form. He had wonderful blue eyes, a -delicate mouth, a fine nose and a penetrating sympathetic voice. Great -ease, great daring and great energy of animal passion gave him a hundred -opportunities to show his fine points to excellent advantage. To -qualities that almost made riches superfluous, riches were added. No -wonder he seemed to be a darling of the gods. - -Janet's pulse was distinctly quickened by the telling exterior of this -dazzling young man. And when she unfastened her domino and met his -glance with her fearless gray eyes, his thrilling moment came. He was -not greatly impressed with her looks, his social training having biased -him towards more fashionable types of beauty. Yet a magnetic ecstacy -set him on fire and sent rapturous messages throbbing along his nerves. - -It was an enthralling moment, one that seemed mysteriously to link up -his being with other blissful moments in previous existences. Strange! -Each time that he experienced this emotion anew, he was sure it was -unique, sure it was not in this life that he had experienced it before. -Stranger still, though it was as deep as the full flooded river of life -itself, it was as transitory as an electric spark or a flash of -lightning. The moment was poignant, intoxicating, miraculous; yet by no -fraction of an instant could it be prolonged. - -Indeed, within a second or two, Claude and Janet were chatting about a -good many matters which did not bear in the remotest way upon this -magnetizing spark. Still, they chatted with an excited recklessness, -and as if their essences were held together by a subtle force, a force -whose irresistible urgency they would neither have dared to acknowledge -nor wished to dispute. - - - - *V* - - -Steeped in the enjoyment of the moment, Janet hardly noticed that Robert -had tacitly resigned his watchful care of her to Claude Fontaine. She -began to neglect her fortune telling duties as one result of this -displacement, for Claude's appropriation of her time grew as his visits -became more frequent. Nor did he share her compunction on this score. -Far from doing so, he cajoled her into dancing with him again and again. -In the intervals, he escorted her from one end of the reception floor to -the other, introducing her to the groups he considered worth while. -Thus she shared (much more fully than she desired to) the curiosity -which his brilliant presence excited and the gossip which it was -everywhere a signal for. - -"Here's an interesting stunt," said Claude to his partner. - -He indicated a group of young people amongst whom she instantly -recognized Robert and Mazie. Two others claimed her attention. In the -center of the group was a young woman with a high color and a very -energetic manner, who had adopted an unusual plan for swelling the box -office receipts. She was making impromptu busts in putty of all who -could afford a contribution, no reasonable sum being refused. - -When Claude and Janet came up, the sculptress had just finished -modelling a head of Robert; and a remarkably spirited likeness it was. -Robert was greatly taken with it, but his satisfaction was mild beside -that of the artist, who handled the fragile image as though it were the -apple of her eye. - -Two thoughts struck Janet. One was that Charlotte Beecher's fuss over -the statuette of Robert Lloyd was excessive. The other was that she -now, for the first time, missed the living model. But this discovery, -as well as her criticism of the sculptress, was promptly swallowed up in -the kaleidoscopic whirl of meeting still other characters belonging to -the strange new society into which she had been flung. - -Nevertheless, she contrived to recall Robert to her side. - -"What a wonderful head Robert has!" Miss Beecher was rhapsodizing, while -she glanced sentimentally from the statue to the living model. "I -declare, it's all brain." - -"It sure is!" echoed Mazie, mockingly. "But it's not a patch on his -wonderful heart." - -She laid her hand on the spot where she supposed this organ to be, and -added, without crediting the epigram to Cornelia who had originated it: - -"That's all brain, too!" - -Everybody laughed, Robert no less heartily than his neighbors. -Everybody, that is, save Charlotte Beecher, whose sharp glance at Mazie -softened to tenderness as it swept on towards Robert. - -The second person to fascinate Janet was a youngish woman in a Syrian -dress of many boldly brilliant color clashes. Contrasts as startling -were achieved by her coal black hair, her pale olive skin, and the -gorgeous green pendants attached to her ears. She had the barbaric -picturesqueness of a White African Queen straight out of Rider Haggard, -and about as much credibility. But she posed with unlimited -self-confidence. - -So speculated Janet. The next moment she reminded herself of the -necessity of keeping an eye (and perhaps a string) on Robert Lloyd. - -But he was nowhere to be seen. In his usual insidious fashion, he had -taken French leave while the circle of spectators was absorbed in the -ritual of weaving gossip amongst themselves or blessing Miss Beecher's -next putty statuette with lavish adjectives and exclamations. - -His disappearance piqued Janet. But the exhilaration caused by all the -enchantments of the ball and all the thrills of Claude's gallantry and -charm, did not permit her to allow any one emotion more than a fleeting -hospitality. - -Claude watched his chance of enticing her to another novelty. On the -way, she begged him to enlighten her about the people she had just met. - -"Tell me all about the sculptress and about the Rider Haggard lady with -the earrings," she said. - -Claude explained that these ladies were both considered freaks even -among the Outlaws: Charlotte Beecher, because she was an heiress who -wore a working girl's clothes and toiled harder with the sculptor's -chisel than a day laborer with a pickaxe; Lydia Morrow, not so much -because she had a flair for spectacular dresses, Leon Bakst colors and -startling jewelry, as because her authorship of half a dozen best -sellers had given her almost unlimited means to gratify these vagaries. - -"Lydia Morrow? I don't seem to know the name," said Janet. - -"Lydia Dyson, her maiden name, is the name she writes under." - -This name Janet knew well enough. It was a familiar name wherever -American magazines flourished; even among the Barrs of Brooklyn it was a -household fixture. The stupendous fact was that Lydia Dyson's novels of -approximated naughtiness, sensual slush and disembowelled passion, -appeared serially and simultaneously in magazines with as different a -clientele as the _Saturday Morning Post_, the _Purple Book_, _Anybody's_ -and the _Women's Bazaar_. - -Claude added that he had his own reasons for calling the two young women -freaks. - -"All these people are loony on the subject of love," he said, with a -wave of the hand that appeared to include the whole membership of the -ball. "Some because they've had too much of it, but more because -they've had too little. Mazie is one of a small group that is suffering -from surfeit. But Charlotte and Lydia belong to the other class. -Charlotte wants a husband without a whole lot of love, and Lydia wants a -whole lot of love without a husband. As for Mazie, there's nothing left -for her to want but a rich protector, with as little love in the bargain -as possible." - -This offhand analysis set Janet to wondering what Claude's own -conception of love might be. He went blithely on: - -"The difficulty with Charlotte is that she's too particular; with Lydia, -that she's not particular enough. Not one-tenth particular enough for -Gordon Morrow, her husband, who lives on her money but won't be kept in -his place. He actually presumes to be furiously jealous. But, however -comic a figure he may cut, who can blame him for drawing the line at a -blackguard like Hutchins Burley? Here's Hutch staggering this way, now. -After you, the impudent beggar!" - -Naturally, in this quarter, Burley had little luck. Janet shrank away -from him, and Claude froze him off as he had already done two or three -times that night. Envenomed, but nothing daunted, Hutchins Burley -careered, none too steadily, over to the circle around the sculptress. -Claude watched him disgustedly. - -"If Morrow catches him pawing all over his wife, there'll be trouble. -And Lydia Dyson's not the woman to lift her little finger to avert it. -She has a theory that 'Big Burley' is a sort of twentieth century -edition of the Cave Man, a theory she is not above putting to the proof. -Husband or no husband, a big scene is nectar and ambrosia to her." - -He looked anxiously back at Charlotte Beecher's group. "Let's go away -from here," he said, taking her arm with protective tenderness. - -"Shall we go back to the tent?" - -"I'd like to take you much further than that. You are too wonderful and -genuine to fit into this hothouse crowd." - -Janet liked his pretty speeches, but she had not yet had her fill of the -carnival of pleasure. - -Claude's fears were only too speedily realized. Hardly had he returned -Janet to her gypsy tent, than shouts and screams ascended from the -sculptress' quarter. Claude hastened to the spot and found two knots of -men pulling Burley away from Lydia's husband and heightening the -disorder in the act. - -The commotion now took a new turn. Burley had not forgotten the man who -had cold-shouldered him out of Janet's way several times. As soon as he -laid eyes on Claude and observed him assisting Charlotte Beecher in a -feverish effort to save her putty models, his rage reached its climax. -Every ounce of his bulky weight was put into a titanic pull that jerked -him loose from those who restrained him. Using his momentary freedom to -snatch up the little bust of Robert, he flung it at Claude's head. - -"No diamond shark can come butting in here," he shouted, in a purple -fury. - -The bust went far wide of its mark. But not the taunt. It stung Claude -into sudden violence, so that he sprang towards Burley with the object -of thrashing him. Thirty or forty people having now been drawn into the -melee, however, he was saved the ignominy of a public brawl. - -At the height of the turmoil Claude's arm was clasped by an iron hand. -It was the hand of a tall immaculate man who spoke to him in a low calm -voice. - -"A word of warning, Mr. Fontaine," he said, urging him away from the -fracas. "Get your friends out of here at once! Detectives are about to -raid the place." - -"Detectives! Are you one?" asked Claude, more or less bewildered. - -"No, not particularly," was the whimsical reply of the stranger, who -then moved decisively away and evaporated as suddenly as he had turned -up. - -As soon as Claude rallied his wits, he acted swiftly. He persuaded -Charlotte Beecher, who happened to be near, to follow him; and then took -the shortest cut to the gypsy tent, where Janet greeted his return with -a happy cry of relief. Excitedly he warned her of the raid, and urged -her to lose no time in preparing to leave with him. - -She obeyed, not without a pang of regret. - -Regret? It was not parting with the musical Roughnecks, though they -were better than their names; it was not turning her back on the -dancing, though this had intoxicated her; and it was not saying farewell -to the riot of color, costume and confetti, though these had put her in -an ecstacy of delight. At least, it was not an extravagant hunger for -these pleasures. And she certainly had nothing but measureless disgust -for a crowd of brawling, shouting, turbulent men. - -Why regret then? - -It was merely because of the obvious difference between her joyless home -and this night's experience. Beside the deathlike stagnation of the -Barrs of Brooklyn, the movement, intensity and go of the Outlaws had -what she cheerfully accepted as the quality and flavor of reality. -"This is life," a still, small voice cried within her, meaning that this -was at least a fairly good imitation of life on its gayer side. And she -revelled unblushingly in the enchantment that her ignorance of pleasure -and her natural high spirits had cast around Kips Bay, the model -tenements, Cornelia, Robert and Claude. - -Ah yes, and Claude! With Claude at her side she doubted whether she -should mind even a raid. Indeed, wouldn't it be rather fun to be caught -in one? And so, while Claude was preoccupied with piloting his charges -to safety, Janet half hoped that she might not be cheated of a practical -answer to her question. - - - - *VI* - - -Meanwhile the quiet stranger had contrived to get into one of the -twisting, struggling whirlpools of men in the fracas, and to insinuate -his immaculate person next to Hutchins Burley. - -"Have a care," he said, in Burley's ear. "In another minute this -rough-house will be cleaned up by plain-clothes men. - -"Who in hell _are_ you?" yelled Burley, none too pleased with the -features of the man who had warned him before. - -"Why, nobody in particular," answered the stranger coolly, and beginning -to edge rapidly away. Burley tramped after him, his befuddled wits -somewhat cleared by the recent pummelling. - -"Then how the devil did _you_ spot the cops?" he said, ploughing his way -ruthlessly through human obstructions. "Do they whisper the secrets in -your beautiful ears?" - -"Oh, secrets are always coming my way," was the nonchalant answer. - -The mysterious one halted as soon as he had put several yards between -himself and the mob. Cool and self-contained, he was a striking -contrast to Hutchins Burley as the latter, dishevelled, muttering and -out of breath, bore down upon him. - -"Mr. Burley, you'd better go, while the going's good! Here's an -emergency exit. Good night. I'll look you up in the morning." - -While the stranger's unobtrusive figure merged into the environment, -Burley took the hint with loud Falstaffian clatter. He had barely -passed through the door, when the lights went out and the raid actually -began. - - - - - *CHAPTER FIVE* - - *I* - - -During the Outlaws' Ball, Cornelia sat alone in the Lorillard apartment. -Had she dressed for the masquerade she had declined to attend? One -might have been pardoned for thinking so. To a piece of black satin, -draped around her in sensuous lines, a girdle of tangerine velvet added -the sole touch of color. It also served to draw her dress in high above -the waist and to bring out the burnished gold of her hair. The fabric -was ingeniously held together by pins, Cornelia being an advocate of a -mode of dressing or draping that dispensed with sewing as much as -possible. - -One handsome shoulder was bare; and this arrangement detracted nothing -from the garment's look of insecurity. Cornelia's men friends were apt -to be on tenterhooks lest her pinned dresses should suddenly come to -pieces. It was an emotion she was not altogether unconscious of, or -wholly displeased with. - -To the very last she had persisted in her refusal to take part in the -festivity, and had held out firmly against the friendly blandishments -with which Janet, Robert, Mazie, and Hutchins Burley had successively -tried to shake her determination. She defended her position by -declaring that dancing bored her to distraction, not to mention that the -current dance forms, the fox trot, the jazz steps and the glide, seemed -to her to be unspeakable profanations of a fine art. - -With this explanation her friends had to be content, while they guessed -at the true reason for her refusal. Claude hazarded the view that her -real motive was a dread of emerging in public while her affair with -Percival Houghton, the artist, was still fresh in everybody's memory. -Mazie repeated her laconic opinion that Cornelia could spite more people -and attract more attention by being missed than by being present. - -About eleven o'clock some one rang. When Cornelia opened the door, she -was confronted by an athletic young man whom she recognized as the -occupant of apartment number thirteen, the one next to her own. -Mistaking her dress for negligee, he apologized profusely and then -explained that the gas in his room having suddenly given out he needed a -twenty-five-cent piece to set the meter in action again. Cornelia -observed that whereas his form was the form of the roaring lion, his -voice was the voice of the cooing dove. - -"I always keep an extra quarter on the mantelpiece," he said, coloring -with embarrassment, "but the light went down all of a sudden, and in the -dark I couldn't locate the pesky coin." - -Cornelia hastened to get the necessary money. Returning, she -sympathized with him upon the fickleness of quarter meters. - -"Horrid, mercenary things! I'd give them 'no quarter,' if I dared, -wouldn't you?" - -"Yes--the light always goes out in the dark," he said, quaintly. - -He was obviously anxious to make a good impression, and ill at ease -because of this anxiety. - -"Just wait a second, will you, Miss," he said, as she handed him the -money. "I'll give it back right away." - -As his door was only a few feet away from hers, she waited in the hall -and looked curiously into his room after he had lighted up. She noticed -that the place was filled with gymnastic paraphernalia--clubs, -dumb-bells, weights, and a boxing bag apparatus. Meanwhile, he rummaged -through the articles on the mantelpiece until he discovered the missing -money tucked snugly away in an empty match-box. - -"I don't know how it got there," he said, ruefully. "I guess I meant to -put it underneath, but slipped it into the box absent-mindedly." - -She smiled. "You have a complete pocket gymnasium," she commented. - -"Yes, I'm pretty well rigged out," he replied, delighted at her show of -interest. - -He was very much impressed with her appearance, which mirrored a world -socially more elevated and more beautiful than his own. He racked his -wits for an excuse to detain her. - -"Is this how you keep in trim?" asked Cornelia, indicating the -apparatus. - -"I--I'm a professional wrestler and a physical culture expert," he went -on, fumbling in his pocket for a visiting card. - -"Ah, I see. It's business, not pleasure." She did not look at the -card, but flashed eloquent glances at his figure. - -"That's it," he replied, emboldened by her mute flattery. "Will you come -in and let me show you around? Young ladies aren't always interested in -these things." - -"Another time. It's too late now." - -Her phrases emerged so curtly and her relapse into frigid -conventionality was so abrupt that the young man stammered a hurt good -night, and rather hastily closed his door. - -Cornelia gained her sexual gratification in diluted but frequent doses. -Without being a deliberate flirt like Mazie, she instinctively tried out -the subtler weapons of sex on every man she liked and, since her -appearance was both striking and agreeable and her likings fairly far -flung, men often responded to her charm with a crudeness that gave her -great offence. She seemed unconscious of the incitement in her manner; -when, on one occasion, Robert pointed it out, she denied the charge with -mingled passion and surprise. - -And it was quite true that she took no pleasure in arousing a man's -desire. All her pleasure was derived from baffling it. Curiously -enough, an enamored man was an object which aroused in her only a -feeling of distaste. And the presence of this feeling satisfied her -that she was the innocent victim of his condition rather than the -responsible author. - -Perhaps it was this attitude of Cornelia's that Robert had in mind when -he said that there was an indefinable suggestion of latent wickedness -about her, of wickedness she had neither the vitality nor the courage to -live up to. How much her luckless amour had to do with her inverted sex -emotions, it would be hard to say. Robert's private view was that it -had thrown her into the society of people like the Kips Bay tenementers -who, by all current moral standards, were not "respectable." He also -held that it had inspired her with a passion for respectability, as -secret and as strong as the drunkard's longing to be considered a sober -man. - -After her neighbor's retirement, Cornelia looked at his card. In the -middle was inscribed the name "Harry Kelly" and underneath appeared: -"The Harlem Gorilla, Champion of the Mat." - - - - *II* - - -It was an hour or more before the doorbell of suite number fifteen rang -again. This time the visitor was Robert Lloyd. His entrance drove -Cornelia's languor away. But she concealed her immense delight and -received him neutrally enough. - -"I couldn't endure the monotony of the ball another minute," he -declared. "You've no idea what a relief it is to be able to come here." - -"What was so monotonous, Cato?" - -"What wasn't!" said Robert, taking off his overcoat and revealing the -black friar's hood and gown that had served him during the evening. -"The music, the dancing, the ogling, the drinking, the sickening -coquetry, the silly speeches to and from brainless companions--in short, -everything!" - -"My dear!" exclaimed Cornelia. "At a ball, what can you expect?" - -"Oh, I know I'm a fool for my pains," said Robert, laughing off the -vexation he felt at having frittered away a whole evening. - -He began to undo the girdle of his gown. - -"Stop!" she cried. "I haven't had a really good look at your costume." - -"Nor I at yours," he said, noticing how her dress lapped and caressed -her form. He praised the effect freely. - -Pleased, she went to his side, pulled his hood over his head, set his -girdle and gown aright, and then stepped back to inspect the result, -clapping her hands in approval as she did so. - -"When the devil is sick of the world, the devil a monk would be!" - -"The devil a monk am I!" said Robert, "unless an unholy rage at the -world is a first-class qualification for monastic honors." - -"Robert, the part fits you to perfection. It's astonishing how neatly -you manage to blend the temper of a devil with the austerity of a monk." - -"Not astonishing at all," said Robert, divesting himself of the costume. -"Like most young men I have a craving for pleasure, excitement and -female society. That's what you call the devil in me. But my -observation is keen enough to show me that, under present social -conditions, I can't give this craving either a temperate or an honorable -satisfaction. So I repress it as much as common sense allows, and you -call that repression austerity." - -"Cato, you ought to be writing tracts for the Ethical Culture Society -instead of newspaper articles for Hutchins' wicked _Evening Chronicle_. -What are you doing among the Outlaws instead of in a goody-goody Sunday -School?" - -He took her raillery in good part. - -"Every journalist is a patcher-up of unconsidered trifles," he said. -"He makes a crazy quilt of them as orderly and coherent as he can. -Well, where can I get the raw material I need in greater supply than in -this little community of criminality and sentimentality, of Radicalism -and bad debts? Kips Bay is an inexhaustible mine of police news and -town talk." - -"Well, I can't say that your kind stay among us has broadened you out -much, Rob!" - -"No?" he replied, amused at the shot. "I suppose I do grow more -squeamish every day. Nothing like a steady diet of police episodes for -purifying purposes. It acts the way some nauseous drugs do." - -"You're perfectly detestable," she cried. She didn't like anybody but -herself to disparage Kips Bay. "You've put your mind in a prison, Rob. -Your symptoms require a drastic remedy. If I were a physician of the -soul, I should prescribe marriage." - -"Don't be a Job's comforter, Cornelia. I said I wanted female society, -not female satiety. And, by the way, since when did you begin to -advocate marriage as the door to freedom? You have always denounced it -as the trapdoor to slavery." - -"I don't advocate it for women, and even for men I recommend it only in -the most desperate cases." - -"Well, mine isn't desperate. But Hutchins Burley's is, judging from his -conduct at the ball tonight. You might prescribe for him." - -"Oh, he's past all treatment. What do you think he told me in strict -confidence yesterday? That he's weighed down by a great sorrow; too -many women find him irresistible, and persecute him to death with their -lovesick attentions." - -"I call that a new form of persecutional mania." - -"He was in dead earnest, Rob. He called himself a martyr to love, fancy -that!" - -"Well, he seemed to be a remarkably willing martyr tonight. He buzzed -like a huge wasp from one pair of lips to another. When he got to -Mazie, who unfolds her petals so alluringly, he became quite -intoxicated." - -"Which means that Mazie acted in a perfectly shameless way, as usual." - -"Whose mind is a prison now?" - -"I don't know what you mean," said Cornelia acridly. "Please don't -assume that, because I no longer believe in marriage, I've turned my -back on decency and good manners." - -"This is breaking a butterfly on a wheel, Cornelia. The fact is, Mazie -doesn't have to _act_ to produce the peculiar behavior in men which I -described. You know that quite well. She is what Joseph Conrad calls -'one of the women of all time.' I'd call her a throw-back with the -emotions and appetites of a cave woman and the thoughts and looks of a -Ziegfield chorus girl. It's not by acting shamelessly, or by acting at -all, but by just passively being herself that she sets a man's blood -boiling." - -"A man's blood boils so easily--like a kettle on a mountain!" - -"Be fair, Cornelia. Some men's blood does, yes. Men on Mazie's own -level. Burley's one of them." - -"Well," said Cornelia, waiving the point, "what did Hutchins do, or -rather undo?" - -"I'd better not go into details. He played several questionable pranks. -Once, it looked as though he were on the point of seizing Mazie by her -locks and dragging her, stone-man fashion, to his lair. Even Mazie had -to act then, really to _act_, for she was after bigger game." - -"You mean, Claude?" - -"Yes. But Claude had no eyes for the woman of all time. His gaze was -absolutely absorbed by a new star of the first magnitude, a star not -charted in the heavens before." - -"And this starry wonder?" - -"Was Janet Barr." - -He tried to say the name casually, but Cornelia's jealous ear detected a -caressing tone. - -"Hard on Mazie, wasn't it?" he pursued. - -"On Mazie least of all," she said pointedly. - -The shaft missed. - -"Yes, Burley got the worst end of it," he went on innocently. "I dare -say Mazie consoled herself easily enough. But Burley's aspirations have -met more than one jolt to-night. When he made a dead set at Janet--that -was another rebuff." - -Robert described the riotous scene outside the gypsy tent. - -"Then, as I've already told you, Mazie gave him the slip; with the -result that I've never seen Burley more completely divested of his -first-prize bumptiousness. However, he soon pulled himself together." - -"Goodness knows there must have been plenty of Outlaw girls ready to lay -balm on the big scamp's wounds." - -"Yes. And I needn't remind you that many of these young ladies believe -in free speech, free men and free love. Well, Hutchins made the rounds -of those he knew and publicly challenged them to live up to their -pretensions. His proposals were brutally frank." - -"The girls received them with amusement, I suppose?" - -"They received them with scornful resentment--just like ordinary -conventional creatures. That was what was so surprising. For Hutchins -was simply a man who took their professed opinions at face value. -'Darling,' he would say bluntly, to one of his pets, 'Darling, I like -you and your ruby lips. If you like me and are not otherwise engaged, -suppose we go off to Paradise.' It was raw, of course. But you can't -say it wasn't what is called 'free love'." - -"Really, Rob!" - -"Exactly. They were every bit as scandalized as you are. After gasping -for breath, they called for their escorts. Whereupon I concluded that -instinct is mightier than opinion and that the beliefs we inherit are -vastly stronger than the beliefs we acquire." - -Cornelia ignored this piece of satire. And Robert then told how Burley -had resumed his pursuit of Janet. - -"Luckily, Claude held him off," he said. - -"Another champion! Little Janet must be quite the belle of the ball." - -"She's been much in demand. There was the gypsy tent, remember. When -it comes to innocent credulity, a radical's capacity is just as great as -any honest man's. So what with examining scores of palms and eluding -Hutchins Burley, Janet might have died from exhaustion but for Claude's -gallant interference." - -"Just like Claude's knight-errantry," she said. "He has always had a -passion for novelties." - -"And the novelties have usually returned the passion!" - -Cornelia felt a twinge of jealousy. But as Janet had evidently not been -very attentive to Robert, and had even hurt his feelings, she was hardly -conscious of the emotion. - -"Janet is young, impressionable and fresh from a Puritan home," she -said, with a languid air of detachment. "Small wonder if Lothario's -dash and distinction have captivated her." - -They fell to talking of Janet's history, and Robert spoke of the -surprising change in her sphere of interests. - -"A month ago she was demure enough to have stood model for the heroine -of _Miles Standish_. She could hardly be induced to drink at a -soda-water fountain on a Sunday. Now she is full of 'equal pay for equal -work.' And she appears to have a voice as well as a vote. I'm told -that she reads the _Liberator_ and that she broke the last Sabbath by -attending a meeting of the new Labor Party in Madison Square Garden." - -"She's been under my wing for several weeks," said Cornelia, proudly. - - - - *III* - - -Cornelia's assumption that she was entirely responsible for the change -in Janet's outlook on life was without warrant. Yet she was so -self-satisfied as scarcely to suspect that Robert had anything to do -with the matter; and it was interest in the man rather than curiosity -about the girl that caused her to question him about his previous -acquaintance with Janet. - -She learnt that Robert's mother was not a very distant cousin of Mrs. -Barr, and that both ladies had spent their girlhood in the same -Connecticut town, where they had been friends until Mrs. Lloyd married -and went out West. When Robert left Los Angeles, he bore this -relationship in mind and, on the strength of it, paid his respects to -the Barrs soon after settling in New York. - -Cornelia inferred that the young man's acquaintance with the Barrs had -continued on a very superficial footing. Robert knew better than to -undeceive her. As a matter of fact, he had repeated his visits to the -Barr household for the simple reason that there had sprung up between -himself and Janet a mental fellowship which the hostility of her mother, -the timid aloofness of her father and the envy of her sister had been -able to obstruct but not to destroy. - -Janet had more than repaid him for the inhospitality of her relatives. -She in turn amused, puzzled, inspired and electrified him. So much -unsophistication in the midst of a guileful city, so much candor -surrounded by pious make-believe, above all, so much eagerness for -experience held in leash by a vegetating family routine, had filled -Robert with the hope that he might play Pygmalion to her Galatea. - -Galatea, however, did not exactly go into raptures over Pygmalion. -Though her insurgent nature was full of silent sympathy with Robert, her -instincts were so much under the bondage of the Barr atmosphere as to -prevent her from fully estimating his worth. Still, she conscientiously -followed up the leads he gave her. She made her first bewildered -acquaintance with the new paintings, the new music and the new social -sciences. She began to look forward to copies of the _Republic_, the -_Nation_, the _London Statesman_; and she joined him in reading the -great contemporary writers: Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Anatole France, -Romain Rolland. In short, she ranged with silent delight through the -new world of modernity that he opened up to her, though it had to be -explored in an obstinate little way of her own. - -As her unofficial pilot Robert was very happy and might long have held -the post but for a fatal blunder. Mrs. Barr learned one day that he had -tempted Janet to attend a performance of Shaw's "Blanco Posnet," given -on a Sunday by the Stage Reform Players. According to Emily, her -informant, this play was immoral, not to say blasphemous, as was proved -by the refusal of the British censor to license its performance. - -Such a flagrant breach of holy writ, family propriety and the Sabbath, -raised a domestic tempest to which Janet deemed it wise to bend. Robert -was forced to discontinue his visits. What he did not tell Cornelia was -that, during the last two months, he had regularly met Janet at -Brentano's, where she had formed the habit of browsing through the new -books and magazines every Friday afternoon. - - - - - *CHAPTER SIX* - - *I* - - -These facts Robert had his own reasons for hiding from Cornelia. To cut -the cross-examination short, he walked up to a miniature portrait that -hung on the wall over Cornelia's desk. - -"Why do you keep this picture of Percival Houghton enshrined here?" - -"Why not?" asked Cornelia, taken by surprise. - -"It is the only picture in the room," replied Robert, evasively. "The -face is that of an esthete under the influence of paranoia. It -positively stares one out of countenance. Whenever I enter the room, I -feel as if I mustn't take a seat until I've bowed before it thrice." - -"I'm not responsible for other people's erratic feelings." Cornelia -would have spoken with less acerbity if jealousy had prompted Robert's -remark. But his cool sardonic tone eliminated the theory of a jealous -motive. - -"Pardon the explosion, Cornelia. But why must this man of all men be -the presiding genius of your room?" - -"You know the reason very well, Robert." - -"Unfortunately, yes. You won't let your friends forget it. By keeping -this portrait in evidence, you actually force the reason on people's -attention. Do take him down, Cornelia, swathe him in incense, and lay -him away amongst your most cherished souvenirs. Replace him, if you -must replace him, with a picture of Saint Francis or Savonarola." - -She bristled up under his ironic words. Her craving for admiration -vanished in her resentment of disapproval. - -"I am proud to have known Percival Houghton, and to have been his -friend. Thanks for your recommendation, though I'm not aware of having -asked for it." - -"Don't be angry. You must own that you constantly remind your visitors -of this Houghton affair, though what advantage it is to your position -and influence, Heaven only knows. Let sleeping dogs lie. Believe me, -Cornelia, half the tragedies in life result from forgetting what we -ought to remember; the other half from remembering what we ought to -forget." - -"I'm not ashamed of the Houghton affair, as you call it," said Cornelia -coldly. "Why should I be? It was one of those rare friendships that -are quite beyond the perception of vulgar-minded, low-thoughted souls. -What other people think of it concerns me very little." - -She really believed this, although it was very wide of the mark. - -"I know," she went on melodramatically, "of the spiteful gossip behind -my back. I know of the scarlet colors in which my relations with -Percival Houghton are painted by my enemies. Let them declaim against -me! To a few real friends I have told the truth. They believe me, and -that is all I ask." - -She had in fact taken more than one friend into her confidence. It was -a common saying in the Lorillard tenements that the token of admission -to Cornelia's inner circle was the almost sacramental rite of receiving -her account of the Houghton episode. - -The corner stone of this account--the supreme article of faith!--was the -point that she and Percival Houghton had rigorously abstained from -sexual intimacy throughout their voyage together in the same stateroom. -Not from moral scruples, be it noted, but from a desire to prove to the -world that free love and the severest tax on self-restraint were -perfectly compatible. - -Cornelia held passionately to the delusion that her account was accepted -in every jot and tittle. Robert knew that behind her back, most of her -friends greeted it with a cynical smile and pronounced it a pardonable -but much too elaborate invention. When some one referred to Cornelia's -assertion that the voyage to England had involved no infraction of the -seventh commandment, the women would say contemptuously: "If you're -going to be killed for a lamb, you might as well be killed for a sheep." -The men, more vulgarly, would exclaim: "What a shame if they wasted a -chance like that!" - -Hutchins Burley, in one of his most egregious moments, wagered any -amount that Cornelia wasn't half as big a fool as her story made her out -to be. - -It was owing to these and other coarse pleasantries circulating at her -expense that Robert wished he could make Cornelia look the facts in the -face. - -What he regretted most of all, however, was that she seemed entirely to -misconstrue the visits of the many men who sauntered in and out of her -rooms. They came with the expectation voiced by Oscar Wilde, that "she -who had sinned once and with loathing, would sin again many times, and -with joy." Clearly, they hoped to profit by the repetition. But this -was a truth to which Cornelia was obstinately blind. - -"You, Robert," she said, aggrieved at his silence, "used to be counted -among those who believed." - -"And I am still. Good Heavens, Cornelia, why should I, of all people, -doubt your words? Think of my situation. Here am I, alone after -midnight in an apartment with a young and interesting martyr in the -cause of free marriage. And what do we do? We discuss the subject of -sex affinities, with a complete suspension of conventional reserve. Yet -I couldn't so much as kiss you." - -"Oh, couldn't you?" said Cornelia, in a half mocking, half challenging -voice. - -This tremendous talk, all about herself, had completely revitalized her -spirits. She sat forward intent on Robert's every word, the movement -causing her dress to fall low in front and show all her languid beauty -at its best. - -"No!" he said, gazing at her and striving hard to steady himself. - -"How do you know?" she murmured, in scarcely audible tones. - -"I know," asserted Robert firmly, returning to an almost inhuman -perfection. "If I began to make love to you, I'd be turned out in a -twinkling. But who would believe this? Not a soul. If you were to tell -the facts to our fellow tenementers, they would laugh you to scorn, and -if _I_ were to tell them, they would send me to the Bloomingdale Asylum. -Yet my virtue is quite safe with you, Cornelia." - -"You hardly do yourself justice, Cato," she said, biting her lips, and -adjusting the neck of her dress. - -"Oh, men are more or less passive agents in these matters. I'm safe with -you because your radicalism, with all its offshoots into free love, free -thought and free religion is only skin deep. You are a fascinating -instance in the flesh of the great modern feminist dilemma: the demand -for independence and respectability coupled with the fatal longing to be -a Cleopatra, 'one of the women of all time.'" - -Piqued at his innuendoes, Cornelia was getting ready to launch an acrid -retort, when the door bell rang. It was one of those vicious jangles -with which only a policeman or a pedlar ventures to announce himself. - -But the man who roistered into the apartment was Hutchins Burley. - - - - *II* - - -It was difficult to think of this corpulent, bullying brawler as one of -the leading newspaper men of the metropolis; he looked so very much more -like a shoddy loafer from the underworld. His legs were still fairly -steady, although his head was quite the reverse. His alcoholic -exertions had been so ardent, however, that he sank on the couch with a -loud snort of satisfaction. - -"Where's Janet Barr?" he demanded, after getting his breath. "I -followed her to Charlotte's flat, but she wasn't there. That's where -Lydia Dyson said she was going to, the little liar." - -Cornelia shook her finger at him in mock remonstrance. - -"You have seen quite enough of Janet for one night, Hutch, judging from -reports that have reached me. I'd be doing no more than was good for -you if I put Mrs. Burley on your trail." - -"What d'ye think Lizzie'd do?" he roared. "She'd scratch your eyes out -for your pains!" - -He gave himself up to a burst of horrible guffaws. As Robert looked at -the man's gross, overheated, pitted face and at the Falstaffian neck and -trunk, he was overcome with intense disgust. - -This disgust was only in part shared by Cornelia. True, she did not -relish Burley in his present drunken condition, but ordinarily she -confessed to a curious weakness for him. "There's something about the -brute that I like," she once frankly said. - -She found his grossness and animal passion a relief from the refinement -and fastidiousness of men like Robert. There was a certain quantitative -satisfaction in the spectacle of his enormous bulk at her feet. Anyhow, -all male slaves looked alike to her, the fact being that her appetite -for attention or devotion was at once undiscriminating and insatiable. - -Meanwhile Burley had turned to Robert. - -"Listen, my boy," he said, clamorously, "when you marry, get a good -stupid dray horse like my dame. One that'll believe in you even if God -Almighty's against you. A good plodding dray horse. That's the best -recipe I know for marital felicity." - -In an explosion of repellent laughter he roared out his self-applause. - -"You know as much about women as about this tunic I'm cutting out," said -Cornelia, rebuking him mildly with her voice, but not at all with her -eye. - -"Well, Corny," said Hutchins, in high excitement, "I'll tell you what I -_do_ know about them." He rose from the lounge and dumped himself -amorously on one of the arms of her easy chair. "There are only three -things a man need do to make a hit with women: give 'em food, give 'em -clothes, give 'em hugs. It's a sure-fire rule for managing them, too." - -He roared louder than ever. Robert wished Cornelia wouldn't encourage -him under a pretense of doing the reverse. - -"Now, Hutch, go home, please," she said, prompted by his silent -disapproval. "You'll wake up all the neighbors with your loud laughter. -Remember, the walls here are as thin as cardboard." - -By way of answer, the irrepressible roisterer put his arm familiarly -around her waist and tried to draw her back into the chair. - -"Be human, Corny, old girl," he said. "Don't be a psychic adventuress. -I've got to stay somewhere tonight, and I might as well stay here." - -Cornelia wrenched herself from his grasp and, opening the outer door -with a tempestuous gesture, told him to leave at once. - -"You'd better go, Hutchins," said Robert, quietly. "Cornelia will be -more than a match for you." - -Burley began to abuse him at the top of his lungs. - -"For a penny, I'd break every bone in your body," he shouted. - -"I'll give you twice that sum to refrain," said Robert coolly. - -Burley's latent bestiality was now thoroughly aroused. Breathing -threatenings and slaughter, he advanced towards Robert, working himself -into a greater passion and shaking his fist more savagely every step of -the way. Cornelia screamed and threw herself in the huge man's path. -After a tussle of a few seconds, during which her cries rang through the -open door, he shoved her forcibly aside. Robert's slim stature was -already poised for the uneven combat, when a tall, agile, coatless -figure dashed in from the adjoining apartment and deftly arrested the -fist that Burley was sending with considerable momentum towards Robert's -pale face. - -"This way out!" exclaimed the newcomer in a voice almost ludicrously -gentle. - -But there was nothing gentle about his strength. The thwarted man -sputtered abusive, incoherent indecencies. In vain. His expletives were -cut short by two hands of steel that whirled his lumbering hulk forward, -steered him past Cornelia with professional adroitness, and escorted him -irresistibly into the corridor. A moment later an inchoate mass of -humanity was torpedoed, with projectile swiftness, down the first flight -of stairs. To make doubly sure, the direct actionist followed his -missile. - -Rumblings, sputterings and groans ascended discordantly up the stairway. -Presently the noise grew fitful and then more and more subdued, as if -some one had damped Vesuvius or banked its fires for the night. At -length came silence. - -Cornelia had sunk into a chair over which Robert was solicitously -bending when Burley's subjugator returned. In reply to Cornelia's thanks -he blushed like a boy and hid his embarrassment by edging towards the -door. - -In the hall outside he deprecated Robert's warm words. - -"Just practice work," he said, in the same mild voice and Manhattan -accent. "A little trick of concentration. A man brings all his -muscular power to bear on a few weak points. _And_ joints. The Japs can -teach you. So can I." - -He drew a card from his waistcoat pocket. Meanwhile, Cornelia, who had -followed Robert to the door, chanted: - -"You are wonderful, Mr. Gorilla, wonderful! How _do_ you accomplish -it?" - -"Ah, Miss, a child could do it. The main thing is to be a powerful -breather; you can't do much if you're only a powerful eater or drinker. -You've got to fill your lungs and your bel--your abdomen, with good -fresh wind; then you travel on velvet." - -He gave Robert his card. - -"Come in and I'll show you," he said cordially. - -His eyes meeting Cornelia's again, the vanquished victor withdrew in -evident confusion to his retreat in number thirteen. - -Robert looked at the card and turned it over to Cornelia. She recognized -with a smile the legend about Harry Kelly, the Harlem Gorilla and -Champion of the Mat. - - - - - *PART II* - - *LOVE AMONG THE OUTLAWS* - - - *CHAPTER SEVEN* - - *I* - - -When Janet awoke at eleven, it took her several moments to recollect -that she was in Cornelia's apartment in Kips Bay, where Claude had left -her before dawn. She could hear Cornelia bustling about in the living -room, but she stayed in bed a little longer to luxuriate in memories of -the preceding night. - -She got lightly out of bed and stood before the mirror over the -chiffonier. But she was less preoccupied with the image in the looking -glass than with mental pictures of the night before. - -In the bright light of day, the glamour of some of these pictures took -on the effect of tinsel. But Janet could still thrill to the excitement -of the raid on the Lyceum, the pell-mell escape, the violent dispersal -of the mobs in Murray Hill and the hurried collection of a troop of -Outlaw refugees and their nocturnal march through Kips Bay streets under -the leadership of Claude Fontaine. It had been a very festive troop, -swelled by stragglers all the way to the Lorillard tenements, where the -party camped in Charlotte Beecher's double flat. - -Of the long merrymaking that followed, Janet cared to remember only the -occasions when Claude Fontaine was at her side and at her service. How -vividly she could picture him in the dashing part of Charles Surface, -his handsome face tinted with rich, young blood, and his eyes of such -brightness and depth that surely no infamy could ever dull them! - -A knock cut this day dreaming short. - -"How do you do, Araminta?" said Cornelia, entering melodramatically. -"And what does the Sleeping Beauty want for breakfast?" - -"I'm hungry enough to eat sticks and stones and puppy-dog's bones," -replied Janet. "But I won't murmur if you have gentler fare." - -As Cornelia insisted that dressing should be deferred until after the -meal, Janet tripped to the breakfast table in her nightgown, her curly -hair hanging down to her shoulders. Cornelia, her figure lapped -precariously in a simple dress, which she had made and pinned together -at a cost of fifty cents all told, sat down opposite her young guest. - -"This is a picnic!" exclaimed Janet. She was filled with glee at the -wrapping paper neatly spread out in place of a table cloth, at the cups, -saucers and dishes all made of agateware, and at the compressed paper -plates for the slices of bread. - -"Well, it isn't a Barmecide's feast, by any means," said Cornelia, who -was amused at Janet's artless joy. "The plates may be made of paper, -but they are fresh and so are the eggs and bacon." - -She set these articles on the table. - -"All the principal dishes are of agateware," she said, in answer to a -question of Janet's. "I've got four of everything necessary--four cups, -four saucers, four glasses, four knives, four spoons, and so on. But -don't imagine that we have wrapping paper for a table cloth every day. -Dear, no! That's only for guests of honor and on Sundays. On week days -we use newspapers." - -"That's a novel way of taking one's newspaper with one's meal." - -"Oh, it's old news. I always use the newspaper of a week ago. And it's -curious how often I run across some interesting bit of politics or -scandal that escaped me a week before. Sometimes, while devouring a -roll, I catch myself in the midst of a slobbery article by Hutchins -Burley in the _Evening Chronicle_. The wretch is running a series of -articles called: 'The Soul of Woman under Freedom.'" - -She gave Janet a circumstantial report of the encounter with Burley -during the night. Janet followed this narrative with sympathetic -interest, and wished that she and Claude had arrived in time to prevent -the occurrence. - -"But then your knight-errant would have missed his opportunity," she -said. - -"Think of the loss! By the way, I met him this morning, Araminta." - -"In ambush at the door?" - -"No, in the hallway downstairs. I had gone out for some cream. On my -way back I ran right into his arms." - -"With what result?" - -"Very little. He exhausted his eloquence in stammers and deaf mute -lingo. And when I thanked him again for last night's service, he -promptly took to his heels. It was cruel." - -"The course of true love always is, Cornelia." - -Cornelia, pleased at the implied assumption that she had inspired a -romance, dwelt with gusto on the hero's exploit. For the fiftieth time -she described the skill and celerity with which "the physical culture -expert" had propelled Burley from the apartment. - -"At the Outlaws' Ball, Mr. Burley called Claude a diamond smuggler," -said Janet, by way of changing the subject. "What did he mean? Do -people accuse the Fontaines of smuggling?" - -"I never heard of such a thing," replied Cornelia. "Merchant princes -like the Fontaines would hardly stoop to that. Besides, it wouldn't pay -them. Did Claude notice?" - -"Yes, and he seemed to mind it very much. His whole appearance changed -as if he had been stung into sudden fury. But he controlled himself -bravely." - -"What else could he do with the belle of the ball at his side? He's -always a man of the world--when in the world." - -"But not in private?" asked Janet, anxious to get to the bottom of this -veiled aspersion. Cornelia's reply was evasive. - -"A fine summer's day will often end in a burst of terrifying thunder and -lightning," she said. "Lothario has plenty of good looks and plenty of -temper. A man who is accustomed to find people submitting to his will, -easily gets indignant when he meets with opposition." - -She sighed as if she could tell much more about Claude Fontaine if she -chose. - -"Well, I don't blame him for getting enraged at the abuse of that -horrible man," said Janet, sturdily defending him. - -"Nor do I. Once in a while a thunderbolt will strike the wicked as well -as the good, won't it? Claude was quite justified this time, no doubt." - -"How does he happen to come among the Outlaws, Cornelia? He doesn't -seem to belong to them exactly." - -"He doesn't pretend to. He walks among us humble tenementers like a god -among his creatures. Distinctly Like a god, Araminta. That's the -footing on which he associates with mere human beings." - -"Yet he's hail fellow well met with Robert and Mazie and the others," -protested Janet. - -"Ah, yes, but don't let that deceive you. Jupiter was hail fellow well -met with many a mortal, especially with many a mortal maiden. You -remember that he visited one earthly princess in a shower of gold. That -is what Claude does. He visits the model tenements in--or perhaps I -should say with--a shower of gold. I mean," she added, "he doesn't -think of marriage with a girl on Mazie's level. Nor with a girl on yours -or mine." - -This shaft did not miss its mark. But it perplexed Janet more than it -wounded her. - -"I thought that made no difference to you," she said, for she had -already been favored with some of Cornelia's destructive criticism of -the institution of marriage. - -"It makes no difference to _me_," said Cornelia. "But in this stifling -room I can't explain myself as I'd like to. The spacious blue skies and -the free pure air of the Hudson will be a more fitting background for -the story I'd like to tell you. Put on your things, Araminta, and we'll -go for a charming ride." - -Janet dressed with promptness and pleasure. She appeared to have -forgotten that Robert Lloyd had particularly said that he was coming -about noon in order to take her home. Her friend did not remind her. -The knowledge that Robert would go away in bitter disappointment robbed -the outing of none of its zest, so far as Cornelia was concerned. - -Claude, too, had promised to drop in at Number Fifteen. This promise -Janet bore well in mind. But as his visit was not to take place until -late in the afternoon and there was thus no danger of missing him, she -joined Cornelia with enthusiasm. - - - - *II* - - -At the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Second Avenue, where Kips Bay -edges its dingy little proletarian stores into bourgeois respectability, -the two young women entered a car bound for the West Twenty-third Street -ferry. It proceeded at a jog trot along Second Avenue to Twenty-third -Street where it struck the cross-town line west. - -Janet felt no annoyance at the snail's pace from which the car never -departed. Manhattan was still a novelty to her, and this section of the -East Side was wholly new. - -But Cornelia made unflattering comparison between the surface -conveyances in Manhattan and the bus transportation which Londoners and -Parisians enjoyed. She was annoyed by the complacency that New Yorkers -displayed toward their street-car service and the petty provincialism -that actually led them to believe this service to be the fastest in the -world, when in fact it was the slowest. At the climax of her irritation -she gave Janet the benefit of one of Robert Lloyd's epigrams. Robert -had once said that New York "rapid transit," as it was optimistically -called, was the organized effort of the local traction magnates to -annihilate the specific advantages of modern electrical machinery. -Cornelia did not doubt that in this effort they had triumphed. - -The jolts with which the car came to a standstill at each successive -street crossing, and the jerks with which it resumed its languid pace -again, would ordinarily have frazzled her nerves for the day. This -time, however, she bore the ordeal much more composedly. For one thing, -Janet's calm spirit had a soothing influence upon her. For another, it -amused her mightily to have so unsophisticated a companion to point out -the sights to. She caused Janet to observe the Italian district with -its macaroni dens along the cross streets, the Armenian district with -the Eastern restaurants parading strange Greek-lettered names, and Kips -Bay's fashionable western fringe with its Madison Avenue hotels, stores -and residential palaces. - -Janet drank it all in thirstily. Not for a moment did she regret the -defiance she had flung at her mother's wishes by going to the Outlaws' -Ball. On the contrary, this act of insurgency appeared to have -heightened her perception as much as it had strengthened her -self-esteem. She saw things with different eyes, or believed she did. -The people and the shops fairly brandished a life and reality totally -new to her experience. She longed to be more than a mere spectator in -the tumultuous scene unfolded before her. She would have given anything -to be even a cog--an active cog--in this giant metropolis whose roar and -grime possessed an immense attraction. - -At the North River they left the car. Three big ferry houses confronted -them and Cornelia was undecided which to take. It was a grave question -in her mind, for she staged the big scenes of her life with as much care -as a play producer. The artist in her at once eliminated the Erie -ferry. - -"The Erie boats are too dinky," she said. "Shall we take the Jersey -Central or the Lackawanna?" - -"Let's take the one that gives the longest ride," said Janet, for whom -the smell of the river quickly cut such minor esthetic knots. - -Cornelia's first and invariable impulse towards any proposal made by -another person was to turn it down. The reasons she gave for doing so -were usually quite plausible, though sometimes cast in a rather -theatrical style. - -"The Jersey's trip is a little longer," she said, "but the difference is -slight. The Lackawanna appeals to me more. Lackawanna! Don't you love -the music in that name? Besides, Araminta, the Jersey boats are painted -a sickly gray, while the Lackawanna boats are maroon. A wonderful -maroon! And they have a glorious seat on the upper deck, directly -facing the bow." - -"Very well, let's take the Lackawanna," said Janet, to whom it was all -one. - -They were soon ensconced in the very seat on the top deck which Cornelia -coveted. - -But if Janet had any hopes of hearing a great deal more about Claude -Fontaine, she was soon disillusioned. She did not yet understand her -friend, to whom the world was an audience at a stage play in which -Cornelia Covert had the star part. She speedily learned that Cornelia -had not gone to all this trouble to analyze the love affairs of other -people. No. The moment had been chosen and the stage had been set to -make Janet the recipient of the sacred narrative of Cornelia's -experience with Percival Houghton. - -The tale did not begin until the boat was well under way, so that Janet -had an opportunity to revel in the swell of the mighty Hudson and to -contrast the differing aspects of the two banks. The Palisaded Jersey -side was almost hidden by huge ocean steamers, except at the spot where -the Castle Point Terrace of Stevens Institute rose serenely above a -forest of quivering masts. - -Janet thought the heights of Hoboken quite dwarfed by the towering -office structures of lower Manhattan. Cornelia interrupted her -ineffable story long enough to repeat another opinion of Robert's -without acknowledgment. It was to the effect that the commercial -skyscrapers on the Hudson were as grimly symbolic of ownership as the -castles that overlooked the Rhine. Did Janet realize that the lords of -these skyscraping fortresses were the masters of the river and thus of -the country on which the river's port had a strangle hold? In each of -the big business edifices, thousands of mercantile retainers served -their liege lords with pen or typewriter as industriously as ever -men-at-arms flourished crossbow or arquebus in the brave days of old. -Only, the economic factor in the comparison was all in favor of the -industrial barons of today. Their armies, opulence and power were of a -magnitude that would have caused the robber barons of the Rhine to -expire with envy. - - - - *III* - - -With these brief interruptions, Cornelia pursued the even tenor of the -story whose narration was the seal and token of her friendship. What -moved her to tell it to Janet was not the idea of self-defence, or the -hope of softening the shock a friend might receive on learning the -details from a hostile critic. Quite the contrary. She was -inordinately proud of her intimate connection with a man as famous as -Percival Houghton; and she was altogether anxious that her friends -should know of this connection in the form in which she wished it to be -known and hoped to make it remembered. - -Two years had passed, she told Janet, since Percival Houghton came to -the United States. He was a young Englishman, well connected, who had -gained an immense vogue as an illustrator. He was said to have -"isolated" several rare types of French and English female beauty, and -fabulous sums had been paid for his portrait studies in pastel. His -press agent having in advance widely advertised the artist's announced -purpose of adding the American girl to his pictorial conquests, his -arrival was extremely good copy for the newspapers. - -Hutchins Burley, with an eye to the _Evening Chronicle's_ large feminine -clientele, did not let the opportunity slip by. He assigned Cornelia, -then attached to his paper, to interview the ambitious Englishman. In -her own words, "she went, she saw, she conquered." - -After the flattering notice in the _Chronicle_, Percival Houghton sought -her out and attended her devotedly. Cornelia dwelt on the warm -friendship that sprang up between them and on her own quick subjection -to his great personal charm. - -"He was a wonderful man, Araminta. He had a great leonine head with -wild flowing locks; there was fire in his eye and music in his voice; -and he had that imperious way with him that opens a path straight to a -woman's heart." - -The week before his departure, he made an avowal of his passion. And -she was in a paradise of ecstasy until the next day, when he sent her by -mail a piece of information he had not had the courage to give her in -person. He confessed to a wife and two children living in England. In a -moment of impetuous boyish idealism--like Shelley's, he said--he had -married a girl who was intellectually (though not financially) his -inferior. Worst of all, she shared none of his tastes or aspirations. -He assured Cornelia that every day of his married existence had been a -lifetime of exquisite torture. - -This confession, Janet heard, was the prelude to many hours of bitter -torment. Cornelia said that the one good outcome of this evil period -was that she began to think of the realities of life for the first time. -She was led to question the moral conventions which she had always taken -for granted and which, she now saw, encrusted the conduct of most of the -people around her. Under the tutelage of Percival Houghton, who -proclaimed himself a free thinker, as well as a free lover, she became -alive to the absurdity of regarding the conventions of an age as -immutable laws for all time. - -Naturally, at this time, her logic was concentrated on the convention of -marriage. - -Percival read out many passages from the great writers of -today--continued Cornelia--from Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Havelock Ellis -and Gilbert Cannan; and these passages exposed the unalterable belief of -the writers that marriage, in its existing form, was wrong, conclusively -and crushingly wrong. - -Wrong, she hastened to explain, in so far as it was a contract that was -held to be binding even after the death of the love on which the -contract was based. - -She developed the logic of the situation at some length in arguments -with which Janet was greatly impressed. - -"You own mother and father hate each other, Janet," she pointed out. -"The result is the cat-and-dog, bite-one-another's-head-off relationship -that passes for family life in your home. Do you see?"; - -Janet saw, or thought she saw. Anything that could plausibly be shown -to be responsible for family life among the Barrs was sure to receive -her cordial detestation. Cornelia, certain of her auditor's sympathy, -continued her story. Percival Houghton's solution of the difficulty -caused by his rash attachment was a highly quixotic one. He proposed -that Cornelia accompany him to England, so that they might together lay -the facts before his wife and beg her to sue for a divorce after he had -furnished her with funds and with technical grounds for the suit. They -were to be open and aboveboard in urging the right of true lovers to be -free from all the shackles of law and tradition. His wife was not -ungenerous, he declared. Moreover, she had never really loved him; and -he persuaded himself and Cornelia that, face to face with an -overwhelming passion, she would readily consent to an act that was to -liberate three lives. - -This, he insisted was the only honorable course to pursue. It had the -precedent of such great names as Ruskin and Millais. Besides it was the -only course that would not seriously affect his career or completely cut -him off from his children. - -What could Cornelia do but yield? He engaged passage to England for -two, and--she emphasized this detail again and again--though they -occupied the same stateroom, their union was a union of two souls and -nothing more. - -Without giving Janet time to grasp the logic of this behavior or of its -explanation, she continued: - -"Percival said it behooved us to show that free love could rise above -the lustful impulses of the flesh. We were to come to each other clean, -so as not to do the cause of free love an injury." - -England had been the Paradise of her hopes, but it proved their -sepulchre. Scarcely had they docked in the Mersey when reporters -representing news associations accosted them for information about their -"elopement." The news had been cabled from New York, where they were -featured as "elective affinities." In London, too, they found -themselves headliners in the yellow journals. Needless to say, the most -extreme construction was put on their journey together. And the -escapade of "affinity Houghton" became an international sensation. - -"How did it leak out, Cornelia?" exclaimed Janet. "Had you told anyone -you were going together? - -"Not a soul. But my connection with a newspaper was fatal. A woman -journalist is subject to more gossip than an actress. Every time she's -seen with a new man, she's reported to have ensnared a new lover." - -As a result of this glaring notoriety, Cornelia went on, Houghton's -manner toward her underwent a radical change. He remained kind and -courteous, but his manner grew cool. He urged one pretext after another -for postponing what was to have been a historic interview with his wife. -In London he took her to a hotel and left her there alone. - -Two days later she received a letter from him, in which he said that his -wife was unalterably resolved to contest a divorce on any ground, and -that the newspaper gossip had almost irretrievably injured his -prospects. He added that he was as devoted to her as ever. He was, in -fact, broken-hearted, but his clear duty to his family, his children and -his career demanded that they should never meet again. - -In spite of this note she made several attempts to see him once more. -She confessed to Janet that she had been ready to accept any terms he -might make, if only he agreed not to part from her forever. It was for -love and not for marriage that she had sacrificed herself. It was not -marriage but love that she demanded. But he sustained his pitilessly -inflexible attitude. Almost prostrated by the notoriety which the -experience had thrust upon her, she made a heart-broken return to the -United States. - -"I landed in New York without hope, without health, and without a home," -said Cornelia, dramatically. "But I had vindicated my belief that love -should be free." - -To forestall a social boycott, she had proudly decided to shun all her -former friends. To this end she rented a flat in the Lorillard -tenements. And here she had remained in eclipse, and in receipt of a -small allowance from a brother who was a leading politician in a Western -State. - -Latterly, old friends of hers, members of the fellowship of Outlaws, had -drifted into her rooms in Kips Bay; and so she had been -dragged--unwillingly, she alleged--from her retirement. - -She asserted that she had no ill-will for Percival Houghton, who would -always be the one man in the world for her. After all, he had sold his -birthright for a marriage of convenience, and he might well feel that he -ought to stick to his bargain, cost what it might. She was persuaded -that his coldness to her in London was merely an iron vizor clamped upon -his real feelings by the ruthless institution of matrimony. She also -appeared to derive some comfort from the thought that though he was "a -soul pirate," though he had "stolen her soul," his own had been damned -in the process. - -"Yet I shall always love him," she said, with tragic resignation. "I -shall never love anyone else. And I shall never marry. I've suffered -enough from marriage as it is." - -The ferryboat docked at the Lackawanna Station. Janet, who had been lost -in a reverie, mechanically followed her companion's suggestion that they -take the same boat back. Cornelia's story--the vivid story of one of -the principals--had a very different coloring from the account of the -"affinity Houghton" scandal which had filled the front pages of the -evening newspapers two years ago. Janet could still recollect the -headlines, the pictures, and the expansive gossip; also the strange -mixture of curiosity and pious disgust with which she had followed the -reports. - -Could the horrified Janet Barr of that dimly remembered time be the same -girl who was now sitting in the closest intimacy beside the leading -female in the case? - -On the return across the river, Janet had several questions on the tip -of her tongue, but Cornelia's manner seemed to discourage inquiries of a -too personal kind. However, Janet did get in: - -"What was Percival Houghton's excuse for refusing to see you once more?" - -"He said we could meet only in secret; but that any continuation of the -secrecy was more than he could endure." - -"Do you think that excuse rings true?" - -"Why not? I suppose I should say it rings falsely true, as faith -unfaithful always does." - -"I think it was the evasion of a coward." - -"Perhaps. But, Araminta, _all_ men are cowards, moral cowards, I mean. -They face bullets sublimely, but they shiver and shake before an -argument. They gayly lose their lives for a hunting trophy or a -football triumph, but they can't bear to lose their dinners for a -belief." - -Janet, thinking of her father, was inclined to agree with this view. - -"Is that why men let women keep up the marriage system?" - -"My dear, it isn't the women who keep up the marriage system. It's the -men! Women just fall into a system that's ready made for them. Most -women are all body and no soul. Give them the choice between marriage, -which provides for the body while starving the soul, and some other -condition which provides for the soul while starving the body, and of -course they'll choose marriage. They prefer to hold a man by his lusts -rather than by his spiritual impulses. But the men keep the system up, -my dear. Because of the children they want." - -"But, Cornelia, I thought it was the women who wanted children!" - -"So we do. We want them because life demands them through us; for are -we not the mothers of the race? But that is not the men's reason. It -isn't the race that is calling through them for immortality. Heavens -no! It's their boundless male egotism. And since they know that they -can't live forever in their own selfish little bodies, they hope to get -a new lease of life in the bodies of their sons. That is why they have -built up an institution in which they can keep their women wedlocked and -can make sure that their children are their own." - -"But perhaps marriage is necessary for the children, Cornelia. They are -the better off for it, at least when they are very young." - -"Are you so sure? Remember, loveless marriages seldom result in healthy -offspring. Look at Percival Houghton's two children. One is a girl -with hip disease, the other is a feeble-minded, flabby anæmic boy. Yet -the parents are both physically sound. Do you think _I_ would have had -such children?" - -Her vehemence was over-awing, almost over-bearing. - -"I'm not sure I can judge from one case, Cornelia," said Janet, her firm -voice and clear distinct utterance betraying a will of her own. "But -I'm sure that people who marry and find that they are mistaken in each -other, ought to be able to rectify the mistake. It's horrible to think -that they can't." - -"Ah! Now you've come to it. If people find that they are mistaken in -their butchers or grocers, they experiment until they find the right -one. They won't go on eating bad steaks forever because luck or -inexperience landed them in a poor shop at the first try. But do they -take as much trouble to get the right husband or wife as they do to get -the right mutton chop? They don't. Whatever partner luck or -inexperience hands them at the altar, they put up with for the rest of -their lives." - -"I wonder why we don't experiment in marriage as in all other matters?" -asked Janet thoughtfully. - -"My dear, it's been proposed often enough. By men, of course. You are -too young to remember the furor that followed when George Meredith -proposed trial marriages. It's an easy thing for the men to propose, -since it's the women who must risk the beginning. The question is, who -is to begin? The plain women daren't, because the risk is too great; -and the fascinating women needn't, because they get what they want -anyway, within the law or beyond it. Now if ever girls like you, -Araminta, on whom the eye rests with delight, began to experiment--" - -"What then?" - -"Oh, I've no right to urge my views on individuals. Besides, you are far -too young and inexperienced, my dear, to be one of the first. Though -I'm sure nothing would suit men like Claude Fontaine better." - -"There, Cornelia, you're making innuendos about Mr. Fontaine again," -said Janet. "It isn't fair. If you mean to take me into your -confidence at all, you might do it all the way through." - -"Not another word will you get out of me now, Araminta," replied -Cornelia, with one of the queer laughs she gave whenever she blocked -people's wishes. - -However, fearing to weaken the hold she had upon Janet, she added: - -"I'm too famished to talk. Here we are, landing at last. Come, we'll -get a nice lunch. I know you're dying to talk about the irresistible -Claude. I promise to tell you Lothario's whole history over our cups of -tea." - -Janet begged to be taken to the Y.W.C.A. Cafeteria, whose good food, -self-service and picturesque quarters she had heard Cornelia extol. -When they reached the restaurant, they saw a very long line of waiting -customers. - -"This will never do," said Cornelia, disgustedly. And, quite unwilling -to sacrifice comfort in the cause of self-service, she dragged the -reluctant Janet to a French pastry restaurant on Fifth Avenue. - -"I _do_ like a waiter and a table cloth," said Cornelia, as she -contentedly resigned herself to these dubious luxuries. "And I _don't_ -like to scramble for my napkin and my glass of ice water." - -"What a strange thing for you to say," said Janet, puzzled. "It sounds -as though, in spite of your advanced views, you might at heart be -thoroughly in love with conventional ways." - -"Don't put such ideas into your head, silly!" said Cornelia, giving a -high-pitched, self-conscious, stagy laugh, with which she shut off -further personal questions. - -During lunch, Cornelia contrived to say curiously little about Claude -Fontaine, Janet learning hardly anything she did not already know. -Claude was heir to the great Fontaine jewelry establishment. He was a -social swell. He was very handsome. And he was trying equally hard to -dabble in modern paintings and not to dabble in modern amours. - -His success in both attempts was dubious, according to Cornelia. -Particularly in the matter of the amours. He was, of course, the -greatest catch of his day. In his own circle, every mother had marked -him for her daughter. And it was to escape the conspiracies of -matchmakers that he had taken up with the Outlaws in the model -tenements. In their unconventional atmosphere, he had hoped to move and -breathe more freely. But if every girl in his own set was willing to -become his wife, every girl in the Lorillard tenements seemed willing to -become his mistress. - -It appeared that Mazie Ross had been particularly shameless in setting -herself to catch Claude. Somehow or other, the conversation pivoted -chiefly on Mazie, her selfishness, her neglect of her fair share of the -work in flat number fifteen, and her willingness to sell herself. This -last was the fault which Cornelia proposed to take most exception to. - -"I wish I could get rid of her," she said. "Then you could come and -live with me, Araminta. It would be like exchanging a room that smelled -of last night's stale flowers for a garden perfumed by fresh roses." - - - - - *CHAPTER EIGHT* - - *I* - - -No sooner were they back in their Lorillard tenement, than Robert Lloyd -came in. - -"Well, Cato, where did you drop from?" said Cornelia, who was lazily -tidying up the rooms while Janet was doing the breakfast dishes. - -"From the Harlem Gorilla in the flat next door." - -"Really! And what did _he_ have to say?" - -"Not much. He isn't a talker like me. He's a doer. He tried to -explain a few tricks in gymnastics to me. But every second sentence or -so the word 'Cornelia' crept into the explanation. It was decidedly -confusing." - -"Pray what has the word 'Cornelia' to do with the subject of -gymnastics?" asked the owner of the name. - -"Ah, what! I asked the Gorilla that question myself. But he simply -repeated the name adoringly and looked all sorts of unutterable things. -Beware, Cornelia. He thinks the sun rises in one of your eyes and sets -in the other. I believe he is planning to carry you off by main force to -his cave, his gymnasium cave." - -"A lot he is! He couldn't carry off a buttercup against its wishes. -Really, Araminta, he's the gentlest and shyest 'wild man' you ever laid -eyes on. How he ever came to take Gorilla for a nickname, I can't -imagine." - -"Nor I," said Robert. "But don't forget that he has learnt the art of -concentrating his enormous strength on one or two crucial points. -Certainly he treated Hutchins Burley to a good exhibition of his -mastery, didn't he? For all that, he's a very singularly gentle sort of -Hercules. If I had to provide one for you, Cornelia, I'd get a much -more ferocious specimen, if only to pay you out for kiting away with -Janet, after promising me you'd both stay in. I've been waiting for you -since noon." - -"Poor Cato, I'm terribly sorry. In the excitement of having Janet here, -I clean forgot you were coming. Waiting since noon, were you, poor boy! -There's devotion for you, Araminta. Never mind, Rob. Here she is, now. -And all's well that ends well, I hope." - -"I thought you'd like company on your way home, Janet," said Robert to -her directly. - -"Thanks very much," said Janet, not wishing to lose Robert and yet not -caring to say that Claude had promised to call for her, if he could -possibly get away from business. Before she could say more, Cornelia -interposed. She had not expected Robert to wait and had not quite -swallowed her chagrin over this surprise. - -"How do you happen to be off duty, Rob?" she asked. "Does the _Evening -Chronicle_ stop work for you on Saturdays?" - -"No. I've stopped work for the _Evening Chronicle_ on Saturdays and all -other days." - -"What! Don't tell me Hutchins has discharged you!" - -Cornelia gave up the last pretense of working, and sank aghast into an -armchair. - -"I didn't give him a chance. I discharged myself." - -"If he had--" she began, setting her teeth vindictively. - -"Exactly. In his sober moments, Cornelia, you are apparently the only -mortal soul he stands in some fear of. It was only because of a sneaking -affection he has for you that he hesitated to fire me." - -"Well, why throw a good bargain away?" - -"A nice position it would have left me in. That of an understrapper for -Burley to play cat and mouse with. Not if I know it! Burley likes to -torture the people in his power as much as you do, the only difference -being that his weapon is coarse brutality while yours is insidious -charm." - -"Your comparisons, Cato, have the merit of being as unambiguous as they -are rude. I trust you gave Hutchins Burley the benefit of a few of -them." - -"Oh, no, I always forgive my enemies. Nothing enrages them more. I -left Hutchins stunned. But I've no doubt he recovered in time to -appoint the successor that I sent him." - -"That you sent him?" - -"Yes. You don't know him, but Janet does. Janet, do you remember the -tall, thin, aristocratic chap who was always mysteriously turning up and -who stopped Burley at the tent?" - -"Of course I do. He wore a quaint stand-up collar with two points -sticking into his neck. It was he who warned Claude about the raid." - -"Oh, did he? Well, when I was on my way up the stairs here at noon, he -suddenly appeared, like a ghost stepping out of the stone wall. It gave -me quite a start. I asked him where he was bound for. 'Nowhere in -particular,' was his answer." - -Robert had got to talking with the mysterious one, who confessed that he -had just rented a flat in the model tenements. On Robert's alluding to -the severance of his connection with the _Evening Chronicle_, his new -acquaintance had asked permission to apply for the vacant place. He -claimed to have an ear for news and remarked casually that information -was always drifting his way. - -"As if I had any permission to give!" continued Robert. "I warned him -what he'd be up against in the person of Hutchins Burley, and bade him -Godspeed." - -"He's either a detective or the Prince of Zenda in disguise," said -Janet. "Which do you think, Robert?" - -"From the speed and completeness with which he obliterates himself, I -should favor the detective theory. On the other hand, there's his -get-up! That melancholy, drooping mustache, that semi-clerical collar, -and that comical tip-tilted chin! The fellow's simply unforgettable. -He must be a prince incognito." - -"Yes, we'll have him a prince!" exclaimed Janet, who, at twenty-four, -had a normal craving for romantic illusion. "But I should like him in -any part." - -"A prince! Nonsense, children!" interjected Cornelia, in her most -languid cadences. "He's probably a burglar." - -"A burglar!" - -"Certainly not a detective. Detectives don't obliterate themselves. -They don't know how to. And they never look like princes in disguise. -They're not clever enough. All the detectives I ever saw looked like -butchers on a strike. The only man, rich, skillful and bold enough to -take his fellow man at a right royal disadvantage is a first-class -burglar. A Raffles, for instance, might be a prince 'incognito.'" - -Cornelia's wits could work brilliantly under the stimulus of a new -friend like Janet. - -The door had opened while she was speaking. - -"Here's a prince, Araminta!" she continued, in the same musical vein. -"Not incognito, either, to judge by his handsome motor coat." - -Claude Fontaine came in, and the sheer sweep of his personal -attractiveness made Cornelia's slightly ironic phrasing sound quite -empty. Janet thought that many a titular prince might be glad to -exchange his coat of arms for Claude's conquering air. - - - - *II* - - -Her heart beat faster for more reasons than this. How was she to let -Robert down gracefully and without hurting his feelings, after having -more than half accepted his offer to accompany her home? - -As if in total ignorance of her dilemma, Cornelia, who had begun -sketching a design for a new dress, intoned: - -"Admirers never come singly. Choose your escort, my dear. Which is it -to be? Cato and the subway or Lothario and a limousine?" - -They all dissembled very poorly. - -Claude, who had not expected rivalry, looked displeased; Robert, though -he had already made up his mind to withdraw, felt uneasy; and Janet -stood up between the two young men, embarrassed and confused. - -Cornelia alone seemed wholly unmoved. She went on sketching -imperturbably. But Robert was quite certain that she was not -unconscious of the tableau. Janet broke the painful silence. - -"Let's all three go together," she said, with one of her quick graceful -gestures, half conciliatory, half pleading in its effect. - -"Certainly, if Robert would like to come," said Claude, politely, but -without enthusiasm. - -Robert declined promptly. He explained that he had really been free -only for the morning, and that, as long as Claude was to see Janet home, -he had better utilize the late afternoon to hunt up another position. -There were newspaper offices at which he ought to call. Before supper, -he had a speech to rehearse. Perhaps Cornelia would be good enough to -let him say it over to her. - -"What kind of a speech am I letting myself in for?" asked Cornelia, half -flattered, half nettled. - -"Wait till you hear it." - -"A sermon, I'll be bound," chanted this languid lady. - -Yet, not at all languidly, she put her sketch aside and rose, adding: - -"A sermon from Cato is as sweet as a _billet-doux_ from any other man. -Come, Araminta, let's show these men how quickly we can get ready." - -They went into Cornelia's bedroom, leaving the two men alone. Claude -said: - -"What's this about hunting up a new position?" - -Robert recounted his farewell interview with Hutchins Burley. - -"You're well rid of him," said Claude. "What do you think the swine -called me at the ball? A diamond smuggler. In front of everybody, mind -you!" - -He paced the room indignantly. - -"I tell you, Rob, if these were the good old days of duelling, I'd have -run his fat carcass through with a rapier half a dozen times before -this. And done it with relish, too. Nowadays, worse luck, it isn't -even good form to give him a thrashing, though Heaven knows he's the -sort of brute that understands no argument but a blow." - -"Blows would only sharpen his wits against you, Claude. Curs bite, as -bees sting, by force of nature. The only thing to do is to get out of -their way." - -"I'm not in the habit of getting out of any man's way," said Claude, -haughtily. "However, don't let's talk about the beast. I'm extremely -sorry you're out of a job. Tell you what, Rob. Come up to my office on -Monday, and we'll talk the situation over and see what can be done. -You'll find me in the galleries on the top floor." - -"Thanks, Claude, but Monday is impossible," said Robert, glad of the -excuse, for he scented patronage in his friend's manner. "I'm giving a -talk on 'Unemployment under the National Guild System' before the Guild -Study Club. When I arranged to speak on Unemployment I had no idea I -should do so as an experienced hand." - -Possibly Claude was dimly conscious of his friend's sensitiveness. At -all events, he said: - -"Well, come on your first free day. I'm always there afternoons. You -_must_ come, if only to see my two new Cezannes. I've just induced -father to buy them. By the way, old chap, what on earth are National -Guilds?" - -The return of the ladies cut off a reply. Janet's natural grace -redeemed the hang of a not too well-tailored suit. Cornelia was all -aglow over a mandarin coat she had put on. It was a wonderful dark -green silk with dull gold embroidery. Her clothes had a remarkable -effect of clinging to her contours. "Look at me," her body seemed to -call out through its vestments, "did you ever see anything so -ravishing?" - -Janet walked over to Robert's side and sought forgiveness without asking -for it. And he forgave her without saying so. Her soft, flexible, -thrilling voice disturbed him sorely, and he wondered whether its -sustained riches were as illusory as he judged the mysterious depths of -her gray eyes to be. - -Meanwhile, Claude was telling Cornelia in all sincerity that she had -never looked more enchanting. - -"Flatterer!" she said. "To how many girls have you said that today?" - -"Facts don't flatter, Cornelia. They simply cry out the truth." - -"Lothario, it's all a matter of the science of pinning and the art of -dressing. Or rather, of _not_ dressing." - -For the hundredth time, she assured Claude and Robert that she never -wore corsets or underwear, and didn't believe in these accoutrements. - -"What, nothing?" exclaimed Claude, perhaps to see Janet blush. - -"We are an art-hating people with ugly ideas," continued Cornelia, -unheeding his interruption, "and so we grow ugly, unsightly bodies. -That is why modern fashionable dressmaking has but one aim: to conceal -deformities. But dresses that conceal women's bad points are sure to -conceal their good points, too. A tragic loss! Janet is young and -charming; she can stand this loss. I'm on the wrong side of thirty; I -can't." - -"Are you poking fun at my Brooklyn clothes again?" asked Janet. "If you -go on like this, I shall have to ferret out all the secrets of your art, -in pure self defence." - -"We must all take a hand in educating you," said Cornelia, grandly. "My -part will be to make you see life as a world of beautiful lines, -rhythms, and colors." - -"What will mine be?" asked Claude. - -"Yours? To make her see life as a vale of Cashmere--all roses and -wine." - -"And Rob's?" - -"Rob will make her see it as a vale of tears--all sermons and social -problems. He'll be a necessary corrective to you." - -"And to you, too," said Robert, quickly, amidst a general laugh. - -Janet was now ready to go. As she and Claude left, Cornelia kissed her -tenderly and said: - -"Remember, if anything serious happens at home, _I_ want you, Araminta." - - - - *III* - - -Claude instructed his chauffeur to drive across Manhattan Bridge through -Prospect Park and along the Coney Island Road until the signal should be -given to turn back to Janet's home in the Park Slope section. Then he -took his seat in the closed car beside his companion. - -It was a warm spring day, and an agreeable wind from the bay blew upon -them through the open windows as they crossed the East River. The -breeze, the river, and the motion joined to chase from Janet's mind the -shadow of the scene that awaited her at home. - -Besides, there was the god at her side. Nearness did not rob him of his -divinity, it did not make him grow commonplace. And although some of -the glamor of his strangeness wore away, she liked him all the better -for being a human god and for having human weaknesses that caused his -diviner side to seem all the more real. Janet never gushed, and even -her most fervent adorations were shot through with a cool streak of -matter-of-fact perception. - -Claude was very happy, too. Philandering had few new sweets to offer -him. Yet Janet was a novelty in every way. What was unique in her was -her disinterestedness, a quality he did not consciously credit her with, -however, since he did not believe that any woman possessed it. All the -young ladies he had ever known had either struck attitudes at his social -position or groveled more or less openly before his wealth. According -to his view of women, their one aim in life was to get money out of him; -by marriage if possible, by fouler means if not. - -But Janet was different. - -She might have fawned upon him, or thrown herself unblushingly at his -head, or used a frigid hauteur to emphasize the point that her station -in life was better than appearances indicated. The girls he knew -invariably pursued one of these courses. But Janet didn't. Her whole -bearing permeated the atmosphere with a suggestion that Claude was a -very wonderful being, dashing, handsome, divine. A most agreeable -suggestion! But, since it takes a goddess to detect a god, it was clear -that she was quite a wonderful being, too. And what is a matter of -divinity among the gods on Olympus. It is like a title among peers of -the realm. - -It was her simple, natural, unaffected behavior, in short, that kept his -fancy intrigued. Without knowing it, his suspicion of women was almost -completely disarmed. - -Cornelia's parting words to Janet had given him some concern. - -"You're not thinking of going to live with Cornelia?" he said. - -"I may soon be glad of the chance." - -"Why?" - -"Because my mother threatens to put me out of her house." - -"But what for?" he said, looking at her in amazement. - -"I don't look like an incorrigible, do I?" she said smiling. "But my -mother thinks me one for associating with people like you." - -"With people like me?" - -"Well, like you and the other model tenementers." - -"But I'm _not_ like them," he said, half amused, half annoyed. - -"No? Do you know what I've noticed? All the people in the model -tenements say they are 'not like them.' Cornelia says so, Robert says -so, and now you say so. Each one thinks _he_ is different, unique." - -"Well, I'm sure that _you_ are," he said, rather seriously. He added, -lightly. "That's why it would be fatal if you went to live there. Do -try to patch it up with your mother, Janet, and give up this plan of -Cornelia's." - -"Patching it up with my mother means complete submission. Her motto is, -'bend or break.' And I've bent long enough." - -She tried briefly to give him an idea of her mother's domestic tyranny -and of her own rebellion against it. - -"You don't know what it is to live in my mother's house," she said. - -"I've heard what it is to live in Cornelia's house," he retorted. "She -casts a spell over young girls before they know her well. But she is -selfish and moody. Her friendships always end in violent quarrels. She -is now on the verge of a break with Mazie Ross." - -"She may have very good grounds for the break." - -"Oh, she's never at a loss for grounds. That isn't the point." - -"What _is_ the point?" - -"The atmosphere of the Lorillard tenements. It isn't made for you to -breathe in. Have you any idea what the people there are like? -Gangsters, anarchists and fake artists or writers, with a very small -sprinkling of well-meaning idealists, most of whom are cracked on social -questions. The men are all out of business, the women all out of -marriage. On the loose, every one of them, either in their actions, or -in their beliefs." - -"You mean they don't believe in marriage? Well, after all I've seen of -family life, I don't believe in marriage either." - -This was a confession which, by way of bait, many another girl had made -to him. - -"That's the sort of thing for a girl like Mazie to say," he said coldly, -"but not for a girl like you." - -Concern for himself had rapidly taken the place of concern for her. - -"Mazie's way doesn't impress me any more than the way of all wives," she -said, with a delightful gesture of candor. "I think she is more of a -slave to men than most married women are. I want to be mistress of -myself." - -His doubts were allayed again. The spring sunshine and Janet's subtle -charm were too strong a team for suspicion to hold out against. As the -car sped on through Prospect Park, a delicious breeze, laden with the -perfume of flowers and the rising sap of trees, cooled their faces, and -fanned their senses warm. - -"You are a dear little theorizer," he said in a tender vibrating tone. -"But theories have no interest for me now. I'm too happy to think about -them. I want to think only about you." - -"Impossible. You don't know enough about me. We've only just met." - -"Absurd," he said, taking hold of her hands. "We met when the wood -nymphs first danced to the pipes of Pan, when the starlight first threw -its enchantment on youth, when lovers first threaded their way over wild -hills and woodlands by the rays of the crescent moon. We have known -each other for ages." - -"As long as that? Dear me! What an experienced person I must be." - -Had her acknowledged objection to marriage affected him, after all? - -"All experiences are nothing to this experience," he said, putting his -arms around her and trying to kiss her. - -She resisted him with a quick, firm movement. All he could do was to -seize her hands and give them the rapturous embraces intended for her -lips. - -"Claude!" she called out, more in shyness than reproach. - -"But I love you!" he cried, retaining her hands by main force. - -"Since yesterday?" - -"Yesterday! A million years ago. The moment in which I felt I loved -you, Janet, was a world-without-end moment. That is love's way." - -"Don't profane the word love," she said, her voice rich and thrilling. -"You can't love a girl you don't know." - -"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" he said, quoting the -line reproachfully, and releasing her hands as he did so. - -"Do you believe that love always happens at first sight? What about the -feeling that takes hold of us as we slowly learn to know another's -splendid character? The feeling of tenderness and adoration. Isn't -that love, too?" - -"No, a thousand times, no! Call it friendship, comradeship, esteem, if -you like. Call it glorified toleration. But don't call it love. Love -doesn't come like that. It comes like the swift lightning that embraces -a cloud." - -"How I should love to love like that!" she exclaimed, with a mischievous -imitation of rhapsody. - -"Then you don't love me?" he demanded. - -She refused to admit that she did. He pressed her for an answer. - -"Don't, Claude," she said at last, disturbed. "I must keep my wits -about me today, or I shall be as putty in my mother's hands." - -He was bitterly disappointed. Her use of his name was some solace, -however; for, as her soft, flexible tones prolonged it, the sound was -music to his ears. - -"Is that why you won't let me kiss you?" he pursued hopefully. - -"No. I'm not used to it yet," she said, quite simply. - -"Not used to it! You mean you haven't been kissed by men before?" - -"Nothing so silly. I haven't been kissed by you before." - -"Ah, I might have known the reason wasn't inexperience," he said, with -incipient jealousy. "Then why balk at me?" he went on, seizing her -hands again. - -"As I said," she replied, calmly matter-of-fact. "I haven't had time to -think of it. At least, not much nor for long," she added impishly. "I -must first see whether I can get used to the idea." - -"Indeed! But getting used to the idea won't get you used to the thing -itself. Only practice makes perfect." - -"A rehearsal in dumb show is not to be despised," was her response. - -And so they bantered on and made pretty speeches, while Claude's car -bucked the wind until they turned into President Street and stopped at -the corner of her own block. - -As Janet got out, she was hard put to it to conceal her sense of loss. - -At parting, all her matter-of-factness deserted her; for a few seconds -she felt like a prisoner half awakened from an idyllic dream. - -The car drove away with Claude less triumphant yet more satisfied than -he had ever felt towards a charming girl before. He was profoundly -stirred by the magic of Janet's genuineness, and her rich, clarinet -tones lingered disturbingly in his mind. - - - - - *CHAPTER NINE* - - *I* - - -Thoughts of home had flitted intermittently through Janet's mind during -the afternoon's ride. But her faculty for living securely in the -present had been strong enough to send the omens flying as fast as they -came. A domestic crisis now confronted her, however, and she knew it -could not be evaded. As she crossed the threshold, there was a sudden -bristling of her nerves, a parching and aching of her throat, and a -sense of utter misery. - -From Laura, the maid, she learned that her mother had been ill all day, -and had kept to her bed. As this was Mrs. Barr's invariable practice -when any member of the family displeased her, Janet was not surprised. -She crept quietly upstairs to her room at the top of the house. On the -second floor she passed her sister's room. Through the open door Janet -could look into a mirror which reflected an image of Emily, dressing for -the evening. She called to her sister with an assumed cheeriness. -Emily answered stiffly and without stirring an inch. - -Janet, catching the unfriendly glance from the mirror, continued on her -way, hot indignation kindling her blood. She could invent excuses for -her mother's hostility, unreasonable as she considered it, but Emily's -censorious manner was altogether intolerable. - -In her own room she changed her costume to a simple black skirt and a -plain white blouse. Claude and Kips Bay receded to another world while -she nerved herself for the coming ordeal. - -In about half an hour, the maid came up with a message that Mr. Barr -wished to see Janet in the back parlor. She promptly went downstairs -and discovered her father pacing the floor in agitation. It was hard to -believe that this tall, imposing man was a moral weakling or that his -eagle's bearing concealed a pigeon's heart. - -"Jenny," he said, on the thinnest fringe of reproach, "thank Heaven -you're back!" - -The mere sight of his favorite daughter cooled his phantom anger. All -he wanted now was to see his wife placated at any price. For he, poor -man, always became the scapegoat, no matter who the criminal was. - -"How could you give us such a fright, Jenny?" he continued, referring to -her absence. - -"Really, father, I can't send you hourly bulletins of my whereabouts, -can I? It's not my fault that I've outgrown childhood. It's a law of -nature." - -"You don't consider your mother," he said, plaintively. "You know how it -upsets her to be disobeyed." - -"I'm sorry, father. But mother will have to get reconciled to the facts -of biology. When the young of animals grow up, instinct makes them -follow their own bent, even at the cost of disobliging their parents." - -Janet felt rather proud and a little surprised at hearing herself talk -in this bold, scientific style. She wished she could repeat it to her -mother, but secretly doubted her ability. - -"That may be," said Mr. Barr, on whom her biological views were -completely thrown away. "But remember that she has been sick all day, -sick with worry over your escapade!" - -"Nonsense," replied Janet, unmoved. "My escapade had nothing to do with -it. Her bad temper has made her ill. It always does, and nobody knows -better than she how useful the weapon is. When everything else fails, -she gets sick with rage, and takes to her bed until she gets her own way -to the last dot. We cringe and cower before her sham illnesses--" - -"Janet! You mustn't speak of your mother like that. She _is_ ill. She -lay awake the whole night and didn't touch a morsel of food all day." - -"No doubt she enjoyed tormenting herself and blaming the result on me. -But I don't believe that my absence was really a source of worry to -anyone." - -"Janet, I stayed up until three o'clock for you. And that was after -leaving the bank late and stopping at the Montague Library to get the -books you wanted." - -"Of course, you did, you foolish old dear," said Janet, in an access of -remorse. - -She put her arms affectionately round his neck. It was not easy to get -over her childhood idolatry of him. - -"Kindness is a bad habit of yours, papa," she said. "You take to good -deeds as some men take to gambling or to drink." - -He smiled and patted her cheek tenderly. Her remark was not far from -the truth. His morbid (and never wholly gratified) passion for approval -made him intemperately anxious to please, and caused his good nature to -be freely exploited by unscrupulous people, who repaid him with nothing -but their contempt. - -"That's like my own little Jenny. Now go up to Emily's room and make -your peace with mother." - -"Is that in my power?" said Janet, flaring up again and disengaging her -arms from him. - -Mr. Barr was torn between fear of his wife and affection for his -daughter. - -"Simply keep quiet and don't answer her back when she speaks to you," he -urged pacifically. "After all, she's your mother, she has a right to -criticize you." - -"I refuse to acknowledge the right." - -"Now, don't be obstinate, girlie. She can't help lecturing people. -It's a habit she acquired in her missionary society. Doesn't she lecture -me? If I submit, surely you can." - -"I'm neither a heathen nor a husband." - -"There now," he said, pleading with her. "Don't spoil everything by -standing on your pride. What will you gain by defying her? Nothing! -Then why do so? I tell you, Jenny, your mother may be a little hasty, -but she's a very clever, strong-minded woman. In the long run, she is -always in the right." - -"How can you cringe to her even when her back is turned," cried Janet, -revolted. "You know the truth as well as I do. She has terrorized all -of us as cruelly as ever her Puritan ancestors terrorized Roger Williams -and Anne Hutchinson." - -"Now, that shows how unfair you are," said Mr. Barr, eagerly, in a -vibrant voice, as rich as Janet's own. "Only two nights ago, your -mother was reading to me from John Fiske's colonial history. She came -across this very case you mention, the case of Anne Hutchinson. And I -distinctly recall that she condemned the persecution severely." - -Disdaining to reply, Janet walked away from his side. In that moment, -she hated him. It was incredible that he could be such a willing, -subservient dupe. - -She looked hostilely at his magnificent exterior. He had also inherited -a lively wit and considerable mental dexterity. Had he possessed any -force of character he might have been a great financier or statesman -instead of a petty manager of a small branch bank. And Mrs. Barr's -temper might have been kept within bounds, and the Barrs might have -enjoyed a happy home, instead of becoming a phantom replica of a bigoted -Boston family in the high and palmy days of Cotton Mather. - -He misinterpreted her silence. - -"You need merely say that you are sorry," he urged, "and that you'll -never stay out again without her approval. That will patch up -everything." - -"Father," she cried, exploding. "I can't say that. Because I simply -don't mean it. From now on, I'm going to have my own way about some -things, even if I have to leave the family. Mother may grind you to the -very dust. Marriage seems to give her that right, and you seem to enjoy -the process. But she shan't do so to me." - -"Good Lord, what will happen next?" exclaimed the unhappy man, appalled -at the collapse of his plan of conciliation. "The house has been like a -funeral all day. Would to Heaven _I_ were the corpse." - -But his daughter did not hear this pathetic wish, for she was already on -her way upstairs. - - - - *II* - - -In Emily's bedroom above the parlor, Mrs. Barr was reclining in an -invalid's chair. Illness had not softened the rigidity of that too, too -solid flesh. She was pale, but her pallor merely accentuated the iron -lines of her face. - -Emily, more matronly than ever, hovered about her mother in unctuous -solicitude, while Laura, the maid, busied herself setting chairs and -knick-knacks wrong, in order to set them right again. Mrs. Barr -disliked to have anyone about her unoccupied. - -When Janet entered, her mother greeted her coldly, and then dismissed -Laura with studied sweetness. She was actually much kinder to her -domestics than to members of the family. Servants were hard to get and -harder to keep. - -"I'm sorry you have been ill," said the impenitent, politely. - -"Sit down, my child. I'm getting better now, thanks in part to Doctor -Hervey." - -"What did the doctor say?" - -"That it was to be expected under the circumstances," interposed Emily. -"He thought it better for mother not to go to the missionary society -tonight." - -This was ominous news. Janet recollected that her mother had not missed -a missionary meeting in two years. - -The pause was filled with a battery of silent criticism. Usually Janet -dispersed these terrible silences with a torrent of impromptu apologies. -Today, however, she held her peace. Though every muscle in her body was -taut, she felt care-free. - -Yes, at this supreme inquisitorial moment, she felt surprisingly -care-free. Except that, in response to Emily's allusion to -missionaries, an old jingle ricochetted weirdly through her mind. It -ran: - - Oh, to be a cassowary, - On the plains of Timbuctoo, - Chewing up a missionary-- - Skin and bone, and hymn book, too. - - -Outwardly, she was as impassive as a Chinese joss. - -"Well, Janet?" said Mrs. Barr, outfought with one of her own weapons. - -"Yes, mother?" replied Janet, demurely interrogative. She folded her -hands innocently in her lap, and looked with a show of impersonal -interest at Emily's new pumps. - -"Have you nothing to tell me?" - -"Not unless you wish to learn about the ball I went to yesterday. Are -you interested in that?" - -Emily gave a scornful laugh. - -"I'm not interested in the ball," said Mrs. Barr, "and no one knows it -better than you. What I am interested in is your attending the ball -against my express wishes." - -"Mother, in the twentieth century--" - -"Are the ways of God less valid in the twentieth century than in the -tenth?" - -In disputes with her children, Mrs. Barr always invoked God first. This -failing, she took stronger measures. - -"Why do you always make poor God responsible for your severity, mother," -said Janet. "It is not His way you want me to follow, but your own. -Indeed, whenever you accuse me of disobeying the will of God, it is -because I have really disobeyed your will, which you identify with -God's. I wonder whether He likes it?" - -"I don't propose to discuss the Deity with you. You have studied your -Bible so little that you are apparently unable to give any opinion on -the subject which is not blasphemous." - -"As far as I know, the Bible does not prohibit dancing," said Janet, -shifting the defensive attack so as to bring matters to a head. - -"The Bible _does_ say, however, that a child must obey its parents. I -don't wish to be harsh, Janet. I believe that you have no just ground -for accusing me of severity. I say now, as I have said before, that if -you must dance, you may go to the affairs that are given at the church." - -"Thank you!" cried Janet, ironically. "But I don't like a Sunday School -atmosphere or a Sunday School man." - -"I thought as much!" said Mrs. Barr, her eyes like points of steel. -"You prefer to associate with unprincipled men who, having no religion, -lead lives of pleasure and dance the lascivious dances of the time. - -"Mother, I don't dance anything but thoroughly ancient and respectable -dances. I've never had a chance to learn the modern steps. I dance -very rarely, anyhow." - -"Emily _never_ dances," said her mother, cuttingly. - -"No, she is rather heavy and men are so lazy nowadays, and so tender -about their toes." - -Some demon had made Janet spring up and stop reflectively in front of -Emily. The latter's podgy bulk became a size larger by contrast with -Janet's mobile slenderness. - -"Oblige me by not arguing," said Mrs. Barr, coming to her elder -daughter's rescue. "I tell you I won't tolerate anyone in my house that -openly flouts her mother, spends whole nights with a woman of evil -reputation, and deliberately wastes the Lord's time." - -In her agitation she rose halfway from her chair. But rage and lack of -food had so weakened her that she sank back limply. Emily, looking -unutterable things at Janet, implored her mother to be calm in tones -that invited her to be just the contrary. - -Mrs. Barr hardly needed this spur. She sincerely believed that she was -fighting the evil one for the possession of Janet's soul. Revived by -this conviction she bravely returned to her task. - -"See the condition to which you've brought me," she said, the angry -tears welling up in her eyes. "What with watching and waiting and -praying for you all night, and fretting about your safety--" - -She instinctively followed a religious appeal with a sentimental one. -But her speech had so much anger mixed with the pathos, that it left -Janet cold. - -"I hope you won't get upset about me again, mother," she said, -unemotionally. "I'm quite old enough to take care of myself--" - -"You'd better go to your room, Janet!" exclaimed Emily, "before you kill -mother with your cruel selfishness." - -"I'm not aware that I'm under orders to you, Emily, or that you've the -right to play the Pharisee because you're content to lead a stagnant, -hole-in-the-corner life. If you wanted anything you'd disobey mother -fast enough. Only you happen to _have_ no wants. And you make a virtue -of your necessity. I have plenty of wants. And you persuade mother -that my necessity is a vice." - -"Be as theatrical as possible, Janet!" said Emily. "Why don't you add -that I poisoned mother's mind against you?" - -"You didn't have to carry coals to Newcastle, Emily. You merely had to -fan the flame in your own sweet, sisterly way." - -Mrs. Barr checked them both with an autocratic wave of her hand. - -"You need not abuse Emily, or me either," she decreed, black-browed. -"There is absolutely nothing more to be said. Either you respect my -wishes about your comings and goings, or you leave my house." - -"Mother, do you really propose to put me out for refusing to submit to -an arbitrary wish?" - -"I should think I had fallen far short of my duty, if I did not guard my -children against sensual folly--" - -"By showing them the door?" - -"If you leave your home, it will be by your own choice and not by your -mother's command," said Mrs. Barr, emphatically. "This is your home. -It will remain yours so long as you keep Christian precepts. But a -mother must hold the family hearth inviolate against evil doing. I -cannot condone a wicked waste of the Lord's time simply because you -describe the practice as a wish to be free. If you don't value a good -home, you are certainly quite free to choose another." - -"Why must I adopt the habits that suit your tastes and Emily's, but that -are hateful to mine?" - -"My child, you are flesh of my flesh--" - -"All the laws and all the prophets can't justify the narrow, friendless, -joyless, medieval life that you wish me to lead," cried Janet, in a -passion of insurgency. "When you were young you led no such life -yourself. Aunt Mary, your own sister, told me that you were the -flightiest girl in the family. Your girlhood was a perpetual round of -balls, theatres, parties and flirtations. Do I ask for a life of -pleasure like that? No. I simply want to choose my own friends, trust -to my own instincts, and follow my own bent." - -This reference to her mother's youth was not a happy one. Mrs. Barr -looked back on her younger days as a period of godless frivolity for -which she had largely atoned by enduring with a contrite heart the -double affliction of a weak husband and a wilful daughter. Her duty, as -she saw it, was to keep Emily and Janet out of the primrose paths which -she herself had trodden with such levity and with such disastrous -results. Accordingly, Janet's presumptuous allusion merely stirred her -fanaticism to its iciest depths. - -"You either obey me or go," she said, with pitiless brevity. - -"Oh, very well," said Janet, affecting a blitheness she was far from -feeling, "I'll go." - -Without another word, Mrs. Barr, weak as she was, rose and walked with a -firm step to her own room. Emily, not altogether pleased with this -climax, followed her immediately, giving a flabby imitation of her -mother's really magnificent exit. - -Janet stood nonplussed for a few seconds. Then she went upstairs to the -inward refrain of: - - "Chewing up a missionary - Skin and bones and hymn book, too." - - -Her inveterate evenness of spirit amounted almost to a failing; but now, -for the first time, she became conscious of latent impulses of a -vindictive and murderous kind. - -Back in her own room, she hastily packed a suit-case with her most -necessary belongings. - - - - - *CHAPTER TEN* - - *I* - - -About a week later, a tall, thin, immaculate gentleman, in a suit of -neutral taupe, entered the offices of the _Evening Chronicle_. A -stand-up collar slightly tip-tilted his chin. But his expression was a -friendly, not a haughty one. His small roving gray eyes looked around -with a humorous inquisitiveness, as if they wondered what their -immaculate owner could possibly hope to find in such a sloppy, -disorderly place. - -In due time, a slovenly office boy stopped pounding on a typewriter and -showed the stranger to an inner office. Here Hutchins Burley penned -those inimitable effusions on "the ethereal feminine" which gave the -Saturday special half a million female and male readers. It was an army -that ran the _Saturday Evening Post_ brigade a close second, and -rendered Burley's professional position unassailable. - -The roving gray eyes saw the swollen bulk of Mr. Hutchins Burley, -squatting like a giant toad behind a roll-top desk and pawing over a -visiting card. - -"Well, Mr. Pryor?" said the pillar of the _Evening Chronicle_, with no -waste of civility. "What d'you want?" - -"Frankly, I want Mr. Robert Lloyd's job." - -"How do you know it's vacant? Are you a friend of his?" - -"Hardly that. The information just drifted my way." - -"You handed me that stuff at the Outlaws' Ball. Who the devil are you, -anyway?" - -Whenever Burley spoke vehemently, he shoveled the words from the left -side of his mouth, a process that contorted his face into the exact -likeness of a cartoon by Briggs. - -"You might be a spy," he added, putting a cigar in his mouth and -scowling horribly at his visitor. - -The latter replied in a quiet and dignified but judiciously injured -tone. - -"Mr. Burley, you have my card. Go into my personal history all you -like. But first, let me refer to the service I did you at the ball. It -was a small matter--" - -"Don't get puffed up about it then," growled Burley, with much less -hostility, however. - -"No fear," continued Mark Pryor, as terse as his host and much more -urbane. "I mention it only because an ounce of action is worth a ton of -talk. Or a cartload of stuffy introductions. The point is this. -Having learned that you had discharged Mr. Lloyd--" - -"Who says I discharged him?" Burley noisily cut in. "He discharged -himself." - -"Oh, did he?" - -"Yes, damn him. I wasn't good enough for him, I suppose. You know his -kind, brains, fatted brains. But no guts! Sticks his nose up at -everything and hangs out with a lot of super-highbrows--New Republic -gas-bags." - -"The sort that cut a pie from the periphery to the center?" - -"Yah! That's their lingo. Still, Lloyd's got a head on his shoulders. -I'll say that for him. And I don't fire a man that's worth his salary. -Why should I?" - -"You believe in keeping your grudges out of your business?" - -"That's me. I could have given him his walking papers for a hundred -good reasons. But I didn't. And what thanks did I get? He left me in -the lurch. That's what he did. Left me on his own hook at a damn -critical time." - -"A case of bad conscience, perhaps." - -"You said it! He'd done me all the harm he could. He and Claude -Fontaine who put him up to it." - -Burley enlarged on his two-fold grievance. First, Robert and Claude had -circulated a malicious story about Harry Kelly (a professional bruiser) -making a punching bag of him; this story had ruined his prestige among -the Outlaws of Kips Bay. Then, they had freely slandered him in -Cornelia Covert's inner circle, with the result that Cornelia's friend, -Janet Barr, had conceived an insane and utterly baseless dislike of him. - -His story was full of evasions and suppressions. Thus he forgot to tell -Mark Pryor that he had twice waylaid Janet on the street and had been -coldly repulsed each time. It was clear that these repulses had added -fuel to his hatred of Claude and Robert, the two men who found favor in -her eyes. Against them, rather than against her, he vented his spleen. -When he spoke of her, his diatribe degenerated into a whine. - -"I know," said Pryor, laconically, cheering him up. "You have that -'nobody loves me,' feeling. Nastiest feeling in the world. We all get -it once in a while. I find there's only one remedy for it, and that's -to stop bullying people." - -"Bullying people!" shouted Burley, jumping up and glaring at his -visitor. "Say that again, if you dare." - -Mr. Pryor smiled faintly and sat unmoved, save that his neck seemed to -rise a very little out of his stand-up collar, as the eye-piece of a -microscope rises out of the tube. - -"I'm a plain man, Mr. Burley," he said, imperturbably. "And I speak -plainly. If you don't like plain speaking, I'd better withdraw my -application." - -"The hell you'd better!" - -Mr. Pryor got up, everything quiet about him except his eyes. - -Burley looked as if he were about to launch a thunderbolt. But the -roving eyes of his visitor were now fixed upon him like points of steel. - -"Sit down," said Burley, suddenly limp. - -Mr. Pryor sat down very quietly, without taking his eyes off Hutchins -Burley, who sat down, too, almost as if mesmerized. - -"Tell you what," he said, after a while. "I need a sort of confidential -assistant. A man who can keep his eyes and ears on the jump, and his -pen and tongue under lock and key. Get me?" - -He went on to tell Mr. Pryor that he was willing to try him out and that -faithful service would meet with very big rewards and with increasingly -confidential commissions. For the present, his newspaper duties were to -be subordinated to the one task of keeping track of the Lorillard -tenements. - -"Trust me," said Mark Pryor. - -He did not think it necessary to explain that keeping track of the -Lorillard tenements was precisely what he had been doing for purposes of -his own. - -"And glue an eye on that fellow Fontaine," added Burley. - -"To get a line on the diamond smuggling?" asked Pryor, with the most -casual air imaginable. - -Burley straightened up with a yell of suspicion. - -"What in blazes are you talking about?" he said. - -"Merely what you yourself talked about, my dear sir," said Pryor -soothingly. "At the ball you called Mr. Fontaine a diamond smuggler. -More than one person will remember that remark." - -Burley's suspicions were disarmed. - -"Forget it, my friend, forget it," he said. "A man says a good many -things under the influence of liquor that he has no call to say. I -don't suppose the Fontaines are less on the square about their -importations than the other big jewelers are. That's no business of -mine or yours, however, is it?" - -He declared emphatically that his interest in Claude Fontaine's doings -had a totally different basis. On three occasions Fontaine had come -between him and a woman. He did not hesitate to name the ladies. One -was Lydia Dyson, another was Cornelia Covert, the third was Janet Barr. -He had said nothing about the first two. He was not a greedy man. -Anyhow, according to the ethics of Kips Bay, Lorillard females were -nobody's property. That was no blasted secret, was it? - -"But this Janet Barr's no Lorillard female," he said, bringing his fist -down heavily on the desk. "Any fool can see that. And I'm man enough, -to refuse to stand by while Fontaine dirties her good name." - -"You don't mean to say that he has--" - -"He'll do it, all right. Or why did he pick the girl up, when he's just -got engaged to Armstrong's daughter?" - -"Armstrong, the financier?" - -"Yes. And Dupont Armstrong won't stand for a man who isn't on the level -with his girl. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it." - -"I know a safer place," said Mr. Pryor, gently tapping his head. "Where -it won't go up in smoke." - -He rose and, after coming to a few necessary understandings with Burley, -took his leave. - -As he walked rapidly along Broadway towards the subway, he felt that he -had done a very good morning's work. He was satisfied that Hutchins -Burley knew more about the diamond smuggling than he cared to admit. -The puzzle was that, although Burley obviously connected Claude Fontaine -with the smuggling operations, he was unwilling to give the connection -away. What was the motive that restrained him from exposing a man he -bitterly hated? Clearly, either a lack of proof, or some consideration -of a more personal kind. - -Reminding himself of his maxim that two and two never make four except -in vulgar mathematics, Mark Pryor left the subway at Thirty-fourth -Street, the Kips Bay station nearest the Lorillard tenements. Then he -went directly to his flat. - - - - *II* - - -Incoming or outgoing denizens made barely a ripple on the surface of -Kips Bay. The district was used to a shifting population. Even the -colonization of Sutton and Beekman Places by Pierian millionaires "cut -no ice." Honest men and thieves, artists, criminals and Bohemians, idle -paupers and rich idlers, all these floated in and floated out, but the -net hodge podge was much the same. Bomb makers might come and gunmen -might go, but Kips Bay went on forever. - -The Lorillard tenements, the hub of the district, had experienced their -fair share of changes during the week of Mark Pryor's advent. Robert -and Janet were among the newcomers. Robert, thrown on his own scant -resources, had secured a nook in Kelly's flat, Number Thirteen, his -berth there being the fruit of Cornelia's good offices. And Janet had -come to live with Cornelia in flat Number Fifteen. - -This last event was at once followed by a break in Cornelia's -partnership with Mazie Ross. The three small rooms and kitchenette were -not large enough for more than two people. And pretty, slovenly Mazie, -her early enthusiasm for Cornelia cooled, had lately spent more and more -time on her own appearance and less and less on her companion's wants. - -Cornelia always got rid of a companion the moment a better one turned -up. A "better one" usually meant one who could do more of Cornelia's -housework, or could look after her creature comforts more diligently, or -could give her more of that flattering attention of which she never had -her fill. Whenever the time came to change partners, Cornelia would -send the old one flying without the smallest compunction. Nor was she -ever at a loss for a good excuse. - -Janet's first day in Number Fifteen was Mazie's last. When Mazie came -home that night, "instead of poppies, willows waved o'er her couch." - -The crash came after supper, while Janet was out shopping with Harry -Kelly, who had quickly become a steady visitor at his next-door -neighbor's flat. As a pretext, Cornelia chose the matter of Mazie's -easy friendship with Hutchins Burley, a friendship reported to have gone -as far as was possible, since the recent ball. - -There was nothing new in the charge that Mazie practiced principles of -varietism about which Cornelia simply theorized. The only novelty was -that Cornelia now declared the charge to be a good excuse for parting -company. Mazie thought it a poor excuse. On this difference of opinion -there sprang up a tempestuous scene. Words flew high, and the checks -that polite society imposes on candid criticism of one's friends went -completely by the board. - -The climax was reached when Cornelia offered the opinion that if Mazie -wanted to become a vulgar little copy of Camille, that was her affair; -but flat Number Fifteen was not the place in which to practice the part. -In vain did Mazie reply with an unexpurgated review of Cornelia's -history. Cornelia was unmoved. And her languid, cadenced retorts -floated serenely above Mazie's torrent of invective like a violin -obligato above the crashing brasses. - -It did not take Mazie long to pack her most necessary articles into a -bag and go. On her way out, she said, with a good imitation of -Cornelia's sweetest tone: - -"Good bye, Cornelia. I'd like to stay long enough to tell your next -dupe what a fraud you are. But what's the use? She won't thank me for -it, as I suppose she has a crush on you, like I had once. Well, it'll -do her good to learn by experience. Finding you out, my dear, is such a -complete education." - -By the time Janet and Harry Kelly returned, all was quiet along the -Potomac. - - - - - *CHAPTER ELEVEN* - - *I* - - -For the next few weeks, Janet lived excitedly in the glamor of the -Lorillard tenements. She could not well have imagined a bigger -difference than that between the complete orthodoxy of the Barrs of -Brooklyn and the complete heterodoxy of the model tenementers of Kips -Bay. - -Her impression of the new life was put into words for her by Lydia -Dyson, the author of "Brothers and Sisters," (then in its twenty-fifth -big printing). Lydia, whose tall, thin form and pale olive skin lost -none of their spectacular qualities by the snake-like movements she -affected, the huge jet earrings she wore, or the gold-tipped cigarettes -she smoked, assured Janet, in a rich Kentucky drawl: - -"We obey only one custom here, and that is to disobey all customs; we -hold only one belief, and that is to hold no beliefs." - -Janet was fully persuaded that the first part of this statement was true -and that the second part was a vast improvement upon the Barr regime. - -In truth, she found the Lorillardian absence of formality, constraint -and regulated behavior a decided relief after her long course of -Calvinistic repression at home. And, active though she was by nature, -she did not at first notice how the days slipped by with great ado, but -with very little done. - -The Lorillard tenementers were not exactly lazy. They were merely idle. -Like the idle rich and the idle poor they were ceaselessly occupied--in -killing time. - -Cornelia was in the habit of getting up somewhere between nine and -eleven. After breakfast, the two friends would set out to look for a -job. The spirit in which they proceeded was the spirit in which young -people go skylarking. Hunting for a job was an old pastime of -Cornelia's. If she ever came up to a job's requirements, the job never -came up to hers. Or if by chance it did, she discovered a bewildering -array of reasons for not taking it, or for speedily leaving it, when -taken. - -At noon, the day's duty was considered fully done. After lunch, there -was another jaunt; this time to an art gallery, concert hall, theatre or -movie. Free tickets from Cornelia's theatrical friends were reasonably -plentiful, and when these failed, there were return calls to pay. - -Thus, Charlotte Beecher's studio was a favorite stopping place, as Janet -soon discovered. Charlotte possessed a million dollars or more in her -own right, and she had three or four studios in totally different parts -of the city. She did her hardest work in her double Lorillard flat -every morning; her evenings were spent warding off fortune-hunting -suitors like Denman Page, who besieged her Fifth Avenue apartment; on -certain afternoons she served an "intellectual tea" in a studio -sumptuously fitted up in Washington Mews. - -Janet was always taken to the studio _de luxe_ in the Mews. Cornelia, -invariably busy, would be sketching some new design of a hat, or pinning -together a one-piece dress, whilst she luxuriated happily amidst the -rich Chinese rugs and the soft silken cushions of Charlotte's show room. -The serpent in this garden of Eden was the "little group of serious -thinkers" (an element alien to Kips Bay) that met in the Mews by virtue -of Charlotte's encouragement. - -"These intellectuals!" Cornelia would say scornfully to Janet on the way -home. "Did you ever hear such bumptious talk?" - -"I find them rather amusing," Janet would perhaps reply. - -"Araminta, what nonsense! They positively put the furniture on edge. -But that's Charlotte all over. There's a nigger in every woodpile, and -there's a jarring note in every one of Charlotte's rooms. My dear, it -bores me cruelly." - -Still, Cornelia went on visiting the Mews, intellectuals, cruel boredom, -and all. It puzzled Janet for a time. She had still to learn that a -perfect Kipsite is prepared to suffer no end of martyrdom in the sacred -cause of luxury. - -Every evening was like a new party to Janet, flat Number Fifteen being -one of the chief rendezvous in the tenements. After supper, visitors of -both sexes dropped in unannounced and uninvited, until by midnight, a -dozen people, more or less, were sure to be occupying the whole flat. - -Generally, the guests split up into small groups and spent the time in -play. Some played at dancing or at music, others at clever repartee or -giddy flirting. To this play, the counterpoint was enthusiasm. A -magnificent enthusiasm for self. In a rapturous torrent of words, each -Kipsite painted a roseate future that led by startling steps to a -supreme moment in which the world lay prostrate at the enthusiast's -feet. - -It was a cosmopolitan gathering. All the arts and sciences and -occupations, all the moral and immoral standards, and all the races and -nationalities of New York were represented. A dancer from the Hindoo -Kush, several would-be Fokines or Stravinskys, two or three imitation -Oscar Wildes, Theodore Dreisers or Frank Harrises--these were sure to be -there. Even the solid banker (or aspiring Pierpont Morgan), who kept a -quiet flat and a lady in it, was an occasional visitor. No one was -excluded who was piquant or picturesque. - -Cornelia's specially privileged guests were a scanty handful. Among the -men were Claude Fontaine, Robert Lloyd, Denman Page, and Harry Kelly, -the "Harlem Gorilla." Soon after Janet's coming, Mark Pryor, immaculate -and unobtrusive, joined the ultimate circle and began mysteriously to -appear and to disappear. - -Still fewer were the women admitted to the inner ring. Of these the -chief were Lydia Dyson, the spectacular, and Charlotte Beecher, the -industrious. The novelist came in silks, the heiress in calicos. -Charlotte's cheap but natty working costume was looked upon among the -Outlaws as an affectation. Her blouses and skirts gave Cornelia the -horrors. - -So did her marked preference for Robert Lloyd. - -Janet had an idea that these evening visitors came chiefly to admire -Cornelia or to be admired by her. She assumed that Cornelia was "the -whole show." It was a pardonable assumption. Cornelia sat in a rocking -chair in the central room and was feline, and languid, and observant, -while the excitement eddied and swirled around her. To all appearances -she held the reins of her party with the masterly skill of the Borax man -who drives the celebrated twenty mule team. - -Robert would have it that Cornelia was neither the star nor the manager -of the nightly performance in Number Fifteen. According to him, the -only management she displayed was in the skill with which she focused -attention upon herself. The cadenced laugh, the sugary stab, the artful -question--these were not the subtle devices of a clever hostess; they -were merely the centripetal pulls of an egomaniac against the -centrifugal interests of her guests. - -Janet dismissed this explanation lightly and begged Robert not to -analyze every joy until its very essence had been probed--and destroyed. -She laughed at his attempt to convince her that these gay evenings of -Cornelia's were a kind of renaissance. His theory was that the light of -Cornelia's splendor had been getting dim of late, as it had got dim on -several previous occasions. But the impact of a new partner against -her, like the impact of an astral visitor against a dying sun, now as -always gave her a new lease of brilliance. - -In short, Robert asserted that it was the replacement of Mazie by Janet -which had caused a tremendous revival of interest in Cornelia's flat. -Everybody in the inner ring of the Outlaws or in the outer ring of the -tenements, everybody indeed, that had any shadow of a claim to an -entree, had come trooping in to sun themselves in the restored glory of -Number Fifteen. - -To most of Robert's remarks, Janet paid little attention. But she -carefully treasured up one of them. - -This was that never before had Claude Fontaine been such a constant -visitor. - - - - *II* - - -Yet for a few days after the Outlaws' Ball, Claude had behaved as if his -confession of love had never been made, or had merely been the -expression of an impulse, for which he disclaimed responsibility. There -had been no return to the intimacy that instantly abolishes all the -formulas of mere politeness and all the prescriptions of mere etiquette; -there had been no recurrence of that world-without-end moment at the -ball or of that other moment in the limousine next day. - -At the ball he had treated her as he would have treated any respectable -middle-class girl who might take his fancy. That is, he had stretched -the conventions as far as an impressionable young woman will usually -allow a dashing young man to stretch them, but not further. - -After she joined Cornelia, however, his attitude changed. He treated her -with a certain wariness of manner by which he appeared to convey the -following: - -"I took you to be a girl who strictly observed the moral customs -established and honored in Brooklyn, but long fallen into disuse in -certain parts of Manhattan, and nowhere less respected than in Kips Bay. -It amused me to tempt you to violate these customs, especially as I had -little hope of meeting with success. But now that you have become a -Lorillard girl, what spice is there in tempting you? Either you never -were the girl I took you for; or, at any rate, you soon won't be. - -"At all events I shall be on my guard. You are the first girl to work -upon me so mightily with a single glance. But you are not the first girl -who has looked as innocent as a dove and acted as subtly as a serpent. -Be warned! Neither your innocent subtlety nor subtle innocence can make -me forget that a Claude Fontaine is in the habit of forming but one sort -of friendship with a girl in the Lorillard tenements." - -Janet, always very sensitive to atmosphere, got the effect of this train -of thought, and in consequence kept Claude at as great a distance as her -naturally cordial nature would let her. - -In one of the evening gatherings at Cornelia's the talk turned on -marriage, and it came out that Janet had adopted Cornelia's views on the -wickedness of marriage in its modern form. Claude, with the common -failing of lovers, promptly referred her action to himself. - -Was this Janet's way of announcing that she meant to make no greater -demands on a rich man than any other girl in the Lorillard environment? -At first, it seemed so to Claude, and he felt relieved. But, on second -thoughts, another question occurred to him. Might not Janet's -conversion to Cornelia's beliefs in free love be a mere blind? A -pretended dislike of wedlock was a recognized bait for landing a man at -the altar. Was her conversion of this type or was it of the franker -type of Mazie Ross, who asked all that was due to a Lorillard tenement -girl but asked no more? - -On the whole, it seemed fairly safe to treat Janet on the Mazie Ross -plane, and this he proceeded to do. - -Mazie, by the way, had returned as a visitor to Number Fifteen within a -week of her spectacular exit. Her doll-like face had recovered its -pretty smile and her baby blue eyes gave no clue to whether she was -seeking vengeance or merely currying favor again. No one asked or -cared, hatred, like love, being a very fluctuating stock in the model -tenements. - -Janet had not failed to notice that Claude made little difference -between his manner to her and his manner to Mazie. She did not like it, -but she had to wait some time for the chance of showing how much she -scorned his judgment. - - - - *III* - - -The opportunity came at one of Cornelia's gayest parties given at the -end of Janet's second week in Kips Bay. It was really a sort of "coming -out" party for Janet. All the Outlaws, both of the inner and the outer -ring turned out to hail the new favorite. Even Mark Pryor put in an -appearance and actually remained on deck until the end, perhaps because -the trio of Cornelia's friends who provided the music played Lehar, -Straus, and more recent dance tunes without the customary sentimental -whine. - -Contemptuous of the fitness of things, Claude did his best to monopolize -Janet. When the gayety was at its highest and the music at its most -intoxicating, he danced her into a room which, for the moment, proved to -be nearly but not quite empty. - -Pushed out of the way against a corner stood a screen. Behind this he -whirled her, and then swiftly took her in his arms and kissed her -passionately. As swiftly, she pushed him away with an expression of -extreme distaste. - -"I don't like my friends to imitate Hutchins Burley," she said, her -voice quiet and cool, her gray eyes full of life and scorn. - -The others in the room laughed in mockery or applause. For an instant, -Claude's all-conquering look was replaced by a crestfallen one. But he -quickly regained his poise and spirits. - -"Just a kiss to try," he said jauntily, as he attempted to recapture her -arm. - -"It's much too trying for gentle Janet," blithely chirped Mazie, who had -danced into the room and taken in the situation, as Janet again turned -away from Claude. - -AS a matter of fact, it was Janet's sense of propriety in public that -was offended more than anything else. As for Claude, he was only less -mortified by the affront to his vanity than by the haunting fear that -Janet's rebuff came from genuine dislike. - -No girl had ever given the brilliant, impetuous Claude Fontaine a glance -of undisguised repugnance. - -Janet spent the rest of the evening chiefly in conversation with Robert -Lloyd and Mark Pryor. Meanwhile, Claude affected a complete -indifference to her actions. He threw himself into the party with a mad -abandon, and whipped up the conviviality with a riotous, headstrong -wildness until everybody voted it the merriest evening in years. -Amongst the other sex, he exploited to the utmost his patrician graces -and masculine daring, and was so much the center of the occasion that -the party might have been his rather than Janet's. - -The women thought him magnificent, graceful, cruel--in a word, -irresistible; the men laughed at his impudence, and envied or admired -his readiness, effrontery and ease. - -And yet, as he showed his fine points triumphantly now to this adoring -girl and now to that, his voice vibrated towards Janet. - -Janet took it all in, and continued talking to Robert with undisturbed -satisfaction. She saw Claude pass recklessly from one favorite to -another, and guessed easily that none of these was his real aim. - -When the party broke up, Claude induced Janet to listen to him alone for -a moment. He was suddenly all contrition. To his whispered plea for -forgiveness, she said, in a not unkindly tone: - -"Forgiveness for what? For advertising your emotions?" - -"For the kiss," he said, his voice full of sensuous charm. And he added, -on a more audacious note: "I wish I could take it back." - -"Oh, do you? You'd better begin with the publicity." - -"Please forgive the kiss _and_ the publicity, Janet." - -"I'll forgive the second when I forget the first," she replied, much -more gaily than she intended, thus proving that Claude was not the only -one in the grip of a resistless passion. - -Claude went home, satisfied that his daring had once again enabled him -to snatch victory out of the arms of defeat. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWELVE* - - *I* - - -And so it had. None the less, the experience had taught Claude a lesson -which, for once, he took to heart. He never again supposed that Janet's -friendship was to be had on the same terms as Mazie's or even -Cornelia's. - -True, he remained in the dark as to what precisely her idea of -self-respect was. Conflicting and irreconcilable inferences were the -only ones he could draw from the conduct of a girl who lived in the -Lorillard tenements, moved in the Outlaws' circle, professed to be -hostile to marriage, yet stood on her dignity withal, in quite a -traditional womanly way. - -But Claude was not the man to waste time on psychological conundrums. -Besides, he was too happy to be critical. He was back in the good graces -of Janet, or rather, as he soon paraphrased the case, she was back in -his. He flattered himself that he was the dominant influence over a -girl who was a piquant, if puzzling, amalgam of Brooklyn and Bohemia. - -In the next two weeks, his position as Janet's particular friend was -established beyond dispute. Few afternoons passed in which his motor -car did not drive up to the Lorillard and whirl her away to a place of -gayety or recreation. The chief rival claimant upon her time was Robert -Lloyd. But as Claude, in point of social advantages and personal -graces, far outdistanced him, this rivalry was not taken seriously by -any of the three persons concerned, least of all by Claude. - -One day, to Cornelia's astonishment, Janet announced that she had -planned to spend the afternoon, not with Claude, but with Robert. She -made the announcement from a tuffet on which she sat soberly, while -reading a book by Mrs. Beatrice Webb. - -"Is this your pensive day?" asked Cornelia, ironically. - -"Yes," replied Janet. "Robert complains that I'm neglecting him, and -consequently my education. I think I ought to give him a chance to -prove both assertions. So I've asked him to come here this afternoon. -I can't spend all my days in sky-larking, can I?" - -"My dear, 'youth's a stuff will not endure.' If you choose Mrs. Sidney -Webb and Robert Lloyd rather than Claude Fontaine, the choice is your -own. Of course, Robert is very entertaining. He pledges you with facts -and figures. But when I was a rosebud like you, Araminta, I preferred a -man who drank to me only with his eyes." - -"Cornelia, I adore being made love to; yet I get horribly tired of -it--even of Claude's love making--when it's kept up too long. And I -hate facts and figures; yet Robert's never bore me." - -"What a morbid symptom, my dear!" - -"Oh, don't say that. I feel sure it's quite a natural condition, in my -case. But perhaps there's a quality left out of me, a quality that -other women possess." - -Janet was clearly eager to carry on her self-analysis, but Cornelia gave -no sign of sharing this eagerness. - -Cornelia, in fact, was far from pleased. Her unconscious game was to -keep Robert revolving in an orbit around herself. He was such an -excellent drawing card! For had he not the rare power of raising the -value of any object or person he admired? Not that people ever credited -him with unusual discernment or insight. Yet the fact remained that -Robert had only to praise a human being or a work of art hitherto -undervalued or overlooked, and presto, the article or the person -instantly became subject to an urgent popular demand. This was one of -the reasons why Cornelia (who felt that she had been handsome enough in -surrendering Claude without a murmur) did not wish Robert as well to -gravitate from her stellar system to Janet's. - -But, seeing no way of cancelling Robert's visit, she determined not to -be a spectator of it. - -"I must run in next door, Janet," she said, "and ask the Gorilla to do -an errand for me." - -She left, omitting her customary lyrical phrases of affection. Janet -did not suspect the jealousy behind this omission. But she was -undeniably disappointed because Cornelia had not encouraged her to -discuss her friendships with Claude and Robert about whom her heart and -her thoughts were brimful. - -Thus quickly did Cornelia damp down the fire of intimacy by treating the -exchange of self-revelation as a strictly one-sided transaction. She -had (so it struck Janet) a very low opinion of all confidences--other -than her own. - - - - *II* - - -When the bell rang, Janet opened the door wondering why Robert had come -an hour before the appointed time. - -But it was Claude who entered! He came in, like the god of the glorious -spring without, in his gayest, most engaging mood. - -"What luck, to find you in!" he cried. "Janet, I've come in an open car -on the chance of taking you for a spin to Mineola to see the start of -the great Cross-Continental airplane race." - -"Oh, Claude, how nice of you. But--I'm afraid I can't go." - -"Why not?" - -"Well--you see--I've promised to go out with Robert this afternoon." - -His face clouded. - -"And you never told me!" escaped from him. - -"You are not my diarist," she said, faintly ironical. - -"Please forgive me, Janet," he said, dropping his possessive tone, as he -reminded himself how touchy she was about her independence. "But I'm -disappointed, bitterly disappointed. I planned the excursion as a -surprise for you. And how I've counted on it!" - -"Not more than I long to go, Claude. But what can I do?" - -He took her hands in his, and said eagerly: - -"_Must_ you keep the engagement? Can't you think of some excuse? Where -on earth was he going to take you to?" - -"To the Japanese Industrial Exhibition at the Grand Central Palace." - -He made a contemptuous grimace. - -"A stuffy exhibition!" he exclaimed. "Good Heavens, Janet, why hesitate -to change your plans? It isn't as if Robert wanted you for himself, as -I do. He'll understand." - -Janet wondered whether Claude would understand if she confessed that she -was actually more interested in the Japanese Exhibition than in the -cross-continent air race. But though she kept silent on this point, -because she really wanted greatly to go with Claude, she was rather -troubled. It was not easy for her to gratify a private desire at the -expense of a social obligation. - -"I don't like to hurt Robert's feelings," she said, turning away in her -indecision. - -"Oh, very well, if you don't wish to come with me!" - -He flung himself sulkily into a chair. - -Janet was astonished at his complete change of mood. She might have felt -hurt, had she not had a woman's instinctive weakness for spoiling the -man she was fond of. - -She sat down irresolutely, and reflected that this would be the second -time she had broken an engagement with Robert. - -"It's idiotic," he said, rising, with a sense of deep injury. "Here is -the most sensational race in a century, on a perfectly glorious day. -And I'm mad to be with you." - -"Perhaps Robert is, too," she said, a merry light dancing in her eyes. - -"Of course, he's no fool. He'd rather be with a wonderful girl than an -ordinary one. But what he wants more even than a wonderful girl is a -chopping-block, any chopping-block, for his sociological theories. Why -on earth did you leave your home, if all you crave is more instruction, -and if the only freedom you want is the freedom to stand on more -ceremony than before?" - -"That has nothing to do with the matter, Claude," said Janet, refusing -to ignore the truth simply because it was disagreeable. "Robert may not -be offended at finding me away, but he is sure to be offended at finding -me rude." - -"It seems to me that you are far more concerned with Robert's feelings -than with mine," said Claude, changing to a tone of melancholy reproach. - -"But I really haven't a good excuse, Claude," she said, troubled, but -still indecisive. - -"I know girls who wouldn't take two minutes to find an excellent one," -he said, with a return of his superior authoritative air. - -Janet's temptation was great; greater yet when Claude, in his most -handsome and daring manner, drew her out of the chair and put an arm -around her waist. - -"It's an occasion in a million, Janet. I've set my heart on this ride -with you. What does it matter what Robert may think, or what anyone may -think, as long as we two want so much to be together? You must come. I -shall believe you don't care a straw for me, if you don't." - -His flawless form and vibrant voice annihilated argument. With a happy -heart but a guilty conscience, Janet dismissed her scruples. - -On the way out, she stopped in at Number Thirteen to beg Cornelia to -smooth matters over with Robert. - -Cornelia, serene and all smiles again, promised to do her best. - - - - *III* - - -Robert came home soon after and, getting no response from Number -Fifteen, went to his own room in Kelly's suite next door. - -He got all the news from Cornelia, who politely tried not to gloat over -his disappointment. She professed to see no reason for finding fault -with Janet's easy submission to the force of an irresistible attraction. - -As it was fairly plain that Robert would have preferred to be alone, -Cornelia perversely lost no time in proposing that he carry out his -original intention of visiting the Japanese Industrial Exhibition, she, -of course, to take Janet's place as his companion. - -She had another reason for inviting herself out with Robert. This -reason was the Harlem Gorilla. He, though almost superstitiously -devoted to her, sometimes had to be "managed," in accordance with -Cornelia's view that love makes the most constant of men uncertain, coy, -and hard to please. Luckily, the treatment that Harry Kelly's case -required was not a subtle one, and so it was Cornelia's practice to -alternate a little encouraging discouragement, with a little -discouraging encouragement. On this occasion, by accompanying Robert -who didn't want her, and deserting Kelly who wanted her very much, she -neatly killed two birds with the same stone. - -On the way to the exhibition, Robert gave Cornelia an account of his -latest occupation. He had been made organizing secretary of a body -called the League of Guildsmen. Was this a fanciful name for another set -of Outlaws? No, the Guildsmen were servers of the community, the -Outlaws were spongers on it. - -"You have golden opinions of us," said Cornelia, theatrically. "I marvel -that you soil your garments by staying in our midst." - -"It's nothing to marvel at, Cornelia. I had to learn what Kips Bay and -its slum population were at first hand before I could desire in earnest -to destroy them, root and branch. Familiarity, which sometimes breeds -contempt, often breeds homicidal mania. Do you recollect how Caesar -spent a short vacation among a band of desperate pirates and how the -experience filled him with a conviction that it was his duty to -exterminate them? Well, I am filled with the same conviction about Kips -Bay." - -"What a passion you have for reforming everybody and everything, Cato! -I am sure it is a very noble passion, though it does include poor me in -its program of extermination. Still, I wonder whether reform, like -charity, oughtn't to begin at home?" - -"I used to think so," replied Robert, unmoved by her sarcasm. "In my -schooldays, my elders obliged me to hack my way through obsolete French -tragedies or the differential calculus instead of allowing me to gain a -working knowledge of current English plays or of modern political -economy. And when I made a fearful hash of their instruction, they -voted me a miserable failure. Whereupon, I determined to reform myself -in order that I might reform the world. I am wiser now. I know that I -must reform the world before I can hope to reform myself." - -"Cato, you are a perfectly gorgeous mixture of building air castles and -of seeing things upside down! One can never tell whether your head is -in the clouds or on the ground." - -Robert indulgently proceeded to say that the Guildsmen were young people -of like sentiments with his own. In a general way, their aim was to -advance the idea that the producers and servers of society, being the -rightful possessors of the earth, must eliminate the profiteers and the -parasites who have usurped possession. - -"If that is your aim, Robert, I predict that your league and your -secretaryship will have a short life and a merry one." - -Robert laughed and admitted that he did not expect a long tenure of -office. The Guild plan was a European idea for which America was by no -means ripe. - -"I fancy we are as progressive in industrial matters as the Europeans -are," said Cornelia, on her mettle. - -"Oh, more so," replied Robert, drily. "Our giant industries lead the -world in maximizing the production of things of a mediocre quality and -the creation of human life of a contemptible quality. Yes, in crude -capacity, we are ahead of our European competitors. But in political -capacity, we still lag far behind. Hence the difficulty of -transplanting to our soil a high-class social policy like that of the -Guildsmen." - -"But when this Guild plan dies a natural death, what forlorn hope will -you champion next?" - -"I fear there'll be nothing left but to throw myself on the mercy of a -rich uncle." - -"What, an uncle in a fairy tale?" - -"No, an uncle in California, a real live one." - -Cornelia evinced little more than a languid interest in Robert's -information. Fabulously rich relatives--who were cast for the parts of -_Deus ex machina_, but who never materialized in flesh or cash--made a -golden splash in the 'scutcheon of too many veteran Lorillard -inhabitants. She preferred a conversation dealing with more tangible -personages. Truth to tell, she rather hoped that Robert would try to -undo the painful impression he had made on her by his recent criticism -of her affair with Percival Houghton. - -All the greater was her chagrin when he brought the talk around to the -subject of Janet. - - - - *IV* - - -He began adroitly enough by complimenting her on the success with which -she had made Janet alive to the galvanic interests of contemporary life. -It was a miracle of education, he assured her, and he begged her not to -spoil the achievement by converting Janet to her favorite theory of free -love. He hoped she would rather warn her friend of the folly of -contracting a free union under existing social sanctions. - -"Like the majority of men, you believe love and sex emotion to be one -and the same thing," she retorted, cuttingly. "That's why you have no -understanding of what freedom in love means." - -"Now, Cornelia, I won't be drawn into a controversy on the merits of -free love." - -"Then don't sneer at it." - -"I don't. In fact, like every healthy young human being, I am by nature -something of a varietist myself. But, as a civilized member of society, -I'm bound to take the institutions of my country and generation as I -find them. I believe Janet will be better off, if she does so too. Let -her set out to alter or revolutionize our institutions, but not to defy -them." - -"My poor Cato! Don't you know that numbers of the young women of today -are quietly doing what numbers of the young men have always done?" - -"Living in illicit relations, you mean?" - -"That is what a ridiculous man-made custom calls it." - -"But, Cornelia, although many of the Lorillard girls have admittedly -flung a glove in the face of social conventions--" - -"I'm not talking of Lorillard girls, Robert. I'm talking of teachers, -lawyers, stenographers--the 'respectable' girls who remain in their -schools and offices without any loss of self-respect or public esteem, -and who merely do what the 'respectable' men do, that is, pay a mock -tribute to outward appearances, and go scot free." - -"Exactly, Cornelia," said Robert, triumphantly. "They pay a tribute to -appearances. They quietly disobey existing conventions. But they don't -defy them, much less try to alter them. They are frequently their -staunchest supporters." - -"Just like the men." - -"Just like the men. But you are wrong when you say they go scot free. -You are wrong again when you say that the tribute they pay is a mock -tribute. It is anything but that. It is an endless payment by -installments, a payment in degrading stealth and harassing secrecy." - -"What are you driving at?" - -"Janet is not the girl to pay a tribute of this kind," he said, with -emphasis. "If she champions the cause of free love, she won't do so -merely to experience the ups and downs of an underground existence. She -will do so, believing it to be a wise or progressive departure. And she -will defend her championship in the teeth of the whole world, regardless -of its effect on her future." - -Cornelia received this speech unmoved. - -"Well, why shouldn't she?" she said. "Others have endured much more for -their beliefs. To be candid, I really don't see how Janet's behavior -concerns you, any way." - -"You forget, Cornelia, that I, too, talked modernism in a blue streak to -her before she broke with her people. And so I feel that I share with -you the responsibility for her present course." - -"Oh, do you?" - -"Yes. There's a lot of moonshine in Kips Bay that passes for modernity. -I think the least we can do is to show Janet that modernity is not -simply a new watchword for moonshine. We ought to prevent her from -being taken in by the illusion which the Outlaws produce of easy, -satisfying intimacies between the sexes." - -A stream of silvery laughter escaped Cornelia. Then, in a studied tone -of superiority, she replied: - -"My dear boy, the love relation between two individuals is strictly -their own private affair. It is nobody else's business whatever. I -have no right to interfere in Janet's intimacies, and neither have you. -Anyhow, I believe she is quite competent to stand on her own feet." - -"I'm not so sure, Cornelia. Janet is utterly different from the -Lorillard Outlaw girl, or the Greenwich Village Bohemian girl. The -effect of Greenwich Villageism is to make irregularity (what regularity -so often is) a bore. The purpose of Lorillardism is to make irregularity -pay. But Janet is not likely to adopt a radical creed merely as a pose -or with an eye to its profit. She will adopt it in a spirit of sheer -blind self-sacrifice. And every advantage will be taken of her, -precisely because she's not a sex profiteer." - -"Cato, the beginning of wisdom is self-knowledge. Have you ever heard -of any gain in self-knowledge without some loss of happiness? No. It -is a law of life which neither you, nor I, nor Janet can escape." - -"But," he urged, "you must admit that Janet's case is a special one. -She has just left a home where purely private gratifications dictate -which conventions shall be _kept_; and she has entered this model -tenement life where, again, purely private gratifications dictate which -conventions shall be _broken_. She may not grasp this difference all at -once. Are we to let her inexperience cause her unnecessary suffering?" - -"I, too, have suffered for my convictions, Robert!" she said, with a -conclusive gesture of impatience. - -Robert felt like telling her that, at this moment, she reminded him -forcibly of the fox that had its tail cut off. But he didn't quite dare. - -Naturally, under the circumstances, the visit to the Grand Central -Palace was a complete failure. Cornelia, loathing the exhibition, -seized the first available excuse for asking to be taken home. - -The resentment she harbored was too strong to be hidden beneath the -ordinary civilities of polite intercourse. Her affection for Robert, -which had long been hanging by a slender thread, was now sharply snapped -through the complete revulsion of feeling she experienced towards him. - -From her point of view, the fault was entirely his. She had always -hated what she termed his moralistic nature. But never before had he -shown such a callous want of sympathy with her past misfortunes or such -a frank hostility to her present outlook on life. What she did not -acknowledge to herself was that his concern for Janet had given her -_amour propre_ a mortal wound for which she could never forgive him. - -On their return to the Lorillard tenements, she promptly called Harry -Kelly into Number Fifteen. The Harlem Gorilla (renicknamed Hercules as -a mark of favor) was highly flattered and only too willing to be a -listener and a comforter. - -"Robert is getting to be quite impossible!" she exclaimed, with a lurid -Belasco intonation. "I can't imagine what has come over him, or why he -continues to honor the Outlaws with his presence, seeing that he is now -an enemy of freedom and not a friend of it. Hercules, will you believe -it, he cannot hear the word Lorillard so much as mentioned without -showing the cloven hoof." - - - - - *CHAPTER THIRTEEN* - - *I* - - -While Robert and Cornelia were going to and from the Grand Central -Palace, Claude's car was carrying its occupants through pleasant -stretches of Long Island country to the Mineola aerodrome. The day, the -air, the landscape, and the man conspired to make the occasion an -intoxicating one for Janet. - -Claude's gayety and personal charm were fully matched by his perfect -ease. This was the quality that magnetized her, it was so new in her -experience of American men. The men she had known in Brooklyn, -struggling professional and business men, wore their manners as they did -their Sunday clothes, with a painful effect of unfamiliarity. Their -behavior was as different from Claude's as a sputtering torch is from an -arc light. - -In the company of women, these men were nearly always ill at ease. -Sometimes they acted obtrusively protective or aggressively possessive, -more frequently they were apprehensive, timid or even pitiably afraid. -Whatever they did, they did with constraint. And they never seemed able -to forget the towering fact that their manhood had an economic value. -They were as painfully conscious of this asset as an elderly maiden is -of her chastity--and they guarded it with the same zeal. - -Janet was inexpressibly thankful that Claude had never treated her as if -she belonged to an unknown or unclassified species, and that he was not -constantly filled with a nervous dread that she might at any moment -begin picking his soul, if not his pocket. - -They talked of everything under the sun; she of her childhood, her -school days, her aspirations; he of social or artistic doings in and -about New York, with the more notable and distinctive of which he had a -first-hand familiarity. But no matter how sober or philosophic the -topic chosen, it was sure, in some mysterious way, to be sidetracked -into the catechism of love. - -Janet had all she could do to keep matters from taking too amorous a -turn. It was delicious to be made love to as audaciously as only Claude -could. It was great fun to tremble on the quicksilvery margin between -how much he dared and how little she permitted. And it was her native -mother wit rather than her instinct that set a limit to his impetuous -wooing. - -As soon as they reached the aerodrome, Claude became a more -conventionally courteous cavalier again. And Janet got a glimpse of a -section of his life to which she had hardly given any thought. - - - - *II* - - -The Trans-Continental Air Race had been widely advertised, and the -gigantic aerodrome was jammed with excited crowds. Claude at once -plunged his companion into the thick of things. Anybody and everybody -appeared to know him, and he knew everybody who was anybody. In swift -succession Janet was introduced to the superintendent of the grounds, -the president of the Aero Club, the chief contestants of the day, -several foreign aviators of renown, the naval officer who commanded the -first "blimp" across the Atlantic, and to so many other notabilities -that her head began to whirl. - -Once or twice Claude left her to pay special homage to some lady, -frequently an elderly one and a personage of uncommon account. In these -intervals, while standing a little away from the throbbing, bewildering -spectacle around her, she attempted to give some perspective to her -impressions. - -It was gradually clear to her that the spectators resolved themselves -into two classes: first, the _hoi polloi_ whose teeming throngs pushed -along the common passageways and packed the benches in the stands to the -point of suffocation; and then a small, compact group of men and women -whose breeding, dress and carriage would have differentiated them from -the other spectators even if the weather-beaten air of superiority with -which they promenaded within the fenced-off and sacrosanct places, had -not sufficiently done so. - -Superficially, the attitude of these chosen ones towards the gallery was -the attitude of actors towards an audience: they affected to be -oblivious of its existence, and yet it was patent that they were -greedily conscious of the snobbish admiration and flattering envy which -the crowd radiated collectively and in its component parts. - -Janet watched these bankers and railroad directors and senators with -their wives and daughters urbanely encircling the placid airplanes, the -restive airmen and the little extra demonstrations for the elect. And -it seemed to her that they appropriated the special privileges -inseparable from the governors of a democracy with an affably paternal -air which was as much as to say: "What a very democratic ruling-class it -is that runs this very democratic nation." - -Of course she knew that they were not really thinking this. Seeing that -they were the ruling class, they ought to have weighty, superior -problems of finance, transportation or statesmanship at the back of -their minds. Had they? Or were they merely thinking that unless they -were on the _qui vive_ they might be caught in an awkward pose by one of -the brigade of camera men who were photographing celebrities for the -Sunday pictorial supplements and the cinema current topics. - -Janet perceived also that the faces of the ladies and gentlemen of the -plutocracy, though set in hard lines and wreathed in hard smiles, were, -on the whole, much less hard than the faces of the poorer middle-class -people among whom she lived and moved and had her being. Their -complexions were far better, too. And they were healthier and robuster -and decidedly cleaner and politer. - -Politer, but not better mannered. Temporarily, Janet might have been -deceived by the surface courtesy with which the men approached one -another and the ceaseless vehemence with which the women talked and -smiled, or rather, exhibited the whole of a fine set of front teeth from -the top of the upper row to the tip of the nether gum. But when she had -mingled with them at Claude's side, these same ladies that paraded their -toothful smiles so amiably for the photographer's benefit, had politely -but uncannily looked her through and through in the most literal sense -of the words. To put it bluntly, they had instantly sized her up as an -intruder from a sphere they had no personal contact with. True, they -murmured the necessary courteous phrases, but they did so to a creature -whose common humanity with themselves their glances insolently and -emphatically denied. - -Had Claude sensed this, and left her alone to spare her (and perhaps -himself) embarrassment? The question made her feel uneasy and -disconcerted. It also made her wish him back, in the hope that his -presence would restore her confidence. What was keeping him so long -this time? By way of finding an answer, her eyes searched him out among -the machines. - -She saw him, not very far away, in the midst of a group of three other -people: a couple in the prime of life, who were obviously the parents of -a young lady of about Janet's own age. The attention of the daughter -was fixed detainingly on Claude; that of the parents was fastened -proudly on their daughter. - -Thanks to a fine eyesight, Janet was enabled to get an excellent view of -the young lady's appearance. - -She was a tall, light brunette, and her frock, her sulky discontented -mouth and her affectation of stateliness were all highly fashionable. -So was her face, which had a tolerably clear skin and otherwise neither -a noticeable blemish nor a spark of fire. It was the kind of standard -feminine face just common enough in America to fit the popular -conception of beauty and just enough above the common to be in constant -request by illustrators as a model for the covers of monthly magazines. - -It struck Janet that she was making some demand upon Claude which was -taxing his charm and diplomacy to the utmost. Eventually, as he took -leave of the group, she abruptly turned away from him, the back of her -shoulders expressing the most intense vexation. - - - - *III* - - -Soon thereafter he was at Janet's side again, looking somewhat harassed. - -"Those were the Armstrongs and their daughter, Marjorie," he said, in -answer to her look of curiosity. - -"Who are the Armstrongs?" - -Claude was taken aback by this question. In his world, where everybody -knew everybody else, the bare name of Armstrong had a very definite and -compact meaning. - -"Dear little ignoramus! The Dupont Armstrongs, of course." - -This addition meant very little more to Janet, although it rekindled a -vague memory that she had seen the name somewhere in the newspapers. -Politely concealing his wonderment, Claude explained more at length. - -He said that Colonel Dupont Armstrong came of an old Southern family, -and was the active head of the great firm of Harmon, Armstrong & Co., -the international bankers whose financial power had built golden bridges -between continents. His wife had a passion for collecting exquisite -jewels; he had a mania for hoarding Chinese vases. But the operation of -his esthetic taste being unreliable, he had struck up an intimacy with -Claude's father soon after he discovered this gentleman to be a -thoroughly dependable guide. In time, he became a regular patron of the -Fontaine galleries and his purchases of diamonds, necklaces and -porcelains had contributed appreciably to Mr. Fontaine's fortune. - -Janet's curiosity in respect of worldly matters was much more quickly -satisfied than her curiosity in respect of people. - -"Is Mr. Armstrong's daughter as charming as she looks?" she asked Claude -at the end of his explanation. - -"Well, most men think so," said Claude, smiling. "Marjorie is -undoubtedly very beautiful and fully conscious of the fact. You may -have seen her portrait by Ben Ali Haggin in the last Academy exhibition? -It was a tone poem in russet brown, quite the stir of the season." - -"Oh, I'm sorry I missed it. I've never been to an Academy exhibition, -Claude." - -"How amazing! Not even to one?" - -"Not even to one. Imagine how hopelessly ignorant I am of art!" - -"Art! People don't go to the Academy in quest of art, you dear -innocent. It would be a waste of effort. They go as a compliment to -their friends whose portraits have been painted, not as a tribute to the -men who painted them." - -But Janet was not to be deflected from her purpose. - -"I played the spy whilst your back was turned," she said, "and watched -your pretty friend closely. She was evidently displeased with you. -What had you done?" - -"Absolutely nothing. That's just Marjorie's way when she can't have all -she wants--which seldom happens." - -"Then she wanted _you_?" - -"Yes, for some party or other. But I'm not going to leave you merely to -gratify a passing whim of hers. Anyhow, it isn't so much a case of -wanting me to be with her, as of wanting me not to be with anybody -else." - -"Rather dog-in-the-mangerish, isn't it?" - -"Oh, all the tyrants of the earth are like that, especially the -fascinating feminine tyrants," replied Claude, in an attempt to -recapture his good spirits. - -But it was plain that his mood had radically changed. For the remainder -of their stay he was preoccupied and his gayety was forced. - -The cloud that this cast over their outing was not fully lifted that -day. Outwardly Claude recovered his equipoise and, on the way home, -tried to make up for his earlier abstraction by a deepened tenderness -towards his companion. But something was manifestly weighing on his -mind. Janet herself was in a pensive mood. She had been quick to -discern that in Claude's manner towards Marjorie Armstrong and the other -young women of his own set there was an inexpressible something which -was absent from his manner towards her. - -This troubled and dissatisfied her. True, Claude no longer ventured to -treat her as flippantly as he treated Mazie Ross. But neither did he -treat her as finely as he treated Marjorie Armstrong. Why was this? -Did Claude still misinterpret her considered expression of disbelief in -marriage? She had a passionate longing to give love and to receive love -on a plane worlds above material considerations. Could no masculine mind -grasp the reality of this simple passion in a modern girl's heart? Was -it possible that her freedom from the vulgar commercial associations of -love was precisely what cheapened her to such as Claude? - -The thought was ironic, it was maddening, it burrowed into one's soul. -But it did not rob Janet of her self-approval. She set a high value on -her integrity, and she was secretly resolved that by no mere man should -this value lightly be set aside. - - - - - *CHAPTER FOURTEEN* - - *I* - - -The Fontaine galleries occupied a conspicuous building on Fifth Avenue -above the Forties. It was one of the show places in New York's -principal show street, and it received a daily stream of visitors as -much for the sumptuousness of its interior appointments as for the worth -of its stock and its exhibitions. - -Mr. Rene Fontaine had inherited the business from his father, who had -left France in his boyhood and had begun in a small way as a jeweler on -lower Sixth Avenue. The founder of the house had built up a fashionable -trade in pearls and precious stones and, having a strong private fancy -for certain kinds of ceramic ware, had been led into adding a department -of rare porcelains. - -After the death of the founder, the business was incorporated. Mr. Rene, -as president of the firm, continued his father's twofold policy with -such success that, when the uptown trend of high-class trade -necessitated a change of quarters, Fontaine and Company transferred -their establishment to one of the choicest corners of Fifth Avenue. Here -the ceramic and other works of art were displayed in galleries on the -second floor. And the patronage of these galleries was so profitable -that Claude had persuaded his father to open a gallery for paintings on -the third floor and let him conduct the new department. - -Mr. Fontaine was a fastidious man and a stickler for appearances, -particularly British appearances. The fashionable set in New York aped -English manners, and consequently, the door attendant at Fontaine's was -an English youth and the salesmen in the art departments were Englishmen -with consciously superior airs fortified by British university -educations, Oxford accents and modish London clothes. - -A humble art lover on a visit to the galleries might easily have been -frightened off by the sumptuous appointments, or overawed by seven or -eight swagger young gentlemen who would eloquently ignore him as he -crossed their several posts. They might have been so many heirs to -dukedoms engaged in a feeble game of passing themselves off as prosaic -American commoners. Yet they could pay a very flattering attention to -multimillionaires, especially of the feminine gender; and these, as -their astute employer knew, they attracted in considerable numbers. - -Moving in and out among his father's young men, Claude might readily -have passed for one of them. He was like them in the ingratiating, -physical appearance that comes from a systematic cultivation of the -body, and his accent, if not of an Oxford, was of a Harvard flavor. The -only real difference was that he was several degrees less arrogant--not -that humility was one of his specialties, by any means. - - - - *II* - - -About ten days after the Mineola outing he was seated at his desk, -opening the morning's mail. Two letters caught his eye. One, from -Marjorie Armstrong, supplemented Mr. Armstrong's invitation to the two -Fontaines to attend a week-end party in the Armstrong's Long Island -home. The other was a note from Cornelia, reading: - - -"Lothario, remember your appointment with us this evening. We shall sup -_al fresco_ in the Japanese pagoda on the Lorillard roof--Araminta, -Hercules and you will be the guests of honor. Only the chosen few are -invited: Lydia, Charlotte, Robert and the invisible Pryor. A special -attraction has been provided after supper--if indeed you need an -attraction other than the piteous spectacle of Araminta pining away for -you. - -Cornelia. - - -This operatic reminder was much more welcome to Claude than Marjorie's -frigid message. Cornelia's latest party--parties trod on one another's -heels in the model tenements--was in celebration of Janet's admission to -the society of the Outlaws. Everybody counted on Claude to be the -bright particular meteor of the occasion. Yet how was he to follow his -natural inclination without offending his father, to say nothing of -Colonel Armstrong and Marjorie? - -He turned over a volume of Muther's _History of Painting_ and, while -staring vacantly into its pages, raked his mind for a diplomatic escape -from attendance at the Armstrongs' party. He was still far from -successful, when his father approached to transact a little business. -This settled, Claude referred to a Van Gogh he had lately bought for -$5,000. Mr. Fontaine's face puckered quizzically. - -"You are worse than the prodigal son," he said. "That young man -squandered his patrimony on real extravagances, while you fritter yours -away on unreal mockeries." - -"Did you look at it, father?" - -"Bless my soul, no. Its mere presence in the house is enough to upset -me. As soon as I learned of its arrival, I looked at a copy of -Ruisdael's "Mill" for ten minutes to steady my nerves. Whenever I hear -of one of your modern pictures, I steal comfort from an ancient one." - -"But you can't judge a picture without seeing it," remonstrated Claude. - -"My boy, you once induced me to spend ten minutes at a Matisse -exhibition in Stieglitz's Little Secession Gallery. What I saw there was -one horrible libel on humanity after another. That will last me a -lifetime, thank you." - -Claude laughed. He and his father got along admirably by rarely -pursuing an argument beyond its illogical conclusion. - -"What have you done with my particular 'libel'?" - -"I had it sent upstairs, to join your other atrocities in the Chamber of -Indecencies." - -This was a nickname Mr. Rene Fontaine applied to a little room on the -top floor where Claude had hung various "finds" in the later -Impressionist, Cubist and Futurist styles. - -"Tomb, not chamber," said Claude. "Everything there is practically -buried." - -"Not at all. Your friends are forever trotting upstairs. I even send -people there myself. Only yesterday I invited J. Tuyler Harmon to go -up. He said he enjoyed himself hugely." - -"What brought the old rogue in here again?" - -"His mistress. She's one of the chief patronesses of the Religion and -Forward movement. She had to attend a committee meeting downtown. He -escorted her from her apartments in the Plaza and waited here for her -until the committee adjourned. Out of that waiting I made several -handsome sales--but not of your pictures." - -"Thus religion and art," said Claude, "are reconciled by the Mammon of -Unrighteousness." - - - - *III* - - -This reflection was lost on Mr. Fontaine, whose thoughts had switched to -another line. He reminded Claude of the party they were to attend on -the Armstrong estate in Huntington, Long Island. - -"Can't you lunch with me at one, Claude?" he asked in an excellent -humor. "Then we'll take the train together." - -"I'm sorry, father, but I have another engagement this afternoon." - -He elaborated the urgency of the matter with an anxiety that Mr. -Fontaine was quick to detect. - -"An invitation from Armstrong Hall, Claude, is like an invitation from -Windsor Castle," he said, smiling. "It cancels all previous matters -except matters of life and death." - -"I never felt less like breaking my word," countered the younger man -obstinately. - -Mr. Fontaine did not press the point. His easy life and lucrative -business had enabled him to cultivate certain expensive reticences. It -pained him to drive anyone into a corner. As regards the three stages -of paternal activity--the interrogative, the declarative and the -imperative--he held that a competent father need rarely go beyond the -first two. Besides, he had found by experience that, if he took a -determined stand, his son frequently yielded to the mere pressure of -silent expectation. - -Mr. Fontaine, who had been a widower for ten years, habitually gave -great latitude to Claude, his only son, of whom he was genuinely fond. -He frankly made "keeping up appearances" the basis of all conduct. -Apart from that, he had a naive Rousselian theory of education, to the -effect that, if you let a young man indulge all his whims and passions -to the top of his bent, he will settle down at thirty or thereabouts to -a sane and steady career. - -As refined tastes and good physical habits came natural to Claude, the -operation of this theory had done him no bodily harm; but it had trained -him to an exaggerated concern for his own desires and an enormous -ignorance of other people's. Opposition to his stronger wishes was so -rare that, when it occurred, he was tempted to regard it as wicked, and -hence to crush it with a close approach to a feeling of -self-righteousness. To put it shortly, he had the makings of a -first-class tyrant, and he would have become a vicious one if his will -had been as pronounced as his desires. - -"You haven't had a tiff with Marjorie?" asked the father, with a casual -air. - -"No," said Claude. "We haven't quarrelled in three months." - -"But you haven't seen her more than once or twice in that time." - -"That's why, father!" - -"Well, I'm glad you're not on bad terms with her, anyhow," repeated Mr. -Fontaine, a deep interest beneath his affected unconcern. - -"Oh, no. On as good terms as she'll allow. I don't know whether you've -observed it, father, but it isn't easy to break through Marjorie's -reserve." - -"You don't mean she's a cold nature!" - -"Only when Lord Dunbar is around." - -The trace of petulance in this reply was the scar of an old wound. -Claude, always first among his rivals on the battlefield of love, had -once been obliged to yield the supremacy. This had happened about a -year before, when the young Earl of Dunbar came to Newport in Marjorie's -train. With two fine strings to her bow, Marjorie actually made Claude -her second string. This sensation had been the talk of the smart set -from Bar Harbor to Palm Beach. And Claude had never quite forgiven the -very serious blow to his pride. - -Mr. Rene Fontaine had no fault to find with Marjorie's supercilious airs -and snobbish predelictions. He liked and admired her unreservedly and -thought it quite natural that, in choosing a husband, she should prefer -a titled Englishman to a Yankee commoner. Why not? That London was the -real capital of American fashionable society was, after all, a fact no -socially ambitious American girl could be expected to ignore. - -"I don't think she ever cared for Dunbar," ventured Mr. Fontaine. "At -all events, he's gone." - -"Gone!" - -"He sailed for England yesterday. I've just heard it from Mr. -Armstrong." - -"Good Lord!" exclaimed Claude, walking up and down in marked agitation. - -"My dear boy!" cried Mr. Fontaine, uncertain as to the cause of his -son's emotions, "she didn't take him after all." - -"No. Probably she couldn't. I dare say she means to take me, now." - -"Why, Claude, everybody supposed you two were as good as engaged long -before this Englishman came over." - -"So we were--before he came." - -"Well?" - -"Well--he came." - -"Really, Claude--" - -"I mean, she preferred him to me. I don't blame her. He had more to -offer." - -"What had that to do with it?" - -"Everything. He's a British nobleman. I'm only an ordinary American. -He's got the entree of the best London circles. I've only the entree of -the best New York." - -"That's a very unkind thing to say of Marjorie. I've known her since -she was a baby. She has her faults. But heartless calculation is not -one of them." - -Mr. Fontaine's indignation did not sound convincing. Like Claude, he -knew that Marjorie would not hesitate to sacrifice her feelings to her -social ambitions. - -"I don't say it's a fault," protested Claude. "She had the right to -change her mind. For women, the business side of marriage is the most -important side, since marriage establishes them in life positions. I -find it perfectly natural, therefore, that they should knock themselves -down to the highest bidder." - -This was a sentiment he had adopted, with his own modifications, from -Robert Lloyd. - -"Don't be cynical, my boy," said Mr. Fontaine. "Business is business, -but family life is quite another thing." - -"I agree with you, father," said Claude, pacifically. "As I said -before, I don't blame Marjorie. And I'm not too proud to be her second -choice." - -"That's the way to talk. Second choice, like second thought, is often -the sounder." - -"Only, it happens that when _she_ changed her sentiments, _I_ changed -mine, too." - -"You mean there's some other girl?" - -"In a way--yes," replied Claude, awkwardly. - -Then, on the impulse of the moment, he plunged into an account of Janet -Barr. - - - - *IV* - - -Mr. Fontaine was distinctly uneasy. But he concealed his emotion as -well as he could. - -"You haven't any wild plan of marrying this young woman?" he said, -adopting the air of a judicious outsider. - -"I like her better than any girl I ever met." - -"My boy, is that a good reason for marrying her? Take the word of an -elderly man: It isn't worth while to marry _solely_ for love, because -you are bound to fall in love with somebody else as soon as the -honeymoon is over." - -"If not for love, what is one to marry for?" - -"Why, for compatability, position, money--these are the considerations -that wise men weigh." - -Both were silent for a while, Claude thinking sardonically of his -father's charge that his view of family life was too materialistic. -Then Mr. Fontaine resumed his objections. - -"How do you intend to support the young lady?" - -"Surely my interest in the firm is enough." - -"You never made a bigger mistake, Claude. Perhaps the fault is mine, -though. For I have never driven home to you the relative value of an -income of twelve thousand a year. That is what you've been spending." - -"Good Heavens, father! You exaggerate, surely." - -"Not in the least. I am in the habit of keeping very careful accounts, -a habit it would do you no harm to acquire. Let me remind you that your -new car cost five thousand dollars. That puts your weekly outgo roughly -at a hundred and fifty, of which your chauffeur alone gets fifty." - -"I'll cut down my extravagances! Besides, two can live more -economically than one." - -"Can they? Well, just try it, my boy! I fear you've picked up that -idea in some novel. But don't forget that all novels are written by -middle-class people and reflect middle-class notions of economy. -Possibly a middle-class couple can save if they double up in one sordid -flat, sleep in one bed, limit their amusements to the few which please -both, compromise on the one or two friends whom neither dislikes too -much, and generally lead the spiritual life of the Siamese twins. But -this can't be done in our class! With us, the diverse activities and -needs of husband and wife make expenses for two run four times as high -as expenses for one." - -Mr. Fontaine returned significantly to the assertion that he was in no -position to play the benevolent father. He would not deny that the firm -was doing business on a magnificent scale. But magnificence was costly, -on the debit side as well as on the credit side. There were ferocities -of competition that were slicing off the safe margins of profits, -besides pressing the management into transactions involving a peculiar -risk. - -"Risk!" exclaimed Claude, greatly surprised. - -Ha begged his father to remember the huge dividends recently declared on -Fontaine & Company's stock. - -"I didn't say financial risk. There's a tremendous legal risk." - -Mr. Fontaine felt that the time had come for Claude to learn more of the -technique of a big business in jewelry and the fine arts. He pointed -out that the war had caused a substantial reduction in the demand for -luxuries accompanied by a substantial increase in the tax upon them. -And he asked his son if he had never wondered why, in the face of this -handicap, the firm's post-war profits had exceeded the records of -pre-war years. - -"Yes, it did puzzle me," admitted Claude. "But there's so much wizardry -in your management of the business--" - -"No wizardry at all. One or two of the biggest firms land their prizes -without the Customs House being a penny the wiser." - -Claude made a wild movement to rise, but fell back in his chair again. - -"Then that blackguard was right," he cried, his face ashen. - -"What on earth do you mean? What blackguard?" - -"Hutchins Burley! He called me a diamond smuggler right out before -everybody at the Outlaws' Ball." - -In the greatest agitation Mr. Fontaine pressed Claude for particulars. -When the whole story had been told, he breathed a sigh of relief. - -"Nothing to worry over, thank goodness!" he said, reassuring his son. -"Nobody will pay the slightest attention to what a tipsy man blurts out -against the Fontaines." - -"No?" Claude's tone was decidedly skeptical. - -"No, they won't dare to." - -"Anyhow, we're actually _in_ this smuggling game--" Claude went on -gloomily. - -"Our competitors call it slight-of-hand organized." - -The ghost of a smile flitted over Claude's face. - -"And what do they call being at the mercy of a drunken cur's venom?" - -"Don't rub it in, Claude. I blame myself severely for your -embarrassment. I ought to have forewarned you earlier. But it won't -happen again. Depend upon it, I shall lock that fellow's tongue, good -and tight." - -"Is it really necessary for us Fontaines to have truck with such -degraded scoundrels?" - -"Well, my boy, it isn't exactly easy to get certificated gentlemen for -the work," said Mr. Fontaine, stung into irony. "But don't let's go -into that now, Claude. You must have confidence in me. One of these -days I shall give you the history of the whole matter from A to Z." - -"But look here, father. Suppose we were caught!" - -Mr. Fontaine sat down in an armchair opposite his son and lighted a -cigar with leisurely grace. - -"It's a possibility," he said, "a slim possibility. But we have -excellent friends." - -"Government officials?" - -"H'm--yes. More especially--there's Colonel Armstrong." - -"Mr. Armstrong! You don't mean to say he dickers with backstairs -political grafters?" - -"'Dickers' is hardly the word. Colonel Armstrong stands above, about -and underneath the political machines--both of them." - -"Mr. Armstrong in the boodle game! I can scarcely believe it." - -"Boodle game! Don't talk like a grocer or a reporter, Claude. Mr. -Armstrong is a lover of fine art who, like all sensible people, thinks -it monstrous to tax foreign works of art destined to do an educational -service here. By virtue of his influence at Washington, he has been -able to use his good offices to our advantage. The result is that the -Customs House officials are wise enough not to go behind our list of -import declarations." - -"Does he get much out of it?" inquired Claude. - -"What a brutal question, Claude! Armstrong is so rich that he has -nothing to live for except the luxury of being disinterested." - -Mr. Fontaine added that there had never been any outright verbal -understanding between himself and his protector. Mr. Armstrong might be -said to have slid into the protectorate insidiously. He was chiefly -interested in the exquisite vases and textiles handled by Fontaine, and -he was probably ignorant of the fact that it was not these articles but -the precious stones that comprised the larger and more profitable -fraction of the smuggled goods. - -"For the rest," said Mr. Fontaine, "he is, as you know, a steady -purchaser here. He buys whatever suits his fancy at cost price. We -needn't begrudge him the bargain." - -"I wish our relations with the Armstrongs were not complicated in this -way," said Claude, with an ominous feeling that he, too, might be -knocked down at a bargain if the influential banker should fancy him as -a bridegroom for Marjorie. - -Claude had always taken special pride in the irreproachable origin of -the Fontaine riches. He had looked up to his father as a convincing -example of the possibility of making trade both clean and aristocratic. -Mr. Fontaine's disclosures now robbed his son of this illusion, besides -confronting him with the sordid hazards of reality. - -One of these sordid hazards was barely a week old. A new customs -inspector, in a fit of unsophisticated fervor, had stumbled upon an act -of smuggling in which the complicity of the Fontaines appeared in the -course of investigation. Only the lucky fact of Mr. Armstrong's nephew -being the Collector of the Port of New York had saved Fontaine & Company -from scandal, public exposure and humiliation. - -"By Heaven!" said Claude. "We're indebted to Mr. Armstrong for being -out of prison!" - -"Quite so," replied the father. "An American business man who desires -to keep out of prison must take one of two hygienic precautions. One is -to form a friendship with a leading financier or a political boss; the -other is to avoid being caught. I have done both." - -Mr. Fontaine looked significantly at his son. - -"Those plans of yours," he said, "about the William Morris art center -and all that--there can't be anything in that line if you marry a poor -girl, you know." - -Claude was silent for a while. His father, watching him keenly and -sympathetically, supposed him to be in the throes of a fierce emotional -contest between his sense of duty and his love for Janet. Claude was -under the same delusion. In reality, the willful force that swayed him -was not so much inclining him to marry Janet as pushing him not to marry -Marjorie. For the moment, the easiest course to pursue was to yield on -the minor issue and gain time on the major one. He would give up the -evening with Janet and go to Huntington, but he would refrain from -committing himself definitely as regards Marjorie and marriage. - -"I'll be in Huntington for dinner, father," he said briefly. - -Mr. Fontaine, greatly relieved, patted his son's back affectionately and -walked away with a satisfied smile. - - - - *V* - - -That evening, just before the theatres opened, a tall, thin man in a -taupe-colored flannel suit and a soft beaver hat came out of the -Commodore Hotel walked westward along Forty-second Street, and took an -uptown bus at Fifth Avenue. - -Mark Pryor, in a very unprofessional mood, had the air of one who is -determined to be seen rather than to see. Considering the constant use -he made of his knack of fading out of his surroundings to the point of -almost total invisibility, this was not as easy for him as it sounds. -Easy or not, it was his mood. Mr. Pryor, whose gift for self-effacement -amounted to a miracle, needed a change. And he sought it by trying to -make himself manifest, as other people seek it by trying to hide. - -He had not deserted Kips Bay. But the growing inquisitiveness of his -neighbors, and particularly of the acquaintances he had struck up in -flat Number Fifteen, had driven him to the expedient of running two -domiciles and of dividing his time between them. The choice of a room -in a first-class hotel had been dictated not by a craving for luxury but -by a sense of domestic propriety. "There are two things I can't live -without," he had once told Robert Lloyd. "One is an unfailing supply of -hot water, the other is perfect freedom to come and go as I choose. A -man can always get these treasures among the model poor or the unmodel -rich, but never in a middle-class home." - -Robert had heartily endorsed this sentiment without any suspicion that -Mr. Pryor--whom some of the Outlaws suspected of being a fugitive -counterfeiter and others of being a shrinking novelist in search of -local color--perambulated from an army cot in his Lorillard flat to a -Circassian walnut bedstead in the Commodore Hotel. On the evening in -question, Mr. Pryor decided to explore a section of Manhattan which he -had hitherto neglected. Accordingly he boarded a cross-town bus going -east and alighted at the corner of Second Avenue and Seventy-second -Street. - -Between this point and East End Avenue, he took a zig-zag course along -several side streets and main roads. Thus he sauntered past the -Vanderbilt tenements--the aristocrats of their kind--and through the -German and Czechoslovak colonies, which were remote enough from Times -Square to have retained some of their European flavor. - -Presently he found himself in a very prettily lighted shopping section -of First Avenue, a section which reminded him faintly of the chief -street in some of the Teuto-Bohemian towns he had once traveled through. -Reaching the Eighties, he strolled westward again, not without a sigh of -regret as he noticed that the few quaint German or Slovak spots left on -the East Side were fast being submerged in the uniform drabness which -inevitably descends on all the quarters of an American city. - -The cross street into which he turned was dimly lighted and quite -deserted except for one other pedestrian on the opposite footway. This -was a man whose hippopotamine dimensions instantly chained Mr. Pryor's -scrutiny. - -Surely there were not two people in New York with the aggressive waddle, -the labored locomotion of Hutchins Burley? Pryor was in a holiday frame -of mind; but here, as usual, was opportunity knocking at his door when -he was in a mood to be "not at home." - -"What must be, must be," he murmured, resigning himself to his fate. - -He kept his eyes glued on Burley, and followed him slowly until he had -watched him enter a cigar and stationery shop at the corner. Walking -hurriedly past the shop window twice, he observed Burley, in a rather -secretive manner, handing the proprietor a small bundle of letters. - -Then Pryor acted with lightning speed. - -In less time than it takes to tell, he had darted down the dark basement -steps of the closed shop next to the tobacconist's and, after a brief -disappearance, had emerged again. - -The man who came trudging up the steps, however, was not the agile, -immaculate gentleman who had descended a few seconds before. At least, -to outward view, it was a middle-aged man with stooping shoulders, a -painful limp, clothes that looked trampish and untidy, and a round hat -rammed Klondike fashion far down over his forehead. - -This ugly looking customer lurched past the tobacconist's shop a moment -later, just brushing the sleeve of Hutchins Burley on his way out. -Wholly absorbed in himself, Burley paid no attention to the incident or -the cause of it. He plodded on up the street; but the man who had so -nearly collided with him went into the shop, made a quick -purchase--during which he took a good look at the shopkeeper--and then -came back to the street again with a haste that was scarcely in keeping -with his limp. By this time Burley had almost turned the corner of -Third Avenue, and Mark Pryor was obliged to throw his limp to the winds -and strike into a lively clip in order to keep his quarry within view. - -Eventually, he contrived to be a passenger on the bus that carried -Hutchins Burley downtown, and got off with him at Seventeenth Street. -There he watched his man waddle heavily towards Irving Place and enter a -dingy old house in the middle of the block. - -Mark Pryor followed slowly. As soon as the coast was clear, he crept -cautiously up the front stoop to look at the name plate on one side of -the doorway. With the aid of a pocket flashlight, he read the words: -"Japanese Consulate General." - -"What in thunder has the Mikado got to do with Hutchins Burley's -smuggling adventures?" he asked himself, greatly perplexed. - -An hour or so later, he repeated this query to a brisk, florid-faced -gentleman in the prime of life who was seated in what purported to be an -actor's agency in the heart of Times Square. The florid gentleman, who -looked much less like a theatrical agent than like a military man in -mufti, offered no solution to the enigma. - -"Major Blair, I think I'm on the trail of something big at last," -volunteered Mr. Pryor, hopefully. - -"Possibly, sir, possibly," replied the gentleman, briskly. - -But he paid only a languid attention to his visitor's spirited account -of how he had gradually wormed himself into the confidence of Hutchins -Burley. When Pryor finished, he said: - -"Somebody else will have to take up the trail of Burley. Orders came -from headquarters this evening that you are to sail for France the day -after tomorrow. You will report in Paris to Colonel Scott at the -address in this letter." - -"Foiled again," exclaimed Pryor, veiling his real feelings with assumed -good humor. "Whenever I'm on the point of nailing a case down, -headquarters steps in and calls a halt, as if I were the villain in the -piece." - -He added sardonically: "What is the use of information fairly breezing -into my hands, so long as headquarters' notion of Secret Service is that -the only conduct becoming an officer or a gentleman is to keep a secret -dark." - -"Mr. Pryor, orders are orders! The first duty of an officer of the -Secret Service is never to ask questions." - -"Quite so, sir," returned Pryor coolly. "And yet the first duty of a -crack Secret Service officer is to ask questions all the time." - -Major Blair stared at this independent, gifted member of his staff. -Nothing daunted, Mark Pryor took his sealed orders, saluted and left. - - - - - *PART III* - - *JANET ON HER OWN* - - - *CHAPTER FIFTEEN* - - *I* - - -Earlier in the same day, a special messenger from Claude had brought two -notes of regret to the Lorillard tenements, one for Cornelia and one for -Janet. A little before evening, these notes were followed by quantities -of flowers and fruit, which were for Janet alone. But Cornelia went -into ecstasies over the presents and caused the rooms of Number Fifteen -to ring with her _arpeggio_ laughter. - -The note to Janet read: - - -Darling Janet: - -Business interests and a promise made long ago make it imperative for me -to go to Long Island today. The worst of it is, I shall be away for -three days, and how unhappy this makes me, you can't conceive. Six days -without you will have loitered by when next we meet! Six endless days -away from the miracle of your soft voice and the wonder of your heavenly -smile. - -I came back from Washington late last night, not knowing that I should -be prevented from seeing you today. Even so, I had my car driven, far -from its regular course, past the Lorillard houses. How I prayed that a -light from your little corner room would invitingly tell me that you -were still awake! But all was dark, and I had to be content to let my -fancy play around a certain maze of curly bronze hair, two eyes as -limpid gray as an Adirondack lake before dawn, and a pair of ruddy lips -that smile divinely or talk with so much sense and charm. - -You are not like any other girl I have ever known, dearest Janet! I -think of you as a rare and delicate flower whose perfume holds my senses -as your spirit engrosses my soul. - -I want you to have a happy evening, dear girl, despite my absence. -Only, every now and then, you are to give a passing thought to -me--disconsolate, forlorn impatient to be with you again. - - -Ever your - Claude. - - -Of course, in Claude's absence the party was declared off, all but the -supper in the pagoda. - -Cornelia read the letter over twice. The second time, she uttered some -of the more lyrical passages aloud, rendering them with a faintly -exaggerated stress or mock-heroic inflection as the case might be. - -"Exquisite!" she carolled, handing the note back to Janet. "A perfect -love letter! By what an expert hand!" - -Lydia Dyson came in just then and had to be told all about the -disappointment. The author of "Brothers and Sisters," in an abbreviated -accordion pleated frock, a necklace of jade beads, and very French -shoes, looked as professionally Cleopatrish as ever. - -"Janet," she said, knowingly, "Claude has gone to Huntington, to that -Armstrong girl, Marjorie--the one that was hotfoot after the Earl of -Dunbar. She didn't get the Earl, you know. Now they all say she'll -marry Claude. I bet she will, too." - -"He doesn't love her," protested Janet. - -"As if that made any difference! Every man needs a woman to represent -him in social life and to advertise the dignity and solidity of his own -rooftree. Any woman who can do these things satisfactorily qualifies as -a suitable wife. Men, you see, are more conventional than women. Or -perhaps I should say, more businesslike." - -"Businesslike!" Cornelia interposed. "Say disgusting, and you'll be -much nearer the truth. Didn't I tell you, Janet," she continued, "that -men think of women in only one way--and that a beastly one?" - -"On the contrary, they think of women in two ways," contended Lydia in -her drawling Southern tongue. "To a man, all womankind is divided into -two groups: the woman who stands for his home, and all the others--the -women who stand for his pleasure. The one woman is a necessity; all the -others a luxury. Every man gets the first at any cost, and then bids -for one or more of the second, if he has the price." - -"Don't be bizarre and crude, Lydia," said Cornelia, not relishing this -analysis in Janet's presence. - -"Crude?" said Lydia, repelling the charge as melodramatically as it was -made. "It is not I who am crude. It is man. It is man who divides our -whole sex crassly into these two groups. It is man who sees in every -woman either a housekeeper or a wanton. It is man who fixes a trade -price for affairs of the heart and rates marriages by their market -value. Call _this_ crude, if you like! Or call it an incurable -blindness to the differing blend of vital forces that makes each woman -unique. In this respect, how unlike men are to us, who see in every man -a new, mystic union of protector, lover and father of our children!" - -"The new trinity!" chanted Cornelia, with a significant laugh. "But I'm -sure, dear Lydia, that not every woman has _your_ gift for discovering -this mystic trinity in so many unique specimens of the other sex." - -"Dear Cornelia, you flatter me. My only advantage over other women lies -in the prudence which caused me to get a husband before I set out to -make the discoveries you allude to." - -"Don't let us talk about marriage as it exists today," said Cornelia, -parrying the blow as best she could. "Marriage is so banal." - -"Yes, and so convenient," drawled Lydia, who reluctantly supported her -husband in idleness and luxury. "Also, so expensive. Husbands now come -dearer than ever before in the history of family life, while lovers -never were cheaper." - -"Lydia is joking," said Janet, sending her clear, mollifying voice into -the breach. - -"No, I'm not joking," said Lydia, with the utmost gravity. She lit a -cigarette, adding as she did so: - -"I'm making hay while the sun shines." - -"Does your husband agree with you on this point?" asked Janet, -curiously. - -"My dear, he's used to me. He takes my word for everything. Also my -money. But I'm frank to say that I don't hold with Cornelia's notions -about free love. They're too fantastic and impractical. I hold with the -French system: Marry first and experiment afterwards. It's not logical, -Janet, but it works well. If you experiment first, you are sure to be -done out of marriage, and you may even be done out of love." - -"Really, Lydia," said Cornelia, now thoroughly incensed. "You must know -that Janet believes, as I do, that love is a surrender, not a sale. She -isn't offering her affections to the highest bidder." - -Janet, intervening, remarked that this was true; but, as she found -Lydia's views very interesting, she begged Cornelia to let their visitor -have her say. - -"Oh, very well," said Cornelia, biting her lip. - -"That's right, Janet," said Lydia Dyson, grateful for her support. "I'm -sorry to disagree with Cornelia. But in this matter, she's all at sea. -Believe it or not, in modern life, love is a commodity for sale, like -any other commodity. What else can you expect? Do you know of any other -gift in the possession of man, woman or child which is not sold to the -highest bidder? Doesn't a playwright subdue his creative faculty to the -requirements of the manager who offers the most royalties? Doesn't the -novelist or the musician or the engineer do the same in his line? How -indeed can they help it in a country where everything is bought and -sold, where the greed and gluttony of men put everything under the -hammer, from a glass of water to a draught of genius? Why marvel that -women have to sell their bodies, when poets and artists have to sell -their souls?" - -"Take it from me, Lydia," Cornelia burst in, caustically, "when you -apply the oratorical powers of Robert Lloyd to the moral principles of -Mazie Ross, the product is hard to beat!" - -"Cornelia, you wouldn't say spiteful things like that if you only knew -the truth about sex relations. I forgive you because you don't." - -"If _I_ only knew!" said Cornelia. She gave a florid operatic laugh. -"Do you really suppose I _don't_ know?" - -"No woman does who hasn't been married to a man. Not until she has been -chained in wedlock for some time does she see the cloven hoof or feel -the mark of the beast, or get her fanciful pictures about love put in a -proper perspective. That's one thing marriage does for a woman." - -"By your own admission, then," remarked Janet, "Cornelia is right in -thinking that the game isn't worth the candle, isn't she?" - -"Dearie," said Lydia, with unction, "ask the most wretched wife on -earth, and she'll answer: 'Tis better to have wed and lost, than never -to have wed at all.'" - - - - *II* - - -Cornelia, observing that Janet took Claude's absence with surprising -composure, wondered whether it was a case of still waters running deep. -It was partly that, but there was another reason. The apparent ease -with which Claude had yielded the preference to Marjorie's claim upon -his time carried with it an unflattering implication as regards the -value he set upon Janet's friendship. To be sure, there was the -rapturous love letter. But fine words buttered no parsnips; they -pleased the ear but they neither explained Claude's course nor justified -it. - -Thus Janet was as much nettled as disappointed by her lover's absence. -Yet it was not her way to stew in misery. And her control of her -feelings was made easier by the pressure of some secretarial work for -which she had just been engaged by Howard Madison Grey, the playwright. - -Immediately after supper, therefore, Janet left her friends in the -Japanese pagoda on the roof, having arranged to spend the evening in -Harry Kelly's office in flat Number Thirteen, where she proposed to -practice on the athlete's typewriter. - -Her object was to "increase her speed" so that her most recent position -might be made securer. - -Through the Collegiate Bureau, to which Cornelia had introduced her, she -had already been given two opportunities in business offices downtown. -She had lost them both within a week, her refinement and charm of manner -having been voted poor substitutes for the experience that she still -lacked. - -The fault was not wholly Janet's. Before she left home, she had taken a -course in shorthand and typewriting (in the teeth of her mother's -opposition) at an Evening High School. It was one of those carefully -pasteurized courses for which the American educational system is famous; -it was showy, time consuming, and totally useless. But how could Janet -have known that high-school stenography was as pitiably inadequate to -the practical needs of a modern mercantile office as high-school French -or German to the practical needs of a tourist on the Continent? - -Not wanting to get into the bad books of the Collegiate Bureau, Janet -was anxious to avert a third discharge. Moreover, her post with the -playwright had the intrinsic merit of being more congenial, as well as -more lucrative than any she had filled before. - -Janet was thankful that Cornelia would be occupied with the party, for -her efforts to make herself more competent invariably excited her friend -to derision. Cornelia, like a true-blue Kipsite, was no devotee of good -workmanship. Endowed with the makings of success in any one of half a -dozen professions, she had achieved failure in all of them, her -inveterate lack of industry and application having botched a promising -career in turn as an author, singer, painter, dancer, decorator and -dress designer. - -A born worker, Janet stood in no danger of imitating Cornelia's business -vagaries. She could not have afforded it, anyway. Unlike Cornelia, she -had no private income, her only resources being a small bank deposit (a -relative's bequest), which was dwindling with alarming rapidity. Thus, -inclination and necessity were as one in spurring her on to making a -success of her new post as typist and amanuensis for Howard Madison -Grey. - - - - *III* - - -The keys of the typewriter were going at a merry gallop when Robert -Lloyd, who had a desk in Kelly's office, came in. - -"What do you mean by breaking the commandments of the Lorillard -Tenements?" he said, putting a sheaf of papers on his desk and getting -ready to attack them. - -"Which commandments, Robert?" - -"All ten. The first five prohibit any useful work in the daytime on -penalty of loss of caste. The second five prohibit the same at night on -penalty of excommunication, if not expulsion." - -She laughed and asked him why he hadn't joined Cornelia's supper party -in the Japanese pagoda. He explained that he had been detained at a -meeting of the Guildsmen's League, of which he was now the organizing -secretary. He added that he had brought home a quantity of raw material -to be hammered into a tract on Waste in Industry, a job which would take -him all night. - -They each buckled to the task in hand. Janet liked to work in the same -room with Robert, who knew when to be silent as well as when to talk. -He treated her like a fellow worker of his own sex, paying her none of -that exaggerated show of consideration which most men give to women -outside their own family circle. Thus his presence stimulated her and -in no wise interfered with the concentration demanded by her typewriting -practice. When she reached a good stopping point, she offered to help -him. He accepted the offer eagerly and dictated several letters to her. - -"A good job," he said, after she had handed him the typed sheets to be -signed, "and a quick one, too. You're improving by leaps and bounds. -Indeed, you might develop into a 'speed demon,' but for your un-American -weakness for accuracy." - -"I've got to be accurate. I do all sorts of work every morning, for Mr. -Grey, the playwright." - -"Grey? The author of 'The Love that Lies' isn't he? The play that ran -for two seasons. Is he very exacting?" - -"No, but his wife is. She keeps an eagle eye on all the typing that's -done for him." - -"Why?" - -"Why? Well, she serves him as a sort of combination mother, nurse, -watchdog, and general superintendent. Just as most wives do." - -"And just as most wives will continue to do, until they choose an -independent living in preference." - -"Do you think that women are solely responsible for the social -arrangement by which two distinct things like motherhood and -housekeeping are tied indissolubly together?" - -"No. And I don't believe that men are solely responsible, either." - -"Aren't they?" - -"No. Remember, marriage was not always what it is today. In the middle -ages, the home was also the place of business, and the wife was her -husband's business associate as well as his mate. Later, when business -went out of the door, slavery came in through the window. This was not -exclusively man's doing. Men and women muddled things up together. -Honors are very nearly even on that score." - -"Be fair, Robert! Hitherto, men have had all the power." - -"Yes, and women have had all the glory. They were every bit as well -satisfied to belong to the fair, privileged, and law-evading sex, as men -were satisfied to belong to the coarse, responsible, and law-making sex. -As soon as the majority of women follow the lead of Lady Cicely in -'Captain Brassbound's Conversion,' that is, as fast as they 'scorn -death, spurn fate, and set their hopes above happiness and love,' they -will be able to cope with man's supremacy as successfully outside the -home as they have already done within it. What is more, they will work -their will in public much more openly and honorably than they have so -far worked it in private." - -"Men are always declaring that women could easily get full independence -if only they would go about it in the right way. Clearly, men know the -right way and women don't. Cornelia says that if they are so very much -cleverer than we are, it is a pity they don't set their wits to work so -as to help instead of hindering us in the struggle for equality." - -"Never mind what Cornelia says," exclaimed Robert, energetically. "She -is crazy on the subject of men; that is why she keeps forever harping on -it. One way of doing this is to accuse men of everything evil under the -sun, from the creation of God to the invention of the cardboard -kitchenette flat. Please don't join her in the vulgar senseless game of -pitting one sex against the other." - -"You do Cornelia an injustice. She doesn't maintain that all women are -angels and all men devils. Nor do I. But suppose some men are angels. -I shouldn't care to be a housekeeper for the archangel Gabriel." - -Robert hoped that any lady who consented to share Gabriel's bed and -board would find the archangel up-to-date and gentlemanly enough to -excuse her from washing dishes and scrubbing floors. Why should an -archangelic or any other sort of gentleman shortsightedly insist that a -talented bride on her way to becoming an excellent banker, merchant, or -politician, should transform herself into a mediocre woman-of-all-work? -Why should he consider his own bargain bettered by such a questionable -transformation? - -"On the other hand, Janet," he added boldly, "why should an up-to-date -young lady jump from the devil of housekeeping into the deep sea of free -love, as I fear you will end by doing if you follow Cornelia's -suggestions?" - -She knew that he had Claude in mind. But she was unable to take offence -at his uncandid candor and his disinterested interest. - -"Robert, what a tantalizing mixture of the liberal and the conservative -you are!" she exclaimed, refusing to take up his challenge. - -"I am merely the child of my age, Janet. I was born with reactionary -habits and nursed on radical ideas. All logic counsels me to become an -enemy of existing institutions; all instinct drives me to conduct -operations within the enemy's camp. I betray under two flags." - -"You can't make me believe that. If you were all kinds of a traitor, -you wouldn't be such a jolly companion to work with or to talk to. Do -you know the most delightful thing about you, Robert?" - -"Modesty forbids me to say--but not to hear. Tell me." - -"It is the fact that you can behave towards a woman friend as frankly -and decently and unsentimentally as you would towards a man friend. You -can't imagine what a relief it is to a girl to know one man who'll -always treat her man-to-man fashion." - -"Will I? Janet, if you were perfectly sure of my future conduct you'd -find me an insufferable bore. Besides, no fascinating woman ever wanted -to be treated like a man--at least not for long at a time. You won't be -the first exception." - -"Don't be silly, Robert. If ever I should get married--which Heaven -forbid!--it will be to a man like you, one who can work with me without -constantly remembering my sex." - -"Oh almost any man will be able to do that, as soon as being your -husband loses its novelty for him. Still, I'm grateful to you for your -well-meant opinion, Janet. I shall try to deserve it by offering you a -small business partnership." - -He rapidly sketched the plan he had in mind, pointing out that, as only -her mornings were engaged by the playwright, Grey, she might help him -afternoons with the Guild League's work. He was hard pressed for -assistance; the League could just afford a part-time worker; there was a -good deal of editing and typewriting which he was sure she could -undertake. - -Janet begged to be taken on trial. The bargain was struck amid the -sounds of merrymaking that came, none too faintly, through the walls of -flat Number Fifteen. She remarked that Cornelia's party appeared to -have been a huge success after all. - -"Yes, it has given birth to the firm of Barr and Lloyd," said Robert, -jestingly. - -He was aware of the conflict in Janet between the temptations of the -love chase and the attraction of the force that moves the sun and the -stars. And he fondly believed that this conflict no longer existed in -himself. The love of man for woman against the love of life! He had -made his decision, she had not. - -Two questions remained uppermost in his mind. One was: "Could he -capture Janet's great natural talents for his own side, the side, not of -the fires of sensuous gratification but of the flame that burns at the -heart of the world?" The other was: "Did Janet really want him to act -towards her precisely as towards a man?" - -Curiously enough, the irrelevance of the second question to the first, -did not strike him. - - - - - *CHAPTER SIXTEEN* - - *I* - - -In the days that followed, Janet's morning duty as Mr. Grey's secretary -and her afternoon employment as assistant to Robert left her with very -little leisure. Such time as remained on her hands she spent chiefly -with Cornelia or with Claude. - -Neither of these friends exhibited much enthusiasm over Janet's -determined effort to earn her own living. Cornelia looked with -ill-concealed disfavor on an exhibition of diligence which, besides -being foreign to the atmosphere of Kips Bay, used up so much of her -protegee's time that the burden of housekeeping in flat Number Fifteen -was inevitably shifted to Cornelia's own shoulders. As for Claude, his -reaction, equally cool, was governed partly by the scarcity value which -now attached itself to Janet's leisure hours, partly also by another -reason which he hardly dared to face. - -Somewhat daunted by the lukewarm attitude of her friends, Janet -nevertheless kept courageously on with the task of making her -independence secure. - -Howard Madison Grey, the playwright, was then composing his fourth play, -"Cleopatra's Needle." His practise was to dictate rapidly to Janet for -an hour and a half, after which she was expected to typewrite the -sketchy dialogue, changes in grammar and syntax and even in diction -being left, as time went on, more and more to her discretion. As the -work appealed to her interest as well as to her skill, she despatched it -with zest. - -Bit by bit, two drawbacks emerged, however. One was Janet's liability -to mistakes because of an absorption in the plot, an absorption so deep -as to interfere seriously with quick mechanical transcription. The -other was Mrs. Howard Madison Grey. - -This lady had opened a correspondence with her future husband during the -short run of his first play, "The Spice of Life," for the hero of which -(a masterful but incorrigible polygamist) she had conceived an unbounded -admiration. The correspondence ripened into matrimony, Mrs. Grey -bringing her spouse the money and influence that lifted him swiftly to a -solid place in the theatrical world. - -When his second play, "The Love that Lies," financed by her father, -scored a big hit, she noticed that he became the gratified recipient of -a good deal of feminine attention. Mindful of the polygamous experiments -of his two masterful heroes, she remembered that precaution is the -better part of safety. Marriage had considerably modified her point of -view, and she now had a conviction that there should be a yawning gulf -between the pluralistic imaginings of the dramatist and the monogamic -behavior of the husband. - -To give this conviction shape, she enframed him in a watchful -chaperonage. Chaperonage was not the name she used. She called it, -"being a helpmeet." - -The helpmeet's first official act was to place Mr. Grey's communications -with the world beyond-the-home under a strict censorship. She looked -after his correspondence, registered his engagements, and kept in -telephonic touch with him when he went to a club or directed a -rehearsal. Let the enemy idolaters capture him (if they could) through -the barbed-wire entanglements of her devotion! - -In the same spirit, she threw cold water on his business-like proposal -to do his writing in an office building. Such an environment, she said, -would kill the soul of his art. Her substitute was a study, comfortably -fitted up in his own home; and there, accordingly, he and Janet were -obliged to work. - -Mrs. Howard Madison Grey was a woman of fixed opinions. She was firm in -the belief that a transcendent artistic talent was lodged in her -husband; she was equally firm in the belief that a transcendent -executive talent was lodged in herself. On the principle that it pays -to specialize she held it to be no more than right that any power or -glory acquired by the name of Howard Madison Grey should be exercised by -the executive branch of the family. About this opinion she was entirely -frank. - -"I've made him," she said to Janet, one day. "Why should I let others -enjoy the fruit of my labors?" - -This was said as much in warning as in confidence. Janet was greatly -amused, inasmuch as her feelings toward her employer were unsentimental -to the point of prosiness. - -None the less, Mrs. Grey's never ending readiness to suspect Janet of a -design on her vested interest in Mr. Grey soon became a great bore. It -was also somewhat trying to the nerves. At the most unexpected moments, -the good lady would shoot in upon her husband and his assistant like a -cartridge from a noiseless gun, and explode into embarrassing -explanations. - -Until, at length, Mr. Grey's perfectly correct and unemotional attitude -towards Janet underwent a dangerous change. - - - - *II* - - -By the time Claude returned from his visit to Huntington, Janet had -already settled down to her new routine. Claude did not seriously -object to her morning engagement with Howard Madison Grey, but her -afternoon work in Kelly's study--the work she did for Robert's -league--this he viewed as an intolerable encroachment on his privileges. - -Out of regard for Janet's warm espousal of the cause of woman's -independence, he concealed his feelings as best he could. But he used -his prodigal gifts without scruple to lay siege to Janet's hours of -employment, especially to her afternoons. Four or five days out of -seven, on one excuse or another, his imposing car would draw up to the -Lorillard tenements, and its owner, handsome, dashing, persuasive, would -tempt Janet away from laborious tasks to the delights of an excursion. - -In vain did Janet upbraid herself each time she yielded, or school -herself diligently against the next occasion. When the next occasion -came, she found, as likely as not, that she was as helpless as ever to -resist his thrilling voice, his ardent eye, and his magnetic wooing. - -In Cornelia, Claude had a subtle and insidious agent on his side. If -Janet gave a crushing refusal to one of Claude's incitements to truancy, -Cornelia would flash a reason in his favor as unanswerable as a sword. -Or if Janet, persuaded, but not convinced, gave signs of an uneasy -conscience, Cornelia was always ready to annihilate doubt with some apt -quotation (or misquotation) such as "Work no further, pretty -sweeting--youth's a stuff will not endure." - -Naturally, this spasmodic holiday making was the cause of frequent -delays in the performance of the work for the Guildsmen's League. Janet -tried to make up for lost time by working late at night, a practice that -drew upon her the reproaches of Cornelia who alleged that it interfered -with her sleep. Needless to say, Cornelia exhibited no compunction for -the serious inconvenience that all this caused Robert. Far from it. -She appeared to get a lively satisfaction from seeing his partnership -bedeviled and his remonstrances ignored. - -As a fact, she feared that Robert's influence over Janet was quietly -undermining her own ascendancy. But what was there to justify this -fear? Janet's enthusiasm for the free life of the model tenements had -not yet abated and her admiration for Cornelia's talents was still very -strong. But a straw showed Cornelia which way the wind was blowing. - -Janet was gradually but steadily cutting down the amount of housework -she did in Flat Number Fifteen! - -The terms on which Cornelia chummed up with her successive companions -always included an agreement to have the housework done, share and share -alike. In practice, the adoring friend took over most of Cornelia's -share, at least while the friendship was in its early stages. As time -went on and illusions were shattered, the unequal burden was slowly -whittled away by the active partner until Cornelia's shoulders stood in -grave danger of having a full half of the cleaning and marketing thrust -upon them. At this point, she generally unearthed a new adorer as well -as excellent reasons for breaking with the old one; and then she started -the whole cycle afresh. - -Like her predecessor, Janet had begun by doing far more errands, dishes -and cooking, than a strictly fair division called for. At first, the -respective proportions had stood at about three-quarters for Janet and -one-quarter for Cornelia. After a few days of this arrangement, however, -Janet had begun so to manipulate matters that her allotment fell rapidly -to one-half. And the pendulum had swung gaily on. In fine, within a -few months of her arrival, this new convert to modernity had reversed -the original proportions so that they now stood at about three-quarters -for Cornelia and one-quarter for Janet. - -If this was feminism--Cornelia confided to Hercules ("among the -faithless, faithful only he")--it was feminism with a vengeance! - -The situation was without precedent in the history of the Outlaws of -Kips Bay. Even more unprecedented was Cornelia's acceptance of the -situation. But this compliance of hers was in no wise dictated by -generosity or affection, as some innocents conjectured. Cornelia was -simply shrewd enough to see that Janet was the magnet which had drawn -back to Number Fifteen its departed splendor and had restored to herself -the position of the first lady of the Lorillard tenements, a position -she greatly prized. - -One question that Cornelia put to Hercules was: Had Janet's repugnance -for housework merely kept pace with her growing appetite for women's -rights, or was Robert Lloyd at the bottom of all the mischief? How -should the mute and glorious Hercules reply to a purely rhetorical -query?--Cornelia favored the second explanation, a fact which boded -Robert no good. - - - - *III* - - -Although Robert had in no sense entered the lists as one of Janet's -suitors, Cornelia instituted comparisons between him and Claude, never -to the former's advantage. She took occasion to contrast Claude's noble -bearing and look of sovereign strength with Robert's simpler and frailer -appearance. She dwelt on the cosmopolitan aura that clung to Claude, -his subtle atmosphere of wealth, breeding and high social origin, the -amalgam of gorgeous qualities that offered so much more than Robert's -radical connections and straitened financial circumstances. Her trump -card was to call attention to Claude's free and easy response to the -Lorillard conception of the rights of women and to offset this picture -with an allusion to Robert's prudent reservations on the same subject. - -If these comparisons were of an offhand and haphazard sort, nothing was -thereby lost in effectiveness. Far from it. They glorified Claude by -what was carelessly said: they damaged Robert by what was carefully left -unsaid. - -Although unaware of the Machiavellian promptings of which she was the -innocent cause, Janet became dimly conscious of the conflict already -sensed by Robert, the conflict between her work (which was bound up with -Robert) and her love affair (which was somehow bound up with Cornelia as -well as with Claude). She felt the tug of Robert one way and the tug of -Claude and Cornelia the other way, without fully grasping the difference -in the two directions or the final significance of either goal. - -It was Claude, however, and not Cornelia, that gave Janet's friendship -with Robert an importance that none of those concerned attached to it. -Claude simply could not understand why Janet should refuse to neglect -Robert's League, whenever the work of the League stood in the way of -their outings together. Economic independence, the reason advanced by -Janet, was a reason he laughed at. The words meant hardly anything to -one who from birth had been glutted with the thing itself. Surely a few -beggarly dollars, more or less, did not adequately account for Janet's -readiness to cloister herself in Kelly's bare and sunless study! Yet -what other motive could there be, if not one of tender feeling on -Robert's part, or soft pity on hers? - -Still, the rivalry that actually sprang up between the two young men was -not a rivalry in love, at least not in Robert's sense of the word. - -For Robert was no fool. He was soon convinced that Claude and Janet had -surrendered unconditionally to a mutual infatuation which he was in no -position to challenge. Yet he had a magnetism of his own, a magnetism -of the spirit rather than of the flesh. To this magnetism Janet -responded. Why should he not claim the same title to Janet's response -in the one sphere that Claude laid claim to in the other? - -At all events, he meant to fight for what he considered his rights, -regardless of Claude's frowns or vanishing friendship. - -Between the two, Janet had a hard time of it. Claude professed to -accept free love as a new and improved social principle, and praised her -for holding it; yet he grew unmanageable the moment she gave the least -hint of exercising this freedom in connection with any other man than -himself. On the other hand, Robert rejected free love as a pernicious -Greenwich Village or Lorillard tenement eccentricity, and even severely -scolded her for entertaining it; yet his actions showed that she might -love as many different men as madly as she pleased, without causing his -friendship for her to undergo any really radical change. - -To cap the oddity of this contrast, she found that Robert's unlimited -tolerance, though socially much the more agreeable attitude, was not -without its suggestion of tepidity of sentiment, a suggestion which -piqued her not a little. - -The rivalry, such as it was, followed a very human course. Robert, as -an outgrowth of his work with Janet took to promoting her education in -contemporary thought and political theory. Claude, not to be -behindhand, made the most of his special knowledge of art as well as of -his wide first-hand acquaintance with the men and events that figured -picturesquely in the ruling social and political rings of Washington and -New York. In the matter of books, Claude generally took the cue from -Robert. The latter would lend her works by Shaw, Wells, Bennett, -Galsworthy, Bertrand Russell, Anatole France, Barbusse, Romaine Rolland; -Claude would follow suit with the latest fiction by Robert W. Chambers -or Rupert Hughes, his authors ranging as high as Rudyard Kipling, -Maeterlinck or Barrie. One would take her to a symphony concert in -Carnegie Hall, the other to a Sunday Pop in the Hippodrome. Robert held -out invitations to a Theater Guild's play by Masefield or Andreyev, -Claude would counter with an evening at a revival of Florodora or San -Toy. If Janet accompanied Robert to a Labor Mass Meeting at Cooper -Union or to a radical Cameraderie at the Civic Club, she was sure, soon -after, to be escorted by Claude to a Titta Ruffo recital in Aeolian Hall -or to a midnight cabaret in Moloch's Den off Sheridan Square. - -To Janet, who had broken with the Barrs of Brooklyn and who was as much -on pleasure as on emancipation bent, it was not Robert's offer that -usually seemed the happier one. - -Not the least of Claude's advantages was the fact that he moved in Kips -Bay as a representative of the great forces of finance and fashion. He -reflected the high lights of that glittering social system of which he -was a favorite child. Direct and intimate was his contact with the -celebrities of the day--the bankers and politicians, the diplomats and -society leaders, the cabinet set in Washington, and the inner opera box -set in New York. These were his real people; the Lorillarders were -merely the people among whom he was sowing his radical wild oats. - -In short, Claude was one of the persons "in the know." He knew a good -deal more about the personages whose names were on everybody's tongues -than the public knew or the newspapers thought fit to print. He could -tell about the opera soprano of the first magnitude whose attacks of -hysterical jealousy would cause the curtain to be held down between the -acts for forty minutes, while the poor director tore his hair in -desperation. He could laugh at the "mystery" of the appointment of a -certain mediocre woman teacher to a superintendency in the city's -schools, the mystery vanishing upon his inside story of how the lady in -question "had been good" to Big Jim Connolly, a local political boss. -And he could explain the connection between the failure to float a -certain foreign loan and the omission of a well-known financier's wife -from the group of guests invited to meet the Prince of Wales. - -Thus Claude Fontaine, whose handsome face and dashing airs would have -made him an idol in almost any society, enchanted his fellow Outlaws -with the aroma clinging to him from the world of fashion and the -glimpses he afforded into the secret workings of the world of power. -Small wonder that to Janet, as to the others, Claude was bathed in a -romantic glamor. - -By contrast with Claude, Robert seemed to lead a decidedly work-a-day or -humdrum life. Especially so, since his newspaper employment had been -cut off and his active time given up to the League of Guildsmen. As far -as Janet could see, Robert's entire thought and energy were absorbed by -an overwhelming interest in the Labor movement. For though he had -plenty of esthetic diversions, she noticed that the books he read, the -music he delighted in, and the pictures he admired were all in some way -expressive of souls in bondage, aspiring to freedom. - -Now for the time being, Janet wanted to forget about the lowly and the -oppressed. She had the same feeling towards "causes" and "reforms" that -a released convict has towards societies for Improving the Condition of -Prisoners on Parole. - -It must not be supposed that Janet took an unsympathetic view of the -movements for human freedom which were convulsing society after the -Great War. She was a sincere convert to the principle of woman's -equality and she made an honest effort to be open-minded to the theories -that Robert expounded. But her heart was not in theories. Her pulse -refused to quicken when Robert told her of the new social cleavage which -was fast ranging the useful active people on one side, and the parasitic -profiteering people on the other. In common with a great many of her -contemporaries, she sat heedlessly on a volcano, enchanted by the -twinkle of the stars. - -What if Robert _did_ prove up to the hilt that the world was in the -birth throes of a new social order! Youth must have its glamor. And -there is no glamor about birth throes, not even about the birth throes -of a new world. - -Besides, the old social alignment in which princes of the purple and -masters of the gold ruled in pomp or circumstance over the toilers of -the factory, the office and the soil--this old alignment was much more -familiar to poor Janet (and to everybody else) than the new one -predicted. Literature and legend, the school room, the pulpit and the -press--all the regular organs of education, in fact--had mesmerized her -into viewing the practical politics and the dominant economics of the -day as splendors and glories without parallel. Was the psychology of a -lifetime to be uprooted or transformed by a few weeks of unconventional -conduct in a Kips Bay tenement, or even by a brief high-tension course -of reading in the works of Samuel Butler, Bernard Shaw, Romaine Rolland -and other prophets of the life to come? - -Clearly not. And so when Claude came with his many-colored news from -the seats of the mighty, he found it easy to engross and transport -Janet. But when Robert talked to her of strikes, trade unions and labor -congresses, he left her bewildered or mystified, though seldom cold. In -short, the rivalry even for the mind of Janet was a rather one-sided -affair, Claude, the darling of the gods, holding an immense initial -advantage over Robert, the advocate of rebel causes. - - - - - *CHAPTER SEVENTEEN* - - *I* - - -On an afternoon late in May, Claude took Janet to see the boat race -between Yale and Pennsylvania over the so-called American Henley course -on the Schuylkill. Nature was in one of her soft and sober moods. The -weather was mild, the sky lightly overcast, and the colors of the -landscape as well as of the living things upon it were toned down to -various shades of slate, dove or lavender, all blending into the serious -beauty of a dominant pearl gray. - -After the race, while the crowds were melting away, the two lovers -walked into the pathway along the river. Perhaps in response to the -pallid coloring around, Claude became a prey to melancholy thoughts; and -the day, the mood and the girl impelled him to confidences about the -marriage with Marjorie Armstrong into which he felt himself being -forced. - -Janet made an ideal confidante. The exercise of putting herself -sympathetically into other people's shoes was a joy to her. Not only -did she see herself as others saw her; she had the rarer gift of seeing -others as she saw herself. In doing so, she could leave her own desires -and feelings entirely out of the prospect. Thus, the story of Claude -and Marjorie, like any other human drama, appealed to her judgment on -its merits. Nor did she disturb Claude with the intrusion of any vulgar -jealousy because the lover was her own lover and the woman was a rival -woman. - -The narrative began with the tenderness Claude had conceived for -Marjorie some two years before. He told Janet how the proud beauty had -first encouraged him and then, with unexampled coolness, had allowed the -Earl of Dunbar to displace him in her favor. Later the Earl in his turn -had jilted Marjorie. Could he be asked to care for her after such an -ill-starred episode? - -Unluckily, he was by now far the most desirable match among the young -men whose names she consented to put on her list of eligibles. In this -preference she had her father's hearty support. Naturally. For Mr. -Armstrong was a slave of every wish she framed. Meanwhile, his own -father had the most urgent private reasons for promoting the Armstrong -project. - -"You see my horrible position," he said. "I'm expected to marry a girl -I don't love in order to get my father out of a bad box. It's like a -story of the eighteenth century; only, in those happy days, it was the -daughter, not the son, who had to pull the chestnuts out of the fire." - -"But surely, Claude, not all the king's horses nor all the king's men -can _compel_ you to marry if you don't want to." - -"No, but compulsion isn't the only form of coercion in the world, Janet. -Nor even the worst. Can you think what it means to have everybody in -your set _expecting_ you to do a certain thing?" - -"Expecting you?" - -"Yes, it sounds fantastic. But it would sound real enough if once you -had a taste of it. They show their expectations by word and deed, by -sign and innuendo. They show it constantly, mercilessly, in a hundred -small and super-subtle ways. I tell you, Janet, concerted expectation -is the strongest form of pressure that can be brought to bear upon a -man. It can bring about miracles. It can move mountains. Only a hero -or a coward can resist it." - -"I suppose it's like the pressure of public opinion or of one's family," -she said, her soft clarinet tones pouring balm on his feelings. "I know -what family pressure means. I am so sorry for you, Claude, sorry from -my heart." - -"I love you for saying that, Janet! I love you for your adorable pity. -I love you for being so unlike Marjorie. She has her good points; but -fellow feeling is not one of them. You see, her social ambition and the -ease with which she can gratify her every wish have quite dried up the -tender places in her heart. She has no pity left in her nature. And -pity is always the essential thing in a woman's soul." - -They sat down on a grassy slope in a secluded corner of the park. In a -lyrical mood, Claude pointed to the sun just then flaring out and -splashing a thousand colors on the livid sky. - -"Look, Janet," he said, "how the whole earth thrills to its warm -radiance! Just as everyone thrills to your divine gift of sympathy." - -He was lying on the ground with his head in her lap, while her hand was -gently stroking his curly hair. - -"I am so happy to be in this spot with you, Claude, and to hear from -your lips the things that only you can say. When you make love to me, I -feel as though I were in some Enchanted Valley with a prince from the -_Arabian Nights_." - -"Yes, and he a miracle of discretion, too!" - -"A miracle of indiscretion, rather!" said Janet, as he drew her head -down to his, kissed her once and kissed her again. - -He soon became pensive, however. Pursuing his former train of thought, -he declared that if he remained in New York, "public expectation" would -certainly drive him into the dreaded marriage with Marjorie. There was -only one avenue of escape. That was to go abroad and stay out of harm's -way until Marjorie should choose some one else as in due time she was -bound to do. - -"But the force that holds me back," he said, "is far stronger than the -one that bids me go. I can't live without you, Janet, darling." - -"Then I suppose you'll have to take me along," she said, bending low -over him. - -Their lips met in a sustained and ardent kiss. - -"No," he said. "I dare not assume a responsibility so great." - -"If I go with you," she said quietly, "I shall go on my own -responsibility." - -"Janet, it would be too wonderful. Don't let me think of it, or my good -resolutions will stand no firmer than a flag in a strong wind. But you -are an angel to offer to come. You do love me then, very, very much?" - -"What a question, Claude!" - -"Well, you keep a pretty tight rein on your feelings, darling," he said, -with the least trace of reproach. "Tender and true you are, I know," he -added. "But you don't say any of the things that girls say when their -hearts are in the grip of a wild, extravagant passion. Do you know that -you have never even asked me once whether I really and truly and madly -love you?" - -"Whether _you_ love _me_?" - -"Yes, that is the question girls ask their lovers over and over again." - -"Well, Claude, the important thing to me is that _I_ love _you_." - -"Do you mean to say, Janet, that you don't care whether I love you or -not?" - -"I don't mean that. But what I care about most is that you are the sort -of man whom _I_ can love. That is the thing that makes me happy. It's -delightful, of course, to know that you love me in return. Still, if -you didn't love me, I don't think I should be in hopeless misery. If -you turned out to be different from what I dreamed you were, so -different that I could no longer love you, then I should be -heart-broken." - -To Claude, this seemed a bitter-sweet reply. More sweet than bitter, -however, and so he did not contest it. - -What a puzzling girl she was, he thought. So sensible and yet so -imprudent. And totally devoid of the instinct that induces most women -to exploit the amorous moment. Claude could not get over it. Any other -girl would have made the most of his present mood, the mood in which he -was ready to think the world well lost for love. When the blood is hot, -the tongue is prodigal of vows. Claude, at all events, was willing to -promise anything, especially as he was still in pursuit, and as his -promises were not to mature until he was in possession. - -Yet Janet asked absolutely nothing! This surrender, as open-handed as -it was confiding, moved him to compunction. He sat up and put his arms -around her. Her head buried in his shoulder had the effect of seeking -refuge there. And she looked so trusting, so helpless, so innocent, that -a great love for her welled up in his heart. Ought he not to do the -noble, the chivalrous thing? - -"Look here, Janet," he said, with the air of Sir Philip Sidney offering -his last drink of water to another wounded soldier on the battle field, -"why couldn't we be married? My father would get over it in time." - -"Yes, your father might. But _we_ might not." - -"No, no, dearest. You mustn't say that. My love is not a thing of -whims and fancies. I shall love you till life itself has passed away." - -"Then what difference does it make whether we get married or not," she -said. - -With infinite tact, she refrained from accepting his lofty pledge of -eternal constancy. She also refrained from a similar commitment of her -own affections. - -"Don't misunderstand me, Janet," he said, as sadly as if her -disagreement cut him to the soul. "I merely felt in honor bound to -offer to marry you. I know better than you do what an unconventional -step means. - -"All the more reason why I should learn by experience, then. No, -Claude. If I married you, I'm sure I should soon stop loving you. The -thought that you had a legal claim on my affection would be enough to -kill it." - -"Oh, you mustn't take the law so seriously, darling. Nobody does, -nowadays." - -"I know nothing about the law, Claude," she said, repudiating all -jurisprudence with one of her eloquent gestures. "Do you want us to -become a careworn, broken-spirited, isolated married couple, hating all -the other careworn, broken-spirited, isolated married couples of the -western world? Do you want me to grow to hate and despise you as my -mother hates and despises my father, as so many wives appear secretly to -hate and despise their husbands?" - -"How can you say such monstrous things, Janet?" - -"How can you pretend to believe that love should be free?" she retorted. - -"Well," he replied, "I admit there's a lot in what you say. I suppose," -he added with a fine masculine irrelevance, "that we can always change -our minds and get married later on if we choose to." - -He could not fully persuade himself that Janet really believed in free -love. Nevertheless, he was hugely relieved to learn that, whatever her -motive might be, she had no ulterior matrimonial designs on him. If -only he could have suppressed a sneaking fear that he was "taking -advantage" of Janet, as he called it, or satisfied himself that he was -legitimately taking the good the gods provided, as the Outlaws boldly -called a step of this sort! - -But Claude's Bohemianism was only skin-deep. Like a good many -Bohemians, he discarded traditional forms, costly conventions and social -restrictions, chiefly in order to extract from social intercourse and -philandering, the greatest amount of pleasure with the smallest amount -of risk. Being a Bohemian was merely a sybaritic pastime for him. - -In short, Claude lacked the courage of his experiments. The only -morality he genuinely believed in was the current morality (and -immorality) of his peers. Thus loose love could be allowed to have a -certain place in the scheme of things, but free love, as an avowed -principle, was incontestably wrong. Claude might humor the model -tenementers to the extent of using their free-love propaganda for his -own ends. At heart, however, he was profoundly shocked by Janet's -stubborn contention that her views of marriage, though glaringly -heterodox, were morally sound. - -As Claude had worked it out, there were two ways of getting past the -limitations of a social institution. One was to support the institution -while sneaking over the fences and enjoying the secret breach of law as -a delightful bit of "living in sin." The other way was to defy the -institution by boldly climbing over the fences and asserting the sin to -be a virtue. Surely, the first was the pleasanter, the wiser, nay, the -more ethical proceeding! - -Of course Claude did not reason the distinction out as clearly as this. -But he felt its force and, for his part, was resolved to act upon it. -However, he did not attempt to convert Janet to his way of thinking. -That would have been fraught with peril to the smoothness of their -future relations. Besides, a long didactic argument would have spoiled -the tender passages in the journey home. And Claude never encouraged -his conscience to make a martyr of him. - - - - *II* - - -When they got back to Kips Bay, they found Cornelia and her Hercules in -Number Fifteen. Harry Kelly, silent and worshipful, was washing the -accumulated dishes of the day, in a supreme exhibition of devotion. His -inamorata, ensconced in state in her favorite armchair, was tacking a -blue denim smock together with bits of fancy colored worsteds. - -She announced her intention of marching in the parade of the Overalls -Economy Club, an organization recently formed to protest against the -high cost of living. - -Robert, it appeared, had greeted this announcement with gibes and with -an ironic contrast between her expenditure of time and her economy of -money. Nor had he confined his sarcasm to her. - -"What do you suppose Cato said when I told him about the parade?" -Cornelia retailed vindictively. "He said, 'I suppose Claude will march, -too? He will have no difficulty in getting the right kind of uniform. -In the Times this morning, a Fifth Avenue store advertises overalls with -solid gold buckles from fifty dollars up.'" - -"There's a typical reformer for you," said Claude, bitterly. "Always -shying bricks at the very people that want to build with them." - -Hereupon, Cornelia, in the role of a loyal though long-suffering friend -of Robert's, undertook to extenuate his conduct. She observed that he -had doubtless been made angry because his work was retarded by Janet's -absences. The best proof of his state of mind was a threat he had made -to engage another secretary. - -"I wish he would," said Claude, compressing his lips, while Janet tried -not to look conscience-stricken. - -"Of course he doesn't in the least mean to part with Araminta," -continued Cornelia, wallowing in the emotional effect of her news. "Not -he. Cato knows a good thing when he sees it. But he doesn't approve of -Janet's parties with you, Lothario. The principle is wrong, he claims." - -"The principle is wrong!" cried both Claude and Janet with very -different inflections. - -Cornelia laughed musically up and down the scale. - -"Just fancy what he said: 'A friendship which doesn't grow spontaneously -out of joint partnership in work is built on quicksands.'" - -"He's a fanatic," said Harry Kelly, breaking his silence and one of -Cornelia's saucers in the violence of his feelings. - -"Nonsense, Hercules," she said, in a tone that poured contempt on his -vehemence. "He has simply let all the soft places grow in his head and -all the hard places in his heart." - -Janet went into the next room to hang up her hat and coat. Claude -followed her. - -"I think Robert's ideas are getting more and more unbalanced," he said, -dictatorially. "If I were you, Janet, I'd finish up my work with him at -once." - -"It takes two to break a bargain, Claude." - -"Well, you might at least keep your relations with him on a strictly -business footing--and as little of that as possible." - -He ignored her slight mutinous gesture. - -"He's a difficult man to get along with," he went on. "Look how even -Hutchins Burley had to fire him. And as if his dismissal from the -_Chronicle_ were not bad enough, he joins these Guildsmen people who are -trying to wreck the very basis of modern society. That has just about -dished him, as far as the Outlaws are concerned. They all cut him now." - -A new imperiousness crept into his voice as he added: - -"I wish that, for my sake, you would not be seen going about with him, -ever." - -He accepted her silence as an evidence of tacit consent. - - - - *III* - - -The very next afternoon, before a full hour's writing and typing had -been done, Robert amazed Janet by proposing that they suspend work and -take a walk. - -"I want particularly to talk to you," he said. - -"About what?" - -"About love," said Robert, gravely. - -What girl could resist an invitation like that? Despite Claude's stern -admonition, Janet did not wait to be urged. - -They walked near the East River towards the gas-house district, and -presently turned into a recreation pier which was almost deserted. -Clearly, Robert was looking for a very private and sequestered corner. - -On the way, every topic was broached except the one that Robert had -advanced as an excuse for truancy. Did suspense sharpen Janet's -anticipation? No. Janet was curious, but not consumedly so. She had a -marvelous power of attracting confidences and was quite used to having -young men, who had known her only a few days, confide in her their love -affairs, their religious or financial troubles, and indeed the whole -history of their lives. True, Robert might be in love, not with another -girl but with herself. Having no false modesty, Janet entertained the -suspicion for a moment. Only for a moment, however. For the -presumption against it seemed conclusive. - -Meanwhile, they walked happily along, until Robert found the spot that -suited him. This was at the end of the pier farthest from the street. -No watchman being in sight, they sat down on a great terminal beam and -let their legs swing over the green and choppy water. - -The Janet who laughed and chatted with Robert was a very different girl -from the Janet who was accustomed to hang romantically on Claude's lips. -Nothing, of course, could equal the magnetism of Claude or match the -fire and glory of their mutual passion. Still, in Claude's presence she -seemed constantly to be playing up to some magnificent part; she felt -like a cross between, say, the Lady of Shalott and the ecstatic lady in -the Song of Songs. Without denying that it was a rapturous game, a game -well worth the candle, she found it a trifle exhausting. - -With Robert, on the other hand, the high-tension, party-dress Janet -could be put away (so to speak) and the simple, work-a-day, -blouse-and-skirt Janet substituted. Now Janet was the kind of girl who -always looked her worst in her best things and was most herself when -least dressed up. Naturally, she did not apply this symbol to her two -friendships. Being a young, rebellious, and infatuated young lady, how -could she? Besides, had she done so, she might have reasoned the matter -out to a disturbing conclusion. - -"Well, Robert," she said, cheerily. "Begin, and tell me all that's in -your heart of hearts." - -"It's not my heart I mean to talk about. It's yours." - -"Mine! What an idea! Why, my heart's in the pink of condition. -Positively no inspection needed. - - 'Oh my heart is a free and a fetterless thing, - A wave of the ocean, a bird on the wing.' - -I don't mean to say that it's a flighty object, though," she added, with -a smile. - -"No, if it were, it would be much easier to talk to you about it," said -Robert. - -"What do you mean?" - -"Well, a whole century separates the Janet I first knew--the Janet who -hesitated to go to a picture play on the Sabbath--from the Janet who -reads Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, attends labor meetings on -Sundays, and catches each newest whiff of radical opinion. The change -takes one's breath away." - -"You admit it's a change for the better, don't you?" - -"In every way but one." - -"Which one?" - -"You have taken Cornelia too seriously. Her views on sex are morbid and -totally unsuited for adoption by a healthy, inexperienced girl." - -"Now, Robert, please don't begin that over again. You've said it all -before." - -"I shall say it and say it again until I've convinced you. Even you -must admit that Cornelia has a chronic grudge against men." - -"Well, it isn't so unnatural, after her unhappy love affair, is it?" - -"Precisely. As a result of that love affair, all her sex emotions are -inverted. She sublimates her sex into acts of spite, usually -unconscious acts. For instance, she is subtly encouraging you to run -off with Claude as she ran off with Percival Houghton. Forgive me for -mentioning it, Janet. But I can't bear to see you duped. Believe me, if -you followed her example, with an equally unhappy result, she would like -nothing better." - -"Claude is not in the least like Percival Houghton," said Janet coldly. -"Whatever else he may be, he isn't a cad." - -"Of course he isn't," Robert hastened to say. - -"Then stop making horrid comparisons. It is such an easy thing to do. -Suppose I were to say that you are like an X-ray machine, finding out -all that is bad in people, while Claude is like a magnet drawing out all -that is good in them. What would you say to that comparison?" - -"I should accept it," replied Robert, with a smile. "The superiority of -the X-ray in point of social usefulness is, I think, beyond dispute." - -"Oh, with you social usefulness is everything, and personal happiness -nothing!" - -"Suppose Claude is a magnet," he went on, unheeding her exclamation. -"Is that a good reason for flying into his arms, like a willless iron -filing, on _his_ terms instead of on your own?" - -"On my terms! What do you mean?" - -"Janet, my friendship will be worse than useless to you unless I can -tell you exactly what is in my mind. I either do that or hold my peace -forever. Will you let me speak frankly?" - -"Will I let the rain fall or the sun shine? I'd like to see the person -who could stop you from speaking frankly. But please don't attack -Claude." - -"Have no fear. I don't intend to play the part of the heroine's second -friend confidentially warning her against the first. What I want to -urge, with all the force I can, is this: if you mean to live with -Claude, why not marry him?" - -"Quite apart from my own preferences in the matter, Robert, how do you -know that Claude wants to marry?" - -"Oh, no doubt he doesn't want to. In the eyes of the modern man, -marriages made in Heaven are as popular as canned beef made in America. -But what of that? Claude is young, self-willed, accustomed to get his -own way, and--he worships you. And you--well, I have no superlatives to -do justice to the case. You are you. You could marry him in a -twinkling if you played your cards right." - -Janet laughed. - -"Oh, the heart is a free and a fetterless thing--" she sang, saucily. - -"Stop coquetting like Cornelia," he remonstrated. "You are making it -totally impossible for me to talk rationally. Are you a butterfly or a -woman? Am I discussing your glorious voice or your precarious future? -Be serious." - -"How can I be serious when you ask me to be a bargain hunter in hearts -and coronets?" - -"Now you're acting like one of Marie Corelli's heroines, Janet!" - -"Thank you. Why are you so anxious to have me get married?" - -"Because I think that your fine spirit of independence and your divine -gift of imagination ought not lightly to be wasted. Because I think, in -short, that you have a nobler purpose in the world than mere loving or -being loved." - -"Than mere loving!" - -"Yes. The world was not made for the gratification of our own -feelings." - -"So you are fond of saying, Robert. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not -trying to gratify my feelings. I'm trying to carry out my principles." - -"The world isn't a grindstone to sharpen our principles on, either," -said Robert, with prompt conclusiveness. - -"From watching you, I rather thought it was," said Janet, stung into -sudden irony. - -There was a pause. He tried to take her hand, but she drew it sharply -away, with difficulty repressing her tears. After a while, he began -again, with impetuous candor: - -"Janet, don't go into this adventure with your eyes shut. Remember, you -can't give yourself up to an experiment in free love without giving up -everything else. That is the strongest argument against the step. All -your gifts, all your energy, all your purpose will be consumed in -explaining, defending, evading. Your whole life will be one long course -of swallowing the consequences and warding off criticism. Do you wish -to be a life-long martyr to free love, like Cornelia?" - -"I've never posed as a martyr to anything--not even to drink," said -Janet, recovering her good humor. - -"Then why become one? Martyrdom is all very well for fanatics like your -mother who enjoy it, or for idlers like Cornelia who have nothing better -to do. But you are neither a fanatic nor an idler; you are a worker." - -"But when one believes that an institution has served its turn, isn't it -one's duty to destroy it?" - -"Institutions are never destroyed. They are sometimes transformed, as -tadpoles are into frogs." - -"Are you sure? Cornelia says that every free union is a mine exploded -beneath marriage. I think she's right." - -"A mine! Better call it a squib, Janet. And all the trouble you invite -will be like laying a long and elaborate fuse to ignite the squib." - -"Oh, you have no ideals left!" she cried, revolted at this demolition of -her romantic conceptions. - -"I have a little common sense left," he answered. "We can't escape the -customs or the institutions of our time, however much we may disbelieve -in them. Flying in the face of a decadent institution does not destroy -it. It only gives it a new lease of life by putting the props of public -sympathy and traditional morality at the disposal of its defenders. -Look at the case of George Eliot. Did her entirely justifiable free -union help the cause of marriage reform? No. It actually turned her -into a defender of the very institution she had set out to challenge." - -"What a very wise young man; this wise young man must be," she said, -parodying a line of Gilbert's. - -"No side-tracking! Promise me you'll turn the matter over in your -mind." - -"In my mind? Yes. But what about my heart?" she said. And with -dancing eyes she sang: - - "'Oh, the heart is a free and a fetterless thing, - A wave of the ocean, a bird on the wing.'" - - -Her voice turned his blood to paradisaical currents. - -"If you sing that again, I shall kiss you on the spot, in public or out -of it," said the tormented young man. - -"Why, Robert, what abysses of passion lurk hidden in you!" she exclaimed -mockingly. "I believe you said you'd always treat me just like a man. -Do you talk like this to your male chums?" Then demurely: "We'd better -go home at once." - -On the way home, she resumed the discussion. In a more earnest tone -than before, she thanked him for taking so much trouble over her and -promised to think about his point of view very carefully. She insisted, -however, that his reasoning had not convinced her. She and Claude -appeared very well suited to each other now, but who could tell what -changes a few years might not bring forth? - -"True," said Robert. "But the future is dark to us in other matters -besides marriage. As things stand now, Claude couldn't do better, and -you might do worse. And if the very worst happened, you could get a -divorce." - -She replied by reminding him that she and Claude were not the kind of -people who lightly repudiated their ties or the responsibilities that -grew out of them. Consequently, once married, they would probably -remain so for life. In any event, if she changed her mind, it would be -infinitely simpler to do so under the other plan. - -"Say I grew tired of Claude, for instance, and quite suddenly wanted -you," she said with a mischievous look. - -"Well, it couldn't be done," said Robert, decisively, her complacent -assumption jarring his pride. - -"Oh, couldn't it?" She flashed him a challenging glance. - -"Not in my case," he returned, in clipped tones. "Free love is the most -expensive luxury in the world. Only the very rich or the unambitious -can pay for it. As for me, I never can have anything to do either with -free love or with a woman who has had a free lover. It would ruin all -my plans." - -Janet replied with the faintest shrug, whereat all his self-assertion -promptly went bang. Neither yielded a point; but they divined each -other's feelings and, as they walked on, steered the conversation into -lighter channels until they got back to the Lorillard tenements. - -Standing in the dark hallway at the foot of the stairs, Janet told him -with a touch of impishness that his logic had been irresistible. - -"Has it? It hasn't touched your heart," he said, somewhat dolefully. - -"Ah, well, the heart is a free and a fetterless thing--" - -As Janet darted up the stairs, the door of an apartment opened overhead, -and she fancied she heard Claude's voice. - - - - - *CHAPTER EIGHTEEN* - - *I* - - -On her own floor, she halted and, with Robert's kiss still burning on -her lips, waited until he had turned into Kelly's flat. Then she opened -the door of Number Fifteen. - -Sure enough, Claude was there, full of resentment at her absence on a -jaunt with Robert. She thanked her stars that Robert's visible presence -could not fan the flame. Even so, Claude acted badly enough. He was in -a vertigo of jealousy, and at small pains to hide the fact. - -At first, Janet tried to carry the matter off lightly, and strove to -mollify him by saying that Robert had asked her to consider a very -serious problem. She was a little conscience-stricken over this fib, -but believed it the best thing to say. She pointed out that while it -was with Robert that she worked, it was with Claude, after all, that she -played. - -At this Cornelia executed an unnecessarily tuneful laugh. - -"There's nothing like a man's problem for disarranging a girl's hair," -she observed, dropping the inevitable dress she was busy with. -"Araminta, your hat's a sight! Do look at yourself in the glass." - -Naturally, Claude was more furious than ever. He sulked in silence -whilst rebuffing the advances that Janet made. Finally, maddened by -Cornelia's pin-prick innuendoes, he strode out, flashing a terrible look -at Janet as he did so. - - - - *II* - - -When will the play of Othello be absolutely unintelligible? Perhaps five -hundred years from now or, let us hope, sooner. Surely, at some distant -date, the private ownership of a woman by a man or of a man by a woman -will seem as barbarous as the rings our ancestors stuck through their -noses or as unfashionable as the three hundred concubines of Solomon. -And the jealous passions arising from this ownership will be classed -with rage, hysteria and other forms of emotional disease or pathological -bad manners. - -Indeed, do not the best people already look upon a pronounced fit of -jealousy as an exhibition of arrested development or mental inferiority? -If the jealous man is not destroyed, root and branch, by the -refuse-reduction plant of ridicule, he will be rendered obsolete and -perhaps extinct by the spread of the conviction that, after a human -being has discharged his obligations to himself and his obligations to -the community, he owes no other personal allegiance whatever. - -Herself singularly free from jealousy, Janet was in direct touch with -three persons whom the malady afflicted sorely. Besides the case of -Claude, she had on her hands the case of Mrs. Howard Madison Grey in -business, and the case of Cornelia at home. - -Cornelia, who was no believer in keeping her emotions hermetically -sealed, made her frame of mind patent to Janet on an unforgetable -occasion. It was not the first, nor was it to be the last, of a series -of blows, which were fast converting Janet to the belief that her own -opinion of Cornelia was founded on an illusion, whilst Robert's opinion -was the correct one. - -For some time past it had been Harry Kelly's practice to come into -Number Fifteen before breakfast and put the two girls "through their -paces," as he called the light drill he prescribed for them. Always on -the lookout for some new outlet for his tremendous supply of energy, the -physical culture expert had hit on the scheme of improving Cornelia's -bad health by reforming her bodily habits. Cornelia, who considered -early rising bad form and breathing exercises a superstition, was for a -prompt veto of the scheme, but Janet's cordial support of it saved the -day. - -So, early in the morning of the day after Claude's wrathful departure, -Kelly, in gymnasium garb, made his entrance as usual. The athlete was -not a man of many words. Words, after all, were not needed in his case, -since, as he strode along with the nervous muscularity of a Rodin -statue, his lithe, powerful body proclaimed his mission to all the -world. - -"Wake up, girls," he called out, "and fill your bellies with the good -south wind." - -The unvarnished word always moved Cornelia to a protesting shriek and a -well-trilled "How do you do!" Kelly enjoyed both immensely. - -After throwing the windows in the sitting room wide open, he paced the -floor like a panther in his den. Janet was the first to appear. She -was still drowsy, and her short dark hair, in tight somnolent curls, -hung down her back. She wore a short-skirted bathing suit, a custom -Kelly held in high regard for the business in hand. - -As she toddled sleepily towards the athlete, the energy pent up in his -frame unbottled itself on the impulse of the moment. Catching her at -the waist, he lifted her high up in the air and spun her around three -times as if she were a featherweight. Then, clasping her lightly by -shoulder and leg, he set her tenderly down again. - -"Do it again, Hercules, do!" articulated Cornelia, coming in just at the -close of this maneuver, whilst Janet, still laughing and protesting, was -in the act of resuming control of her well-shaped limbs. - -But as there was that in Cornelia's eye which belied her command, Kelly -was careful to make no move to execute it. - -Cornelia's golden hair was done up on her head in a makeshift coil, she -herself being enveloped in a long kimono that trailed to the ground. -Kelly looked at this garment without ecstasy, a fact that did not escape -the wearer's observation. - -"Hercules," she commanded peevishly, "you might close this window near -me. I've got a very bad headache from too little sleep. Do you want me -to catch my death of cold, too?" - -He complied with all haste, and then pitched into his calisthenics, -Janet joining him with gusto. Cornelia followed suit, though in a very -languid spirit; and soon she stopped altogether, on the pretext of -unusual weakness. - -Her chilly aloofness cut the period short. It was now time to prepare -breakfast, a task theoretically shared by all four, including Robert, -who was unaccountably late this morning. Habitually, three of them did -the actual work while Cornelia "directed," a process which, she firmly -believed, enabled the others to save time. But, as Robert sardonically -put it, "Cornelia's method of showing us a short cut is to send us round -Robin Hood's barn." - -It was Kelly's special business to convert a part of the kitchen into a -dining room, and thereafter to make the toast. He had just reached this -stage, when Cornelia took another hand in the proceedings. - -"Go down and get the letters for me, Hercules," she said suddenly, -relieving him of the toaster. - -"Why, what's the hurry? Rob always gets them after breakfast." - -"Oh, do let Harry make the toast," said Janet, chiming in with him. -She, too, had thought of the letters, and was in no hurry to bid the -devil good morning. "Nobody can eat toast the way you make it, -Cornelia. And Robert is sure to--" - -"No doubt Robert will do exactly as _you_ tell him," said Cornelia, -interrupting her sweetly. "Please let Harry do as _I_ tell him. -Hercules, go _now_, please. I have a notion there'll be some famous -news for me this morning." - -Kelly, having been her devoted (and despised) slave since the day he -ejected Hutchins Burley, obeyed submissively by mere force of habit. He -ran down the three flights of stairs and in a very short time came back -again with a single letter. - -It was for Janet from Claude, and sarcasm was its prevailing tone. - -The writer began by deploring his fatuous inability to remain away from -her side. He pointed out that, as his chance visits might take her by -surprise or catch her off guard, not to say worry her into thinking of -promises she had no mind to keep, he should take steps to rid her of his -manifestly superfluous attentions. He had accordingly arranged to spend -some time with his friends the Armstrongs, in Huntington. By doing so -he should at least please his father, which was better than nothing, -certainly better than not pleasing either himself or her. - -In short, it was just such a petulant note as a spoiled woman's darling -like Claude might be expected to write. Having always received complete -submission from women, he regarded the least opposition to his -self-indulgence as outrageous and even wicked or perhaps blasphemous. - -The depth and passion of Janet's nature were not easily stirred, but -this letter startled her out of her usual lightheartedness. She sat -down in a chair by the window and looked out fixedly, in an effort to -repress her feelings. Kelly, sympathetic and bewildered, gave vent to -sundry heartening murmurs and exclamations; and, as these accomplished -little, he moved dishes attractively and hopefully around Janet's empty -place. - -From her point of vantage at the table, Cornelia surveyed her handiwork -with a pious simulation of sadness, surveyed it, and found that it was -not so bad. - -Janet blue and still, Kelly heavily anxious, Cornelia sweetly -sanctimonious, such was the curious tableau that Robert saw when he came -in, his slender frame and vigorous movements forming a direct contrast -to the static spectacle before him. - -"Now, see what you've done, Cato!" declaimed Cornelia, in one of those -complacent greetings which only she could make sublime. - -She fluttered Claude's note aloft and called out the sender's name for -Robert's information. - -Ignoring her, but grasping the import of the scene, Robert went over to -Janet's side and asked her in all simplicity whether he could be of any -service whatever. - -But she, to hide her tears, turned decisively away from him. Robert -gave her movement a totally different interpretation, drew back, and -walked quickly out of the room. - - - - *III* - - -The alarums and excursions for which Claude and Cornelia were -responsible might well have monopolized Janet's mind. But her thoughts -were kept in flux by a thunderstorm which threatened her peace from -another quarter. - -The new cloud on her horizon came from no less a person than Mrs. Howard -Madison Grey, the wife of her employer. - -Mrs. Grey served Janet as a symbol, a symbol opposed to the Outlaws. -The Outlaws were a convenient symbol of the world _within_ Kips Bay. -Mrs. Grey was an equally pat symbol of the world without. - -It amused Janet to study her own reactions to these two symbols and to -analyze her experiences with the moral codes symbolized. - -According to one of the primary conventions of the Outlaws, sex was -anybody's to have and nobody's to hold; there was no recognized private -property in sex. In Kips Bay, Janet had acted in the spirit (though not -in the letter) of this convention. And the results had been disastrous. - -On the other hand, in the world beyond the model tenements, the right of -private property in sex was absolute. In Mrs. Grey's world, Janet had -acted in the spirit and even in the letter of this convention. And -again the results had been disastrous. - -The second disaster materialized slowly. Its point of departure was the -visit paid by an ex-President of the United States to a performance of -Mr. Grey's third play, "The Great Reprieve." - -As originally written, this was a drama in which a Vermont Yankee -resigns to a younger brother the girl he madly loves, after which lofty -sacrifice he starts life anew in the Klondike, makes a fortune there, -and later turns up for a brief visit to the old homestead. To his -dismay he learns that the girl of his dreams has been left a widow and -that, with poverty and distress staring her in the face, she has no -choice but to take up the lot of an actress in the great Subway Circuit. -Nothing but his hand in marriage can save her from the doom in store for -her! And the curtain falls on the Great Reprieve. - -The play was a triumph of mediocrity in conception, construction, and -style; yet for some unaccountable reason it fell flat. The producer was -reluctant to accept the verdict of the playgoers for a fact, but a -second footing-up of the box-office revenues conquered his reluctance -completely. - -Half a dozen play-surgeons--writers of Broadway successes, high-priced, -fifth-rate super-hacks, before whose names the public prostrated -itself--were hastily called into consultation and an immediate and -drastic operation was advised. - -No time was wasted in thinking. All six consultants took a hand, so did -the producer, so did the favorite chauffeur of the producer's second -best mistress. Three days and three nights of heroic writing, drinking, -and rehearsing followed. At the end of this furious interlude, "The -Great Reprieve" had been whipped, or as the favorite chauffeur said, -"Goulasht" into shape. - -The chief character in the revised version was a typical American boy of -fifteen (erstwhile the heroine's brother), and upon his pranks, antics, -impudence, and callowness, the play now pivoted. The lad's capacity for -noisy pertness and imbecile clownage was represented as inexhaustible, -yet even so, the producer expressed a fear that the audience might not -be equal to the intellectual pressure of the dialogue. Relaxing -incidents were introduced--a woman purring over a poodle dog, a chorus -girl spouting the real American language invented by George Ade, a -squawking parrot, and a Southern mammy (out of "Uncle Tom's Cabin") -worshipping the ground the leading juvenile treads on. - -These features were warranted to give the play its "universal appeal"! - -Dramatic action there was none. Why cast pearls? After all, there was -plenty of movement, plenty of "pep" and "kick" as the producer said. -All the characters made their entrances and exits with frenzied -vehemence and, whilst on the stage, jerked arms and body and legs -ceaselessly to and fro, as if in the last throes of St. Vitus' Dance. -The audience would get its money's worth of "speed"--so much was -provided for, if nothing else was. The dialogue was spoken with a -short, sharp, pop-gun explosiveness, except in the maudlin sentimental -scenes in which it was drawled out into one world-without-end whine. -Apart from these details, nothing in particular was to happen in the -play; for nothing in particular mattered. However, a squealing child -was kept in reserve, ready to be trotted out for "sure-fire" applause, -if the "action" should chance to flag. - -In its renovated form, Mr. Grey hardly recognized "The Great Reprieve." -It seemed to him that his comedy had become an exact replica of each of -the other ten American comedies then playing in Times Square. This, -though Mr. Grey was no intellectual giant, made a difference to his -artist's pride. It made no difference to the Broadway theatregoers. -They fairly devoured the play. They swallowed all the old wheezes and -all the old slush and all the George Ade lingo and all the Southern -mammy stuff. They swallowed it all without winking. Despite the fears -of the producer, they proved themselves to be almost fully up to the -intellectual level of the fifteen-year-old leading juvenile. They -greeted his every act of clownage and horseplay with salvos of applause. -They laughed themselves sick over him. And when the poodle dog and the -baby appeared, the applause brought down the rafters. - -To put it mildly, Mr. Howard Madison Grey was stupefied. However, the -success of "The Great Reprieve" became the talk of the town. An -ex-President of the United States went to see it and drenched his box -with the tears of hilarity and contentment. Next day, he described the -play as "a clean, wholesome play of American life, manners and -thought!--every one hundred per cent American will be satisfied with -it." - -This description was henceforth underscored in every advertisement of -"The Great Reprieve." Seats were sold ten weeks in advance. The -producer and his crew of play-salvagers added another feather to their -caps. And Mrs. Howard Madison Grey began to look for an apartment on -upper Park Avenue. - - - - *IV* - - -The ensuing increase in the volume of engagements and correspondence -threw Janet together with Mr. Grey for uninterrupted stretches, oftener -than Mrs. Grey thought wise. - -Before long, the author's wife noted significant alterations in her -husband's behavior. - -Mrs. Howard Madison Grey was nothing if not scientific. She believed -religiously in the scientific method and applied it to all her -activities, even to her excursions in jealousy. As she hadn't read -"Science and Power" by Fitzfield Tyler, the efficiency engineer, for -nothing, she understood thoroughly that the proper method for scientific -research proceeds by three stages, namely: - -One: Observing facts, without any preconceived notion. - -Two: Imagining a general explanation or hypothesis that establishes the -relation of cause and effect between two groups of facts. - -Three: Verifying this hypothesis, a process of determining by means of -personally conducted observations, whether the hypothesis fits the facts -it proposes to explain. - -Observing, imagining, verifying--these were the three stages the trained -investigator had to grasp. And Mrs. Howard Madison Grey grasped them -with considerable kinetic energy. - -In the first place, observation of the library during work time ceased -to reveal Mr. Grey in the careless act of dictating in shirt sleeves and -suspenders or of puffing cigarette smoke unconcernedly towards Janet's -innocent lungs. Instead, it disclosed him in a handsome velvet smoking -jacket and betrayed the astonishing fact that from the very moment the -smoking jacket was exhibited the smoking habit was suppressed. Clearly, -Mr. Grey's behavior in the past and his behavior in the present showed -the existence of two utterly different groups of facts. - -To imagine a general explanation which should connect these two groups -of facts was the second and by long odds the easiest step. Mrs. Howard -Madison Grey formulated the hypothesis that some perverse piece of -femininity had lost her head over Mr. Grey's resplendent fame and -fortune, and had set out to tempt him into the primrose path of -dalliance. - -The third step was to verify this hypothesis with a series of -experiments. - -Mrs. Grey began by putting Janet through a systematic cross-examination. -Didn't she think men looked revolting in shirt sleeves and suspenders? -Quite so. Frankly, hadn't she simply longed to know a great literary -genius intimately? Naturally! And what might be her views on the -subject of nicotine? She thought smoking a disgusting habit? Ah, well! - -These answers were supplemented by scraps of information obtained, it -must be confessed, by experiments that might have daunted any but a most -dispassionate investigator. Disregarding ethics, it is an open question -whether a personally conducted observation is better served by studying -truth face to face or by studying her through a keyhole. Mrs. Grey's -contribution to the answer was to adopt the latter plan on the principle -that all is fair in love and science. - -She ratified the somewhat precarious keyhole method by the surer method -of sudden sallies into the library. She heard Mr. Grey addressing his -secretary in musically resonant tones, and saw him showing undue -solicitude for her comfort. Nay more, she surprised them in animated, -unworkmanlike conversations. True, she did not get the precise drift of -these talks, but she was morally certain that the talkers were -discussing six of the deadly sins and wishing the seventh. Though -further proof was scarcely needed, she found the straw that topped the -climax. Mr. Grey offered to double Janet's salary without request. The -conclusion forced itself on Mrs. Grey that her hypothesis was -incontestably established. It brought light out of darkness and order -out of chaos, besides fitting all the facts it proposed to explain. - -She lost no time in acting on the verified conclusion. - -One Monday morning before Howard Madison Grey returned from a week-end -on the New Jersey coast, she intercepted Janet. - -"The new play," she said accusingly, "isn't progressing very fast." - -"No," admitted Janet, "it isn't. So many topical matters have had to be -disposed of lately that the final copy of the play has been held back." - -Janet could scarcely dwell on her employer's growing penchant for -conversation with her when his wife was presumed to be securely -occupied. - -"Mr. Grey," said his wife, half reflectively, "Mr. Grey has the creative -temperament." - -She frequently aired this phrase; it had, she believed, the ring and -tang of distinction. Privately, she thought that the artistic -temperament incapacitated a man from the sane discharge of his most -elementary duties. - -"The creative temperament," she went on, "is too fine to cope with the -details of business." - -She gave Janet to understand that it was imperative that the success of -"The Great Reprieve" should be followed up without delay. - -"Mr. Sarsfield, the manager," continued Mrs. Grey, "has just telephoned -anxiously for the next manuscript." - -"Mr. Grey is still working on the revision of the third act," said -Janet. "As soon as he finishes it, I shall rush the whole play through. -Of course, I can type the first two acts at once." - -"Yes, do. But can you work uninterruptedly here? Perhaps you could -finish it faster at home--instead of coming here?" - -Janet jumped at the chance. "Certainly," she said, "I can finish it at -home in half the time." - -Mrs. Grey was taken aback. On second thoughts, she put Janet's -eagerness down to the new feminist strategy. - -"There's the risk," she said, uneasily picturing the precious pages at -the mercy of the New York transit services. - -Anxious to escape the assiduities of the wife, if not of the husband, -Janet gave reckless assurances of her devotion to the manuscript. - -Mrs. Grey finally assented to the arrangement. Janet was to take the -manuscript in sections and, if the scheme worked well, she might do all -future typewriting for the playwright in the same way. She need come to -the Greys' house only for the dictation. - -"I hope Mr. Grey will be satisfied," Janet could not help saying, once -the bundle of papers was safely tucked under her arm. - -"I hope so," said Mrs. Grey meditatively. "But who can fathom the ways -of the creative temperament--?" - -She left an eloquent hiatus. - -From which Janet inferred that the shortest way with that particular -temperament was to let the explanation follow the act. - - - - *V* - - -This bout with the green-eyed monster had taken place shortly before -Claude's petulant flight to the Armstrong estate in Huntington. To -Janet the whole affair was very ludicrous, and none the less so in that -she had given Mrs. Grey little cause for anxiety. - -Not for a moment had the newspaper acclaim of Howard Madison Grey -imposed upon her. Having measured her own wits with the playwright's, -she had formed an estimate of his talents which caused her to reject -with contempt the fantastic eulogies of him in the press. She continued -to see in Mr. Grey what she had always seen, namely, a decidedly -middle-aged man with a bald head and a graceless figure, a man whose -amorous pleasantries and elderly sentimentalism inspired her with the -same distaste as the odor of stale tobacco smoke with which his person -seemed to reek. - -She knew quite well that she had captured his emotions and his -illusions, but as she had found no difficulty in keeping his advances -within bounds she had seen no reason for giving the matter serious -thought. - -On the day of Mrs. Grey's interference, Janet returned to Kips Bay in -high feather. This had mystified Cornelia, who could not see in her -friend's recital of events any great cause for congratulation. She -gloomily predicted that Janet would soon lose her position altogether. -Janet said she didn't care. A change was the only stimulant she ever -took or needed. And any change, even a change for the worse, would -serve the purpose admirably. - -Cornelia wondered what was back of all this optimism until Janet pointed -out that, with her new program of work, she could repay Robert for his -many services to her. The firm of Barr & Lloyd could now carry on -business in the mornings as well as in the afternoons, Robert sharing -with her the work that came in from the Greys and perhaps from other -authors, just as she had shared with him the work that came in from the -League of Guildsmen. This statement was received in silence by -Cornelia, who drew her own conclusions and communicated them only to -Harry Kelly. - -Janet's offer to pool her secretarial jobs from all sources with her -typewriting for the League had been very welcome to Robert. His funds -were running uncomfortably low just then. The reason was that the -League was not a paying concern. The economic changes advocated by the -Guildsmen were so drastic in character and called for so much discipline -and far-sighted cooperation on the part of the working classes that the -very people whom they were intended to benefit fought shy of them. -Leaders of labor received the Guild proposals coldly, and the rank and -file gave them little sympathy and less support. - -For several mornings Robert and Janet pitched in with a will on the -typewriting of Mr. Grey's manuscripts. In the afternoons they had -continued the League work. Their comradeship was a happy and an -intimate one, how happy and how intimate Janet did not fully realize -until long after it was over. Perhaps the most delightful periods were -those in which they proofread the manuscripts they had finished. They -took turns reading aloud, and endless was the fun they extracted from -the lines of Mr. Grey's new play. More delightful still were excursions -into the fields of literature and economics, the play or some Guild -pamphlet furnishing the starting point. - -Thus the partnership of Barr & Lloyd had gone on swimmingly for two -weeks, until the afternoon on the recreation pier, the memorable -afternoon that had begun with the long talk about free love, and had -ended in the model tenement with Robert's kiss and Claude's sulky fit of -jealousy. - - - - *VI* - - -On the morning after this fateful day, Janet had to go to the Howard -Madison Greys' to return some finished manuscripts. - -She had gone there for this purpose some two or three times a week, -since the last arrangement with Mr. Grey. On these occasions, the -playwright himself met her. And usually he spun out the interview as -long as possible, due regard being had to the prudent Mrs. Grey who, -hovering watchfully in the background, reminded Janet of a quiet but -overcautious museum attendant. - -Mrs. Grey would frequently contrive to come into the room for the -undisguised purpose of glancing at or even criticizing Janet's -typewriting. The expectation of such a visit made Janet, on this -particular day, decidedly nervous. For, what with her distraction by -Claude's anger, and a sudden crotchiness that had overtaken the -typewriter, her papers bore the glaring evidence of innumerable -corrections and erasures. - -However, Mrs. Grey seemed for once to be off duty. So at least Janet -concluded from the fact that the author himself received her with much -less than his customary constraint and far more than his ordinary -enthusiasm. And not only was he in the best of spirits; he was groomed -to perfection. He had put on a suit cut in a fashionable English mode, -with quaint cuffs on the sleeves of the coat as well as on the bottoms -of the trousers. - -These and other details of sartorial artistry were probably lost on -Janet, but she was sensible enough of the general effect to surmise that -her employer had dressed himself to conquer. This surmise would have -forced itself upon her in any event, for Mr. Grey soon launched into -repeated hints looking to an assignation with her outside his home, -hints that presently crystallized into a direct invitation to a dinner -at Sherry's. - -According to the principles of Kips Bay--and Janet at this time -subscribed to these principles--there was absolutely no reason why Mr. -Grey should not invite her and absolutely no reason why she should not -accept. But the heart has a reason to which reason must bow. Janet's -heart was in submission to but one law, and that was the law of her -integrity. She could no more strike up a friendship with a man to whom -she was not naturally, spontaneously drawn than she could fly. And she -could hardly pretend to be drawn to Mr. Grey. No, not even for the -pleasure of giving the suspicious Mrs. Grey something to be suspicious -about. - -Besides, the man was too cocksure. He appeared to share Mrs. Grey's -conviction that the slightest nod on his part would incline Janet (or -any other woman) to follow him to the ends of the earth. This was -amusing. But it was also irritating to one's pride of sex. - -The trouble with Mr. Grey was that, having realized the first of the two -ambitions which governed his desires, he felt satisfied he was about to -realize the second. As an author, he had conquered the public; as a -man, he now meant to conquer women. - -To Janet, Mr. Grey's illusions about himself were as transparent as his -illusions about her. It was plain that he took with the utmost -seriousness the greatness that had recently been thrust upon him. His -reasoning was quite simple. If success in pleasing the crowd and its -leaders did not imply the possession of superior gifts and of a masterly -technique in exploiting those gifts, what did it imply? - -This reasoning struck Janet as puerile. Yet Mr. Grey could hardly be -expected to share her view that talent and superb execution had never by -themselves attracted the plaudits of the crowd, or that the only man who -could please the million was the man born with the taste of the million. -Mr. Grey had been lucky enough to inherit this taste. Why demand that -he look a gift horse in the mouth? - -But the judgment of youth is direct and pitiless! It seemed nothing -less than ridiculous to Janet that Mr. Grey should seriously pose as a -fount of the divine fire, and calmly invite her to become a ministering -angel to the sacred fount. What was still more ridiculous was that he -disguised his offer in weird, roundabout phrases calculated to enable -her to "save her face." - -He was still confidently urging the project, when Mrs. Grey swept in and -fell upon them like a moral landslide. - -Mrs. Grey did not stop to account for her unexpected return, to disclose -how long she had been eavesdropping, or to listen to Mr. Grey's -stumbling and embarrassed explanations. Her belligerent manner left no -doubt that she put the very worst construction on what she had heard. -Ignoring Janet altogether, she opened her batteries full on her husband -and discharged a broadside of questions, short, sharp and desolating. - -Her questions were entirely rhetorical. - -Was this the loyalty he had sworn to her, when she picked him out of the -gutter of obscurity and married him? Had she not, all along, suspected -that he was plotting an affair with this girl? No doubt the girl had -been setting her cap at him, but was that a legitimate excuse for -inconstancy? At his age, he ought to be beyond a desire to sow wild -oats. Didn't he know that a mature man sowing his wild oats presented -as idiotic a spectacle as if he were sucking his thumb? She didn't know -or care what _his_ family would think, but was he proposing to besmirch -the unstained record of _her_ family with a divorce scandal? And so on-- - -Janet listened in icy humiliation whilst the storm broke over and around -her. She expected every moment to be caught up in it, whirled into its -vortex, and destroyed. - -What actually happened was that Mr. Grey played a ghastly imitation of -his masterful hero in "The Klondike Mail," until his lady, infuriated by -even this shadow of defiance, reached a degree of tension that would -have burst a twelve-inch gun. Death and destruction were almost afoot -when she spied the typewritten papers which Janet had just returned. -She pounced upon these papers and violently projected them to a point -within three inches of her spouse's nose, after which she regaled him -with a description of the flaws in the typewriting and the deficiencies -in the typist. - -This description was pithy, elaborate, exhaustive, but it was not -exactly verified. - -Followed an effective oratorical pause. And then Mrs. Grey begged to be -informed whether the quality of the work was not ample evidence that the -worker came for no good and sufficient business reasons. No one -venturing to reply, she hurled the manuscripts at the head of Mr. Grey's -rapidly retreating form and, as her aim was marred by a trifling -miscalculation, she picked up another document and took a shy at Janet. -While Janet was warding off this missile, the playwright made good his -escape. - -"Really, Mrs. Grey," said Janet, standing her ground boldly as her -indignation got the better of her fright, "you are behaving worse than a -fishwife." - -Mrs. Grey sobered down with incredible suddenness. - -"My poor girl," she said, solicitously, "did I hit you?" - -"You came within an ace of knocking out one of my eyes!" - -"Just so. Within an ace. That was my intention, precisely. I aimed -for effect, not for damage. I assure you I'm a first-rate shot." - -Mrs. Grey had now composed her feelings and her dress, both of which had -been considerably ruffled. - -"A husband is hard to get nowadays," she went on, smiling, "but he is -even harder to keep. When a charming girl makes this comparative -difficulty a superlative one, she does a wife grave wrong. Still, under -the circumstances, I forgive you." - -"You mustn't presume too much on my wickedness," said Janet, smiling at -this strange turn of affairs. "I'm disgracefully inexperienced." - -"Inexperienced! Ah, well, men have an amazing weakness for some kinds -of inexperience--in a girl. In a wife they're not so keen on it. My -dear, if unmarried girls would only put themselves in a wife's place, -what a lot of trouble they'd save--for us now and for themselves later -on. But of course, they can't do it. They think marriage is a picnic on -a motorcycle with the bride in the carriage attachment. What a dream! -Marriage is more like a tennis game with the two players facing each -other across the dividing line of sex. You'll find that out the day -after the wedding! You'll know then that the only way to manage a -husband is to discover his weakest point and keep driving at that until -the game and the set are in your hands. Mr. Grey's weakest point is his -horror of facing facts. He dreads a fact the way a boy dreads soap. I -discovered that at our honeymoon hotel when we debated how to stop the -waiter from serving us with cold soup. Rather than compel the waiter to -change it, Mr. Grey tried to prove that the soup was really quite hot. -No, I'm not the tartar you think I am. I don't object to a man having -his fling now and then, provided it's a short fling. But I can't let him -get into the grip of a girl of your sort, the permanent sort. That -might introduce fatal complications, and I don't mean to take any -chances." - -"Then why did you let me come here in the first place?" - -"Because you took me in completely," replied this astonishing woman. -"You had none of the obvious female ways. You were almost pathetically -businesslike and you seemed to be--well--no beauty. Excuse me for being -frank." - -"The excuses are all on my side, I'm sure," said Janet, highly amused. - -"Not at all, my dear. I'm convinced I was quite wrong. You grow on one, -even on a woman. I soon found out that beneath your dovelike innocence -there was a serpentine wisdom. It's a magic combination. No man can -resist it." - -"Thank you, Mrs. Grey. This flattery is more than I deserve, but--" - -"It's no good protesting. There is a devilish fascination about you. -If I'm beginning to feel it myself, what must poor Mr. Grey feel?" - -And with a gesture which betokened that, in these matters, feelings -transcended verbal arguments and oral contracts, she paid Janet what was -owing to her and made it clear that she need not come again. - -At the door, she wished Janet good luck. - -"My dear," she said, "as a typist you cut rather a poor figure. But -that combination I spoke of--it's worth a fortune--" - -Janet went away not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. A good cry -would not have come amiss; and yet, as she counted up the fortunes of -the last two days, she could not help observing that her mishaps had -trod on one another's heels in a procession that was well-nigh comic. -Claude's letter and flight, Cornelia's bad temper, her own involuntary -rudeness to Robert, the crop of errors in the playwright's manuscript, -Mrs. Grey's impertinences, and the crowning loss of her position--here -was a downpour of calamities amounting to a regular deluge! - -And not a single ray of sunshine in sight, either. - -On second thoughts, she had to admit that this statement was not -strictly true. For Robert would probably be home, and what an immense -relief it would be to tell him all that had happened to her! At the -same time she would be able to obliterate the effect of yesterday's -rudeness. - -For she guessed that Robert's feelings had been deeply hurt by her -gesture of withdrawal from him. But she felt no doubt of her power to -conciliate him or to conquer his just resentment. In fact, she had so -little doubt of this power that, the nearer home she got, the more she -looked forward to the prospect of exercising it. - -Ah, yes, it would be simple and sweet to make up with Robert, and they -should spend a very jolly afternoon together, working over sundry papers -and planning new activities for the firm of Barr & Lloyd. - -And (such is the peremptory, indomitable influence of the heart!), her -spirits rose again. In the full flush of agreeable anticipation, she -began to turn the day's adventures over in her mind. As she did so, she -gave them a humorous twist, for she meant to relate them to Robert -entertainingly, in return for his expected concession to her. - - - - - *CHAPTER NINETEEN* - - *I* - - -On reaching her own street, Janet had to plough her way to the Lorillard -tenements through shoals of children that scampered about as derelict as -herself. She felt the keenest pity for these little tots who came from -the very immodel tenements not far away, where five or even eight people -existed in a single room, defying the decencies of life by day and -mocking them by night in order to live up to "the highest standard of -living" in the world. - -She did not expect Robert until two o'clock, when he regularly returned -from the League of Guildsmen. In the interval she looked, as a matter -of course, under Cornelia's alarm clock, where the four friends were in -the habit of putting brief communications for one another. She found -the following note addressed to her in Robert's painstaking hand: - - -Dear Janet: - -Forgive me for not being on hand this afternoon. During the next few -days, and perhaps longer, I shall be in Pittsburgh. For some time, -therefore, the whole burden of the firm of Barr & Lloyd will have to -rest on the shoulders of one partner. Lucky that this partner is so -thoroughly staunch and dependable, isn't it? - -What is taking me out of town is the strike in Pittsburgh. Thousands of -steel workers have laid down their tools in protest against the -conditions under which they are obliged to work. The contest between -these men and their all-powerful employers is horribly uneven, and the -apathy of the general public towards the issues at stake is appalling. -Naturally, every agency that is pledged to the success of a healthy -labor movement must pitch into this prickly business. For the strikers -need all the help they can get, whether of a material or a moral kind. - -It is on the moral side that our League of Guildsmen comes in. The -recent war has filled the earth with indescribable bitternesses and -resentments. It has also given sovereign strength to the idea that -henceforth the control of the world's affairs must be taken away from -the idlers and profiteers and given to the workers and producers. At -every turn, omens of a vast incalculable change force themselves upon -our senses. - -Clearly, those who don't want a bloody revolution have got to work tooth -and nail for a pacific one. Now the Guildsmen, being advocates of a -change that shall be peaceful though drastic, have a vital interest in -drumming it into people's heads that violence can never breed anything -save violence and violence again. - -You see, don't you, that I am needed there far more than here? Please -believe that I'm sorry in the last degree to upset our joint business -plans and to hold up "The Klondike Mail" on the typewriter at just the -critical moment when Mr. Grey's double-dyed desperadoes are holding it -up in the middle of the third act. It makes me feel like an accessory -to the crime, all the more so in that it gives you, at the secretarial -end, the task of foiling one more villain. - -Arrangements have been made at the League office for the delivery to you -of another batch of Mss. Could you call in there tomorrow afternoon? - -More later, as soon as my plans are surer. - -Ever yours, - Robert. - -P.S. On second thoughts, it seems a shame that you should be saddled -with a partner who is bound to be more or less on the jump. I recall -the plan you confided to me last week, the plan of turning Barr & Lloyd -into a real secretarial business on an extensive scale. With this on -your mind, you may well fear that my haphazard movements will prove -ruinous to any settled policy. If so, and whenever you can find a more -stable associate, please have no compunction about making a change. We -must not let sentiment stand in the way of good management. - - -"He can't even say good-bye without delivering a lecture," said Janet -bitterly. - -She felt aggrieved. Just when she needed Robert most, he left her in -the lurch. True, his direct connection with the labor movement made his -departure inevitable. But did he have to rush off to Pittsburgh the -very moment the strike broke out? She supposed his haste was partly -prompted by his injured feelings. If not, why had he so needlessly -offered to dissociate himself from her, why, indeed, had he written such -an entirely cold, unsympathetic letter? - -"Like his cold, unsympathetic views on love," she said to herself, -recalling with some scorn his severe, intolerant pronouncements on the -free love theme. - -She reviewed the business-like contents of the letter with a growing -sense of desolation. It looked as though she were in for a dismal -evening, one of those dismal evenings that are enormously good for us -_afterwards_, because at the time they so thoroughly plough up our -deepest feelings. - - - - *II* - - -But the facts of the present were too disturbing to permit her to -extract much consolation from a philosophy of the future. - -For Janet's difficulties were by no means entirely sentimental. - -Much as Claude's anger and Robert's coolness tortured her feelings, it -was the destruction of her plans that chiefly occupied her thoughts. -These were the plans that Robert had referred to in his letter. - -Ably assisted by Cornelia, whose power of sketching the most imposing -schemes quite exhausted her capacity for executing even the humblest -ones, Janet had mapped out a very ambitious career for herself. Her -intention was to make the most of her stenographic foothold; to -accumulate enough resources to permit a spur, so to speak, to be run -into the domain of the law; and eventually to reach a point where the -secretarial specialty and its legal intertwinings should be united in -one occupation. - -It was, as Cornelia all aglow remarked, a time when women were not only -casting down the barriers raised by men around the old professions, but -were actually bestirring themselves to carve out brand-new professions. - -What Cornelia put into enthusiasm, Janet proposed to put into cold -deeds. - -As a first step in this direction, she resolved that the firm of Barr & -Lloyd, which had been born in jest, should be reared in dead earnest. -Her work for Mr. Grey, a certain amount of casual work which she was -getting from friends of the playwright, and such odd jobs as Robert -brought from the Guild League--these three sources were to form the -basis of a secretarial office dealing with authors' manuscripts in -relation to typing, revision, criticism, and so on. - -In short, Barr & Lloyd (Barr first, because Robert, as an advocate of -the absolute equality of men and women, insisted that the correct order -of precedence was a strictly alphabetical one)--Barr & Lloyd were to be -manuscript specialists, handling every conceivable matter linked up with -the preparation and sale of manuscripts and the protection of authors' -rights. - -From Robert, Janet had extracted a promise to supervise the department -of criticism and revision. Claude (this was before his flight in a fit -of pique) had refused to take the project seriously. Cornelia, in her -most pronounced _bel canto_ style, had volunteered to "lend a helping -hand" to the typewriting department and to give her moral support to -most of the other departments. As Janet's last illusions about Cornelia -were being speedily dissipated, and as she judged that some birds in a -bush are worth ten in the hand, she contracted for Cornelia's moral -support and nothing but her moral support in all the departments. - -Then, as regards the legal department. Janet held that, in order to -round out her business in the most complete way, one member of the firm -ought to be equipped with a first-hand training in jurisprudence. She -saw nothing for it but to be this member herself, and accordingly she -had already made arrangements to attend the coming fall sessions of an -Evening Law School. Needless to say, this part of her dream had not -been so much as breathed to Claude. - -Janet intended, as soon as she had passed her bar examination, to -specialize on all points of law bearing on literary and dramatic -productions, the rights of authors, and the relations between the buyers -and sellers of manuscripts. She had been put onto this idea by a popular -short-story writer, one of Mr. Grey's friends. This man had assured her -that the literary field, on its legal side, was practically a virgin -field. Merchants, inventors, landlords, captains of industry and the -like could, where the law touched their spheres of influence, find -appropriate legal specialists with all the precedents, traditions, -decisions, appeals, evasions, etc., at their fingers' ends. Authors -alone were in no such happy case. The legal background of authorship -was a vast morass of contradictions, quibbles and uncertainties. Authors -were frequently at sea in respect of their rights, constantly -handicapped in the matter of expert advice, and always liable to be done -in the eye by the more unscrupulous members of the fraternity of -editors, publishers, managers and agents. - -This, then, was the field that Janet meant to conquer. She had a roseate -vision of Barr & Lloyd occupying a suite of offices on the lower end of -Madison or Park Avenue. If fortune favored her, these offices were to be -staffed with ambitious young women assistants whom she would help to -useful and honorable careers (as far as male prejudice and -discrimination would allow). Barr & Lloyd, in other words, besides -their primary business as manuscript practitioners, would have a -secondary mission, namely, that of multiplying the avenues along which -woman might march towards economic equality with men. - -Such was the purpose which Janet had already begun to work for. She now -saw all her plans collapsing like a pricked balloon. The action taken -by Mrs. Grey meant the loss of much potential custom which she had hoped -would grow by recommendation out of the Grey patronage. The most -galling, stabbing fact in all this sorry business was the reflection -that she had failed not merely in her human and business dealings but in -her workmanship. If only she hadn't made a mess of those last -manuscripts for the playwright, the ones she had prepared under the -strain of Claude's tempestuous displeasure! Mrs. Grey's taunt still -rankled in her ears: "As a typist, you cut a very poor figure--" - -True, Mrs. Grey had tacked on another phrase--the one about her "magic -combination." But what did this trumped-up compliment weigh against the -maddening behavior of Claude and Robert? - -Both of them had deserted her! - -Janet was not addicted to the windy heroics cultivated by the Outlaws of -Kips Bay, but for once she believed herself entitled to indulge in them. -She really felt deserted. By Claude, by Robert, by Cornelia and, of -course, by her family. - -"How naturally I think of the family when I'm glum!" was her silent -comment. - -Her thoughts ran back to the time when she had left home in defiance of -Mrs. Barr's ultimatum. - -Since then, her mother had written one letter full of that spirit of -Christian forbearance that has driven so many people into the devil's -camp. After that, not another word from her. But there had followed a -steady stream of appeals from her father, imploring her to come back at -any price, swearing that life at home was not worth living without her, -and promising to do anything in the wide world she demanded (except, as -Janet sardonically observed to herself, damp down her mother's tyranny a -trifle. He had never had, and he never would have, the nerve to do this -or to put up the least show of fight.) - -As a last effort, her sister Emily had paid a visit to the Lorillard -tenements--partly perhaps from curiosity. She affirmed that she had -come of her own free will, and probably believed this statement to be -the truth. Janet knew very well that her sister was, consciously or -unconsciously, the family ambassador. The Barrs always throve best when -their right hand did not know what their left hand was doing. - -Emily, all a-tingle with the exhilaration which an angel inevitably -feels when descending upon a glittering abode of vice, had tried hard -not to betray her excitement. In a tone essenced with pious sorrow and -celestial distress! She had assured the erring one (though not in these -words), that all would be forgiven if only she returned to her home -before the world (of the Barrs) should discover that a Barr had -abandoned Brooklyn for Kips Bay, and her family for the society of -atheists, Bolshevists, and Bohemians! - -"But I haven't the faintest notion of abandoning you," Janet had -replied. "I believe I can lead a fuller, freer, more active life away -from mother's apron strings, that's all. Of course I want to see the -family from time to time. I could come on short visits--" - -Emily had assured her, not without a trace of exultation, that Mrs. Barr -would never hear of such a cool arrangement. Either the prodigal -daughter returned once and for all, or the family would treat her as -dead. - -"Really! But how you'll miss the funeral!" Janet had wickedly -exclaimed. - -At which Emily had put on her gloves. - -All later messages sent by Janet to her mother in an effort to put their -mutual relations on a more reasonable footing had been severely ignored. -The only communications she had received were growingly infrequent notes -from her father, and these contained nothing but the same old -appeals--sentimental, pathetic, fatuous. - - - - *III* - - -The doorbell startled her out of her long, melancholy reverie. She flew -to the threshold, and in came Claude! She had proposed to treat him -coolly at their next meeting. But his return was as sudden as it was -unexpected. And he was Claude, the same Claude with the same striking -appearance, the same telling voice, the same handsome face. Instantly, -the magnetic spark that had darted from one to the other at the Outlaws' -Ball made its swift, poignant, thrilling leap between them again. - -Though words were superfluous, Claude, as he clasped her in a passionate -embrace, murmured: - -"Janet, darling, forgive me. I was a beast to write a letter like -that." - -"Confession is good for the soul," said Janet, laughing and trying to -release her head. - -"Are you angry? Well, you ought to be. And I ought to grovel in the -dust at your feet. You are a saint to forgive me, and I should be -ashamed to accept forgiveness if I hadn't suffered. Yes, Janet, I've -suffered cruelly. I never had so keen a grief and I never so thoroughly -deserved one. But I'm nearly ill with worry." - -He _did_ look pale, nor did it hurt his cause that pallor became him. -Besides, his apologies were as overwhelming as his fits of temper. How -could the poor girl help forgiving him? - -And so Janet, who but a few minutes before had been considering -(mock-heroically to be sure) sundry historic forms of self-slaughter, -now forgot all about jumping off Brooklyn Bridge, etc., and poured a -heavenly compassion on Claude. - -"Something happened in Huntington," she said. "Something serious. Does -it involve me? I want you to tell me straight." - -"That scoundrel Burley tipped my father off about us, and as a result, -the old man is half out of his wits. He is determined that my marriage -with Marjorie shall not fall through, for the one terror of his life is -that of disobliging Mr. Armstrong. In what form the word was passed -along the line, I don't know. But they were at me, one and all, day and -night, giving me a hundred and one sly intimations of the general -satisfaction that would follow the much desired event. The pressure got -to be unbearable." - -He said that the older people had left no stone unturned to bring the -Armstrong-Fontaine alliance to pass. Pacing the floor restlessly, he -spoke of the delicate hints, the veiled references, the consummate skill -with which he and Marjorie were engineered into tete-a-tetes. Could -Janet picture him alone with Marjorie, and the resultant sessions of -sweet, silent thought? Had she any idea of what the imperious will of -Armstrong's daughter could do in the way of maneuvering a man into the -most difficult situations? Janet had little difficulty in calling up an -image of the stately brunette with lustrous dark hair, patrician nose, -and sulky, discontented mouth. This imposing young lady had impressed -herself indelibly upon Janet's mind at the Mineola Aerodrome, and, such -are the unfathomable processes of sex, Janet profoundly pitied Claude. -She did this without a suspicion that he might be drawing generously -upon his imagination for the sake of that very pity of hers, which she -gave him so divinely. Nor did it occur to her that there were few young -men in all New York who would have been in unrelieved misery if Marjorie -Armstrong had set her cap at them. - -As a matter of fact, Claude quite omitted to mention that he had gone to -Huntington with more than a vague notion of finding out whether he and -Marjorie couldn't hit it off together, after all; also that, if -Marjorie, with all her eagerness to capture him, had not so plainly -exposed her design of "bossing" the marriage after it had taken -place--well, then-- - -What he did say, was: - -"Of course, I was left quite free to do as I pleased. Oh, quite free. -They wouldn't lead the horse to water--not they, that would be brutal -coercion--they would simply make it drink." - -This irony expressed the full truth. Claude had virtually given his -father a promise not to marry Janet. But Mr. Fontaine senior put no -faith in vows that were subject to the stresses and strains of love. -Mistrustful of his son's infatuation and also of the unknown quantity of -Janet's ambition, he did not scruple to adopt any tactical measure by -which the union of the Armstrong-Fontaine forces might be achieved. - -"What do you mean to do?" asked Janet, greatly troubled. - -"What _can_ I do? What can _any_ prisoner do? Run away, I suppose." - -"What--without me?" - -"Well, you see, I'm planning to go to Europe, darling. Separated by the -Atlantic I shall be able to make my position much clearer to my father. -An ocean is an astonishing convenience when it stands between the giver -and the receiver of an explanation." - -"Yes, but why can't I go, too?" - -"You dear innocent," he said, taking her hand tenderly, "we can't go -cavorting over two continents as if we were merely joy-riding from here -to Quakertown." - -"Why not?" she persisted, with her customary refusal to be sidetracked. - - - - *IV* - - -The question embarrassed him. Even had he been clear about the train of -thought at the back of his mind, he could not, in all brutal directness, -have said: "A man in my station does not flaunt his mistresses in the -face of the public. That is all very well for the vulgar rich. But not -for my sort. High-class polygamy is strictly _sub rosa_." - -Claude did not explicitly think this, much less say it. His chief -difficulty in the way of reaching a straightforward understanding with -Janet was that his mind did not work straightforwardly upon the problem -of sex relations. His adopted radical professions were entirely -subordinate to powerful, instinctive reactions along traditional lines. - -Thus, at heart, he had little use for Janet's views about free love. To -Janet, the term meant a public abandonment of an obsolete institution. -To Claude, it was little more than a polite synonym for illicit -intercourse. - -Claude, in fact, had no deep quarrel with existing institutions. He -prided himself on being tolerant, and his tolerance extended to the -institutions of Bohemianism (which had no recognition in law), as well -as to the institutions of the established order (which enjoyed this -recognition). His support of "advanced" art, his membership in the -Outlaws' Club, his philandering among the Lorillard tenementers--these -were all ways of escape from the particularity of normal civilized life. -Bohemianism, by systematically discarding troublesome forms, costly -conventions and restrictive social obligations, really organized these -ways of escape for him and provided a maximum of pleasure with a minimum -of effort. - -He was, therefore, by no means prepared to go as far as Janet wished to -go, openly; yet he was fully prepared to go to the limit, clandestinely. -So much so, that a severe critic like Robert would have said that Claude -was deliberately taking advantage of Janet's inexperienced outlook on -life. And it was quite true that Claude was willing to profit by her -belief in free love, although he was far from willing to champion this -belief, much less to become a martyr in its promotion. - -But if he was exploiting Janet's infatuation for him, he was not doing -so consciously. And the fact remained that, had she been so minded, she -could just as easily have exploited his infatuation for her. Indeed, -the latter would have been easier. Claude was not aware of this. He -was aware only of his own power, and he believed he was exercising -almost superhuman self-control in an effort to avoid compromising her -future. - -He believed he was doing this now, whilst fishing for an answer to -Janet's candid "_why not?_" A few hours earlier, in Huntington, under -the concerted pressure of the Armstrong family, he had realized that he -would have to give up either Marjorie or Janet; and it had occurred to -him that if he took Janet now, Marjorie was not lost to him later; -whereas if he took Marjorie now, Janet was lost to him forever. - -Naturally, it was not in terms of pitiless realism that he sought to -explain his choice. - -A more heroic explanation was that he had given up Marjorie for Janet's -sake, and that, on a peremptory summons of the heart, he had run away -from Huntington determined to risk everything--from his father's wrath -to the loss of Mr. Armstrong's protection in the matter of smuggled -diamonds. The heroic explanation was the one he meant to give to Janet. - -Looking, at the moment, into Janet's gray eyes in their superb setting -of long, dark lashes, he was ready to give his thoughts any form that -might be acceptable to her. Surely, such a mixture of radical daring and -native good sense, of enticement and candor, of self-reliance that -ennobled her and soft yielding that flattered _him_--such a mixture had -never before been found in one woman. It made her exquisite, enigmatic, -thrilling and quite indispensable to him. - -So reasoned his heart. And all his commanding nonchalance returned. - - - - *V* - - -The result was that when Janet, failing to get an answer to her -question, repeated anew her wish to accompany him abroad, he enfolded -her in his arms and said: - -"After all, why not?" - -And after a fervent embrace, he added: - -"Janet, I think you ought to face what's in store for us." - -"Don't let's cross bridges, Claude," she pleaded. - -"We'll get married, of course," he went on, unheeding her. "Frankly, my -father won't like it. He'll probably make Rome howl. However, he'll -get used to it in the end--especially when he meets you. But, though -there's a storm ahead, you are brave and we'll weather it, I'm sure." - -"Your father won't raise a storm," said Janet, with a strange smile, -"for a small but important reason. Remember, I'm not going to be -married." - -"Janet!" - -"You know I don't believe in it." - -They argued the matter pro and con, she spiritedly, he lamely. Janet -pointed out, among other things, that when Mr. Fontaine senior learnt of -their free union he was little likely to attempt any serious -interference, but would count on time to separate them. - -"'Love's not Time's fool!'" said Claude, quoting dithyrambically. "We'll -never be separated, darling, will we?" - -"Well--not for the present," said Janet, with dancing eyes. "I won't -vouch for our dim and distant feelings." - -"No teasing, you darling imp!" - -"Claude, I mean it. If--if it should turn out that your father was -right, that will merely prove that we were wrong." - -He was at a complete loss how to treat her incredible self-surrender. -As a man of the world, he was part scandalized, part uneasy, according -as he swerved from the conviction that Janet was candid, to the -suspicion that she was designing. Again, as a gay Bohemian trifler, he -saw in her attitude an easy way out of possible complications. Whether -he should or should not carry out his offer of marriage was now a -question he would not have to face. She did not mean to put his vows to -the test! This was breath-bereaving, staggering; it was even slightly -annoying. But, her eccentric choice being a fact, surely the -consequences did not rest on his soul? - -"Janet, you don't know what you are doing!" he cried out involuntarily, -being torn many ways at once. - -She, too, was greatly agitated; but, under the pressure of her theory, -she kept her head. While he stood there as if distraught, she poured -out a flood of reasons to which he scarcely listened. For instance, she -said it was criminal for two people to form a permanent union or bring -children into a family until they were sure of being well-suited to each -other and of establishing a family that children would wish to enter. - -All marriages ought to be trial marriages of the kind that George -Meredith had suggested long ago. - -Moreover, until she became independent in the matter of money, she -couldn't dream of subscribing to any permanent arrangement. - -He replied that this was all nonsense and derided Meredith as a bookworm -and a dreamer. For his own part, hadn't he money enough to provide for -them both? If she wouldn't take half his money, she didn't love him. -That was flat! - -"I do love you!" cried Janet, with more visible emotion than before. -"That's why I mustn't marry you." - -He rose with a wild movement. - -"I must save myself--and you, too!" he murmured. "I'm going abroad by -the first steamer." - -But these words were dashed with insurgent passion. Handsome, hypnotic, -intense, his whole being vibrated towards her. She surrendered -incontinently. - -"Not without me!" she said, enchaining him in her arms. - -He kissed her tempestuously. - -"It's a daring step, and a perilous one," he said, more in weak protest -than in forceful remonstrance. - -"No, no, no!" she cried, as with a gesture of ecstasy she hid her face -on his shoulder. - - - - - *PART IV* - - *NEMESIS* - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY* - - *I* - - -One morning in the middle of August, Harry Kelly cut short his -gymnastics and went downstairs to get fruit, cream and rolls for -Cornelia, as he had done daily since Janet left. The letter box held -one letter, a fat one, postmarked Paris. Cornelia was inclined to be -lackadaisical before breakfast, but a letter enlivened her at once, -especially if it came from a long-lost friend or bore a foreign -postmark. Kelly sent his powerful form bounding up the staircase, the -victuals being safeguarded by a miracle of balancing. - -"A letter from Paris," he called out joyfully, as he entered Apartment -Fifteen. - -"From Janet!" exclaimed Cornelia with conviction. One glance at the -handwriting verified her guess. - -"Janet's hand," she said, and tore the envelope open feverishly. - -"Wouldn't you enjoy reading it more after breakfast?" he said wistfully -as he watched Cornelia unfolding a great many pages of writing. - -"What an idea! Make the coffee, Hercules, there's a good boy. The -water is boiling; all you need to do is to pour the water on the coffee -and let it stand." - -As Kelly had fallen sole heir to the daily duty of preparing her -breakfast, he uncomplainingly went to work. Meanwhile, Cornelia, in a -very becoming green-and-gold Mimosa jacket, sat down on a lounge and -buried herself in Janet's letter. - - - - *II* - - -Dear Cornelia: - -Here I am in the Luxembourg Gardens, alone with my fountain pen and my -pad of paper, Claude having gone to the races as the guest of a Russian -Grand Duke. I feel ages removed from the days of Kips Bay, though by -the calendar only four weeks have gone by. - -Why haven't you heard from me in all this time? That, I imagine, is the -first question you would ask me if we met face to face. No, you -wouldn't. You would divine the answer. You would know that the -blinding, paralyzing, notoriety into which we were suddenly plunged, -left me with but one desire, the supreme desire for solitude. A desert -without a single oasis would not have been too lonely for me to live in. -For a few days even Claude-- - -Those cruel headlines, those stabbing capital letters! Like points of -fire in a demon dance they riot in and out of my memory yet. "Affinity -or Elopement!" "Fontaine Heir Meets Enchantress on Baronia!" "Diamond -King's Son in Joy-Ride to Europe!" How did the inquisition happen to -overlook such exquisite weapons of torture as huge red capitals on a -smooth white space? - -Writing the letters down affords a mild relief. To my physical sight, -not to my mind's eye. Oh yes, I actually saw the headlines that -Hutchins Burley fabricated in his newspaper story. Some thoughtful -enemy of Claude's took pains to have a copy of the _Evening Chronicle_ -forwarded to his Paris address. - -Didn't you guess at once that Hutchins was the beast responsible for the -publicity we got? That vicious man has a mortal grudge to pay off -against me or against Claude or perhaps against us both. But what for? - -How he got on our track, heaven alone knows. Heaven and Mark Pryor. - -Yes, Cornelia, our own Mark Pryor (the human embodiment of the theory of -protective coloration, as Robert called him)--he it was who brought me -the fateful news. In this wise. - -On the second morning out, I was taking a turn around the deck by -myself, while Claude was chatting with the captain. (The "Baronia's" -captain is an old friend of Claude's family, the Fontaines being heavy -shareholders in the steamship company. This was the connection that -enabled us to get accommodations at such short notice, the purser's room -having been given up to me and the second engineer's quarters to -Claude.) - -As I said, I was roving about the upper deck, when one of the -ventilators or posts or something, suddenly became alive. Or so it -seemed to my startled eyes. Walking remorselessly towards me, this no -longer stationary object magically assumed the form and voice of Mark -Pryor! You could have knocked me down with a feather. (By the way, I'm -more certain than ever that he's a detective or a spy or a Soviet -propagandist--or can he be merely an American novelist studying life for -the _Saturday Evening Post_?) - -Whatever the key to his inmost mystery, I've always been greatly taken -with him. He's like a flash of lightning on a pitch-dark night: his -comings and goings are never more sinister or mysterious than when his -sudden vivid presence gives them a momentary relief. - -Without letting me into the secret of his skill at sleight-of-hand (or -rather, sleight-of-feet), he drew me aside and told me in a most -sympathetic way of the story about Claude and me that was being -headlined in the _Evening Chronicle_ and that was soon to be the gossip -of two continents. The information had breezed his way--by wireless. -Out of pure regard for me, he had bribed the radio man to keep mum. -Wasn't it splendid of him? But he warned me to prepare for a leak. -"The only thing you can keep dark nowadays is the truth," he said, in -his quiet way, without a twinkle in his eye. - -He also said that Hutchins Burley was certainly at the bottom of the -whole scandal. He was sure of this, because he had seen Burley on the -pier shortly before the "Baronia" left, and because of other reasons -which he declared he was not at liberty to divulge. - -After predicting that we should meet again, Mr. Pryor "faded away" as -imperceptibly as usual, leaving me a prey to my thoughts. My heart was -mostly in my boots and I can tell you I was getting pretty limp when I -pulled myself up short with the reminder that I must pluck up a little -courage if only to show that I deserved a disinterested friend like Mr. -Pryor. (He's in France at present, on some dark business or other. I -don't care how dark, I'm glad he's here. The mere fact gives me the -sensation of being watched over. I'm confident that Mark Pryor's keen -sight is at least as far-reaching as the long arm of coincidence.) - -It wasn't exactly a picnic to tell Claude the news. Like most of us, -Claude thrives wonderfully well on good luck but takes bad luck hard. -Naturally, to a man who has so many important friends, newspaper -notoriety is a bitter pill to swallow. Claude raged at his fate with a -violence that frightened me. He tortured himself by anticipating the -libels to which his character would be exposed, the pictures of himself -and me that the yellow newspapers would print, the slanders that the -busybodies would privately circulate. How his father and the Armstrongs -would take the affair was another source of torment. And then there was -the fear that the story might leak out on the "Baronia" and that we -should become the talk of the ship. - -It was a calamity. And the worst of it was that Claude appeared to -think I was in some way directly responsible for it. His anger worried -me far more than the notoriety did; the angrier he got, the more the -notoriety sank into relative insignificance. He accused me of being -callous! Wasn't that monstrously unjust? Merely because my advice was -that we should make the best of a very bad matter and face the world as -if nothing had happened of which we were ashamed. He took my calmness, -which was all on the surface, as a personal affront. It infuriated him -more (if that were possible) than the exposure, and caused him to accuse -me of disloyalty and lack of sympathy. Are men ever satisfied? They -pretend that they can't endure a weeping woman. Yet, give them a -stoical countenance, and they'll ask for tears. - -No, Cornelia, this was not the first rift. That had come on the very -evening we sailed, when the passengers held a dance on deck in the -moonlight. I was not feeling very well and danced only once, but Claude -did full duty as a leader of the cotillion. During his absence from my -side, a young British captain in mufti (he had been an ace in the war) -sat down in a steamer chair next to mine and helped me, what with his -charming manner and his gorgeous British accent, to while away the time. - -All went swimmingly until, in an interval between dances, Claude came -back to me. Can you call up an image of Claude, the magnificent, -approaching at a temperature of absolute zero? His manner, of the ice -icy, froze the poor captain dead away. This done, he turned on me and -asked me what I meant by "picking a man up!" - -You can imagine that I replied pretty tartly, and one word led to -another till we reached a point where Claude threatened that he would -never marry me--no, not for all the king's horses and all the king's -men. At this, I burst out laughing. My laughter was immodest, -unladylike, spiteful. And I should have regretted it, had Claude -understood me. But Claude is in some respects a reincarnation of -Kipling's famous vampire lady. He had never understood, and now, he -never will understand. - -But I'm running ahead of my story. - -As we feared, rumor and gossip about us soon had free rein on board the -"Baronia." Poor Claude had to bear the brunt of this annoyance and of -the Captain's anger too. That Claude and a lady were together on the -voyage had certainly been a secret, but a secret to which the old -sea-dog was a party. The Captain's sense of propriety was not outraged -by the secret. It was outraged only when the secret became a matter of -common knowledge. And he did not permit a feeling of delicacy to -restrain his indignation against his fellow conspirators. - -What happened on the "Baronia" was trifling compared to the furor of our -landing at Southampton. We were met by "all the latest London papers" -filled with the wildest details of our "elopement." That is the way -they featured our experiment over here. It was described as the -elopement of a young multimillionaire with a poor plebeian stenographer, -an elopement carried out in the teeth of a tyrant father with invincibly -aristocratic prejudices. Shades of the Barrs and their Mayflower -ancestry! - -Worse remained behind. The English reporters promptly spotted Claude. -You can't be six feet two in your socks and have the airs and graces of -Prince Charming, without being conspicuous even amongst a crowd of -first-class passengers on a fifty-thousand-ton liner. When the -newspaper men plied poor Claude with questions, I began to weaken at the -knees. But Claude was a trump. He kept his most nonchalant air, gave -cleverly evasive answers, and even begged one of his tormentors for a -cigarette quite in the style of the imperturbable villain of a screen -play. Then a battery of motion picture men turned their cameras on us. -Mark Pryor and the British captain swooped down to the rescue at this -critical moment, which was very lucky for us, as we had just about -exhausted our nerve (to say nothing of our nerves). - -We stayed in London barely forty-eight hours. In spite of our assumed -names we were bundled out of three hotels, thanks to the curiosity of -reporters who kept after Claude as though he were a ticket-of-leave man. -I had supposed that only American journalists hounded people, but -evidently the London tribesmen have taken a leaf out of the New York -book in the matter of pitiless persistence. Claude felt so harassed, -outraged and persecuted that he could not get out of London fast enough. -He saw a reporter in every strange face and lived in constant dread of -another forced interview until we were safely across the Channel. - -And now I had better answer the question that I know is uppermost in -your mind. - -We have been living as a married couple! Now it's out. Your Janet, the -bold and fearless advocate of free unions, has been masquerading as a -wife, a timorous and trustful, cowering and respectable wife, differing -from other wives only in being a fraud. - -It's a terrible comedown, a sickening fall from grace, isn't it? - -But what else could I have done, short of leaving Claude entirely? - -You see, Cornelia, the stark fact was that we couldn't get -accommodations anywhere except by pretending that we were married. Had -we declined to make this pretense, we couldn't have remained together at -all unless we adopted all sorts of secret, underground, time consuming -devices. It was a choice between the pretense and the secrecy--a -Hobson's choice, so far as I could see. - - -Cornelia's lips curled with contempt. She could not escape the -reflection that she had showed much more courage when _she_ had been in -London with Percival Houghton. - - -I must add that free love, at any rate in my case, has proved a failure, -a dead failure. I do not say that trial experiments in loving and -living together should not be made, but I do say that the time is not -ripe for them. At present, the two scores I have against free love are: -First, that it simply won't work; and second, that the only thing about -it that is _free_ is the undesired advertising one gets. - -This conclusion has not been reached in what Mrs. Grey calls the cool, -disinterested spirit of the dispassionate investigator. All the same, -it is my conclusion. - -Of course, it is an abominable thing that a unique, intensely individual -experience like love should have to be made the subject of public -inquiry and official registration before it can claim to be legitimate. -In a more highly civilized nation, such a state of affairs would be -unthinkable. But amongst us! Well, when you think of our housing, -transport, and domestic arrangements, when you remember how primitive -and rigid these still are, can you expect more fluid and elastic -relations between the sexes to be welcomed or even understood? - - -"Huh," exclaimed Cornelia, half aloud, "she got all that from Robert." - - -Please don't picture me as sitting down and wringing my hands. What's -done is done and can't be undone. I've made an experiment in love. And -if the result hasn't been what I expected, I have, like the experimental -chemist, made discoveries I never dreamed of, discoveries about myself, -about other men and women, and about human institutions. I can truly -say that I haven't spent four more unhappy weeks in my life, nor--mark -this--four weeks that have done me more good. - -I call them unhappy weeks. But suppose I had _married_ Claude! - -Well, I dare say you've been thinking to yourself: "She is capable of -anything; now she will try to sell out to smug respectability and settle -down as Claude's duly wedded and articled wife." I admit this would be -the logical sequel to my new conclusions about love and marriage. But -though I'm still fond of Claude, a great streak of doubt has crossed my -dreams of a happy future with him. - -Shall I tell you the truth, Cornelia? Claude and I would make a very -poor team. I have in mind, not his fits of bad temper, which are very -annoying, nor his attacks of jealousy, which are monstrous. I have in -mind his outlook on affairs and his active interests, which are in every -respect different from mine. Claude is in love with the pomps and -trappings of life; and I am not. He goes in passionately for elegance, -luxury, all the externals which men admire in society or public -institutions; and I do not. He wishes to study and master the ritual of -social intercourse in all its forms (even in its Kips Bay form); and I -will not. He is fond of the gay boulevards, the fashionable -restaurants, the crowded promenades; I am fond of quiet places and a -chair to myself in a corner of a park. Our divergence of tastes is -almost absolute. We don't like the same theatres, concerts, pictures; -we don't even like the same games. - -The only game we ever enjoyed together was the great game of love. -"What," you will exclaim, "you mean to contend that this game, which you -played with such abandon, so thrilled and absorbed and united you both -as to smother the thousand differences between you?" Precisely. That is -what I contend, for that is what happened. It is weird, disconcerting, -inexplicable, yet it is true. - -Equally true is the fact that Claude lacks the talent for companionship. -With women, at all events. He has no use for a woman except as a -plaything or a wife. And he does not want his wife to be a companion or -a partner in his work. He wants her to be an ambassador -plenipotentiary, representing him in polite society, and also a species -of superior twentieth-century domestic scientist taking full charge of -his creature comforts at home. I don't see myself in either role. Do -you? Can you picture me as a sort of mother, nurse, housemaid, valet, -cook and errand girl rolled into one? - -All of which means that I'm not quite ready yet to handcuff myself with -Prince Charming's household keys. "Hoity-toity," say you, "isn't this a -bit like piling the evidence sky-high to prove that the grapes aren't -sour?" Perhaps it is, but I think not. It is true that Claude hasn't -asked me to marry him yet. It is true that whenever he is out of sorts -with me he tells me that my reputation is damaged beyond repair and that -I need not look to him to patch it up. It is true that when I smile at -this he invariably insists with explosive fury that he will never, never -ask me to marry him. He repeatedly insists that he will not. Still, I -believe that he will. My problem is not what will become of me if -Claude _doesn't_ marry me, but what will become of me if he does. - -As for my damaged reputation, I'm really not worrying about that. Say I -have _sullied_ my character. In one respect, a spot on a character is -like a spot on a fine satin dress: hard work will wash all spots away. - -But it stands to reason that things can't go on like this much longer. -The little Sorbonne _pension_ in which we are staying (as Monsieur and -Madame) has its good points. And there are evenings when Claude, a -little tired of all the famous and imposing Parisians he has met, -expresses a longing to be quite alone with me again, and transforms -himself once more into the Claude he was before we lived together. Then -we walk along the Seine or drive on the wondrous roads towards -Fontainebleau or Versailles. And these evenings are very delightful. - -But they cannot be repeated forever. Any day I may take the step that I -ought to have taken some time ago. - -Write to me, Cornelia dear. Tell me all the news about the tenements. -I suppose the Outlaws are as tame and bourgeois as ever. Does dear old -Harry keep you fit and sylph-like with his rising exercises? And how is -Lydia Dyson shaping? I see she has another serial in the _Black Baboon_ -(I found a copy in Brentano's here)--she must have coined bushels of -money by it. I wish I could work as copiously on _my_ diet as she does -on hers of cigarettes and Haig and Haig. Charlotte Beecher, I fear, -will be "through with me" as the cinema heroes say. Has she exhibited -again or married Robert yet? Tell Robert I shall write to him as soon -as I've done something he'll approve of. - -Need I give further hints of my insatiable hunger for news? Don't let -me continue to be cut by the postman. Write and write soon to - - -Your affectionate friend, - Janet. - - - - *III* - - -"Janet's a little fool," was Cornelia's laconic comment as she folded up -the letter. - -Under Kelly's persuasive service, she attacked breakfast. Between -mouthfuls she epitomized the contents of the letter, a proceeding that -she punctuated with caustic exclamations. At the end, Harry Kelly -expressed much sympathy with Janet's predicament. - -"She has made her bed; she'll have to lie in it," said Cornelia. - -This was a far cry from the line Cornelia used to take when she told -Janet that "marriage is either a vulgar sex deal or a legalized -debauch;" or when she declared in lyrical accents that "a free union is -the golden key to the garden of spiritual love." Her sentiments on this -subject had undergone dilution since Harry Kelly with his athletic -build, fair prospects, and standing offer of marriage had become a -fixture in Number Fifteen. - -But then Cornelia had never really had the courage of her radical -opinions. Beneath her advocacy of new forms of sex relationships there -lurked a strong affection for the old forms. Essentially, her instincts -fitted her for the orderly virtuous days of bustles and bust pads, not -for these latter days in which established conventions were being -summarily overhauled. For her, the time was decidedly out of joint. - -It had been so since her affair with Percival Houghton, the artist who -had "stolen her soul." This affair had been an accident of conduct and -circumstances, and not, as she always declared, a logical outcome of her -character and convictions. And it was as a result of this accidental -episode that she was now an irritable, spiteful, new-fangled woman -instead of the old-fashioned wife and mother (of seven children) that -she should have been. - -Some dim perception of all this stirred in the head of Harry Kelly the -ex-Harlem Gorilla. Kelly's mentality fell far short of his bodily -development. Still, he was no fool, and he rightly guessed that -Cornelia was unfair to her former protegee. He did not approve of -Janet's flight with Claude. But he had seen too much of life in the -Lorillard tenements to be easily scandalized. Moreover, his fondness -for Janet disposed him to put the blame, if any, on her lover. Like -many amiable persons, he reserved his moral censure exclusively for -people he did not know or did not like. - -"The poor kid's down on her luck," he ventured gingerly. "It's not up to -us to hurry the post-mortem." - -"Down on her luck! With a man like Claude at her side?" cried Cornelia, -the words curving by slow ascent to an unmusical top note. - -"Claude's a grand looking man, that's true. But I've known many a grand -looking man who was no better than a four-flusher when you had to share -your bunk with him." - -"Poor Hercules, what do you know about it? If Claude was a rotter, she -should have left him. In all decency, she should have left him the -moment she saw that her passion was merely physical. What has she done? -Nothing. They are still together on the most intimate terms." - -Kelly put his arm soothingly round her waist. It was a privilege she -had allowed him in the dull days of late--though not often and always -grudgingly. - -"I don't suppose she's going to have a child," she went on, in a bitter -tone, "yet that would be her one solid happiness. She's too selfish, I -fear. Look how idiotically fate deals out the cards. _She_ could have -a child, but she doesn't want one, while I want one so much, but--" - -It was a generous hiatus, and her voice softened as she approached it. -She was forever telling men that she wanted a child of her own; they -were usually embarrassed or piqued by the information; and whatever the -effect she enjoyed it. - -For once, Kelly was not nonplussed. He drew his arm tighter. - -"Listen, sweetheart," he said, sentimentally, "what's to prevent it? I -want kiddies, too." - -"Do you indeed," said Cornelia, with a dangerous light in her eyes. "I -said I wanted a child. The difficulty is that I don't want the father -for it." - -"Why not, if we're married?" he proceeded with unexampled obstinacy. -"I'd rather follow Janet than go on being tormented like this," he -concluded, drawing the long bow at a venture. - -She withdrew from him and rose, her cheeks parading an angry red. -Ordinarily, a look was enough to make him quail, but, lo and behold, he -was marching with unprecedented independence to the door. And how could -Cornelia know that his body went hot and cold by turns for fear that she -would let him walk out? - -She could not afford to lose him, so she called him back. - -"Here, goose!" she cried, coming swiftly down from her high horse. -"Here's Janet's letter. You'd better read it through before you quarrel -with me about it." - -He took it happily and obediently, she getting little pleasure from such -an easy victory. - -While he read it, she reflected once more that she could not afford to -lose him. She set small store by his doglike devotion and, though he -had recently obtained an excellent position as physical trainer in a -fashionable men's club, she considered him vastly beneath her. That he -was physically a veritable Borghese Warrior was wholly offset by the -fact that he was socially little better than a superior handicraftsman. -In her eyes, that is to say, he had his points, but they were not the -points of a polished gentleman. - -Yet he was the one friend left to her in Kips Bay, the one friend whose -constancy to her was undeviating and unimpaired. - -Cornelia's decline from glory had proceeded rapidly since the departure -of Janet. The renaissance of flat Number Fifteen as the social and -artistic center of the Lorillard tenements had been shortlived. That -renaissance (which Cornelia tried to believe was of her own making) had -really begun with Janet's advent. While it lasted, the Outlaws and -their cohorts had paraded back, with all flags flying, and had restored -the flat to the pinnacle of importance which it had occupied when -Cornelia, in the full flush of the Percival Houghton notoriety, had -first settled down in Kips Bay. For a brief space Cornelia, glittering -like the morning star, had been "the first lady of the model tenements," -and had tasted again what she called life, splendor, joy. - -But Janet had gone, and Claude had gone with her. As a direct -consequence of Janet's flight, Robert had more and more often invented -excuses for absenting himself from the Lorillard flats. Charlotte -Beecher's visits ceased as soon as Robert's did, and Denman Page's as -soon as Charlotte Beecher's. In its turn, the loss of Claude deflected -a whole galaxy of feminine stars, including Lydia Dyson at the top of -the scale and Mazie Ross at the bottom. And so on, ad infinitum. - -Thus, almost in a week, the brilliance of Number Fifteen had been -extinguished. Forever, or so Cornelia feared. True, her queenly state -had ended in a burst of radiance, as a sky-rocket ends in a dazzling -shower of gold. But this was cold comfort at best. Cornelia knew that, -without some novel attraction, there was no hope whatever of recapturing -the fickle homage of the model tenementers. And no such attraction was -in sight. For once, no other adventurous young lady was ready or eager -to step into Janet's shoes as Janet had stepped into those of Mazie -Ross. Cornelia's stock had fallen to its nadir. - -She felt deserted. In a mood of bitter, unreasoning resentment, she -gave Janet full credit for dimming the splendor of Number Fifteen, the -splendor she had never given her any credit for enkindling. - -She was very angry with Janet on another score. This adventurous young -lady, after a gorgeously romantic time abroad with Claude Fontaine, had -apparently come a cropper, as her tirade against free love sufficiently -betrayed. Reading between the lines, Cornelia fancied that she detected -a veiled reproach. It was as if she were being held responsible for -pointing out the step that had landed the writer in disaster. Cornelia -repudiated this responsibility and was intensely irritated by the -reproach. - -What, hadn't she and Janet threshed out the whole question of sex in the -most open and aboveboard fashion? And hadn't she drawn a sharp line -between free love as she sincerely advocated it for the sake of a -woman's rights, and free love as it was practiced among the Outlaws and -in Greenwich Village for the sake of a woman's pleasure or gain? She -had told Janet (and told it with some feeling) that many young women -nowadays regarded free love as simply a very convenient antidote against -man's growing disinclination for matrimony. It was a new bait for the -old trap, and a very successful bait, too, as numberless marriages -growing out of free unions attested. In Greenwich Village marriageable -girls used this bait by instinct; in Kips Bay they used it with cool -professional dexterity, as a surgeon uses a knife. - -For Janet to insinuate that she had been taken in, was a trifle strong. -If she had been duped at all, she was self-duped. And was this likely? -The curve of contempt in Cornelia's lips indicated her belief to the -contrary. There was such a thing as carrying a pose of artless -inexperience too far. And what did Janet mean by all this talk of -casting Claude off? Casting Claude off, indeed! What was she really up -to? - -Harry Kelly, having finished the letter, now handed it back. - -"Janet's getting a bit flighty," he remarked with true male cynicism. -"Seems to me Claude has got somebody else on a string." - -Cornelia gave a scornful laugh. - -"Don't be an idiot, Hercules," she said. "More likely, Janet has got -somebody else on a string." - -Kelly held his peace. Like King Lear's daughter, he adored and was -silent: his love was mightier than his tongue. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE* - - *I* - - -By the time Cornelia's answer reached Paris, Claude had taken Janet to -Brussels. The immediate cause of this move was a stringency in Claude's -funds. A brief and somewhat acrid correspondence between father and son -had followed hard on the latter's international adventure. After much -shilly-shallying on Claude's part, Mr. Fontaine had laid down the terms -on which alone he proposed to continue polite relations. - -Mr. Fontaine proceeded on the theory that in some cases the most -effective sort of moral force is material force. He did not demand that -Claude abandon Janet, although this was the goal of his desire. He -simply made it emphatic that until his son _did_ leave Janet, the old -days of independence coupled with generous financial supplies were over. - -Meanwhile, he made a point of thwarting Claude at every turn. Claude -longed for leisure and also for a fairly free hand with the Fontaine -Company's bankers in Europe; Mr. Fontaine offered him definite work at a -far from princely salary. Claude wanted to travel (as heretofore) in -the role of a commanding member of the firm; Mr. Fontaine allowed him no -choice but a paltry assistancy to one of Fontaine's European agents. -Claude vastly preferred the conspicuous agency in Paris, if an agency he -had to be reduced to; Mr. Fontaine detailed him peremptorily to the -humble agency in Brussels. And so on. - -Clearly, Mr. Fontaine believed that a series of pin pricks, tirelessly -administered here and there, would serve his purpose much better than a -dagger inserted under the fifth rib. - -Claude, having some means of his own, planned a summary rejection of his -father's terms. But his available funds were pitifully inadequate to -his tastes and habits. It was in vain that Janet threw herself sturdily -into the task of retrenchment. She lacked experience; and as for -Claude, he was born to the purple and had inherited the aristocratic -idea that economy consists in making lesser people do the saving. He -could not refrain from living on a handsome scale or from entertaining -his Parisian friends at costly parties. The day of atonement drew -swiftly nearer. - -And came in due course. All his pecuniary sins were visited upon him at -one and the same inopportune moment (when ordering a dinner at the Ritz -in honor of the Prince de Cluny). At that moment he experienced the -novel sensation of finding himself suddenly without a single penny of -credit. Had the ground been abruptly withdrawn from his feet, the shock -could not have been greater. - -There was nothing for it but an immediate acceptance of the terms on -which his father had proposed a truce. The Brussels agency was in charge -of a hard-headed Walloon between whom and Claude little love was lost. -The pin pricks were warranted to do their work to a nicety. - -Thus it was that in no very amiable frame of mind Claude set foot in the -Belgian capital and reported to the Fontaine agent there. Janet shared -his contracted fortunes, accompanying him from Paris in spite of a -series of quarrels which had chequered the weeks preceding their -departure. - -She accused herself of weakness for remaining with Claude. But she felt -she could hardly leave him when he was so completely down on his luck. -True, their quarrels furnished her with a pretext, but not with a worthy -one. They were all in the nature of petty bickerings, trumpery matters -seemingly unrelated to the real issue. - -But she began to suspect that the real issue between herself and Claude -would never be brought into the open. - - - - *II* - - -Their hotel was in the aristocratic _Quartier Leopold_. Scarcely a year -had elapsed since the armistice was proclaimed, yet the _Boulevard -Anspach_ and other central highways were again the glittering rendezvous -of international idlers indefatigably bent on expunging the last -unpleasant memories of Armageddon. This expunging process appeared to -involve the consumption of much bad food and the production of much loud -noise. - -Early in the morning of his seventh day in Brussels, Claude was awakened -by the penetrating backfire of a motor car in the street. Having -already been aroused by disturbances twice, he sprang from one of the -twin beds in the room and closed each window with a furious bang. -Janet, in the other bed, changed from her right side to her left, but -was too deep in sleep to wake up. - -"Damnation!" he called out, first towards the street and then, as this -bore no fruit, in the direction of the occupied bed. - -Getting no response he stalked to the sleeper's side. - -"How can a man get any rest," he shouted angrily, "with pandemonium in -the streets and every window in the place wide open?" - -The world in general showed no interest in this conundrum propounded by -a very good-looking young man in pajamas. And Janet, after stirring -uneasily for a moment, returned to a motionless slumber. The street -noises had kept her, as well as Claude, awake until the small hours of -the morning. Once asleep, however, she slept soundly and could defy -Bedlam. - -Seeing no prospect of petting or sympathy from this quarter, Claude -nursed his anger to leviathan size. He paced the room like a madman, -distributing a liberal supply of imprecations on everything and -everybody as fast as the images raced into his thoughts. This -proceeding relieved him of a part of his fury. The rest he sublimated -in the act of tidying up the room. - -He went at this task with breakneck speed. His method was to set chairs -and tables in and out of place with vicious thumps; then to pile books, -newspapers, brushes, combs, wearing apparel and the like into roughly -classified heaps. He took special pains to pick up Janet's scattered -articles of underwear and to fling each one on top of the last with the -force of an invective. - -Under this steady percussion and repercussion, Janet finally woke up. - -"What's the matter?" she murmured drowsily, pushing the rebellious dark -curls from her face. - -Claude bombarded her with reproaches. - -"The matter! The matter is that you have the nerves of a rhinoceros. I -can't sleep with the windows open, while you could sleep with them shut. -But it means nothing to you that I haven't slept a wink for seven nights -running, just because you insist upon keeping the windows open." - -(Janet's hands gestured: "Oh dear, another tempest in a teapot!") She -sat up in bed and, with her feet tucked under her and her hands folded -over her knees, braced herself for the storm. - -"I thought we agreed to compromise by changing off," she said mildly. -"The windows have only been kept open every other night." - -"Compromise! Compromise!" He sprang from his chair with a violent -laugh. "How can oil and water compromise?" - -"I'm sure I don't know. I'm not a chemist. They don't mix, but they -may get along very amicably together side by side, for all I can tell. -What difference does it make, anyway? The real trouble is that you've -been made nervous and irritable by your father's letters. If you'd only -let us talk the whole matter over sensibly and in good humor--" - -"My father's letters have nothing to do with the case," he cut in -savagely. "The trouble is with your idiotic superstition that the -sooty, dusty air from the street is more important than peace and -quiet." - -"What is the use of saying the same thing over and over," said Janet, -with a touch of asperity in her clear, soft tones. "You are in a -perfectly childish temper, Claude. If I were your wife I'd have to put -up with it. As I don't have to, I won't." - -"My wife! If you were my wife, you wouldn't dare to be so selfish, or -to ignore my rights so shamelessly." - -"Luckily, I'm _not_ your wife." - -"No, thank Heaven. It's also lucky that you're so well satisfied with -your limitations and your sorry future. Like all the Barrs of Brooklyn, -you may well glory in your irresponsibility. It's all you have." - -"Oh, I have my freedom. I glory in that, too. If I were married to -you, I dare say I should have to cringe and even ask your forgiveness. -As it is, before this day is over, you will probably ask mine." - -"Don't flatter yourself! I'm going for good. That'll spike your -prophecy." - -He began to dress posthaste in order to put time and space between his -threat and its retraction. - -Janet watched him through the long dark lashes of her half-closed gray -eyes. He was spoilt, tyrannical, contemptible. Yet his energetic -masculine beauty and the seductive ring of his voice still had power -over her. - -"Don't imagine I can't see through your game," he flung out, recklessly -scattering the heaps he had so painfully assembled, in a frenzied search -for a necktie. "Your fine pretense of not wanting to marry me is a -clever way of getting me to do it. Exceedingly, overwhelmingly clever! -But it hasn't fooled me. Not a bit! There are some things I don't -swallow." - -"Thank goodness. Perhaps you won't swallow me then, though you seem on -the point of doing so." - -She lay down again. Her averted face permitted only her dark curly head -to show. - -"I might have married you," he shouted, brandishing the recovered -necktie at the bed. "I might, if you hadn't shown yourself in your true -colors. Thank God, I found you out in time." - -"Yet you don't seem a bit pleased." - -"You little serpent! Is there no escaping your sting?" - -"A minute ago I was a rhinoceros, now I am a serpent. A pretty swift -evolution, isn't it? Of course, the 'Descent of Woman' _would_ beat the -'Descent of Man' all hollow." - -And she turned her back upon him contemptuously. Stung by her disdain, -he moderated his temper somewhat and said: - -"It is the trick of women to put men subtly in the wrong. You fight, but -you never fight in the open. You send us into a devil of a temper, and -slyly perpetuate the quarrel until you can make capital out of our -degraded condition. Patient Griseldas, martyred angels, persecuted -saints! If only you'd drop the pose of injured innocence!" - -This impassioned speech was really a bid for a truce. But Janet, her -heart hardened, lay quite still, the back of her head expressing -defiance. - -The silence maddened him more than a flood of reproaches, and he -continued dressing _fortissimo_. Finally, he reached for his hat, -sending her, at the same time, a parting shot. - -"Keep it up," he said, "and you'll be a past mistress in the art of -demoralizing a man." - -He went out with a spectacular exhibition of bad manners. - -Poor Claude! He did not feel entirely guiltless. But he was absolutely -certain that the fault lay vastly more on her side than on his. In the -breviary of love, he had pledged his soul to an eternity of devotion, -but not his temper to a five minutes' trial. - - - - *III* - - -The door had scarcely been closed before Janet turned out of bed and -began to put on her stockings. She got no further than the first one -before she heard returning footsteps. Quick as a flash she resumed her -former position in bed, so that when the door opened, her face was -buried in the pillows and the back of her head was one obstinate, -unconciliatory curve. - -Claude had come back on the pretext of getting his walking stick, really -in the hope of finding Janet penitent or at least willing to placate -him. When he saw that all the advances would have to come from his -side, he turned sharply on his heels and marched out, in his anger -forgetting his cane. - -Janet now waited until she was sure that he had gone in good earnest. -Then she finished dressing, reflecting the while that for the third time -within a week she was left quite alone. It was the discord that -troubled her, not the solitude. Solitude had no terrors for her, -although it had a drawback of a practical sort. - -Namely, in the matter of the language. She was almost totally ignorant -of French, her opportunities in Paris for acquiring the vernacular -having been extremely few. She knew that Claude expected his absence to -make a virtual prisoner of her. In fact, with this punishment in view, -he had stayed away until late at night on the two occasions of their -recent quarreling. And she did not doubt that he meant to punish her in -the same manner again. - -She went downstairs to breakfast full of pity for herself and of -indignation against Claude. - -Breakfast changed her mood completely. It occurred to her that Claude -might feel the discord between them as keenly as she did, though he -might not be as conscious of the reasons. This led her to feel sorry -for him and to wonder whether she might not have been more conciliatory. - -Her nature was so essentially sound that she was inclined to look on -Claude's outbursts of rage as symptoms of a mental disorder. She told -herself that her equable temper gave her an immense advantage over him, -an advantage she ought not to exploit too far. - -It was Robert who had first made her conscious of the worth of her -well-poised temperament, not to mention other good qualities which had -seemed as inevitably her own as her two arms and two legs. Lately, -since realizing what a surprisingly large number of people were -ill-humored and bad tempered, she had begun to prize her even-mindedness -for the rare gift it was. - -Her self-esteem improving, her spirits followed suit. It was too fine a -day to spend indoors. And, Claude or no Claude, she made up her mind to -gratify a desire to wander through the fashionable shopping district. - -She bethought herself of a pocket English-French dictionary, and a -little "Colloquial French in Ten Lessons," which she had picked up at -Brentano's in Paris. Thus equipped, she sallied out on an adventurous -journey in the direction of the Hotel de Ville. - -Her course from the _Quartier Leopold_ to the _Boulevard Anspach_ was -intentionally zigzag. Walking leisurely and observing critically she -was able to confirm or correct impressions of the capital gathered while -riding with Claude in taxis or motor buses. - -It struck her that Brussels was cleaner, wholesomer and more competently -managed than either New York or Paris. Had the _Bruxellois_ taken a leaf -out of the book of Prussian efficiency or were they a more competently -executive people? - -Brussels was, of course, much smaller than Paris, less ostentatiously -"grand" or "cosmopolitan." Janet did not agree with the orthodox -tourist opinion that the Belgian capital was merely a pocket edition of -the Gallic. Brussels was lively without being chaotic, and picturesque -without being dirty. Paris, on the other hand, was in some respects a -very American city. Its Rue Royales, Champs Elysees, Faubourg St. -Germains and other show sections were perhaps more numerous and -certainly more beautiful than the corresponding show sections in New -York. But apart from these picked quarters, Paris and New York had the -same tawdry glitter, the same rag-bag dishevelment, the same noisy, -neurotic people, the same morbid chase after pleasure. - -These results of modern civilization seemed by no means entirely missing -from Brussels, but they existed in a smaller degree, even in proportion -to the city's size. Life on the streets of Brussels still had an -appearance of being orderly, sane. You could walk along the main -thoroughfares without the sensation that you were steering your way -through scurrying, erratic, homicidal pedestrians. In a crowd in New -York or Paris you might well become a prey to the fear that Darwin was -right, after all, and that the evolution of man was guided chiefly by -the principle of chance, Nature being a sort of brute Junker force which -imposed _Kultur_ on the survivors. - -With these reflections, Janet sailed along, and though remembrance of -the quarrel with Claude gave her an occasional sinking feeling, this was -but the ground swell after the storm. - - - - *IV* - - -At the Grands Magasins de la Bourse, Janet experienced little difficulty -in making several minor purchases. Not because she had memorized a -score of colloquial questions and answers from her little book, "French -Guaranteed in Ten Lessons." For the questions and answers which she had -conned so trippingly from the text were amazingly inapplicable to her -needs. In the realm of trade or barter the phrases she needed always -called for a subtly different twist from the high-flown phrases in the -text-book. The book model advised her to say: "_Sir_ (_or Madam_), -_have the kindness to direct me to the street by which one may proceed -to the Rue Royale_." She actually wanted to say: "_What's a good -short-cut to the Rue Royale?_" But as to this racier version the -text-book was mute. - -These difficulties proved no insuperable barrier to Janet. A glance, an -eloquent gesture, and a copious use of the phrase _comme ça_, bridged -the worst gaps in the course of communication. _Comme ça_ alone, used -at the end of the index finger, so to speak, worked wonders. -Single-handed, it was mightier than a whole battalion of text-book -phrases. Yet Janet flattered herself that she could, at a pinch, have -dispensed even with this omnipotent demonstrative. To be sure, she was -far swifter at divining other people's wishes than at getting her own -wishes divined. Still, though she had a genius for the first process, -she had at least a talent for the second. - -"It would be strange," she thought, "if a New Yorker could not talk -inarticulately in more languages than one." - -The shop assistants met her attempts to communicate with them fully -halfway. Their friendliness and courtesy in difficult situations -astonished her. So did their efforts to comply with her precise wishes. - -It was all very different from the American shop men and girls that she -was accustomed to. A New York salesman, who slept in a hall room in the -Bronx and lunched at Child's, on a ham sandwich and tea or on griddle -cakes and skimmed milk, was professionally guiltless of every effort -save one, and that was an effort to convey to each customer a sense of -the latter's abysmal insignificance; also an intimation of his supreme -good luck in being waited on by the most distinguished clerk in the -metropolis. - -Standing at a counter in New York, one might be excused for supposing -that the salesman accepted the purchaser's custom only as a grudging -favor to the purchaser. Standing at a similar spot in Brussels, one -might hope that the favor would be allowed to be the other way. - -Perhaps the Brussels salesmen did not really feel favored. In view of -the final disposition of the profits, they probably merely pretended to -feel so. If this was the case, their pretense carried conviction, by -virtue of the artistry of their politeness. Were there not, then, as -many fictions in the life of New York as in the life of Brussels? Yes, -but they were neither convincing fictions nor polite ones. - -Artistry and politeness, Janet concluded, though they might be minor -virtues, were not the minor virtues of an industrial republic. - -Her last errand in the Grand Magasins was to buy Claude several pair of -socks. The redoubtable _comme ça_, in a choice variety of modulations, -did yeoman service in facilitating the selection of the correct color, -quality, size. - -She was sure Claude did not deserve the pains she was taking over him, -particularly in view of his conduct that morning. But Janet's -indignation had failed to blot from her mind a picture of the night -before at bedtime, when Claude had pathetically drawn attention to the -spectacle of both his great toes protruding rudely from the tips of his -socks. This picture of Claude walking about Brussels with protruding -toes offended her sense of the fitness of things. And, as she did not -believe that the fitness of things should be tempered with revenge, she -made the necessary purchases without pluming herself on her magnanimity. - -Parcels in hand, she came close to a section set apart by a low railing. -A somewhat depressed looking woman in front of the railing was talking -humbly to a magnificent young man behind it. From a sign which read -_Bureau d'Emploi_, Janet guessed that this was the section in which -applications for employment were received. - -If only she knew the language well enough to apply for a position -herself, what a lot of problems this would solve! - -The magnificent young man, who was patently the absolute monarch of the -section, looked disapprovingly at the somewhat slatternly applicant who -was abasing herself before him. With an air as superb as his sartorial -equipment, he concluded the interview. So Cophetua might have concluded -an interview with an unavailable beggar maid. - -The dismissed applicant was the picture of dejection as she walked past -Janet, who pitied her from her soul. - -Suddenly Cophetua saw Janet. - -Was she a lady or was she a beggar maid? He reasoned that ladies rarely -burden their arms with a load of parcels, nor were they in the habit of -making lingering stops in front of a _Bureau d'Emploi_. On the other -hand, the object of his speculation was young, supple, well dressed; her -gray eyes glancing his way thrilled him as no salesgirl beggar-maid had -ever thrilled him before. - -Decidedly, if she _was_ a beggar maid, she was a most uncommon one. -Cophetua saw that she was still looking at him, not artfully, and yet -not disinterestedly either. The problem was disconcerting and -insoluble; the call of the blood was peremptory and imperious. - -He resolved to chance it. - -Unbending as much as so magnificent a young man could unbend, he called -out to Janet in a most inviting tone. - -Alas, she couldn't understand a single word. All she could catch was -the note of interrogation. - -"_Je ne comprends pas français_--I'm sorry, but I don't understand," she -informed him in polyglot. She wondered whether he could possibly be -offering her employment, although she doubted this, for his glances were -far from businesslike. - -Again Cophetua spoke, more slowly. Yet on the same suave, interrogative -note. He eyed her with immense favor. She understood his looks; and, as -it was clearly not a case for the use of her pet _comme ça_, she lost -all desire to understand his words. - -Flushing and not quite knowing what to make of it all, she prepared to -walk away, discretion seeming to be the better part of valor. - -"Can I be of assistance?" said a gentleman who had suddenly stopped on -his way past her. - -She saw a short, robust, handsome man with an auburn beard and somewhat -darker hair faintly tinged with gray. He took off his hat and bowed. - -"I can speak a little English," he said, fluently enough, though to -Janet's ears the accent sounded rather German. - -Then he and Cophetua rapidly exchanged a few sentences in French. From -the latter's frigid manner, nothing was plainer than that he regarded -the stranger's mediation with extreme distaste. - -"He merely wishes to know whether you are seeking a position," said -Janet's self-appointed interpreter. - -"How could I be? I don't know a word of the language, as you can see," -she said, with one of her fascinating gestures. - -This reply was duly conveyed to the chief of the employment bureau who, -with a thousand daggers in his parting smile, withdrew majestically into -his shell. - -"It is impossible to know the reason for a mistake so deplorable," said -he of the auburn beard, apologizing for Cophetua. - -He lifted his hat again, and made as if to go. But he did not go. - -"Oh, I don't mind a bit," said Janet, laughing unaffectedly. "If only I -knew French, I should like nothing better than to take some position or -other." - -For a second, they looked into each other's eyes with mutual approval. -Then he said boldly: - -"In that case--would you like to be--what do the English call it--tutor -to my little girl?" - -From Cophetua, looming in the background, came mesmeric waves of -hostility. Sensing this, they walked away together. He gave her a card -inscribed with the name of Anton St. Hilaire. He told her he was an -Alsatian, a widower with one child of about fourteen years. His wife -had died during his absence on service at the front. His daughter -having sickened, he had been to Italy with her. Now he meant to make a -long stay in Brussels in order to be near a famous specialist for -children. Later he and Henriette would travel. - -Henriette had a nurse who for many reasons was unsatisfactory. His wish -had long been to place the child in charge of a cultivated woman who -should be a friend to her rather than a mere attendant, and who should -inspire him with entire confidence. After a few not very searching -questions, he professed to have entire confidence in Janet. He waved -aside as immaterial the objection in respect of Janet's ignorance of -French. She would pick up French as quickly as Henriette picked up -English. Henriette had already had some English instruction; and Janet, -for her part, had no doubt of her ability to manage the child as far as -the linguistic difficulty went. Had she not proved up to the hilt her -genius for making foreigners understand her when such was her desire? - -"I could get along with a Choctaw," she said to herself, exultantly. - -They talked as they proceeded along the Boulevard Anspach. The long and -the short of it was that Janet agreed to consider the offer. She -promised to pay a visit next day to M. St. Hilaire's apartments in order -to meet Henriette. She would then make up her mind whether to take the -position or not. - -Upon this understanding the Alsatian left her. - -Janet, all agog with her adventure, gave up shopping for the day. - -The encounter appeared to her to be a godsend. - -She liked M. St. Hilaire. If she also liked his daughter, if she and -Henriette took to each other enough to make the proffered place -attractive, she would be in a position to part company with Claude -immediately. - -As she had a strong conviction (backed by plenty of experience) that she -could get along with any halfway tolerable human being, she considered -the step as good as taken. - -True, she anticipated a bad quarter of an hour in having it out with -Claude. But what a jolly thing it was to be in possession of a powerful -weapon like economic independence. It was the last argument against -tyrants, in this case against Claude and the special set of -circumstances that made her absolutely dependent upon him. - -She wished she could be candid with Claude and tell him all about the -Alsatian. But this was impossible. Claude's capacity for candor was -like some people's capacity for alcohol. A little of it went to his -head and made him quarrelsome. - -She was not like that! She could stand being told any amount of truth -(or so she flattered herself). This was why so many people made her -their confidante. Having an illusion stripped away might give acute -pain, but it never outraged her. Witness her disenchantment with the -theory of free love. But Claude, in common with most people, was like -the famous prisoner who had spent years in a dungeon and who, when -released, was quite overpowered by the fresh air. An unusual supply of -truth all but killed the average man. - -In this matter, the only one she had ever met like herself was Robert -Lloyd. How she had underestimated Robert! Worse, how she had -underestimated the strength of her attachment to him! Her partnership -with Claude, a partnership of infatuation, had been a weak thing. A -breath had made it, and a breath had blown it away. But her partnership -with Robert, a partnership of work and mutual interests, had been a bond -of adamant. Time could not wither it nor custom stale its precious -memory. - -She had a passionate longing to write Robert and pour out her heart to -him as in the old days of the firm of Barr & Lloyd. - -But no. This would never do. In questions of sex, Robert was as -fanatic as any average American business man. The scene on the East -River pier came back to her vividly. There he had stood like a -reincarnation of Cato the Elder (Cornelia's nicknames certainly did hit -the bull's-eye at times!) lecturing her and saying: - -"I sha'n't have anything to do with free love or with a woman who has -had a free lover." - -The remembrance caused a wave of bitter feeling to surge through her. - -By this time she had reached the Place Rogier. There she took a bus to -the office of the American Express Company in order to inquire for mail. -The one letter handed to her had been forwarded from Paris. The -superscription was in Cornelia's handwriting, and Janet tore open the -envelope without delay. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO* - - *I* - - -As was her custom, Cornelia had written in a decidedly lyrical vein, -sounding in turn the strings of pathos, misgiving and melancholy -sympathy. Without formal salutation the letter began: - - -My heart is torn for you, Araminta dearest, as I follow the story of -your wanderings. It is a story that reopens old wounds, for in your -sufferings I again experience my own. With what a different poignancy! -Different as Claude Fontaine and Percival Houghton are different. I -know that Claude possesses the supreme fascination that leads so many -women to throw themselves recklessly into his arms. He turns their -heads; but at least he does not rob them of their souls. This, Percival -Houghton did. Thank your kind stars, my dear, that Claude is not as -Percival, that he has not the latter's dominating will or piratical -psychic personality. Your soul can still be called your own. - -How I pray that your trials may turn out for the best! Araminta, every -woman is fated to learn at the hands of some man how unscrupulous all -men are in matters of sex. But is it not strange that men should outflag -us at what is called our own game, and that women should let themselves -be deceived by the fact that they are always credited with the victory? -This indeed is man's greatest cleverness. He snatches the spoils even -whilst loudly protesting that we have him completely at our mercy. Yes, -men are our masters in the game of love, the game that is said to be -_our_ profession and _their_ pastime. My dear, the amateur who gaily -calls the tune has a much better time of it than the professional who is -compelled to do the fiddling--unless the fiddler plays wholly and solely -for love or is clever enough to exact a price insuring freedom after the -dance is over. But this is an elementary principle which I need hardly -point out to _you_, Araminta. - -You say you do not mean to marry Claude, although you believe it lies -within your power to do so. At the same time, you speak in harsh -disparagement of free unions. To be candid, this mystifies me. I hope, -however, that I'm wrong in detecting, beneath your criticism, a subtle -reproach. If I'm right, you've done me a grievous injustice. - -Didn't I consistently urge that free love is for daring and devoted -spirits only? And what wonders have not the bold and brave done for our -sex in the last thirty years! Look how the market value of men has -fallen and how the market value of women has risen, if I may use the -crude language of Mazie Ross. No longer do women live, as did our -grandmothers, for the sole purpose of "charming" men or of sipping the -nectar of their "homage." - -Pray observe, dear child, that I never decried marriage in the case of -the few women who are strong enough to command the legal tyrant instead -of submitting to him, and who thus are in a position to straighten out -the irrational knot from the inside. As for the common rule of females, -if they _will_ go on flocking to the altar in droves, if they _will_ be -infatuated with marriage after we have opened their eyes to man--why, -let them rush in where angels fear to tread. And let them take the -consequences, too. Small blame to the nuptial fire if it scorches the -likes of _them_. Is the flame guilty because the moths dash in? - -But now for the news, although there is precious little. - -First, Lydia Dyson has produced a new novel--and a new baby. You know -she lets this happen (I mean the baby) every once in so often because -she says it is the only way to keep her complexion perfect. (It really -is a perfect olive, in spite of the quantities of gold-tipped cigarettes -she smokes.) The baby, like its predecessors, has been given out for -adoption to a childless couple in good circumstances, Lydia contending -(_a la_ Rousseau) that an artist makes a very unsatisfactory parent. -Lydia's other achievement, her novel, "The Mother Soul," has been -running serially in the _Good Householder_. It's netting her the usual -mint of money, ten thousand dollars down, to say nothing of copious -extras in the shape of book and dramatic royalties. - -There's Lydia for you, flourishing like the green bay tree! Not like -your poor Cornelia, who'd be happy enough to take the child and let the -royalties go. - -Robert is rarely here nowadays. Charlotte Beecher, therefore, doesn't -show up often, and so, what with you and Claude in Europe, I'd be -monarch of all I surveyed, if Hercules didn't take pity on me and come -in to drive the blue devils away. He spoils me almost as much as you -did. A dear, dutiful boy he is, as fond of work as a camel. I feel -conscience-stricken when I think how lightly I accept his devotion. -Ought I to make him happy? Ah, well-a-day! I'm sometimes tempted--ah, -_how_ I'm tempted! - -But a poor soulless thing like me mustn't think of such things. - -Harry's prospects have improved wonderfully of late. You know his heart -was never in professional wrestling. He deliberately gave up a promising -career _on the mat_, as they call it, where he acquired that odious -nickname of the "Harlem Gorilla." Poor Hercules is about as much like a -gorilla as I am like an elephant. Refusing engagements to appear in -public contests brought him down on his luck for a time. That's how he -happened to land in the model tenements. He never was even the least -bit of a radical. Among the Outlaws, our gorilla is quite a lamb. - -Well, this repulsive part of his career is over for good. He is now the -physical director of the Bankers' Club. (What think you of my prophetic -nickname for Hercules? The bankers have their monster clubhouse on Fifth -Avenue, almost next door to the Pillars of Hercules, as the Gotham and -St. Regis hotels are called.) It's a good position. And an even better -one is in sight. The Life Prolongation Institute (I say, Araminta, what -a name!) has lately approached him in regard to a post at one of its -European branches. - -Wouldn't it be odd, if we all met some fine morning in Trafalgar Square -or the Champs Elysees? - -As for Robert, he has become as mad as a March hare. His Guild League -seems to have dropped through a hole in the ground. (I predicted that, -too!) He says the Guildsman propaganda was too radical for the -old-style Laborites and too conservative for the Bolsheviks. But I -can't pretend to follow these distinctions. - -At all events, he was very much at loose ends for a while. One or two -excellent openings in the newspaper line he calmly turned down with the -remark that a successful journalist would have to be as corrupt as -Falstaff and Hutchins Burley rolled into one. He is really quite -incorrigible. He never seems to be content until he has got himself -thoroughly on the wrong side of everybody who might be of service to -him. - -There are any number of instances of this trait. His personal quarrel -with Hutchins Burley was quite unnecessarily lengthened into a business -feud. He never made the most of his friendship with Claude (think what -a chance it was for a man in his circumstances to be intimate with a man -in Claude's!). He got himself in the black books of the whole newspaper -world because of his agitation for the Guildsmen. And he is always -flinging off violently from his friends. To this day, he rebuffs -Hercules and me whenever we try to help him. - -But finally, on account of his mother and sister out West, he had to put -his pride in his pocket. It was too late! Did Cato ever tell you that -he had an uncle with bushels of money in California? Well, it seems -there _is_ such a relative, and Robert applied to him for temporary -help. The uncle, a chip of Robert's block--for he evidently has little -use for affection, family or otherwise--preserved a discreet silence. -After cross-questioning our friend, I found out why. He had -painstakingly sent the old gentleman (who made a fortune in real estate -speculation) his own pamphlet on land profiteering! As I said before, -Robert is incorrigible. - -What does he do next but hit on the brilliant scheme of going to work as -a clerk in an insurance company, downtown. Denman Page's insurance -company, as it happens. Fancy our fastidious Cato with his quick ways -and ideal enthusiasms sitting from nine till five at a poky desk in Wall -Street. And is this fearful sacrifice made for the sake of turning over -an honest penny (thirty dollars a week, to be exact)? Never believe it. -Robert's little game is to help organize the mercantile employees into a -radical labor union. Can you beat it? - -He says that the clerk is the most abject boot-licker and willing slave -of the ruling robber bankers to be found in the whole industrial system -(I won't vouch for the accuracy of this description). He (the clerk, -that is) needs redemption. But although plenty of rich people go -a-slumming amongst the very poor and downtrodden, nobody is -self-sacrificing enough to go on a mission of mercy amongst the -benighted and degraded "clerkical" classes.--And so he raves on. - -In retaliation, the big bankers and insurance chiefs have also formed a -society to resist the inroads of Robert's infant union. Denman Page, -Charlotte's indefatigable wooer, is one of the most aggressive leaders -in the employers' society and is doing his utmost to persecute Robert -and make his life as miserable as possible. Robert, loathing business, -hangs on downtown, purely out of regard for his union. - -He is simply throwing his natural talents away. All so unnecessarily, -too. At any moment, he could marry Charlotte Beecher for the asking, -and develop his executive ability--become a great public administrator -or something like that. Charlotte isn't noted for her beauty; but she -is young, she has several millions in her own right, and she is no mere -society trifler either. She works almost as hard at her sculpture as if -she had to earn her own living. Lots of men are after her, naturally -enough. They say Denman Page would give his eyeteeth to add Charlotte's -fortune to his bank account. But she seems to want Robert. Rumor has -it that she has even proposed to him several times. To Cato! And leave -it to him to fish up some silly scruple about not selling his -independence to a rich wife! - -Still, I saw him in Charlotte's studio in the Mews lately. He was quite -lover-like (in his Catonic way). I hear he goes there pretty often. So -perhaps there's hope. - -What a picture I could draw of how your departure with Lothario set the -Lorillard tenements by the ears! The headlines, the excitement among -the Outlaws, Kips Bay in a buzz, buzz, buzz--but you can imagine it much -better for yourself. Cato alone took it with stoical calm. Araminta, -he astonished me! Hardly a syllable would he say about it. A stern -sort of "make your bed and lie in it" expression was all we could get -out of him. And he shut off questions with the remark that it was -entirely _your_ affair. - -Yes, we all thought Big Hutch held the key to the leakage into the -papers. He hates Claude with an undying hatred for some reason unknown -to me, and he has an immortal tomahawk out for you because you so openly -showed the disgust he filled you with. "Hell hath no fury like a -Hutchins scorned." - -The old villain was lately appointed a member of a newspaper mission to -travel _de luxe_ to Russia. Trust Hutchins to keep himself in clover. -Mazie Ross, as bad, as pretty, and as syrupy as ever, is to be his -traveling companion (all on the quiet, of course--the purpose of the -mission being to report on the stability and morality of the Bolshevik -regime). And they say that ethics is a humorless science! - -Keep me informed, dear child, of your plans and movements. What shall I -send to Lothario? Rosemary and rue, or poniards and poison? My fondest -hopes and wishes--from my heart--wing their way to you. - -Ever your devoted, - Cornelia. - - -Janet finished reading with a sigh. The letter changed none of her -opinions or plans. It merely determined her all the more strongly to -suppress her desire to write to Robert. - - - - *II* - - -On returning to her room at the hotel she got rather a start, for Claude -was there. Usually when he went away in anger, he returned late at -night, and it was now only late in the afternoon. A glance showed her -that he was in gay spirits and that he had communicated this mood to the -apartment by filling it with the color and fragrance of flowers. It was -a part of his peace offering. - -Hardly had she entered, when he rushed forward, relieved her of her -parcels and kissed her ardently. - -"Darling," he exclaimed, "what a bad-tempered beast I've been! Can you -forgive me once more?" - -She fought desperately against the spell of his romantic personality. - -"Why not?" she said, withdrawing from his caresses. - -"You are an angel, dearest," he said, seizing her hands. - -"Then I shall be an angel on the wing, Claude." - -"Janet! Say anything but that. Prescribe any punishment you please. -But do let's begin again, with a clean slate." - -"You can't get the slate clean when the scratches are too deep, Claude. -To forgive and act as though nothing had changed is hard; to forgive and -act as though everything had changed is harder still. We must both be -sensible and do the second, the harder thing." - -"What do you mean?" said Claude, in alarm. - -"I mean that we'll be much happier apart." - -"Don't say that again, Janet dearest. You are taking my conduct of the -last two weeks too seriously. It isn't fair. I've frequently behaved -abominably. I don't try to excuse it. I admit it. But remember the -constant worry I've had to put up with at this cursed Brussels office. -That boor of a Walloon in charge has undoubtedly had orders from my -father to be a thorn in my side. And he's doing his level best to -please. Not a day passes but what he gives me a hundred lancet -scratches ending in a good stiletto stab." - -Worry had not made Claude less handsome. The ring and tang of his voice -thrilled Janet almost as much as of old. His patrician manner and -flashing blue eyes were almost as irresistible. Yet Janet put away his -arm and said: - -"Claude, I know you've had a very trying time. It's altogether on my -account, isn't it? All the more reason for me to go away." - -"But what on earth do you want to leave me for?" - -"For a thousand reasons." - -"You might deign to mention _one_." - -"Well, when you frown, you want me to be sad; when you laugh, you want -me to be gay. You never think that I may have moods of my own, moods -that won't dance to your piping. You never think of any one but -yourself." - -"Oh, don't I? I've had you on my mind all day. I've thought of nothing -else. And it's not the first day that I've spent in a torment of worry -about your attitude towards me." - -A great wave of self-pity swept through him and quite carried him off -his feet. By precedent, it should have carried Janet off her feet, too. - -She stood her ground in silence. - -"For Heaven's sake, don't be obstinate," he said, his confidence -beginning to desert him. "It isn't late yet," he added, in a more -pleading tone. "We can still have an awfully good time this evening. -Do be nice--" - -"Nice!" - -She stood up and looked at him. He mistook the mocking expression in -her smiling gray eyes, and did not notice the faintly contracting brows -above her long-lashed eyelids. - -"Yes, nice and reasonable," he went on, pursuing what he thought an -advantage. - -"Reasonable!" The faint contraction was now a forbidding bar. "I'm -trying hard to be reasonable, Claude." - -After a pause, she smiled again. "You pull me one way, reason pulls me -another," she said, with characteristic candor. "Now see if my plan -doesn't follow reason. You left this morning, for a short while; I'm -leaving tomorrow, for good and all. You left me in anger; I should like -to leave you good friends. It isn't as easy as it sounds. Will you -help me?" - -He flung himself angrily into an armchair. - -"You must be mad to think you can shift for yourself in a strange -country." - -"Mad or not, that is exactly what I think," she said, coldly. "And I -shall begin to pack my things now." - -She actually drew out a bag and suited the action to the words. Claude -looked on, speechless. After a while he went over and, roughly taking -hold of one of her arms, continued his remonstrance. - -"You can't even _read_ the language, let alone speak it. And you haven't -a penny of your own. Or do you expect to earn money on the streets?" - -"Not until I've exhausted the _regular_ channels," she said, maddeningly -calm. - -Inwardly she was boiling. She looked at him steadily until he released -her arm. Then she added: - -"I feel perfectly capable of looking out for myself, even in a strange -country. Here are some socks I bought for you at a counter where no -English was spoken." - -"The devil take the socks!" he said, hurling the package to the other -end of the room. - -She sat down on a tuffet beside her case. - -"You know quite well that I had a little money of my own, which I -brought with me," she said. "That will do me to begin on." - -"To begin on!" he raged, pacing the floor violently. "What do you mean -by _begin on_? Is this another secret? As for your money, I know -nothing about that either. I'm continually being slapped in the face -with something or other that you've kept in the dark. But what's a -little deceit among lovers?" - -"I've never deceived you," she said, growing bitter as she went on. "In -any case, deceiving you would be a trifle compared with the crime of -deceiving myself." - -"Deceiving yourself?" - -"Yes. Do you suppose I could ever have lived with you, without first -thoroughly deceiving myself?" - -Claude's anger cooled at this bitter question. Janet was now worked up, -and anything was better than the killing indifference she had so far -maintained. He closed her valise and sat down on it, at her side. - -"Janet," he pleaded, "you were never like this before. So unyielding, so -cold. And I had planned that we'd make a gala night of it. Look at -these lovely flowers. Don't you understand their symbolism? I'm going -to do the right thing. I mean to marry you now, here in Brussels, at -once!" - -"You've offered to do that before." - -"Yes, but I really mean it this time." - -"And I really meant it Claude, every time I refused. You see, I always -assumed that your offers were made in good faith." - -"You are making a fool of me." - -"No one can do that but yourself." - -He got up abruptly and stood there nonplused, while she calmly went on -packing. He hated her for it. She was rude, inflexible, callous. Her -motives were unfathomable. She was never twice the same. Yet at this -moment he believed he wanted her more passionately than he had ever -wanted her before. He burst into suspicion. - -"What's the real reason, Janet? Some one has written to you--Robert, I -dare say?" - -He took her silence for an affirmation. - -"I thought so. Now I understand your change of attitude. He's been -preaching at you. It's his specialty. His views, curse them, are like -a drought. They dry up all one's spontaneity and natural affection. -Long ago, in the tenements, I noticed his sinister effect on you. -Whenever you went out with him, you came back with your heart hardened -against me." - -She laughed and said: - -"What nonsense! You're quite wrong. Robert hasn't wasted any of his -valuable sermons on me. He hasn't sent me so much as a scrap of paper." - -"Then what has changed you, all of a sudden? Is it my father you're -afraid of? That would be too absurd. He'll come around. He has got to -come around. He can't help himself. I know too much about the -business, its secrets and its weaknesses. So don't worry on that -score." - -"Claude, it's all very fine. But I don't see myself as your wife. I'd -never do. You need a woman to manage you like a mother and to flatter -you like a squaw. But--these jobs not being in my line--I'd criticize -you like an equal. And you know you simply can't stand criticism." - -Was she really rejecting his offer of marriage? Claude was appalled at -the apathy of the feminine intellect in the face of a miracle. Didn't -she know what his offer meant? (He tried to convey it to her--not in the -exact words, but in euphemisms.) It meant a change of estate from -mistress to wife. The wife of Claude Fontaine! The wife of a merchant -prince of Paris, London, New York, etc. (the only sort of prince that -counted in the twentieth century; no mere paper prince or petty Venetian -dogeling, but a prince whose rank had an international validity and -whose means could challenge the heart to name its wildest desire). It -was not conceivable that she knew what she was about. Still, he had to -face the possibility. - -And this desertion on top of all he had endured in consequence of -leaving America with her! - -"Isn't there a shred of gratitude in you?" he cried out, aghast at her -unyielding front. - -"I'm not ungrateful, Claude," she said, gravely. "Living with you has -been a liberal education. I've learned the truth about marriage without -binding myself for life; I've also learned the difference between -affection and infatuation without breaking either your heart or mine. -Can I ever repay this? If every girl could have some experience in -living with a man or two before she made a permanent choice, I believe -marriage would be far more popular." - -"Confound your opinions," he shouted, in an agony of rage. - -With a wild movement, he seized both her arms and furiously lifted her -to her feet. - -"Look here. Do you think you can calmly turn your back on me after what -I've put up with, after all I've suffered on your account? Exactly why -do you want to go away at the very moment that I'm marooned in this -infernal town? You've got to tell me straight! Is it sheer insanity, -or a craze for romantic adventure?" - -With cheeks glowing and lips quivering, she said: - -"I'm leaving you because we have nothing in common except our physical -attraction. And that is mostly physical repulsion now, as you see." - -"Haven't you one spark of love for me left?" - -"Claude, with all your faults I love you still," she replied, smiling, -as she rallied her self-command. - -He relapsed into his seat, utterly overwhelmed. - -Deeply moved, she went over to his side, and looked at him with a pang -of remorse. He edged away from her with a passionate sense of injury. - -"Remember," he warned her, "if you leave me, that will end everything. -Society may ostracize you, or toss you back into the gutter. Don't ask -me to lift a finger." - -The friendly words froze on her lips. She quietly resumed packing. - -He sprang up, beside himself, his whole person vibrating with his fury. - -"If you're going, you needn't wait until tomorrow!" he said, drawing in -his breath. "You can go now, for all I care." - -He walked to the window, his teeth clenched and his body set. - -While she hastily assembled the rest of her most necessary things, he -was saying to himself: - -"This damned idea of independence! She thinks she can frighten me. She -thinks I won't let her go. I'll call the bluff, and she'll come back -flying." - -All this on a horrible quicksand of doubt. - -But she saw only his hostile back and heard only the echo of his savage -tones. - -How like her mother he was! - -Without a word, she picked up her bag and went out. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE* - - *I* - - -A sedan drove up to M. St. Hilaire's house in the _Quartier Leopold_. -The young lady who got out was met at the door by a girl of fourteen who -enfolded her in affectionate embraces. - -"Oh, what a slow poke!" cried the girl reproachfully. "You were gone for -ever and ever, Jeanette!" - -"Two hours and ten minutes, Henrietta," said Janet looking at her wrist -watch, "is pretty short measure for eternity. I'm glad you're not my -butcher or baker." - -Henriette grimaced. They went upstairs together, the girl's arm tightly -clasping her companion's waist. - -Henriette St. Hilaire was a lovely girl, lithe and slender. Her fair -hair was bobbed and her eyes were the soft blue eyes of the North. - -She complained again of the dull time she had had. - -"Serve you right for having a headache when I left," said Janet. -"According to Herbert Spencer, if I went out for a drive by myself every -time you had one, your headaches would soon disappear." - -"Mine has gone already. Show me all you bought, Janski. May I open the -parcels?" - -"Yes, one by one." - -For Henriette was recklessly attacking strings and wrappers, to the -great peril of the contents. - -Among the parcels undid was one containing a book. - -She read out the title: "Tom, Dick and Harry." - -"What's this?" - -"That's a book of light reading for a young lady well advanced in the -English language." - -Henriette had taken to English as a duck takes to water. After a year of -continuous practice, she spoke it well; and read or wrote it passably. - -"Oh, it isn't a girl's book, is it?" she said, dubiously, and scanning -the title again in the light of Janet's words. - -"No, it's a boy's book. Boys' books are the only ones I know about -because they were the only ones I used to read. They were much jollier -than the girls' books." - -"Did your mother let you read boys' books? My mother wouldn't." - -"Nor mine either. But I read them on the sly. That's what made them so -enticing, I suppose." - -"I can't imagine that you ever did anything on the sly, Janski," said -the child, who still took idioms somewhat too literally. - -"Oh, can't you? Then I'm not half such a fool as I look." - -Henriette laid the book down and went over to make a demonstration of -tenderness by way of intimating that she believed Janet to be the best -and cleverest person in the whole world. - -Janet skillfully cut this demonstration short. She believed that a -child's affections, like its disaffections, should be kept well within -bounds. - -"Your enthusiasm for 'Tom, Dick and Harry,'" she said, in her musical -voice, "leaves much to be desired. Let me tell you that it is not a -book for study, but a book for light reading. If you really mean to -make English your 'adopted tongue,' as you sometimes tell me, you must -get used to light reading. The English-speaking nations read very -little else." - -Henriette gave her a look full of adoration. - -"Oh, I don't need light reading while I have you. To be with you is -like--it's as exciting as watching the loop-the-loop!" - -"Look here, Miss, do you imply that I'm a sort of three-ringed circus or -professional jumping-jack?" - -"No. I don't mean anything horrid and jumpy like that. I mean you are -never like other people. That's why it's such fun to try and guess what -you will do or say next. And I hardly ever guess right." - -"I see. I'm more like a Christmas stocking, full of surprises." - -"There, you see what funny things you say! It's far more absorbing than -a hundred books of light reading." - -"Henriette, you are becoming highly skilled at flattery. It's a very -useful accomplishment. If my absence brings out virtues like this, I -think I shall make a point of deserting you for two hours every morning. -You will become a paragon, and I shall be famous for my absent -teaching." - -"Oh, no, no, most dearest Jeanette. If need be, I'll say the most awful -things about you. I'll do anything to keep you." - -She gave a great sigh. - -"You don't know how I worry about losing you. It's terrible! Why -weren't you my sister or my aunt? Then I'd be sure of keeping you -always!" - -"Don't be too sure of that, darling. If we were close relations, -everybody would expect us to be fond of each other. And this -expectation would probably destroy most of the fondness, unless our -attraction for each other happened to be overwhelming." - -"Oh, it is overwhelming, isn't it? It must be, Jeanette. Why, I -wouldn't mind even if you were my mother!" - -"That's what I call crushing proof." - -"Yes. And it's taking chances, too. I don't really want another -mother, you know. Mothers are only truly nice to their sons. Now do -you see how much I love you?" - -"I do, you little philosopher. And I conclude, from so much undeserved -affection, that, as a teacher, I have probably been far too easy-going. -In future, I shall have to be much more severe." - -"Oh, that has nothing to do with it," said Henriette, laughing. "It -isn't the way you treat me. It's--well, I don't know what. Perhaps -it's the deep, deep mystery about you. Papa has noticed it, too." - -"Has he, indeed?" - -"Yes. And speaking of mysteries, I forgot to tell you that some one -called to see you while you were out. A gentleman--" - -"A gentleman! Who could it be?" - -"Well, he was a great big mountain of a man. Ugly, oh, like the ogre in -a fairy tale. I didn't like him a bit." - -"Oh, you saw him?" - -"Yes. I peeked over the banisters. What a monster! Papa wasn't home. -Berthe let him in because he said he was an old friend of yours. Here's -his card." - -Janet read the name of Hutchins Burley, and needed all her self-control -not to show her dismay. - -"Did he leave a message?" - -Henriette prattled on, unaware of Janet's emotion. - -"He asked Berthe to tell you that he would call again about five o'clock -tomorrow afternoon. He said he especially wanted to see you. If you -couldn't be in, he would be sure to see papa." - -"Five o'clock, did he say?" - -"Yes. Just when my riding lesson comes. I suppose we shall have to -give up our ride," she added mournfully. - -"Let's wait and see, dear." - - - - *II* - - -Had Burley chanced upon her in the street and followed her home, or had -he seen her in one of the shops or at one of the English tea rooms in -Brussels? Janet did not pursue this fruitless inquiry. The question -was how to meet the fact, the perilous fact. For she could hardly doubt -that Hutchins Burley's visit boded her no good. - -She passed the events of the last nine months in quick review. M. St. -Hilaire had engaged her without references. True to his agreement, -moreover, he had given her a free hand with Henriette's education and -had been well pleased when a growing attachment between Janet and his -daughter relieved him almost entirely of routine parental cares. - -As the virtual guardian of Henriette, Janet had had little to complain -of and much to be thankful for. Her pupil and her pupil's father had -treated her from the first as one of themselves, so that she enjoyed all -the advantages of membership in a family of wealth and refinement. -These advantages were not to be scoffed at. M. St. Hilaire was not only -a man of cultivated tastes; he possessed the means (derived from -extensive realty holdings in Alsace and Switzerland) which permitted him -to indulge his tastes on a very liberal scale. - -All in all, Janet thanked her lucky stars, especially as the pose of -chivalry, which M. St. Hilaire had contributed to their first meeting, -had worn very well. True, at the outset, he had made a few advances -ranging from the demonstrative to the amorous. But she had set these -experiments down to the incorrigible habit of continental gallantry. He -had not gone beyond them, had accepted her gentle rebuffs with a very -good grace, and had not thenceforth encroached upon her intimacy further -than she wished. - -Of late, she had not been able to close her eyes to the fact that her -employer was engaged in a mental debate as to whether or no he should -propose marriage to her. She regretted this fact and dreaded its -sequel. For reasons that seemed good and sufficient to her instincts if -not to her intellect, she had no desire to marry M. St. Hilaire. Her -present berth was very comfortable and altogether to her liking. It gave -her the rest she needed after the strain of her adventure with Claude; -it also gave her an opportunity to reflect on the past and get her -bearings in the present, before she took another leap. - -It was in the light of these relations with M. St. Hilaire and with -Henriette that she wondered what she ought to do. - -As regards Hutchins Burley, she was sure that he meant to play the heavy -villain. Why not? Nature had cut him out for the part, patterning him -magnificently upon the "heavies" that trod on the blood-and-thunder -stage. After all, one had to give this stage its due. If the literary -drama could create characters which nature copied (and sometimes -improved on), so could melodrama. And certainly, in Hutchins Burley, -melodrama had prompted nature to make her masterpiece. - -Janet had rather settled it, then, that Hutchins would have the audacity -to approach her with a repugnant offer (the same old offer), hoping that -her recent experience might have left her less squeamish than in the -days of the model tenements when she had repeatedly repulsed him with -scorn. On being repulsed anew, he would proceed to inform M. St. -Hilaire of her affair with Claude Fontaine in the expectation that the -news would bring about her discharge. For it was unlikely that a father -would wish his child to continue in the care of a young woman who had -"gone wrong." - -The mischief done, Hutchins would live in hopes of snatching from her -weakness the gratification he had vainly striven to beg, borrow or steal -from her strength. - -Should she now, like a movie heroine, try to head Hutchins off, -temporize with his expected offer, pay him blackmail, or what not? She -laughed heartily at this idea, its execution was so foreign to her -nature. - -What would Robert advise her to do? At this point she repeated an act -that had lately been a favorite part of her daydreams. She called up -Robert, as Saul called up the Witch of Endor, and had a long, sensible -talk with him one of those long, sensible talks so frequent in the days -of Barr & Lloyd in the Lorillard tenements. - -Robert advised her to obey her common sense unless her instinct kicked -over the traces, in which case let her feel no compunction about obeying -her instinct. She had better have as little direct dealing with -Hutchins Burley as possible. You could no more put off a scoundrel than -you could buy up a gentleman. The basest as well as the best of men -were incorruptible. If Hutchins had it in mind to do something nasty, -he would do it, no matter what course she took. - -Of course, she might throw herself on M. St. Hilaire's mercy. But then, -though M. St. Hilaire was a decent sort of man, was he not, like most -cultivated men, a classicist? That is, were not his reactions towards -matters of sex thoroughly traditional? If so, the only attitude of -Janet's that he would comprehend would be that of a penitent Magdalene -with uplifted hands and tearful eyes. Was she prepared to assume this -role? - -"Decidedly not," was Janet's hot reply to Robert's shade. "I may have -been rash or worldly-unwise, but I won't admit that I was wicked. If I -am asked to pay up for my folly, I shall not try to evade payment. But -if I am asked to pay up for my wickedness (which I do not acknowledge), -I shall fight payment to the last ditch. - -"No doubt, M. St. Hilaire will think me wicked, but do you?" - -"There are three kinds of people," solemnly responded Robert's astral -spirit. "And they correspond roughly to three kinds of existence we -recognize: animal, vegetable and mineral. The mineral people are the -dead people. Not more dead than the so-called minerals. But, like -rocks and stones, they are incarnations of law and custom petrified. -Then there are the vegetable people, the people who fold their hands and -piously accept such crumbs of life as are showered upon them from the -lap of High Heaven. Lastly there are the animal people, the people who -go out to find life instead of waiting for life to find them. If you -intend to remain in the last-named class, you must cheerfully assume the -risks of adventure." - -"Dear me," ejaculated Janet, "if his very shade isn't lecturing me for -old times' sake!" - -It was a little humiliating to be so dependent on Robert, even in the -spirit. She wouldn't have minded it so much if his terrestrial self -hadn't, with desolating coldness, washed his hands of her fate. - -Still, take it all in all, he had done what all sagacious ghostly -advisers should do, he had told her to do exactly what she wanted to do. - -Consequently, Henriette's riding lesson should not be interfered with -tomorrow. When Hutchins Burley came at five o'clock, he would find her -out. Tableau of a raging ogre! His fury would know no bounds, and he -would surely embellish Janet's life history so that M. St. Hilaire -should put the worst interpretation on everything. Well, let him do his -vilest. Come what may, time and the hour would run through the roughest -day. - -Losing Henriette!--Ah, that would be a bitter pill to swallow. Still, -it wasn't the first bitter pill and it wouldn't be the last. - -In every other way, she felt ready for a change. - - - - *III* - - -"Can I see you for a few minutes?" said M. St. Hilaire to Janet, -intercepting her outside his study, a little after six o'clock next day. - -She and Henriette were on their way upstairs to take off their riding -clothes and to dress for dinner. - -"If you two are going to chatterbox, I shall take a little nap," said -Henriette, climbing drowsily up another flight of stairs to her room. - -"Don't be too long, _mon pere_," she added, stopping half-way and -looking down over the banisters. "I'm even more hungry than sleepy. -Jeanette, please wake me when you come up." - -Janet, from within the study, promised to do so. - -Neither her voice nor her manner betrayed her apprehensiveness. Her -sailor hat was set rather jauntily on her head. Her light-brown riding -coat and breeches made a most becoming costume, one that showed the -undulating grace of her movements to excellent advantage. - -M. St. Hilaire followed her into the study and closed the door a shade -too circumspectly. - -His glances and the vibrant tones of his voice puzzled her considerably. -She could guess the substance of what he meant to convey but not the -form in which he meant to convey it. - -"That man--" he began in a hesitant manner. - -"Mr. Burley, the man I said was coming today?" - -"He came. You didn't tell me what he was coming for." - -"I knew he'd do it so much better." - -"He treated me to a long, long story about you." - -"Yes, I rather thought he would." - -"Oh, so you knew that, too?" - -"I had no cause to suspect him of amiable intentions," she said, -swinging her sailor hat by the elastic band. "I suppose he told you -that I lived with Claude Fontaine?" - -"Yes, but of course, I--" - -"Oh, it's quite true." - -M. St. Hilaire, nonplused by her candor, stroked his auburn beard and -feasted on the sight of her as she sat in an armchair not far away. The -indefinable suggestion of a devil-may-care mood enhanced her vital charm -until it stirred, thrilled, intoxicated him. - -"Perhaps--at one time--you have loved this Burley?" he asked, nursing -the suspicion. - -"A beast like that? Never!" - -He moved his chair very closely to hers. - -"Just Monsieur Fontaine?" - -"You don't expect me to go into details?" she said, coloring deeply. - -"No, no, my dear. But--what has been, can be. Is it not so?" - -"I don't know what you mean." - -He didn't quite know himself. Being in no condition to reason clearly, -he had leaped rashly to the conclusion that she had wished him to learn -of her love affair as an indirect way of encouraging him. - -Janet could not know his thoughts precisely, but she had an inkling. -She wondered that she could have been so blind as not to have seen that -his studied chivalry towards women covered a strongly sensual nature. - -Even then, she was not insensible to the fact that Anton St. Hilaire was -a pleasing man to look upon. His bright blue eyes and clear, ruddy -complexion testified to a sound physique. Perhaps he was a trifle too -robust. But there was a feminine comeliness about him which was a foil -to his surging virility. In many women, the first quality calmed the -piquant fears which the second quality excited. - -"Burley naturally told all sorts of lies about you," he added, for want -of a better line to take. - -"I expected he would." - -"And of course I sent him about his business." - -"I rather expected that, too," she said, smiling in spite of a growing -sense of alarm. - -For he had abruptly approached her and advanced as fast as she -involuntarily withdrew. She retreated around the desk towards the -closed door, on one side of which stood a wide leather couch. Against -this she stumbled slightly, and he caught up with her. - -"Janet," he said, in a low voice, thick with excitement, "the way he -dared to talk about you, you--so sweet, so clean, so adorable. I could -have strangled the brute." - -"I wish you had." - -"You must let me protect you--" - -They were at cross-purposes. She thought she could still reach the door -and make a dignified escape. He felt her withdrawal as an added -incitement. He had so long dispensed with the anticipating, insinuating -maneuvers in the technique of love-making that he had lost the knack of -using them. Moreover, his muscular strength, a sanguine temperament, -and past successes in sexual experiments had primed him with the belief -that direct action was the shortest way with all women. - -"You must let me protect you--" - -With the words still on his lips, he took her violently in his arms. - -The touch of his hand against her body filled her with an enormous, -sexless anger. Making an almost superhuman effort, she struck back his -head and succeeded in wrenching herself from his grasp. - -He stumbled, but instantly picked himself up. As he tried to back her -away from the door, she again raised her hand. - -"I can protect myself," she said, with a passionate repugnance that -chilled him to the soul. - -"Don't go like that," he cried, springing forward and clutching at her -arm. - -She dragged it away, rang for the maid, and rapidly turned the door -knob. - -"Berthe," she called down the hall, in clear ringing tones, "please open -the storeroom. I want to get at my trunk." - -Then she turned and looked at him, cold, distinguished, unapproachable. - - M. St. Hilaire plumped into the nearest seat. - -"I meant no harm," he muttered, numb, and crestfallen as a dried pear. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR* - - *I* - - -Ten days later. A large sitting room in exclusive lodgings near -Picadilly, London. Two men in an animated conversation. The decidedly -younger one, breezy and Times Squarish, and yet politely deferential to -the experience of his senior; the latter, a tall, wiry man immaculately -dressed in a suit of neutral coloring. - -The young man was saying: - -"Yes, Mr. Pryor, he's slowly warming to me. Slowly. I tell you, sir, a -Japanese naval attache can give points to an icicle. Still, I think -he's biting!" - -"Did you tell him that the U.S. Army of Occupation had sent machine guns -to the number of three thousand two hundred and fifty to the Ukraine?" - -"No. I followed your instructions to the dot. I merely said I was in a -position to tell him the number." - -"Well?" - -"He replied, with a sour smile, that he was in the same position as -regards me. I ventured to question the correctness of his information. -He volunteered the figure." - -"And the figure he gave?" - -"Was three thousand two hundred and fifty." - -Mark Pryor's rather long neck collapsed telescopically down his high, -straight collar. - -"And you think he's biting!" he said, turning his roving gray eyes -quizzically on his companion. "Take care, Smilo, my boy, or he'll have -_you_ 'biting' before you know it. And that will be a case of the biter -bit." - -"Have your little joke at the expense of the service, Mr. Pryor," said -young Smilo, with an air of tactfully conveying a rebuke. "But is a -mere Jap likely to come it over a real American like you or me? I -_don't_ think." - -"Let's waive discussion on a point so personal. In temperament and -disposition we are exact opposites. That's why we get on so well -together, and why I'm going to take you into my confidence." - -"Mr. Pryor, you mustn't think--" - -"I know it, my boy, I know it. I must never think, and I ought never to -take you into my confidence, either. Both acts are first-class -infractions of the rules of the military secret service. I admit it -shouldn't be done. It might result in important discoveries. It might -even lead to the disentangling of one of the mysteries we're working on. -Think of it! There'd be only one thousand two hundred and fifty-six -mysteries left." - -Young Smilo laughed good naturedly (to cheer the old boy up!). - -"None the less," continued Pryor, gravely, "I shall now violate another -inviolable rule. I shall give you four pieces of information. The -first: Running across Hutchins Burley in Paris twelve days ago, I told -him the number of machine guns sent by us to the Ukraine." - -"So that was the dodge. I see! You told him the exact number?" - -"Hardly. I told him three thousand two hundred and fifty. I thought -that number would do as well as any. Much better than the real number -for a variety of reasons which I won't stop to detail. Suffice it, the -number agrees with the number which you, in your capacity of informer to -the Japanese Secret Service, offered to reveal to the attache, and which -he already knew." - -"By George! With all the other dope you've got in the Burley case, you -must be pretty nearly ready to close in on the man?" - -"So _I_ thought. But Headquarters didn't. You see, I had followed -Burley along a devious route to Brussels. By the way, he nearly slipped -through my fingers there. I muffed him, so to speak. But I picked him -up again before he left Belgium and dogged him to Coblenz." - -"Coblenz? In the thick of the American occupation?" - -"Precisely. And bang under the noses of the American army, Mr. Hutchins -walked into a tobacconist's shop and sent a letter to the Japanese -embassy. At this tremendously exciting moment, Headquarters, in all the -majesty of its omniscience, shunted me off to London and ordered me to -take you in tow and mark time." - -"We marked time all right," chuckled Smilo. "You might say we -hall-marked it, what little we had. Linking Burley up with the Japs on -the one hand and with the smuggled Fontaine diamonds on the other, -wasn't such a bad week's work, even though we haven't got the goods on -him yet." - -"That's all very well, my boy. But what do I get today? Here is your -second piece of information. I get word to quit the Japanese case." - -"What for?" - -"For a post of honor in the business of trailing certain dangerous -American radicals who are temporarily in London. How do you like that?" - -"I don't like it, Mr. Pryor. And I don't blame _you_ for not liking it. -It looks like a raw deal. But are you sure it hasn't some remote -connection with Burley?" - -"No, I'm not sure. The devil has many irons in the fire. So has -Hutchins Burley. Most energetic gentlemen whether of the diabolic or -the celestial brand can gobble up an astonishing number of miscellaneous -jobs. For all I know, Hutchins may be the new Head Bolshevik Bomb -Thrower; or he may be the old chief _Agent Provocateur_; or he may be -merely somebody with a friend in Washington whose word can make -Headquarters quail. It's a conundrum. A pretty, picture-puzzle, -play-box conundrum, if you like. Still, a conundrum. And I'm heartily -sick of conundrums. I'm done with them. I joined the Secret Service to -become a detective, not a musical comedy magician." - -"You don't mean to say you are going to resign?" - -"I do. You have guessed my third item of news. As fast as a steamer -can carry me, I mean to proceed to Washington, there to give my -resignation and sundry pieces of my mind to the Chief in person." - -"But keeping its agents in the dark is an old, cherished method of the -Service, isn't it? Mr. Pryor, I feel sure you have another reason." - -"I have. Item four: I'm being followed." - -"Followed--I don't understand." - -"I began to suspect something the moment I came to London. Well, I put -my suspicions to the test yesterday. Before going out I folded a pair of -trousers in a very particular way and left them on a chair. When I came -back they had been refolded in a slightly different way." - -"Did you question your landlady?" - -"Yes. Naturally she denied that any stranger had entered, but her -confusion was obvious. I quickly suggested that my tailor might have -called, and she as quickly agreed that this was so. When, an hour -later, I interviewed the tailor and he confirmed me in my belief that he -had not been near the house, the inference was clear. I was being -watched. And, mark you, Smilo, I have reason to believe that the -watcher is one of our own colleagues." - -"Lord, no!" - -"Judging from the awkward way the pockets were crumpled in the act of -refolding the trousers, I have further reason to believe that the -watcher is a woman." - -"Impossible!" - -"Nothing is impossible in this best of impossible worlds." - -"It's a low-down shame, Mr. Pryor. But, after all, it can't hurt you. -'Sticks and stones may break my bones, etc.' You know the saying." - -"My dear boy, being a detective you can't begin to realize that the -knowledge that you are being carefully watched gives you a very jumpy -feeling--especially when you know you're guilty." - -"In heaven's name, guilty of what?" - -"Of doing a good job in your own line; in my case, tracking down -criminals." - -"Surely you don't mean to imply that Headquarters would permit -influences--" - -"I imply nothing. I give you the benefit of the facts. But if you think -it's a pleasure to surmise that your every movement has an unseen -spectator--you don't know who, but you fear it's a young and beautiful -woman--" - -The sudden ring-a-ling of the telephone bell cut across the room. - -Mark Pryor took up the instrument. - -"Yes," he said. "It's Mr. Pryor speaking. A young woman? Indeed! -Well, I'll see her up here." - -He hung up the receiver. - -"A young and beautiful woman," he repeated with a singularly straight -face. - -Young Smilo, whose way of life was still in the green, the callow leaf, -was divided between admiration and bewilderment. In half a minute or so -there was a knock at the door. - -The young woman who came in was Janet Barr. - - - - *II* - - -Smilo's parting look was one of stupefaction at the reception the -visitor got, Pryor's enthusiasm being a startling abandonment of his -neutral, self-contained manner. - -Left to themselves, Janet informed Pryor of the troubles that had -brought her to see him. The chief of these was Hutchins Burley. - -Would Mr. Pryor advise her how to deal with him if he turned up again, -as seemed highly probable? - -There were other difficulties. She had nearly exhausted her funds. She -didn't wish to return to the United States. Not at the moment, anyhow. -Yet she couldn't get a position without a character. - -This last she had learned recently, after several bitter experiences. -Europeans seemed firmly persuaded that a character existed not in -yourself but in the minds of other people, or rather in their -handwriting. In the United States a good presence was worth a thousand -good characters and your own opinion of yourself, expressed with -imaginative brilliance, went much further than other people's opinion of -you, expressed with dullness. In Europe, the reverse was true. - -Would he make out a good character for her, and have it on tap within -easy reach in case she referred employers to him? - -She was sure that any testimonial coming from him--yes, from him-- - -"Oh, I know you're a mystery," she said, in answer to his deprecatory -gesture. "But not an ordinary mystery. A mystery linked to the pink of -propriety is a sublime mystery. Like Mrs. Grundy's husband, whom you -remind me of. No one has ever identified that mysterious man. Yet -who'd have the courage to turn down a character made out by Mr. Grundy?" - -She told him of her break with Claude, of her situation as the companion -of Henriette, and of her experience with M. St. Hilaire as a result of -Burley's interference. - -"I left Brussels the very next day." - -"For Coblenz?" - -"Via Coblenz, for Munich, to see you, if possible. It was a Munich -address you gave me, on board the 'Baronia'." - -"I left Munich some time ago." - -"So I learned. You see, I followed you here. But how do you know I -went to Coblenz?" - -"On the seventh of October?" - -"On the seventh of October. How _did_ you know it?" - -"I didn't know it. The information just drifted my way." - -"You are a detective then, Sherlock Holmes and M. Gaboriau rolled into -one." - -"Janet, disabuse yourself of that idea. If I _were_ a detective I'd be -a very sorry one. Let me prove it to you. In the course of my duties -(whatever they are), I had occasion to look up Mr. Burley. I located -him in Brussels on the sixth of October. I had scarcely found him -before he slipped through my fingers." - -"Slipped through your fingers?" - -"Yes. Slipped through my fingers. You see, I'm trying to live up to -the detective role to oblige you. Well, I got on to Mr. Burley's -movements again on the seventh of October, just in time to follow him to -Coblenz. _Why Coblenz?_ I asked myself again and again. By the way, -did you ever hear of a real, live detective asking _himself_ a -question?" - -"No. But what is the answer?" - -"_You_ are the answer, of course. And I've only just discovered the -fact. Fancy Sherlock Holmes following Hutchins Burley all the way from -Brussels to Coblenz and from Coblenz to London and not discovering a -quintessential answer, until the answer had crossed the Channel and -stationed itself under his very nose." - -"Do you mean to tell me that that odious Hutchins Burley is also in -London at this very minute?" - -"Don't be alarmed; I give you my word he sha'n't molest you again. I -was about to res--I was about to transfer my valuable services to -another sphere. What you have told me determines me to hang on a little -longer, for the sole satisfaction of bringing Hutchins Burley to book." - -"Oh, you mustn't injure your prospects on my account." - -"No fear. There's pleasure in checkmating a fellow like Burley, and -profit, too. You know, Janet, the real old-fashioned heavy-weight -villains are deplorably scarce. Goodness, routine goodness, is so easy -nowadays, it is so much in fashion, it is so thoroughly rammed down our -throats by compulsory education, that very few people are inclined to be -wicked and fewer still are energetic enough to carry out the -inclination. Mr. Hutchins Burley is a rare beast. He does not identify -his wickedness with our goodness. Not he. He believes in himself from -top to bottom. Unlike the usual criminal of today, he doesn't suffer -from the cowardice of his convictions." - -They discussed Janet's plans. Ways and means, and how to get her off -the rocks, were the first considerations. - -"Do you know what?" said Pryor, reflectively; "your old friend Cornelia -Covert could give you a lift." - -"Oh, no; I can't go back to America--not yet, anyhow," said Janet -resolutely. - -"But she isn't in America. She's in Paris. You didn't know it? Then -I've a big piece of news for you. She's married!" - -"Cornelia married!" - -"Yes. Benedick, the married man, isn't in it with Diana, the married -woman." - -"It's Harry Kelly, of course. Give me a moment to catch my breath. -Mrs. Harry Kelly!" - -"Not a bit of it." - -"What do you mean?" - -"You've heard of Paulette crepe, haven't you?" - -"The crepe that's all the rage this year. Mr. Pryor, when I see a -Paulette crepe blouse in a London shop, the cells of my -great-great-grandmother rise enviously within me and turn the clock back -to Noah." - -"The curse of Eve," said Mr. Pryor, in his driest vein. "Well, everybody -knows that Paulette crepe is named after Madame Paulette, one of the -first dressmakers of Paris. Not everybody knows that Madame Paulette's -real name is--" - -"Cornelia!" - -"Precisely." - -Prior briefly narrated the curious story of Cornelia's migration to -Paris, her marriage to Harry Kelly, her transformation into a -fashionable dressmaker. Through a convergence of happy events, in which -Pryor had had a hand, Cornelia had been able to enter the old and famous -house of Paulette, then noticeably on the decline. Her artistic gifts -and Kelly's industry had rejuvenated the management and revived the -glories of the Paulette tradition. In a little less than a year Cornelia -and Kelly had bought out the aged proprietors of the firm. - -"No wonder I didn't hear from her," said Janet. "All my letters came -back unopened. I began to think she had turned her back on me." - -"Marriage has not changed her as much as that," said Pryor, smiling. -"But I warn you that it has changed her a good deal." - -"For the better or for the worse?" - -"For the better _and_ for the worse. But wait and judge for yourself." - -"Perhaps Cornelia will think me in the way, now that she has a husband -to look after." - -"Cornelia lose sleep over Harry? No, dear girl; don't worry on that -score. And don't forget that she'll be glad to do me a favor as well as -you. More than one tony customer has come to her shop at my instance. -When I tell you that I brought Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, the mother of the -Duchess of Keswick, to her, you'll admit that I'm a crack barker." - -"Mr. Pryor, you are my _deus ex machina_. I believe you are every one -else's, too. It must be a hobby with you to help people out of -difficulties." - -"Quite the contrary. It's a hobby with me to get people into -difficulties. The worst of it is, I rarely succeed. I rarely get -anybody into difficulties except myself." - -"Is that true?" - -"Well, it's as true of me as it is of certain other people. Sensitive -people. People like you, or Charlotte Beecher, or Robert Lloyd." - -"Oh, Robert never gets himself into difficulties," said Janet, with a -trace of bitterness. "He's too efficient, too perfect." - -"You do him an injustice, I'm sure. Lloyd merely puts up an -exceptionally good front. He stands the strain of existence with skill -and courage. So do you, for that matter." - -"Thanks. But I really haven't had much to stand." - -"It seems ample to me." - -"Not half what I expected. When I went away with Claude I thought the -universe would be arrayed against me. I dare say that in the margin of -my thoughts there was a dim picture of Janet flinging a glove in the -face of a decadent, despotic world." - -They both smiled. - -"What happened?" - -Janet went on, sub-ironically: "A geyser of slander and mockery that -spurted up from the newspapers. Nothing else. Nothing diabolic on the -world's side. Nothing heroic on mine." - -"That's the rule in these cases, Janet. The Flatbush suburb idea that -all the world loves a lover is about as true as the Greenwich Village or -Kips Bay idea that all the world hates a free union." - -"You think both ideas are fictions?" - -"Not entirely. Modern society has its own way of giving a pat of -approval to a regular marriage and a kick of disapproval to a free -union. Apart from these casual demonstrations it doesn't get -tremendously excited over what its men and women do as males and -females, so long as they pay their rent regularly, refrain from -incurring bad debts with tradesmen, and bow the knee (at least in -public) to the seventh commandment." - -"Yes, I soon found that out. Nobody cared a pin whether I was married -or not, or whether I was more to be pitied than scorned, provided I wore -the proper clothes and told the proper lies." - -"Nobody?" - -"Nobody, except Hutchins Burley." - -"Ah, there's sure to be a Nemesis!" - -"Yes. But why Hutchins Burley? What am I to Burley, or Burley to me? -Why should that horrible wretch be commissioned to persecute me? Why -was he destined to snap the bond of comradeship between Henriette and -me? He isn't exactly one's notion of a social censor, is he?" - -"A scavenger isn't a popular notion of a sweet and clean man. Yet he -serves a public purpose." - -"What an extraordinary analogy!" - -"Not at all. You see, Janet, we moderns are too squeamish or too lazy -to do our necessary dirty work ourselves, dirty work like punishment, -for instance. The result is that when some one rashly assails the -majesty of one of our institutions, we punish him by proxy. We kill by -the hand of the public executioner. We get revenge by the hand of the -judge. We dispense poetic justice by the hand of a Hutchins Burley." - -"Well, Hutchins Burley as society's Nemesis is a brand new idea to me. -I shall need time to let it sink in. But what have I done to deserve so -mighty a thing as poetic justice? I haven't even stolen another woman's -husband. Haven't I been my own worst enemy, as Laura Jean Libby used to -say? Isn't that vice its own reward?" - -"Janet, your question is fair. But your voice and your eyes are not. -Now I come to think of it, there may after all be a teeny weeny bit to -say--no, not on Hutchins Burley's side--but on Monsieur Anton St. -Hilaire's side." - -"Mr. Pryor!" - -"I don't mean a twentieth part of what I say. But let me say it. You -are strong enough to take it straight. To begin with, the enigma of -Hutchins Burley: answer me this. Didn't you of your own free will settle -down amongst the Outlaws?" - -"Yes." - -"Well, you can't touch pitch without a little of it sticking to your -fingers. But let us consider what you are to do next. It's a safer -topic. We've talked unguardedly enough, considering that there's a -dictagraph in the room, put there by no friends of mine." - -"A dictagraph! Then you're not a great detective," said Janet, -seriously disappointed. Hopefully, she added: "If you are not Sherlock -Holmes, perhaps you are Raffles?" - -"Well, it takes a thief to catch a thief," was the enigmatic reply. - -He did not tell her that the hiding place of the dictagraph had been -located and that Smilo had received instructions to tamper with the -instrument as soon as the coast was clear. - - - - *III* - - -They took a bus to Janet's lodgings. - -Several plans were agreed upon. Chiefly, they were both to write to -Cornelia asking her to find a position for Janet in the Paulette -establishment. - -Fashionable dressmaking was not precisely the work that Janet's heart -was in. But she was prepared to take any position as a means to an end. -Her real goal was active participation in the later phases of the -women's movement. Recent happenings had revived in her the old longing -to enter the thick of the battle, to pitch into the struggle for equal -pay in every sort of occupation and for an equal title to legislative -and administrative power. - -"But I shall have to get an income of my own before I can be a factor in -this struggle," she said. - -"One must get an income of one's own before one can be a factor in any -struggle," said Pryor, dryly. - -"Yes, I've learned that, too. Feminists say that a woman must have an -independent income in order to enter marriage with self-respect. They -could go further and say that a woman must have an independent income in -order to enter a free union with self-respect." - -Pryor told her that he expected to return to the United States in a few -weeks. Should he, in case he ran across Robert Lloyd, inform him of her -altered views? - -She said that Robert wouldn't thank him for any information about her. - -"But you were such exceptionally good friends," expostulated Pryor. -"Your little firm of Barr & Lloyd--what a pity you couldn't pick that -thread up again, instead of joining Cornelia. If Robert weren't as poor -as a church mouse, or if you both weren't too proud to borrow a little -cash from me--" - -Janet interrupted to veto all suggestions along that line. Pride had -nothing to do with the question. It was true that she and Robert had -been very good friends and excellent working partners. But Robert had -emphatically said that he had no use for a woman who had damaged her -social and businesss value by indulging in an adventure such as hers -[Transcriber's note: several words missing from source book] - -"Hm!" said Pryor. "When the shoe pinches his own foot, what -astoundingly conservative exclamations even a radical fellow will make." - -Janet went on to say that, although she had changed her views, she had -every reason to believe that Robert had not changed his. Thus, he had -taken no step whatever to communicate with her, despite the fact that -she had indirectly, in her first letter to Cornelia, asked him to do so. - -"Besides," she added, "didn't you know that he was about to marry -Charlotte Beecher?" - -"Oh, ho, so that's how the wind blows?" - -Pryor, standing in front of Janet's house, gave the curb a sharp whack -with his cane. - -"That marriage has no place in the scheme of your _deus ex machina_," he -said, with a quizzical frown. "We'll have to take it out on -Burley--give the devil an extra twist of the tail to relieve our -feelings." - -"Yes, when you catch him. Meanwhile, what am I to do about him?" - -"Forget him, forget him serenely for half a dozen weeks or so. Then -you'll hear from him again." - -"Hear from him again," she said, with a shade of alarm. - -"Not _from_ him in person," corrected Pryor, straightening up till he -looked like a hickory stick. "_About_ him, through me. Good news for -us, bad news for him. Until then good-bye." - - - - - *PART V* - - *HEARTS AND TREASURES* - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE* - - *I* - - -On a cool February morning a private office in the Maison Paulette, -Boulevard Houssman, was occupied by five persons of the feminine sex. -Four of the five, gorgeous as to clothes and cosmetics, moved busily -about in comet-like orbits that brought them periodically near the desk. - -The fifth, seated at the desk itself, dominated the room. She was a -striking blonde, whose handsome dull-green dress challenged the glint of -gold alike in her pupils and her hair. - -Seemingly occupied with a book of accounts, this lady was really engaged -in inventing petty tasks for the four young women dancing attendance -upon her. (_Mariette, ou est le livre bleu? Mon dieu, Gabrielle! les -ciseaux; quelqu'un a enleve mes petites ciseaux. Toinette, apportez-moi -le boite aux lettres. Tiens, Amelie! Prends ce mouchoir_, etc., etc.) -These requests for service continued in a fairly steady stream, amidst -much hurrying and scurrying, sharp cries of _tout de suite, Madame_, and -a general atmosphere of sulky obsequiousness. - -In the thick of the confusion the door was opened by a young woman in a -soft suit of brown heather. She stood on the threshold for a moment -and, as she looked questioningly towards the lady in command, a slight -frown brought a bar of hazel brown over her beautiful gray eyes. - -The lady at the desk, who saw everything, affected not to see the figure -on the threshold and went on languidly issuing orders. - -Thereupon the newcomer, in clear, agreeable English, called out: - -"Evidently you don't want me, Cornelia. Good, I'll go back upstairs. -I've stacks and stacks of work to do--" - -"Araminta, wait! Of course I want you. I want you most particularly." - -"You've got an army here, already. What do you want me for? If you -keep on calling me away from the manikins whenever Harry is explaining -matters, he'll never be able to train me into taking charge of them." - -"My dear!" trilled Cornelia, bringing her most musical _arpeggio_ into -play. "When you've been married as long as I have, you'll understand -that no sensible woman ever interferes with her husband's work except -for a positively overwhelming reason." - -"Really, the reasons here in Paris are as bad as the seasons," said -Janet with a smile. "I wish they'd calm down and not overwhelm us quite -so often." - -"Ah, Janet, you well may jest. Little do you know of the heavy -responsibilities involved in managing both a business and a husband. If -I had only myself to think of the worries and risks would be as a -whisper in the wind. But I think of Hercules sharing my anxieties, -working himself thin and gray--" - -While she went on in this theatrical vein, Janet was thinking to -herself: "She makes as great a virtue of being married as she formerly -made of not being married. Whatever her condition, there's a terrible -to-do about it." - -Aloud she said: - -"Look here, Cornelia, if you want to talk privately to me, hadn't we -better get rid of this retinue?" - -Without awaiting a reply, she calmly released Marie and the other -manikins from service and sent them out of the room. This done, she -took a chair opposite the desk where Cornelia sat staring at her in -speechless indignation. - -Cornelia cherished a sort of mental chromo of herself as the active -ruler of the Paulette community, a ruler at once imperious, genial, and -adored. In point of fact, her insatiable appetite for attention, -reinforced by a sharp tongue, spread an atmosphere of dread and anxiety -around her. Janet was the only person who had ever succeeded in -weakening Cornelia's illusion about herself by bringing it into -occasional juxtaposition with reality. - -"You'll greatly oblige me, Janet, by not ordering my servants about -under my very nose." - -"Your manikins are not your servants, Cornelia. They're your employees. -You slave-drive them outrageously. If you don't look out, you'll have a -strike on your hands before long." - -"With you as the strike leader, I dare say?" - -"Why not? Your inability to respect other people's time is simply -appalling. The moment some whim pops into your head, one of us is -called upon to gratify it. You quite forget that when you arbitrarily -take us from our jobs, bang goes continuity, a most important factor in -good workmanship. Mazie, who came here grovelling in the dust, is now -up in arms; the manikins are unitedly rebellious; Harry is almost a -nervous wreck. This, with business simply deluging the establishment. -I tell you, unless _you_ stop, we all will." - -Cornelia quailed under these words, although she kept her face -admirably. She was in some respects like a wrongly bound volume: half -Becky Sharp and half Hedda Gabler. And it was the Hedda Gabler pages -she always turned up to Janet. - -"Well, what next?" she exclaimed, on the defensive in spite of her brave -words. "I've rescued Mazie Ross out of the gutter where Hutchins Burley -flung her; I've sacrificed my own creature comforts to make those of the -manikins secure; I've given _you_ a very tidy berth and no questions -asked; and I've worked myself to skin and bones for Harry's sake. Now -you all turn on me and call me an interfering busybody, or worse. -That's human gratitude." - -Janet, giving the faintest ironical shrug, merely looked at her. - -Cornelia smothered a sob of rage. After a pause, she informed Janet -that Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, her most valued customer, had made an -appointment that morning to look at some frocks and gowns. This lady -had a single hobby, clothes; and she spent an appreciable fraction of -her untold millions ("she's divorced two multimillionaires, Araminta, -and driven a third into the diplomatic service!") on this hobby. She -had expressed profound dissatisfaction with Paulette's offerings on her -last visit two weeks ago. It was therefore of prime importance to -please her this time. - -"I want you to be in the salon with me when she looks at the models," -said Cornelia. "She's extremely susceptible to flattery. As the head -of the house, I can't very well lay it on too thick, can I? I have a -feeling that your presence will make the sales go smoothly." - -"You'd better leave me out of it, Cornelia. I never sold a thing in my -life. Why, I couldn't sell a sandwich to a starving man." - -"_I'll_ do the _selling_, my dear. I simply ask you to be on hand. The -fact is, you have a peculiar influence over people. When they get to -talking with you, they suddenly forget about _things_--the earth-earthy -things by which we are all so obsessed nowadays--they appear to forget -about things and begin to occupy themselves with thoughts and dreams. -In that condition, a man or woman will buy anything." - -"Cornelia, you'll admit that I've done all sorts of odd jobs for you -without a murmur. But I really don't like to bamboozle anybody into--" - -"Bamboozle! Araminta! No one who buys a Paulette frock is bamboozled. -Be quite clear about that." - -She added, less belligerently, that Mrs. Jerome, though so very rich, -had no taste in clothes. Or, more bluntly, had a most execrable taste. -She went in for suffrage, feminism, woman's rights, and all that sort of -thing. (Here Janet pricked up her ears.) So you might know what to -expect. She was, in short, faddy and temperamental. Her purchases were -made or not made, as the case might be, because the seller pleased or -displeased her. The articles themselves were of quite secondary -importance. - -"Forgive my curiosity, Cornelia. But you have regiments of customers. -Why are you so anxious about just this one?" - -"What a question, you babe in the wood! Don't you know who Mrs. Jerome -is?" - -"I know she's rich and that Mr. Pryor had something to do with her -coming here." - -"That's not it, child. She's the American mother of the Duchess of -Keswick. And the Duchess-- Well, it's Madge and Mary between her and -the Queen of England. Think, Araminta, what a feather in our cap, if we -get the patronage of the Duchess of Keswick, and a Paulette frock is -worn at the Court of St. James! It's the chance of a lifetime. You -won't disappoint me, dear?" - -"No. We'll make it Madge and Paulette and Mary. When is this dowager -Mrs. Jerome expected?" - -"That's her carriage now, or I'm very much mistaken," said Cornelia, all -agog. "She hardly ever uses a motor. It's _so_ ordinary." - -In some amazement Janet watched her old friend going out to do the -honors in the reception room. What a transformation a short year had -effected in the Cornelia of the Lorillard tenements! Bohemianism, -outlawry, and the one-piece dresses of Kips Bay seemed remoter than -Mars. Cornelia was attired in the height of fashion, her cheeks were -delicately touched up, her hair was elaborately coiffured. - -Even her congenital languor had evaporated, for the moment, as the -thrills of social snobbery electrified her. - - - - *II* - - -Entering the salon, Janet saw that Mrs. Jerome was a podgy little tub of -a woman, the symbol of the fortune which her father, Theodore Casey, had -made in wash-tubs. She took a chair beside the visitor, who sleepily -watched the crack Paulette manikins whilst they exhibited a variety of -frocks and Cornelia nervously courted the favor of her outspoken -customer. - -Mrs. Jerome examined one of the manikins at close quarters. - -"I don't think much of your dresses today," she said bluntly. "The -lines are all wrong." - -"Pardon me, Mrs. Jerome," said Cornelia with dignity. "But they ought to -be at that angle. A Paulette frock is a work of art. It is designed to -produce a definite effect from a definite point of view. The lines are -like those of a Phidias statue, perfectly right at the proper distance." - -"I don't care if they _do_ look like a Fiddlesticks statue. Look at that -charmeuse gown there. Can't anybody tell that girl a mile away for what -she is?" - -"I fear I don't understand." - -"Well, if the gown don't hide the fact that she's a manikin, it won't -hide the fact that my figure's no Fiddlesticks statue, or whatever you -call it." - -This opinion, delivered in an unmistakable New York voice and accent, -made Janet laugh. Not disrespectfully. She discerned at once that Mrs. -Jerome, like Shakespeare, had far more native wit than college learning. -Her judgment was confirmed when the visitor, turning abruptly towards -her, said: - -"What do you think of these Paulette dresses, young lady. I don't -expect you to say that they're pretty rotten. But do they satisfy the -eye?" - -"I think, Mrs. Jerome, that if they don't _satisfy_ the eye, they'll at -least astound it." - -Mrs. Jerome brightened up at once. - -"Well, child," she said, "when I want to astound people, I'll do it on -less money than a Paulette gown costs. I'll walk around Columbus Circle -in my bathing suit." - -"Oh, I'll bet you do it, too," said Janet, at the top of her exuberance. - -"Do what?" said Mrs. Jerome, now totally oblivious of the manikins on -exhibition and of Cornelia on pins and needles. - -"Wear a bathing suit around the house. I used to, regularly. In the -tenements in Kips Bay I always did the dishes in my bathing suit. -Annette Kellerman tights, a skirt to the knees, no sleeves, no -stockings. A dandy rig-out for quick action." - -"Permit me to say, Janet--" began Cornelia, in frigid, authoritative -tones. - -Mrs. Jerome impatiently waved her away, an indignity so astounding that -Madame Paulette could scarcely trust her eyes. Janet, fearing she had -been indiscreet, hastened to add: - -"Of course, Cornelia--Madame Paulette--doesn't allow it in Paris. She -requires us to be perfectly proper here." - -"She would!" said Mrs. Jerome significantly, her back still turned to -Cornelia. "But what good does it do you? Nine-tenths of the people in -Paris are perfectly proper; but they don't look it. The other tenth are -perfectly improper; but they, as often as not, don't look it either." - -The manikins received another inning. A brief one, though, for Mrs. -Jerome inspected and dismissed them in quick succession. - -"Well, well," she said, half aloud, "to think that you came from the -tenements." - -She gave Janet a quick, sceptical glance. - -"I can scarcely believe it." - -"I can scarcely believe it myself," said Janet, with a perfectly -straight face. - -Cornelia bit her lips and, flashing an angry look at her friend, went -out of the salon, unable to trust her feelings any longer. - -"If the Duchess got wind of it," Mrs. Jerome mused on, "that would -finish Paulette's for me. She don't think a shop is a classy shop -unless the proprietor has a classy pedigree." - -"Oh, our pedigree will seem classy enough to the Duchess," said Janet, -"if you don't give us away. And you can't do that, you know. I only -told you in the strictest confidence." - -"Don't you go shifting your responsibilities on me, young woman. If you -want your secrets kept, you just keep them to yourself. I'm no safe -deposit vault for anyone else's hidden thoughts. For your comfort I'll -tell you this, though. I've never given my daughter food or information -that I knew she couldn't digest. I'm too old to begin doing it now." - -"You're quite right, Mrs. Jerome. Things slip off my tongue that -oughtn't to. Personally, I don't care a straw. But other people--" - -"Don't worry about other people, my dear," said Mrs. Jerome, who had -enjoyed the tit-for-tat immensely. "I'm not likely to desert Madame -Paulette. At least not while she keeps anyone with your healthy face -and fascinating eyes here to talk to me. Mind, I'm not gone on these -Paulette frocks. I guess the Madame knows that pretty well. But this -establishment is run by a woman, a woman from my own country. That -means a good deal to me. For although our sex is coming into its own, -the pace isn't a dizzy one. The men see to that. And so I say, this is -a time for all good women to stand by one another." - -The little lady sank back in her seat and, as though exhausted by her -long speech, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Cornelia had -returned and the parade of the manikins was resumed. - -This spectacle always started Janet on a series of curious reflections. -As a result of the training in rhythmics which the girls received at the -hands of Harry Kelly, they were free from those grotesque mannerisms of -gait, posture, and demeanor which manikins cultivated and which were -accepted by the trade as superlative expressions of esthetic -correctness. Yet Harry's talent yoked to the service of fashion seemed -as wasteful a thing as an artist's genius drafted in the service of -futility. It reminded Janet of the story of the Medici prince who -compelled Michelangelo to mould a statue out of snow. - -But to Mrs. Jerome the Paulette manikins were a sight to see. She made -Janet sit on the lounge beside her and coaxed her to give an opinion on -every frock subsequently shown. She purchased all those that Janet -praised and several that she made fun of. - -It was one of the best day's work that the sales department of -Paulette's had ever done. - -In spite of which, Madame Paulette considered it her duty to take Mrs. -Jerome to one side and apologize for Janet and her artless -indiscretions. - -"She means well, Mrs. Jerome," said Cornelia, deferentially. -"She's--well, I might say, she's naive, incredibly naive in matters of -social position. It's only lack of training, I assure you." - -"Is that all?" - -"Yes, she's absolutely ignorant of distinctions of rank. Absolutely. -Why, she would talk to a Duchess with no more ceremony than to a -scrubwoman." - -"Then I'll bring the Duchess here to be talked to. It might do her -good." - -"Oh, do bring the Duchess. I shall be charmed to display for her -inspection the best that the Maison has." - -"No doubt. But let me give you a tip. Don't waste your time training -that dear little Janet girl. She'll learn the deceitful ways of the -world fast enough, and no correspondence course needed either." - -Janet came up to them as they reached the outer door. - -"My dear," said Mrs. Jerome, putting her arm around Janet's waist, -"you've given me the best quarter of an hour I've had in Paris these two -months. It's been a treat, a royal treat." - -As Cornelia beheld these two, standing there intertwined, a strange -expression formed on her face, an expression that bespoke an agonizing -doubt of the sanity of the universe. - -Unheeding her, Mrs. Jerome continued to say to Janet: - -"The people I meet everywhere! In Europe they pick my pockets while -they lick my boots; in America they rifle my purse with barefaced -assurance. You are the first one I've met in a very long time who has -talked to me as though I were a human being and not a walking cash box." - - - - *III* - - -The conquest of Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome produced a sensation in the -Paulette establishment. It also gave an element of security to Janet's -precarious tenure of office there. - -Janet knew full well that Madame Paulette had received her in the -Boulevard Haussman with nothing like the enthusiasm that Cornelia had -welcomed her in the Lorillard tenements. In the interval between these -events the two friends had burned several bridges behind them. - -It was obvious that Cornelia was now glutted with hands to wait on her, -ears to pay heed to her, and tongues to flatter her. Her natural taste -for dependents being completely gratified, she felt less need than ever -for friends of an independent turn of mind like Janet. - -Moreover, in a year and a half of compact adventure, Janet had matured -more rapidly than many young people do in ten years of tame drifting. -Time, which had whittled away some of her imprudence, had robbed her of -none of her daring; it had left her with her almost naive freedom of -utterance intact. Her candor was a trait to which Cornelia had formerly -been much drawn. But that was in the days of her first arrival in Kips -Bay, the days when the young girl had all but worshipped the experienced -woman. Now that blind devotion had given way to challenging criticism, -Janet's candor seemed far less attractive. - -That is, far less attractive to Cornelia. As regards Paulette's in -general, Janet was a great favorite. Her official duties were chiefly -those of an assistant to Harry Kelly in the physical training of the -manikins, (a branch of their professional instruction on which Kelly -laid great stress). She bore somewhat the same relation to her chief -that the concert master of an orchestra does to the conductor. This -arrangement was Cornelia's doing. In one and the same bold stroke she -had thought to cut down the time that Kelly spent with the manikins -(this being the time in which his heart lay most); and to shift to -Janet's shoulders the odium that frequently devolves on the deputy chief -(who exercises authority without possessing power). - -But Cornelia's spirit of negation, active as ever, accomplished only -one-half of its object. - -Janet discharged her duties with so much vivacity and with such -invincible good-will that she was idolized by everybody in the Paulette -firm from Kelly and the manikins down to the work girls and the -magnificent porter who daily consented to guard the street door. - -In short, she was the life of the house; than which, Cornelia could have -brought no stronger indictment against her of unimaginable _lese -majeste_. - -The two had a long private conversation in Cornelia's office the day -after Mrs. Jerome's visit. - -"Araminta, you've certainly made a hit with the old lady. Just as I -predicted. It's a fine thing for us both. Paulette's prestige will go -up and up. And it should mean a great deal to you." - -"How, I wonder?" - -"You can make her friendship a stepping stone." - -"Easy stepping stones for little feet--so to speak?" - -"You know quite well what I mean. Some day you'll go back to America--" - -"Is this a hint or a prediction, or both--" - -"Don't be silly, Janet. I'm thinking of your future. Your future in -your own country, naturally. Mrs. Jerome is a woman of enormous -influence. You know how it is over there. Much gold will wash all -guilt away." - -"You mean my chequered past?" asked Janet, with a smile. - -"Yes," said Cornelia, adding handsomely, "although your affair with -Claude Fontaine will probably be quite forgotten by that time. Nobody -will remember it." - -"Robert Lloyd will!" - -Cornelia was up in arms at once. She always was, when Janet mentioned -Robert's name. - -"What difference does that make? You aren't going to marry _him_, I -suppose?" - -"I suppose not. He's too poor, for one thing. He isn't going to ask -me, for another." - -"One would imagine you wanted him to," said Cornelia, with concise -sarcasm. - -"We got along splendidly as partners." - -"Partners! What has that to do with marriage?" - -"What has anything to do with marriage? I understood your reasons when -you believed that marriage was a prison. I confess I don't understand -your reasons now that you believe marriage to be a haven of bliss. -Mind, I don't say it is a prison, and I don't say that it _isn't_ a -haven of bliss." - -Janet tried to check her sub-ironical impulses: they were irrepressible. - -"I feel too much in the dark about the whole thing," she went on, "to be -as cocksure as I used to be. But if one isn't to marry a man because -one has found him to be a splendid companion in the wear and tear of -working together, why is one to marry him?" - -"How you do run on, Araminta! Prisons and hells, Paradises and havens -of bliss--you jump from one extreme to the other. Who mentioned these -things? My dear, one marries a man because he calls to what is deepest -and truest in one. Because he responds to--" - -"The mating instinct?" - -"How can you sit there and say such vulgar things?" - -"Vulgar! Well, you _are_ going it! Isn't the mating instinct as deep -and true as any of them?" - -"It isn't a reason for marriage," said Cornelia, in staccato accents. -"And you know perfectly well I never said or thought it was. Quite the -reverse. I opposed marriage because the sex instinct, which is what -induces most people to marry, is a good ground for a temporary union but -not a good ground for a permanent one." - -"Then there _are_ good reasons for a permanent union?" - -"Yes. And they absorb the sex reason a million times over." - -"It's easy for you to talk like that, Cornelia, with Harry thinking that -the sun rises in one of your eyes and sets in the other. But where -shall _I_ find a Harry to be absorbed in me a million times over like -that?" - -"If you go on making nasty sarcastic replies to all my well-meant -suggestions, I shall wash my hands of you," said Cornelia, rising with -frigid haughtiness. - -She added, on a superior note: - -"You'd better see a little less of poor, bedraggled Mazie Ross, if it's -on _her_ level that you're being tempted to think." - - - - *IV* - - -Janet hastened after her in a complete change of mood. - -"Come back, Cornelia," she called out, remorsefully. "I had no right to -be sarcastic. Forgive me, and I'll eat all the humble pie you like." - -Cornelia sat down again. - -"This is a new tack for you to take," she said, making the most of an -advantage Janet seldom gave her. - -"The fact is, Cornelia, I'm--my feelings were ploughed up today, -ploughed up from top to bottom. The postman brought me an offer of -marriage this morning." - -"An offer of marriage!" - -"From Monsieur St. Hilaire." - -Cornelia had of course heard the facts of the whole St. Hilaire episode. -She also knew that Janet still corresponded with Henriette, and that all -the recent letters of the girl's father had been sent back unopened. - -"I thought you never read his letters?" - -"This one was folded up in Henriette's note. I'm sure the child wasn't -a party to the trick. Here it is. Will you read it?" - -Cornelia did so. - -"Well, I must say I'm surprised," she said, returning the letter. "He -writes in a very decent, manly strain. Altogether different from what I -expected. The devil doesn't seem to be nearly as black as he's -painted." - -"Oh, he's not a professional satyr, if that's what you mean. I never -implied that he was." - -Cornelia pondered the matter for a minute. She recalled forgotten -particulars about M. St. Hilaire, amongst others, the account of his -generous income. - -"So he's in Paris with Henriette," she mused. "I notice that he says -he's coming here tomorrow to get his answer in person. What will you do -about it, dear?" - -"I wish I knew. I want to see Henriette again, tremendously. But I -don't want to see her father. Do give me your advice, Cornelia. What -do you think I ought to do?" - -"Well, why not give him another chance? He's made you a perfectly -straight and honorable offer this time. As I recall the whole story, he -wasn't really repugnant to you, except at that one time." - -"No. But am I lightly to forget that he--that he touched me without my -consent, presuming to think that, because I had loved one man, my body -was at the free disposal of all men?" - -"It was a wretched mistake to make--" - -"A mistake! It was a monstrous piece of stupidity and impudence." - -"Quite so, my dear. I'm not standing up for him. Still, don't let us -forget that men are not built like women." - -"That's a truth that cuts both ways, isn't it?" said Janet. - -She had given up being astonished at Cornelia's peculiar mixture of the -old and the new in the matter of theories about men and women. She -merely wondered to what weird angle Cornelia meant to shift her outlook -now. - -"The point is," continued Cornelia serenely, "that a woman's sex emotion -is generally excited by something that takes her fancy; a man's, by -something that stirs his blood. The mind plays the bigger part in the -one case, the body in the other. That's why, in the duel of sex, the -psychological moment is so important to the woman, the physiological -moment to the man. - -"These acute distinctions are quite beyond me. A man has as much gray -matter as a woman, or even more. Then why should he let his mental -processes suffer paralysis whenever a nice woman looks at him?" - -"Well, that's one of the mysteries that marriage helps us to understand, -Araminta. In the life of a man there come these physiological moments, -these sex storms, different from anything in the experience of a woman. -I don't mean to say that men have more physical passion than women. But -there are occasions when their physical passion takes a more violently -concentrated form. Mazie, in her vulgar little way, isn't so far wrong -when she says: 'Scratch a fine gentleman, and you'll find a cave man.'" - -"Do you mean to tell me that there are absolutely no men who feel about -love as we do?" - -"I've never met one. Have you?" - -Janet was thinking: "Surely Robert isn't like that!" Aloud she said -nothing. There was a dangerous glint in her friend's eyes. Cornelia -had an uncanny way of penetrating one's thoughts when Robert was the -object of them. Had she accomplished this feat of divination again? At -all events, an acrid note entered her voice as she continued: - -"Is it really only Monsieur St. Hilaire that you can't make up your mind -about? If so, take my advice. Come down off your high horse and make -the most of your good fortune." - -"My good fortune!" - -"Let's be perfectly frank with each other, my dear. Here's a man who -wants to marry you. He's well-born, cultivated, rich. His one child is -a girl who adores you and whom you adore. The only thing against him is -that he once committed a serious breach of decorum--" - -"And that I don't love him--" interpolated Janet. - -Cornelia blandly ignored the interruption. - -"His letter shows," she went on, "that he is willing to make the most -handsome amends, the only amends a man can make in a matter of this -sort. What more do you ask?" - -"I'm not asking him for amends. I simply want to be let alone." - -"Araminta, let me beg you not to deceive yourself about the changing -moral values we hear so much of nowadays. Has the price of virginity -really gone down? Judged by the conversation of radicals and Outlaws, -yes. Judged by the ticker of the matrimonial exchange, it is still -pretty high. Bear that in mind, and remember that a bird in the hand is -worth two in the bush." - -"Do you mean to say," exclaimed Janet, in great astonishment, "that you, -of all people, advise me to _accept_ this offer?" - -Her tone irritated Cornelia. - -"Beggars can't be choosers," she began. - -"They can remain beggars," replied Janet tersely. - -"If that's the way you feel about it, you needn't ask my advice again. -We're wasting each other's time." - -Saying which, Cornelia rose and left the office. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX* - - *I* - - -The Paulette manikins, famed throughout the world of fashion for their -grace in attitude and correctness in position and movement, owed their -prestige to a system of hygienic training conceived and carried out by -Harry Kelly himself. Yet these young ladies took their distinction so -seriously that they held it beneath them to assist their chief in -straightening out the classroom disorder when the period of instruction -was over. - -"Here's a mess!" called out Mazie Ross, walking into the Paulette -gymnasium, immediately after the dismissal of a small class of manikins. -"You might think they'd been on a grand jamboree." - -"Anything up?" said Harry, shortly. - -"Janet asked me to help you this morning." - -"What for?" - -"She went out for a horseback ride with the St. Hilaires." - -"This morning. Why, as it is, she goes almost every afternoon. She -went yesterday afternoon. A fine way to do business, I'll say." - -Mazie sulkily began to pick up stray articles. - -"You needn't pitch into me, Harry," she said. "You're not half so sorry -as I am that your gentle Janet isn't here to do this rotten job. Is it -my fault?" - -"Does Cornelia know she's away?" said Kelly, fuming. - -"Can a cat miaow within a mile of these precincts without Corny being on -to it?" - -"Why don't they keep me posted then? I never hear of a blessed thing -that goes on in my own home until it's all over." - -"Say, do you want to start a row? Then take a tip from me and land into -a certain party in the main office. If you'd knock her down and then -jump on her with both feet, you'd be doing something. What's the use of -picking on a dead bird like me?" - -"Don't talk that way about Cornelia," said Harry, fumbling amongst the -papers on the desk, and trying vainly to be stern. "I've told you -before I won't have it. Where's your gratitude?" - -She made a face at him behind his back. - -"Gratitude!" she said. "What's the good of me wasting gratitude on -Cornelia when she reminds herself and everybody in Paulette's daily that -she picked me up out of the gutter that Hutch left me in?" - -"Lock up the wardrobe and clear out, will you?" said Kelly, frigidly. -"I can do the rest myself." - -"Here's your hat, what's your hurry," she muttered to herself. But she -stayed and continued to put things to rights. - -Mazie had changed greatly since the palmy days of the Lorillard -tenements. She looked ill and haggard, a mere shadow of the jaunty -"Follies" girl of old. Her willowy posture had degenerated into an -undisguised slouch, her hair was frowsy, and her dress was slung -together. - -But her tongue had not lost its stab. - -She closed the wardrobe door with an unintentional slam that caused -Harry Kelly to jump up in his seat. - -"Damn!" he said, in that mild voice of his. - -It was as if Vesuvius had emitted a puff of tobacco smoke. - -The metamorphosis of the "Harlem Gorilla" into the husband of Madame -Paulette was astoundingly complete. Harry Kelly's Van Dyke beard and -fashionably tailored clothes alone would have effected a radical change -in his appearance. Kelly was transformed not only physically but -psychically. His muscles were still the muscles of a Titan, but his -nerves had become the nerves of a fanciful man or a delicate woman. - -Mazie, who was no student of spiritual transformations, went up to the -desk at which Kelly sat and began to tidy it. She whisked away stray -papers and envelopes that lay near his hands with much the same air that -a waiter lashes the crumbs off a table to speed the lingering guest. - -He grew more and more fidgety, but she showed him no mercy. - -"Janet didn't know those St. Hilaires were coming this morning," she -finally volunteered. "But you can gamble on it that Cornelia knew. -When my fine gentleman got off his prancing horse and marched into the -reception room clanking spurs and all, Corny was right there on the job -in her softest, sweetest tone. My! butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. -And all the time Janet hangs in the background, saying she's too busy to -go out, and looking as stubborn as a mule. When gentle Janet gets that -stubborn expression, it means: You can move the Woolworth Building, but -you can't move me!" - -"Then why in thunder did she go?" - -"Because that St. Hilaire kid got busy with her. A pretty little kid, a -regular father's darling, the kind that coos away like a turtledove till -she gets everything she wants and a tidy slice of the moon extra. Well, -she draped herself pathetically around Janet--all that heartstring -stuff--and Janet, like any fool of a man, fell for the pathos." - -"You can't persuade me that Janet didn't want to go," said Kelly, -gloomily. - -"I won't try to, then. Just the same, she didn't. That's the weird -part of it." - -"What's weird about it?" - -"Why, she doesn't want to marry that millionaire and he's crazy to get -her. Gee, some people have all the luck." - -"If she doesn't want him, where's the luck?" said Kelly, with the logic -of simplicity. - -"Harry, don't be a nut. Here's the ABC of it. All my love affairs were -on the q.t., though I say it that shouldn't. Everything respectable and -under cover. Nobody rattled my adventures in the ears of the public, -did they? Yet, from the way everybody points the finger of scorn at me, -you'd think I produced the whole Venusburg show and ran it -single-handed. Now look at Janet. She hops off with young Claude -Fontaine right under the eyes of the moving-picture brigade. The front -pages of all the leading papers give her a full week's publicity. She -boards with Claude for a month or two, carefully omitting even the -formality of a fake wedding ring. She lives in sin! But everybody -shies at using 'them crooel woids.' And what are the wages of sin? A -couple of millionaires pining away on her doorstep and Sousa's band -a-playing at her feet. And she's no great beauty at that." - -"Quit it, Mazie. What's the good of fooling yourself with the idea that -Janet hasn't had her troubles. My guess is that Claude threw her -overboard." - -"Well, you can guess again, my simple Samson." - -"Anyhow, they wouldn't have separated in a few weeks unless there had -been a fierce blow-out, would they? That's the kind of thing that can -hurt a whole lot, a whole lot more than shows on the surface. A -sensitive girl like Janet! By thunder, we don't know what she went -through, do we? She's not the sort that wears her feelings on her -sleeve." - -"In other words: 'Gentle Janet meek and mild,'" said Mazie witheringly. -"What that girl can't get away with! I'd like to go through a few of her -sufferings, I would. I'd like to see yours truly riding horseback every -day in the Bois de Boulogne with a plutocrat by my side and a couple of -grooms toddling along in back. There's a terrible penance for you! And -to think I can't even get a second-hand man to take me to a third-rate -cabaret in Montmartre. Me, Mazie Ross, the wickedest girl in the -wickedest city in the world. Gee, life is tough!" - -"You've seen enough cabarets to be sick of them--and you are sick of -them," said Kelly, with unwonted harshness. - -"Yes, I suppose my cabaret days are over. But listen to me. There'll -be no more skylarking for gentle Janet as soon as Cornelia engineers her -marriage with the Alsatian." - -"Janet's marriage is none of your business, and none of Cornelia's -either." - -"You don't say so? Well, you just tell the Empress that yourself." - -Mazie, with her hand over her mouth, flung these words at him just as -Cornelia entered the gymnasium. - - - - *II* - - -With the expression of a tragedy queen Cornelia came in and handed Kelly -a telegram. - -"From Robert!" she said, in a voice choked with emotion. He took it and -read: - - -Am leaving Geneva International Labor Conference tonight. Hope to see -you and Janet in Paris tomorrow. - -Robert Lloyd. - - -"That's one on us!" remarked Kelly, awkwardly, and a little afraid of -the storm signals in Cornelia's eyes. - -His fatuous slang irritated her enormously. - -"Isn't it like Robert to turn up at the most inconvenient time -imaginable? Just as Janet is on the point of being engaged! It spoils -everything." - -"How did he locate us, I wonder?" said Kelly lamely. "I thought you had -lost all track of him." - -When they had taken over Paulette's, Cornelia had insisted on ruthlessly -dropping former friends in impoverished circumstances on the plea that -every connection that was not an asset was a liability. It had been a -sore point between the two at first. - -"Pryor--the meddling fool--probably put him onto us," replied Cornelia. -"Now everything's sure to go to pot unless we can keep Robert from -interfering. As long as he's around, Janet will never marry Monsieur -St. Hilaire." - -"She's just crazy enough to throw away the chance of a lifetime," said -Mazie, judging it expedient to chime in with Cornelia. - -"I don't believe she'll marry St. Hilaire, anyway," said Kelly, with the -obstinacy of a mild nature. "She doesn't love him, to begin with. And -she isn't the sort that'll do a thing simply because other people say -that it's good for her. She's the sort of girl that shapes her own -future." - -"You're as big a fool as Pryor," said Cornelia, flinging tempestuously -out of the gymnasium. - -Poor Kelly was crestfallen. He walked sadly to a window, opened it, and -took several deep breaths, his infallible remedy for depression of -spirits. Mazie, relieved at Cornelia's exit, lighted a cigarette and -waited for him to finish. - -"Why is she so blamed anxious to have Janet marry this St. Hilaire?" he -asked, turning slowly from the window. - -"Why? Ha, ha, the poor fish asks me why?" - -She punctuated the question with a hollow laugh. - -"Only because Janet doesn't _want_ to marry him," she went on, perching -herself jauntily on the desk. "Why, Simple Simon, the old girl would -have nothing left to live for, if she couldn't make people do what they -_don't_ want to do. Or, at least, if she couldn't _prevent_ them from -doing what they _do_ want to do--" - -The door flew open. - -"So that's the way you talk about me behind my back?" cried Cornelia, -the picture of outraged majesty. - -Mazie rapidly came down from her perch and slunk out of the room. - -The intruder turned her guns upon her husband. - -"And you encouraging the little snake. I wonder you don't summon the -whole staff in here to plot against me." - -Kelly, dismayed and crushed, received the broadside with head bowed. - -Cornelia expressed her passionate resentment at the universal treachery -and ingratitude. This was her reward for helping girls in the plight -that Mazie and Janet were in! She had put all the social and material -resources of Paulette's at the disposal of Janet in order that, by a -most fortunate marriage, a well-nigh irretrievable blunder might be -retrieved. She had herself strained every nerve to help the girl to -obliterate her past. And what were her thanks? The unfeeling ingrate -acted as if she hardly realized that there was a past to obliterate. -She now washed her hands of the whole business. Never again--. - -And so on. - -Had Harry Kelly been of an inquiring turn of mind he might have -ascertained whether or no Cornelia's fury was in part due to being -frustrated in the desire to get Janet off her conscience, and in part to -being thwarted herself in that game of thwarting others at which Mazie -had pronounced her an expert. - -As it was, he listened like a Mohammedan prostrated before the muezzin. -His silent prayer was that when Cornelia's rage had spent itself, she -would not refuse to bestow upon him a little of that affection for which -he passionately and hopelessly craved. - - - - *III* - - -A few hours later, Janet and Mazie were alone in the gymnasium, the -former greatly excited about the news from Robert. - -"It's a pity he didn't think of looking you up a little sooner," said -Mazie who was in a mood for throwing cold water on enthusiasms that -strayed her way. - -Janet was a little dashed by this reminder of Robert's indifference to -her fate. - -"All the same," she said, "I shall enjoy introducing him to Paris, as he -once introduced me to Manhattan." - -"What, the Eiffel Tower, The Champs Elysees, the Boul. Mich., the -American Quarter, and all the other rubberneck sights?" - -"No, I'll show him the places he'll like: the office in _L'Humanite_ -where Jaures worked, the central hall of the _Confederation Generate de -Travail_, and the Seine by moonlight." - -"The Seine by moonlight! Now we're coming to it. Janet, you're getting -sentimental. Do you think Robert is coming particularly for you?" - -"Oh, no, I hope I know him better than that." - -"Then what is he coming for? To see me? I don't think. And if ever he -was stuck on Cornelia, he took the cure complete, as soon as you breezed -along." - -"Nonsense, Mazie. Perhaps he has made a fortune and, in passing, means -to drop in on his poor relations." - -"Robert rich?" Mazie laughed the idea to scorn. "A man who likes work -for its own sake will never have a stiver to his name." - -She ventured to surmise that all his expenses were being paid by some -labor organization. That was the way with these professional radicals. -They traveled around the world on their own wits and on somebody else's -money. They never succeeded in making even a bowing acquaintance with a -check account. Never. She trusted Janet would not be such a fool as to -forget this fact. Now, M. St. Hilaire was a very different story. - -"Marry a rich man, Janet, and the memory of that Claude affair will die -a natural death. Marry a poor one, and it will keep on bobbing up." - -"I shouldn't care if it did." - -"No, _you_ wouldn't, but your husband would." - -"So my friends are at some pains to remind me," said Janet, rather -bitterly. "You and Cornelia keep on telling me so, and Robert once -expressed the same opinion." - -"Well, he was right. I don't say it from spite, like Cornelia does. I -say it because I'm--because I'm damned fond of you--" - -She repressed the tears in her eyes. - -"You're the only one here," she went on, choking down a sob, "that -doesn't treat me as though I was an escaped inmate of Sodom and -Gomorrah, and ought to be sent back there." - -Janet went to her side and comforted her. But Mazie would not be -comforted. She burst out with: - -"The trouble with us girls is that we're too soft about love, as soft as -putty. What good does all this talk and fuss about the equality of -women do us? Where does it get us? Just exactly nowhere. And women -won't be worth as much as men, until they're as hard about love as men -are; and that means as hard as nails." - -Divining Janet's silent comment, Mazie added defiantly that it was -because she herself hadn't been hard enough that she had come to grief -at the hands of "that swine Hutchins." - -After a marked pause, Mazie reverted to the subject of M. St. Hilaire. -Had he proposed as usual during the morning's ride? - -"Yes," said Janet. - -"No other news?" - -"He assured me that I could have everything I wanted. Even my soul -should be my own." - -"I don't like that sob stuff about souls," said Mazie whimsically. -"What did you answer?" - -"I told him that women would never be able to call their souls their own -until they could call their bodies their own." - -"My God, Janet! You have to give the poor man _something_ for his -money." - -"Exactly. And as I can't give him a fair return for it, it's clear that -I oughtn't to marry him, isn't it?" - -"Fair return! Did you ever see anybody give a fair return in this sex -business? I can gamble on it you didn't. Fair return! Look here, -Janet, who started putting a price on love? Did women start it or did -men? Was it men or women that threw love on the curb to be bought and -sold with other junk? Say, did you ever see a man who'd take love for a -free gift? Let me give you a tip, dearie. If a woman don't sell her -love for all she can squeeze out of a man, and give him underweight into -the bargain, the man don't think he's getting his money's worth." - -She went on to say that every relation between the sexes was a case of -the shearer and the sheep. Somebody was certain to be shorn. The man -would fleece the woman unless the woman fleeced the man. - -"And here's another tip, my gentle Janet. When Cornelia sees you -prancing off to the Bois de Boulogne with Monsieur St. Hilaire, she -don't believe you're putting up with him because you dote on Henriette. -Not for a moment. Well then, there'll be a rude awakening for somebody. -If you don't fleece St. Hilaire, she'll _skin_ you. She'll have you in -her power at last." - -"No, she won't. Mazie, I'd like to tell you something. But I don't want -Cornelia to know. Will you promise not to tell her?" - -"Will I promise not to feed cakes to a crocodile?" - -"Mrs. Jerome has offered me a job." - -"Well, I'll hand it to gentle Janet. You'll be going to heaven on a -feather bed next. What's the job?" - -"I don't know yet. She doesn't either. She has some scheme in mind for -helping professional women to make their way in the world. My work is -to come out of that. Just the sort of work I have most at heart. Do you -remember the plan I had when we lived in Kips Bay, the plan of creating -a new profession for women? What a magnificent castle in the air it -was! Robert helped me carry the first brick or two down to earth where -we could build on solid ground. By the way, I told Mrs. Jerome all -about Barr and Lloyd." - -"Did you tell all about Barr and Fontaine, too?" - -"No," said Janet, swallowing this bitter pill with some resentment. -"But I will, before I accept her offer." - -"And you think it won't make any difference to her?" - -"No. She's a woman with a great deal of good sense. She sizes you up -by your future, not by your past." - -"Janet, you are a clip," said Mazie, with immense admiration. "Aren't -you afraid of the future? Adventures can break a girl as well as make -her. Look how they've broken me." - -"Mazie, don't be a fool," said Janet, putting her arm around the sick -girl. "You're not half broken yet. You're only a bit cracked. And for -your comfort I'll tell you what Robert once said. He said nowadays -everybody was a bit cracked--especially in the head." - -"Where's the comfort in that?" - -"Why, it's the cracked pitcher that goes longest to the well, goose. -That's what I tell myself when I get the blues." - -"Do you, too, get in a blue funk, sometimes? I don't believe it. I -always think of you as being the twin sister of the man in the fairy -tale, the man who couldn't be taught to shiver or shake. You're a -wonderful girl, Janet. Still, I'd like to see a man come along some day -and make you shiver and shake just a teeny-weeny bit. Perhaps Robert -will." - -"Ah, Mazie, do you think he'll try?" - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN* - - *I* - - -She was present, with the other principals of the Maison Paulette, the -night that Robert arrived. Her heart beat faster when she set eyes on -him again. He seemed perfectly collected (too perfectly collected!) -though very cordial. How was she to tell, amidst so much handshaking and -greeting that his heart was beating time with hers? - -The thing she was most conscious of was that one look of his mobile -brown eyes had given a strangely different twist to her adventure with -Claude Fontaine. For the first time in her experience she felt -uncomfortably on the defensive. - -She resented this novel sensation. She regarded it with hostility, as -though it were some treacherous thread that crossed her homespun -integrity. To think that Robert should be its agent! Or could she be -mistaken? No. It appeared that even the most charitable of human -beings liked to see you in sackcloth and ashes, and looking remorseful, -conscience stricken, punished. Well, she had not given Cornelia the -satisfaction of looking so, nor Harry Kelly, nor Mazie Ross, nor -anybody. And Robert should be no exception. - -With defiant vigor she resolved that, as she had no cause to acknowledge -remorse, fifty Roberts should not make her acknowledge it. - -There was little time that night for an interchange of news. Next -morning, the machinery of the Paulette establishment, too big to be -suspended for a mere visitor, automatically began its daily grind. - -In the course of the day Janet caught fleeting glimpses of Robert, -little more. Cornelia kept him under her wing and guarded him as -carefully as though he were a crown jewel. She went so far as to -relieve Harry Kelly of the half-hour's treat he had promised himself, -the treat of showing Robert the sights of the great Maison. - -Cornelia not only undertook the ceremony herself; she protracted the -ritual far beyond her husband's intentions. Cato's complete mentor, that -was what she blandly constituted herself. All that poor Hercules could -do was to leave his work once in a while, dash hastily to whatever -quarter of the building his wife had conducted Robert, slap the visitor -gently on the back, and fling a gloomy monosyllable at him by way of -showing his good will. He insisted that Robert was too thin, and -trotted out his famous formula. - -"You don't breathe deep and down enough, old boy. Fill your lungs and -your belly with good fresh wind, or you'll never travel on asphalt." - -Cornelia had ceased to shudder at the inelegant word. But Mazie, -happening to pop in at the moment, promptly caught it up and used the -occasion to favor the two men with a fusillade of flippant, slangy -phrases, not forgetting to add several thinly veiled impudences directed -at the mistress of the house before the latter had time to expel her. - -Cornelia herself suffered so many interruptions that even she had to -postpone the confidential talk she had planned to hold with Robert -before noon. After lunch, she allowed Robert to take his first stroll -through Paris alone, reminding him to come back for an early dinner at -half past six. According to her plan, the evening was to be spent in a -general confab and merrymaking. - -Unluckily, she forgot to announce this plan in so many words, but took -it for granted that no move involving Robert would be made that day -without first consulting her. Her overconfidence defeated her. In one -of the few moments when she was off guard, Janet contrived to get Robert -by himself and secured his joyful acceptance of an invitation to a -concert in the evening, for which she chanced to have two tickets. - -When Cornelia heard of it, she was in turn astounded and furious. -Privately, to Harry and Mazie, she described Janet concisely as a -selfish beast. In public, she kept herself commendably in hand. - -The dinner passed off without much hilarity and with no incidents other -than one or two casual allusions, on Cornelia's part, to M. St. Hilaire. - -As Janet went out with Robert, Kelly, full of mournful resignation, -hoped that their purses would survive the brigandage, and their lives -the epileptic locomotion, of the Paris taxi-cab drivers. Mazie called -out: - -"Janet, my gentle pet, don't let Rob land by mistake into the _Miroir de -Venus_." (This was a cafe notorious for its high jinks.) - -"Why not?" - -"He might reform the joint, before the joint reforms him." - - - - *II* - - -They got into an Odéon bus. - -On their way via the Boulevard des Italiennes to the Seine, she named a -few of the sights they passed, such as the Théâtre Français and the -Tuileries. Crossing the Pont du Carrousel, the bus jounced him against -her and, as she thrilled to the touch, she felt his magnetic response. - -Yet, outwardly, a year and a half had not changed him greatly, she -thought. There was the same fire in his eyes (but wasn't there perhaps -a shade less of friendliness?). He listened as politely as ever to -routine chit-chat, and exhibited the same impetuous candor when the -conversation flung up a new idea. - -"_You_ haven't changed much, either," he said, rather suddenly, as -though he had divined her reflections. "Your contours are a little -rounder, that's all, and I think your chin is much firmer." - -"And my big nose?" - -He pretended to appraise it judicially. - -"It's a size smaller. Perhaps a size and a half." - -She laughed delightedly. It was a new thing for Robert to pay attention -to such physical details. - -"Well, as long as you say it's a change for the better--" - -"I don't," he said, affecting a stern tone. "Not in the least. Do you -know what? I'm afraid you're fast turning yourself into one of these -popular Paul Helleu beauties, a Parisian version of the Penrhyn Stanlaws -girl." - -"I wish I could. But I'm not a magician, Robert." - -"Oh, there's no magic about it. Any girl can do it, if--" - -"If, of course. Let's hear the gigantic _if_." - -"If she has a very moderate allotment of brains and looks, and a -single-minded passion for beautifying herself." - -"If this is praise, give me dispraise," she said, with a mischievous -gleam in her eyes. - -His senses were assailed by the tone and timbre of her voice. In -self-protection he somewhat rudely remarked: - -"The fact is I didn't come to Europe to tell you how beautiful you are." - -"No, you came over on business," she said, drily. "You always do come -on business. We all assumed that. You needn't fear that we're any of -us flattering ourselves that you came specially to see him or her. You -were sent as a delegate to some labor conference or other, weren't you?" - -"Not as a delegate, but as a staff correspondent of the Confederated -Press." - -She learned that the Confederated Press was a new venture backed by -several radical newspapers and designed to supply its clients with the -news of the world, the straightforward news, before it was cooked or -adulterated by the old established press services. Robert's assignment -gave him an enormously valuable experience, although his position was -not a lucrative one. - -"That's what brought me to Geneva," he concluded. "But I came to Paris -to see you." - -Just before he left New York, he had seen Pryor, he told her. Of course -Pryor had let out one or two startling bits of news gathered from the -four quarters of the earth. About Hutchins Burley and Lydia -Dyson--things he would tell her later. Pryor had all the town talk -(Kips Bay talk) at his fingers' ends. The man was a regular human -wireless station. Did Janet recall how he always spoke of information -drifting his way? Well, it was from Pryor that he first had heard that -Cornelia and the famous Madame Paulette were one and the same person. - -"You see I'd lost complete track of Cornelia after she left the model -tenements," he said. "I'm pretty sure that she wanted to sponge the -Kips Bay connection clean off the slate. Naturally, my turning up now -isn't in the least to her liking. I can feel that, in spite of her -tremendous surface cordiality. But I had to come. Finding her was -finding you." - -("A pity you didn't look me up a little sooner," said Janet, to herself, -not stopping to enlighten him as to the subtle cause of Cornelia's -displeasure.) - -"Look, here's the Ecole des Beaux Arts," she said aloud. "We'll be in -the Boulevard St. Germain in a minute." - - - - *III* - - -Whilst he obediently turned his gaze from the sparkle of the arc lights -and the glitter of the shops and streets, his thoughts were preoccupied -by her puzzling manner. She was friendly, of course. Janet was always -that. An equable, agreeable temper was the very essence of her. But -what was this disconcerting aloofness of hers which was cleaving the air -between them! Her generous eyes and her low clear voice were sending -out vibrations that penetrated to his very soul; yet her mind was -stubbornly withholding the confidence which in the old Lorillard days -she had given him without reserve. What did the paradox of her behavior -mean? Was this a new Janet at the opposite pole to the candid, -unaffected Janet of Barr and Lloyd? He supposed that the Claude episode -might furnish the answer. Had it changed her spiritually for the worse -as it had changed her physically for the better? - -Well, that episode had certainly changed him, though not precisely in -any way that he could have predicted. Changed him! For one thing it had -opened his eyes to the fact that he had been a good deal of a prig, as -his Outlaw acquaintances were so fond of intimating. He blushed to -recall his _ex cathedra_ pronouncements on the subject of free love. -With what assurance he had asserted that he did not object to free love -as a matter of prejudice but only as a point of expediency. Hypocrite! -The very reverse had been the case. When Janet ran away with Claude, -the Old Adam had risen within him and almost smothered him with -possessive emotion. - -Like any common jealous man! To be sure, he had stoutly told himself -that the Claude adventure made no difference in his estimate of Janet's -worth. Absolutely none. She was, as always, a prize for any man. For -any man? Well, he himself, on the sole ground that his life's work -might suffer, would not consider himself eligible for the prize. That -was how he had put it. That was where the prig had shown the cloven -hoof. - -Still, he could say this for himself. When he had met Janet face to -face again, all these piffling considerations of expediency had -instantly, along with his vulgar prejudices, gone by the board. The -moment he set eyes on her in Paris, he felt himself at one with her as -he had never felt at one with any other human being (save perhaps a -certain long-lost friend of his own sex). - -The cause was not far to seek. Janet could pull the trigger that -released and expanded his faculties as no one else had ever been able to -do. In her presence, not merely his better self, but his more -adventurous self, his more aspiring self, his more poetic self, and his -more heroic self--the several Roberts that other people were too dull to -perceive, or too futile, ignorant, or base to cultivate--all these -craving selves came into their own and grew in stature. What was a -previous love affair, what were a dozen previous love affairs, in the -teeth of this miracle? Claude Fontaine! One look into the depth of -Janet's eyes, and all theories, prejudices, principles, expediencies, -and conflicting emotions went up in smoke. - -Meanwhile, Janet's thoughts had been taking a very different shape. - -She did not know that Robert had never seen the long letter to Cornelia -in which she had described her journey with Claude and had given her -European address. Cornelia had withheld this letter from Robert for -reasons scarcely admitted to herself; and what Cornelia did not admit to -herself she was little likely to admit to an interested friend. In fact, -in her letter to Janet and in casual conversations since their recent -reunion, Cornelia had so often allowed it to be inferred that Robert had -had access to the letter, that she ended by making this convenient -inference herself. - -Not unnaturally then, Janet reasoned that Robert's failure to -communicate with her had been deliberate. What dovetailed with this -conclusion was the memory of his dictum on free love. How well she -remembered the relentless words: "I can never have anything to do with -free love or with a woman who has had a free lover. It would defeat my -purpose in life." - -His purpose in life! He was the sort of man who took more joy in -finding and working _that_ out than in loving any woman. True, she no -longer concurred in Cornelia's view that Robert was a fanatic. No. He -just escaped fanaticism by the skin of his teeth. This view explained -both his long silence and his sudden reappearance. That is, she knew -quite well that he had borne her no grudge on account of the past, had -indulged in no theatrical repudiation of her friendship because of her -liaison with Claude. He had simply found it profitless to pursue a -friendship with a woman in her situation. That would be enough to -commit him to silence. - -Nor did she take too seriously his assertion that he had made a special -trip to Paris to see her. Why shouldn't he pay her or Madame Paulette a -visit if the ordinary course of his business brought him almost to their -doorstep? After all, a representative of labor interests could hardly -come to Europe without visiting Paris. Paris, where a lurid, -underground drama of industrial insurrection, half smothered by gold -dust, was going on! - -Was there any sensible reason why Robert shouldn't pick up the thread of -an old friendship, if it was all in the day's work? It might even be -useful to a labor man to get in touch with people who knew the ropes of -the French capital. Anyhow, Robert would be the last person in the -world to abstain from such a course if it promised to advance his -principles. - -His hateful principles! The worst of it was, she was beginning to have -sympathy for his conviction that the drudgery which served a purpose you -believed in might be a real pleasure, compared with which the pleasure -that served no purpose worth believing in would be an intolerable pain. - -Well, all these speculations were as nothing against the fact of the -moment. The fact of the moment was that the swaying of the bus crushed -Robert's arm against hers in an impact that was poignantly delightful. -Nor was this all. Robert, his imperious principles notwithstanding, -acted in every respect as if he liked having his arm against her; no as -if he would like to have his arm _around_ her. Robert Lloyd amorous? -She gave him a sidelong glance. Her senses provided her with abundant -evidence that her surmise was correct. But this was a world of sensory -illusions as she had learned to her cost; and she reminded herself -sharply that she had more than one decisive reason for trusting neither -to his feelings nor to her own. - - - - *IV* - - -"You're not doing your duty," she said to him. "We've just passed the -church of St. Germain-des-Pres. Quick look back. Even darkness can't -subdue those imposing walls. Doesn't it look solid and impregnable? -Just like my mother and like your convictions. It's a structure that -commands your faith, though you have it not. You'll miss the silhouette -of St. Sulpice, too, if you don't look out." - -"Janet, I didn't come to Paris to look at churches. I came to look at -you." - -"Well, you came, you saw, and--you conquered." - -"I saw more than you think," he went on, smiling at her flippancy. "As -I said before, you've changed physically. But the physical change is of -no importance." - -"I knew it. Those fine compliments were all bunk." - -"Not at all. You've changed physically for the better. But what is more -important is that you've changed spiritually--" - -"For the worse, of course. Now we're coming to it." - -"I didn't say it. I'm not at all sure." - -"This may be candor, Robert. But it sounds like revenge." - -"You may as well be serious, Janet. I've got volumes to pour out to -you, and pour them out I will. When I'm with you, I'm like the Ancient -Mariner. I want to tell you everything." - -"Everything?" - -"Well, almost everything, as they say in the comic opera. What do you -suppose was the most wonderful companionship I ever formed?" - -"I can't guess." - -"Barr and Lloyd. Do you know why? Because, for one thing, there was -nothing in reason that I couldn't talk to you about, with the most -unvarnished frankness. I still feel that way." - -"I'm glad you do. We were very good pals, weren't we?" - -"Yes, and I hope we still are. Anyhow, I want to speak of something I -heard about you from Mark Pryor." - -"What was that?" - -"Pryor seems to have kept in touch with Cornelia right along. You know -Pryor." - -"Not a sparrow falleth but his eye doth see," she quoted. - -"Exactly. He has been keeping tabs on this rich Alsatian. And, by the -way, I ought to mention that he repeated to me what you told him about -Monsieur St. Hilaire." - -"That's a nice way to treat my confidence," said Janet, seriously -annoyed. "Pryor of all people. And I took him to be the only original -human clam!" - -"Well, I think he was fully justified--" - -"In what way, I'd like to ask?" - -"Please don't make me go into that now, Janet. The thing I'm driving at -is this. Pryor heard that you were on the point of--of forming a free -alliance with this Alsatian gentleman. Chiefly to escape Cornelia and -this horrible business of clothes." - -"You've been misinformed," she retorted coldly. "Not about the clothes. -I _do_ loathe them. But I've no intention of forming a free alliance -with anybody. Certainly not with Monsieur St. Hilaire. Why should I? -I don't love him. But I don't mind telling you that he has asked me to -marry him." - -"Oh, then, that's what you're considering?" - -"Yes," she said concisely. - -And "put that in your pipe and smoke it," added a defiant glance from -her half-parted long-lashed eyes. - -If he had any notion of playing the medieval knight, plunging through -fire and water for the damsel in distress, she would spoil that -chivalrous pose in a jiffy. - -"Janet, I don't understand you," he said, with quite unnecessary -vehemence. "You said you wouldn't marry Claude, your reason being that -you loved him. Now you say you will marry Monsieur St. Hilaire, and -your reason is that you don't love him." - -His eyes added: "You are inexplicable, exasperating, maddening--and yet -adorable: in short, you are Janet." - -The bus came to a full stop, and a few minutes later they were in the -concert hall. - - - - *V* - - -The concert was one of a special series given by an orchestra from -Rouen. Janet's attention had been drawn to the series by two -circumstances. One was that a third of the members of the orchestra -were women. The other was that the inclusion of women in a first-class -orchestra had plunged musical circles into a controversy which the -newspapers eagerly seized upon and played up with caricature or abuse, -satire or eulogy, according to the partisanship, but never the merits of -the case. - -Robert knew nothing of this controversy until he ventured on a remark -during the first intermission. - -"The tone and workmanship of the orchestra are splendid," he said. "I -don't feel qualified to judge, but it strikes me that the women are -doing every whit as well as the men." - -"As well? They're doing far better. Do you see that first violin in -the front row, the third from the left? I could tell he was slacking -all through the Cesar Franck number. And there were four or five others -as bad. You couldn't say that of one of the women." - -"No. Their performance is amazing, isn't it?" - -"Why amazing?" asked Janet, still detecting an echo of masculine -superciliousness. - -"Well, women don't generally reach the top-notch in the fine arts, do -they?" - -"How can they," said Janet warmly, "when the patronizing disparagement -and merciless rivalry of men hold them back at every turn!" - -"Well, they've managed to break into this crack orchestra. That doesn't -look like merciless rivalry." - -"Ah, but wait till I tell you the facts, Robert. As the war went on, -managers found it impossible to deny women the privilege of playing in -high-class bands. But the men are now recovering their monopoly as fast -and as unscrupulously as possible. How? They have set up a hue and cry -against the women and have won the musical pundits to their side. I am -told that the management of this Rouen orchestra is almost certain to -yield to masculine pressure, which means that the women will be -dislodged at the end of the current series." - -Did Robert appreciate the injustice of this abominable proceeding? It -was a fact that the women brought a fire, intensity and freshness to -their work which improved the tone and effectiveness of every band they -played in. They were twice as keen as the men and worked fifty times -harder. Several of the younger, more liberal musical critics both in -Paris and in London fully admitted this. Not so the old-timers who sat -in the seats of the mighty. And yet the men who were doing their -vicious best to elbow their rivals out of the way were the very men who -fluttered about town and with crocodile regret assured the public that, -no matter what _equal chances_ the weaker sex received, the final -incapacity of women to reach the top was beyond dispute. - -Janet's shot went home. But the resumption of the program made it -impossible for Robert to offer a defense. He was annoyed at himself for -having spoken tactlessly on a topic which Janet might well be touchy -about. Still, he considered that her rebuke was far too severe to fit -the crime, especially in view of his genuine equalitarian feeling toward -women, a feeling that Janet ought to have been the last to deny him. - -It occurred to him that, if she was capable of regarding him, of all -men, with so much detachment (not to say indifference) as to make him -the target for a sharp anti-hominist fire, she might be deeper in the M. -St. Hilaire entanglement than he or Mark Pryor had suspected. - -By the time the concert was over, Janet was sorry for the way she had -pitched into her guest. Would he forgive her for letting the heat of -argument carry her away? Not that she retracted a word she had said. -Far from it. It was impossible to say too much on that score. Had he -noticed the wide publicity which the Paris newspapers had given to an -assertion appearing in one of Arnold Bennett's recent books? It was the -assertion that women are inferior to men in intellectual power and that -"no amount of education or liberty of action will sensibly alter this -fact." This gesture of finality with which men, even men of genius like -Bennett, invariably polished off the future of women and consigned them -to an eternity of subordination! When would this superficial -generalization ever stop, if avowed feminists like Robert fell to using -the language of their opponents even while avoiding their errors? - -"I'm only taking the words out of your mouth, Robert," she concluded, in -her softest pacifying tones. "I'm only repeating what you've told me a -hundred times over in the past." - -He smiled at this sop to his vanity, which none the less helped to -restore good feeling. - - - - *VI* - - -Janet had taken him towards the river. They walked arm in arm along the -Quai Voltaire and the Quai d'Orsay, the tranquil Seine and the starry -skies almost their sole companions. - -The dispute of the evening still fresh in his mind, Robert alluded to -Janet's former ambition to create a new profession for women of the -middle class. A branch of law, wasn't it? Authorship law, so to speak. -Had she given it any thought of late? What a nuisance it was that money -should have to be the root of all experiment as well as the root of all -evil. In the absence of enough capital, it was probably just as well -that she deferred another attempt to realize her dream. Still, it was a -pity. She had made such a good beginning with the firm of Barr & Lloyd, -humble though the scale of its operations had been. - -"Well, Robert, are you ready to renew the partnership?" she challenged -him. - -"Is this a strictly business proposal?" he replied, in a hesitating -manner. - -She was chilled by his clumsiness. - -"Barr & Lloyd was always a 'strictly business' affair, wasn't it?" she -said, in a cool, quiet voice. - -He wanted to burst out with: "No, I never believed it was wholly that. -If you'd had my sort of partnership in mind, I'd give a very swift and a -very different answer." But the words stuck in his throat. For two -reasons. Her sudden return to the almost hostile manner that had -baffled him earlier, was one. His knowledge that the limited and -precarious means he disposed of would make an offer of marriage from him -seem ridiculous, if not insane, was the second. - -Had he voiced his thoughts, they might then and there have thrashed -their differences out in half an hour. But he could not voice them. -For the first time in their friendship, neither of them was candid when -candor was the sensible course. "This comes of caring for a woman not -wisely but too well," thought Robert. He was amazed and incredulous to -find that he cared so much; he was also a little indignant with himself, -for he had vowed never to do that very thing. - -"Don't be alarmed," he heard Janet saying. "I'm not going to impress -you into the cause. You have bigger fish to fry than the feminist -movement. As for me, I've had a very good offer from Mrs. R. H. L. -Jerome." - -She sketched a picture of this whimsical lady, and gave a short account -of Mrs. Jerome's interest in the organized effort to rid women of their -professional disabilities. Robert learned that Mrs. Jerome had -repeatedly expressed a desire to put Janet to some use in the cause she -had at heart. - -"The work would be quite in line with my old plans," added Janet. - -"Then why don't you accept her offer at once?" - -"I wish I knew," she said, evasively. "Perhaps I can do all I've wanted -to do, and more, if I follow the beaten track, if I buy cheap and sell -dear in the marriage market; in short, give as little of myself as I can -to the richest bidder that offers. What do you think?" - -"I think a cynical step of that sort would do very well for Mazie, whose -words you appear to be repeating." - -"Oh, don't underrate Mazie's cynicism. It has been hammered into a -durable, serviceable instrument by some very hard knocks. Knocks that -she got from men. Her flippant manner often obscures some very sound -remarks, like the one that there'll be no equality between the sexes -until women exploit men as shamelessly as men exploit women." - -"Doesn't the modern woman do this, already?" asked Robert, with a smile. - -"How often does she get the same chance? It's equality of chances that -I'm aiming for, you know." - -"So am I for that matter," said Robert. "I hope we'll get your equality -of chances before long. Then we can work together for decency." - -It was close upon midnight when they took a taxi back to the Boulevard -Haussman. - -Not a soul was stirring in the Maison Paulette. Robert and Janet walked -through the corridor on the _rez-de-chausée_ to the rear building, the -one used for sleeping quarters. For a few minutes they stopped in the -vestibule at the foot of the staircase. - -Now, as throughout the evening, their instincts swayed them one way, -their reason another. Each misunderstood the motives of the other; and, -what with this misunderstanding and the economic insecurity of their -circumstances, the scales were tipped in favor of discretion. Besides, -Janet mistrusted her impulses far more than formerly. True, Robert -mistrusted his far less. In spite of his better judgment, he was -succumbing to her ensnaring voice and eyes, was surrendering to an -intense longing to tempt her into a betrayal, an unambiguous betrayal, -of her real feelings. - -But he proceeded in a manner too inadequate. - -"I'm no clearer about your plans than before," he said, awkwardly. "You -haven't really taken me into your confidence." - -"About Monsieur St. Hilaire?" - -"Yes." - -A marked pause. She did not interrupt it. Discouraged, he lamely -continued: "Still, I'm glad you've changed your point of view about men -and women. It's something to find out that marriage, like adversity, -has its uses." - -"Robert, what I've found out is that marriage, like honesty, may be the -best policy. I've learned that woman cannot live by principle alone." - -"I protest I never urged it." - -"No. And if it's the least satisfaction to you, I'll admit that I don't -intend to repeat any of my Kips Bay experiments--free love, outlawry, -and so on--you know the sort of thing. Why should I? There are few -moments in the old Lorillard tenement life that I regret; yet there are -none that I'd live over again." - -"None?" - -"Not one. Wait. There is a single moment--it just occurs to me--it was -so like this one--" - -"Like this one?" - -"Yes, 'when my heart was a free and a fetterless thing, a wave--'" - -The line was completed without words, Robert, swept away by her -enchantment, having seized heir in his arms and kissed her. - -"Don't marry Monsieur St. Hilaire," he said, beseeching rather than -commanding her, "whatever you do." - -She disengaged herself almost brutally, and went up the stairs. Pausing -a few steps up, she turned and, in a tone supremely dispassionate, said: - -"Whatever I do! Well, whatever I do, I can't marry a poor man, can I?" - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT* - - *I* - - -Hoping to have a few words alone with Harry Kelly, Robert went down to -breakfast early. But if he expected to learn anything further in regard -to Janet or M. St. Hilaire, he was disappointed. Extracting teeth would -have been easier than pumping Harry who, besides being more taciturn -than ever, had developed a vein of pessimism quite out of keeping with -his material prosperity. - -Robert was actually relieved when the appearance of Mazie Ross at the -breakfast table put an end to his efforts to draw Kelly out. - -"Her Ladyship was sweetly singing 'My Rosary' when I passed her bedroom -door," said Mazie, alluding to Cornelia. "Things'll be humming in the -Maison Paulette this morning, if I know the Indian sign." - -Mazie was getting to be very chipper of late. Whether from the force of -association or not, the presence of Robert and Janet had given her a -chance to recover some of her old position. - -Kelly appeared to agree with Mazie's inference, though he was not so -cheerful about it. He wished Mark Pryor were somewhere within reach. -That fellow was a regular clairvoyant, and could tip you off about the -most astonishing things. A tip would be handy at this time. - -"Something's going to happen," added Harry, gloomily. "I feel it in my -bones." - -"I'd feel it in my bones," volunteered Mazie, "if I nearly killed myself -like you do, Harry. You fairly chew up work. What's the use? Let the -Empress do some of the worrying." - -"She's got enough to worry about, Mazie. She carries the whole -responsibility for the artistic work of the house, and you know it." - -"You bet I do! The chief joy of my declining days is to watch her -Ladyship curl up on a cozy sofa in the office and hug the responsibility -while you do the work. When the weight is too much for her, she -staggers over to the house switchboard, rings up each department in -turn, and interferes with everybody impartially. Say, if you could -limber up her knee action a bit--" - -At this point, poor Harry, after an ineffectual attempt to stare Mazie -into silence, got up and went out, unable to listen any longer. - -"The goof!" said Mazie, pitying him contemptuously. "She only married -him as a sure salvation from work." - -She was so manifestly unjust to Cornelia (who, however much of a shirker -she might have been in Kips Bay, was now busy enough making her talent -for line and color productive) that Robert refrained from argument. - -"What's the matter with Harry?" he said, attempting to change the -subject. "He was always monosyllabic, but never as gloomy as this." - -"He wants a son and heir." - -"Oh!" - -"Do you remember how Cornelia used to tell every man who paid us a call -in Number Fifteen that the dearest wish of her life was to hold a -che-ild to her maternal heart? Every brutal Outlaw that came along would -offer to oblige on the spot. Except Harry. He melted right into putty -when she sprang that mother gag; and then she gave the cue for the wild -wedding bells to ring out. But now she's married, it's different. The -muffler is on the maternal urge. On tight! And she's strong for the -birth control propaganda. She's so strong for it that--" - -Here Cornelia entered and Mazie was put to instant flight. - - - - *II* - - -Cornelia's hour with Robert had come. She lost no time in giving him to -understand that his arrival in Paris had, to put it mildly, been -inopportune. Not that it was his fault. Naturally, he couldn't very -well have foreseen the rapidly approaching crisis in Janet's life. But -there it was! M. St. Hilaire, a man of parts and of wealth, was anxious -to marry Janet, who had just begun to see that the match was greatly to -her advantage. Here was Janet's golden opportunity to redeem the past-- - -"To redeem the past or to redeem Monsieur St. Hilaire?" - -"Don't be flippant, Cato. You know very well what I mean." - -"I'm quite serious. _Redeem_ is a curious word to use in connection -with Janet. It implies atonement for sin. Did you apply this word to -your own case after your return from England to the model tenements?" - -She stared at him icily. Did he intimate that Janet's affair with -Claude Fontaine was spiritually comparable to her affair with Percival -Houghton? She would show him the difference. True, she had believed in -free love ("a hundred years ahead of my time, Cato!") and Janet had -followed suit. But when she, Cornelia, had taken up the gauntlet -against the irrational knot, she had let herself be pilloried for her -convictions. Had Janet done as much? Let his own fairness be his tutor. - -Not that she held Janet to blame. Oh, no. She would have Robert know -that he and his principles had been the disturbing influence in Janet's -destiny. This had been the case in Kips Bay. She feared it would again -be the case in Paris. - -"I the disturbing influence? Absurd, Cornelia. When did I ever demand -that you, or Janet, or anybody else live up to my vaunted principles?" - -"Cato, there's something about you, some Satanic magnetism, that gives -you a strange hold upon a woman's soul. It makes her strive to appear -before you always in her loftier, sublimer flights, to put on her -Sabbath character, so to speak." - -"Why do you call this Sabbath magnetism _Satanic_?" - -"Because it's unnatural to ask a woman to assume her Sabbath character -seven days a week. She's bound to come to grief." - -She assured him that this Satanic faculty of his was what caused him to -pique or fascinate women, though it seldom inspired them with passion. -And, in the long run, it always threw them out of gear. As in the case -of Janet! What had his intoxicating mixture of visionary theories and -expedient compromises done for her in the Claude Fontaine affair? It had -brought her out at the pitifully small end of the horn. - -"I may remind you, Robert, that _I_ was ready to ruin myself for -Percival Houghton, ready to stand, upright and reckless, facing the -world with him. _I_ didn't go slinking from one hotel to another, as -his pretended _wife_." - -Cornelia's heroics would have amused Robert but for the jibe flung at -Janet. Thank heaven, Janet never declaimed about having faced a whole -world or having ruined herself for anyone. After listening to such -windy phrases, who would not be biased towards any course that seemed -right to Janet and wrong to Cornelia? - -He hung on her lips with rapt absorption, hoping by this look of -intenseness to mask his thoughts. - -In this hope he was deceived. - -"Why on earth don't you marry Charlotte Beecher?" she cross-questioned -him abruptly. - -"I don't know." - -"You don't know! Do you suppose a girl with position, wealth and brains -turns up every day in the week? A girl who really _wants_ you! I'm -sure I can't imagine _why_ she does." - -"Nor can I." - -She repeated her question. Had he given Charlotte Beecher up merely -because she loved him so much more than he loved her? - -He couldn't very well answer this question in the affirmative. So he -said: - -"Charlotte is a very intellectual girl, the most intellectual girl I -know. She never met a man whom she regarded as her equal in point of -brains until she met me. The regard was mutual. She mistook her -admiration for love. I might have made the same mistake--if I hadn't -met you." - -"You can't blarney me, Cato," she said, highly flattered none the less. -"It's too late in the day!" - -"I mean it, Cornelia. Meeting you, made me alive to the full force of -the attraction between the sexes." - -"It is the one thing needful," said Cornelia, in low siren tones. "For -without it, love is as the dry stubble." - -"I, too, used to think so," replied Robert, turning a cold douche on -this sentiment. "We've all had that notion rammed down our throats -since childhood. But can we be certain that sexual attraction is the -only road to love? The poets assure us that pity is a famous short-cut. -In the case of very young people, _all_ roads seem to lead to love. For -older folk, mutual admiration may be as good a road as any. Speaking -for myself, I'm still considering a proposal to Charlotte Beecher--" - -"Oh, you're still considering her? And Janet is still considering M. -St. Hilaire. For ice-cold calculation, give me a one-hundred per cent -enthusiast like you or Janet." - -"Are you suggesting that Janet is so well-suited to me that I ought to -propose to her?" - -She rose, with a growing sense of contempt for him. If he did anything -so insane--and he was doubtless capable of it--the results would be on -his own head. He had already made a mess of his newspaper career, he -had been too proud to cultivate the Fontaine influence, he had -gratuitously antagonized his only well-to-do relation in California, -even now he could barely make a hand-to-mouth living out of his -connection with the radical press. And he actually proposed to lengthen -this catalog of disasters! Well, he'd better remember one thing. His -friends could pull him out of a hole, but not out of a bottomless abyss. - -Really, did he believe in miracles? To put it bluntly: did he suppose -that two failures added together made a success? Yes, two failures! He -was an impecunious journalist or a discredited labor propagandist--which -was it? And Janet! What had she to offer? A pirated soul (this to -remind him of Claude Fontaine) and shattered prospects. - -"Really, Cornelia, these phrases belong to the screen grade of fiction, -not to the facts of the twentieth century." - -Here Mazie interrupted with an urgent message from the exhibition room. - -"Stay and talk to Robert," said Cornelia with frigid disdain. "He's a -great salvager of damaged reputations." - -Mazie looked inquiringly Robert's way, while Cornelia swept towards the -door. In a mock-heroic tone, he explained: - -"Cornelia says that Janet _went wrong_; therefore, unless M. St. Hilaire -marries her, she'll be _ruined for life_." - -Mazie caught the drift of the situation at once. - -"Ruined!" she cried out, in a steaming torrent of slang. "Say, people in -the States won't believe a girl is 'ruined' nowadays, even when she's -committed to the House of the Good Shepherd. Ruined! Who's to ruin -her? Why, the average American is such a hokey-pokey, near-beer, -Sunday-school man of straw, he wouldn't ruin Cleopatra if she begged him -on her bended knees! Take it from me. If Janet's people at the -cemetery end of Brooklyn heard Claude described as the Duc de la -Fontaine, they might give her the glassy eye. They might. They'll -believe cruel things about a foreigner. But she mustn't let on that -he's a gent from the U.S.A., or they'll think she's stringing them. -Think! They'll know it. Why, my brown-eyed cherub, there's only one way -a girl can go wrong in little old New York. And that's to have somebody -break into her bank account." - -Of the latter part of this choicely sustained opinion, Robert was the -exclusive audience, Cornelia having already closed the door with a bang. - - - - *III* - - -A little later in the morning Janet, glancing through a copy of _Le -Matin_ three days old, caught sight of a familiar name in a telegraphic -despatch from New York. The name was Fontaine. According to the brief -news report, headed _C'est fini de rire!_ (the fun is over!), Fontaine -and Company, the most noted of the Fifth Avenue dealers in precious -stones, were charged with complicity in a sensational attempt at -smuggling. - -Piecing the somewhat disjointed details together, Janet gathered that -secret agents of the Department of Justice on the lookout for spies had -inadvertently found thousands of dollars' worth of diamonds concealed in -the bottom boards of what purported to be cases of Japanese books. The -cases, which had been opened by the Secret Service agents shortly after -the "Ionic" docked in Hoboken, were ostensibly consigned to a San -Francisco book dealer for whom one Hutchins Burley, a New York editor -and foreign correspondent, appeared as the representative. - -Burley was held, and the newspapers featured him as the "master mind" of -a very clever band. On examination he confessed that the book dealer -was a mere dummy for Fontaine and Company, whose stock rooms were the -real destination of the diamonds. A warrant for the arrest of Mr. Rene -Fontaine, head of the firm, was at once issued. Officials of the customs -house alleged that the operations of the smugglers, whose ingenuity had -baffled detection for years, reached gigantic proportions, the -government's loss being estimated at many millions. - -News so startling had to be told without delay. Janet excitedly -reported it to Harry Kelly and then descended to the exhibition room -where as a rule Cornelia held sway at this hour. - -Entering the salon somewhat precipitately, she saw the young Duchess of -Keswick seated in great state and surrounded by deferential minions. -But no Cornelia visible. Janet beat a swift retreat. The Duchess -reminded her, not altogether pleasantly, of Marjorie Armstrong at the -Mineola Aerodrome. The two young ladies had the same fashionable -contours, the same self-conscious pride of position, the same -patricianism of the made-to-order rather than of the inborn type. - -Hastening up a flight of stairs to Cornelia's office, Janet was brought -to a stop outside the door by the sound of voices, which she recognized -at once as those of her friend and of the Duchess's mother, Mrs. R. H. -L. Jerome. - -It was easy to overhear the conversation. Mrs. Jerome announced her -departure for London the next day to inspect an apartment house -restricted exclusively to professional women who, besides being mothers, -were the sole supporters of their children. She intended to open a -similar house (as a humanitarian, not a charitable undertaking) in New -York. She had already offered Janet the post of resident business -manager. Naturally, she would like to take the young lady with her to -England at once, but she wouldn't insist on this. If the inconvenience -to the Maison Paulette was too great, Janet could follow later, as soon -as she had wound up her affairs. - -Cornelia's reply was couched in a low voice so tense with emotion that -Janet could distinguish only a word or two here and there. These words -were ample. _M. St. Hilaire, woman-with-her-back-to-the-wall, -Henriette, redemption, iron-law-of-retribution_, etc., such proper names -and stagey phrases showed quite clearly that Cornelia was delivering her -customary rigmarole about the sacrifices she was making to the end that -Janet might cover up her past and glorify her future. - -To Janet's ears, this rigmarole was now so stale as no longer to invite -even remonstrance. But to declaim it to a comparative outsider! And to -embroider it with all sorts of sticky innuendoes! Janet grew hot and -cold by turns. So this was how one's name was buffeted about after an -episode like hers with Claude Fontaine! If one's best friends talked -this way behind one's back, what might not less intimate associates say -or take for granted? - -She had tried to steel herself against inevitable collisions with public -opinion; yet this first impact, though only an oblique one, had given -her a much nastier shock than any she had anticipated. - -_M. St. Hilaire, the Chateau in Normandy, the prestige that was to cover -a multitude of past sins_--Cornelia was going it again! - -Mrs. Jerome replied that these matters were none of her affair. She -needed Janet and she believed Janet needed her. Surely, the decision lay -with the young woman herself? - -While Janet was still debating whether or not she should walk straight -in and interrupt, Cornelia shifted the attack, her diplomatic allusions -to Janet's love affair being replaced by blunter speech. She effected -the change with a great show of diffidence and hesitation. Her sense of -loyalty alike to her friend and to Mrs. Jerome obliged her, etc.--Claude -Fontaine, the _beau ideal_ of the Junior smart set, etc.--the -transatlantic honeymoon to which the newspaper troubadours had given a -far-flung notoriety, etc.--But doubtless Mrs. Jerome recalled these -particulars well enough? - -Came the tart rejoinder: - -"No, I never do read newspaper scandal! The fact is, when I'm not -gambling in Paulette frocks, I'm a very busy woman. If it wasn't for -the Duchess, the Magpie Club in Mayfair would make short work of me. -But the Duchess reads me some of the necessary tittle-tattle at -breakfast so as to keep me _au fait_. She's a great newspaper fan, is -the Duchess." - -When Janet finally opened the door, walked in, and electrified the room, -Cornelia had just been sweetly remarking: - -"But about the managership of this house, a house for unattached -mothers--widows and feminist women I presume?--about such projects -public curiosity is simply insatiable,' isn't it? Do you really think -that Janet is exactly the person for such a delicate position--?" - -Ignoring Cornelia and her innuendo, Janet spoke directly to Mrs. Jerome. - -"I'm sorry you didn't let me tell you everything last week, Mrs. -Jerome," she said, keeping herself well in hand. "You see, all this -would have been superfluous then." - -"My policy, child, is never to learn more than it's good for me to know. -But perhaps I was in the wrong this time." - -"I had no idea you could overhear us, Janet," said Cornelia, with as -much acerbity as if she were the injured party. - -Janet scorned to reply on the level of this remark. - -"I came to show you a piece of news in the Matin," was all she deigned -to say. - -Pointing out the place, she handed Cornelia the newspaper. - -"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Jerome alone for a few minutes," she said. -"Would you very much mind?" - -"Oh, by no means," replied Cornelia, trying hard to be superior and -authoritative. "Make any arrangements you like to suit your own -interests. Never mind the Maison Paulette. Don't think that _I_ shall -stand in your light." - -And as she went out, unabashed, she offered the flowery remark that she -had only done her poor best to follow the impulses of her heart, her -sole desire having been to help both Janet and Mrs. Jerome to a mutual -understanding, in the absence of which any joint project they might -embark on would be only too likely to suffer shipwreck. - - - - *IV* - - -Mrs. Jerome drew Janet down to a place beside her on the leather settee. - -"Now, my dear," she said, "I'd just as soon you didn't dig up ancient -history. Unless it's going to relieve your mind. But I shan't be any -the wiser for it when you've finished, trust me. Why, if you told me -that you were a new version of the Old Nick himself, one look into your -lovely gray eyes would convince me that it wasn't true." - -None the less, Janet, not wishing to sail under false colors, gave a -very short résumé of her life from the time she went to the Lorillard -tenements in Kips Bay to the day she left M. St. Hilaire. - -Throughout this narrative, Mrs. Jerome's round little face was -sphinx-like, becoming animated only at the point of Janet's separation -from Claude. - -"He left you in the lurch, then?" she had interposed, much affected. - -"Oh, no, he would have kept on providing for me," said Janet, evasively, -and after a moment's hesitation. - -Nobody had really believed the story that she had left Claude. Even -Robert appeared to take the reverse for granted. Perhaps, on the whole, -she had better fall into a view that people would be sure to adopt in -any case, and that she was almost beginning to adopt herself. - -"But of course you didn't let him," said Mrs. Jerome. - -"No." - -"Good. We mustn't be under any obligation of that sort to the selfish -sex. Now don't worry about the matter any more. You're a plucky girl, -my dear. Keep your pluck, and your pluck will keep you." - -Mrs. Jerome added that she hoped Claude Fontaine had not behaved any -worse than Janet had represented. She knew the young man. Who in New -York didn't? As regards possible criticism, Janet should be comforted -with the reflection that glass houses made the whole world kin, human -architecture being nowhere complete without them. Why, most of the girls -in the Younger Set had lost their heads over Claude, which was all they -had had a chance to lose. She herself, meeting him once at a costume -ball of the Junior League, had been knocked silly by his dashing airs -and Apollo curls, not to mention the best pair of calves she had ever -beheld. - -"So you see, my dear, an old woman can be quite as feeble-minded as a -debutante. Nobody has ever had a monopoly of making mistakes." - -Janet pointed out that the world did not take quite so liberal a view. -This being so, might she not prove a source of embarrassment to Mrs. -Jerome? As people looked at it, running away with a man was-- - -"Child, for every woman who runs away with a man, there's a man who runs -away with a woman." - -This obvious truth had been lost sight of, and the time had come for its -emphatic reassertion. Did Janet imagine that Claude had lost any -credit? Well, let her look at the facts. Mr. Fontaine, senior, had -just got himself into a very bad mess, one that involved the Fontaine -firm in a case of diamond smuggling. The Duchess had read her the story -from the papers. And only last night _Le Temps_ had reported that Mr. -Fontaine was believed to have jumped his bail, leaving his son Claude -behind to pull the firm out of the hole. And everybody felt so sorry -for Claude! Not that he had anything to fear. He could not be held -personally accountable. Still, there were the court proceedings, which -were reckoned a terrible load for his handsome young shoulders to bear. -And so bankers and clubmen and "sealskin" artists were rushing to his -aid; matrons from upper Fifth Avenue were pulling wires; Colonel -Armstrong, the great financier, was on the job behind the scenes; and it -was freely whispered that when the storm had blown over, Claude and -Marjorie Armstrong were to be married in St. Thomas'. Here was -retribution! If you judged from the international tidal wave of -sympathy and helpfulness that was sweeping towards Claude, you might be -pardoned for thinking that he was Galahad, Parsifal, and Lohengrin -rolled into one. - -"But men stand by one another," added Mrs. Jerome, pointing the moral -succinctly. - -Women would have to take this lesson to heart and stand by one another -just as men did. If Janet joined the Jerome forces, she could depend on -one thing, and that was her support through thick and thin. - -Janet felt inexcusably ungrateful at not accepting the managership on -the spot, and frankly said so. She made no attempt to explain her -indecision, her motives at the time being far from clear to herself. - -Mrs. Jerome, blissfully unaware of the existence of Robert Lloyd as a -factor in this hesitation, took it in very good part. Janet should make -up her mind when she pleased. But surely, she wasn't again playing with -the thought of marrying M. St. Hilaire? After her emphatic assertion -that she didn't love him! - -"Yet I don't dislike him, by any means," said Janet. "I was very fond -of him in Brussels, before he lost his head." - -"Fond! Child, one may marry for money without affection, or for -affection without money, but one shouldn't marry for either money or -affection without a little romance thrown in." - -Saying which, this whimsical little lady laughed, rose, and put an arm -lovingly around her favorite. - -"Come back to the States with me, Janet," she continued. "You'll see -what we women can do when we put on steam. You shall make an independent -place for yourself in New York, besides helping other women to do the -same. And by and by some suitable countryman of ours will come along, -and we'll have you nicely married off." - - - - *V* - - -_We'll have you nicely married off_. Left alone, Janet had to pull -herself together after the shock of these words. Everybody seemed -determined to get her married. Claude, Pryor, Cornelia, Robert. And -now Mrs. Jerome, too! - -Clearly, even people who were extremely well disposed towards her, had -it at the back of their minds that she had lost credit with her -fellow-men. And that nothing short of marriage could restore her to -full public esteem! This was a situation she would have to reckon with. -But how comical it was to have marriage urged upon her as though it were -a kind of penance she must do in order to regain her standing! - -Penance! She was driven to admit that it really would be something like -an act of penance to marry M. St. Hilaire. Still, would she feel this -way if she hadn't met Robert again? Would she? Scarcely. It was -Robert's turning up that had caused M. St. Hilaire to appear in the -light of a penitential infliction. - -There were two courses open to her, and staying with Cornelia was not -one of them. No, she recoiled from fashionable dressmaking and all its -shows, and the atmosphere of the Maison Paulette with its lurking vapors -of parasitism and prostitution grew more oppressively sickening every -day. - -True, the big establishment was an amusing novelty at first, when you -saw only the surface glamor. Nor was it half bad to help Harry Kelly to -train the manikins, so long as you supposed that this training merely -equipped them to wear expensive frocks in the salon or at the races or -at the opera. But when you found out that every one of these dainty -girl models expected confidently to become the mistress of some rich -merchant or politician, your zest for the work oozed away. - -Not that you saw much difference between the kept mistresses who -exhibited the Paulette garments and the kept wives who purchased them. -But you began to look upon the whole traffic in dresses as a symbol of -woman's enslavement to man and of man's enslavement to the dollar sign. -And you observed how this traffic changed everybody connected with it -for the worse. (Everybody except poor Mazie, who had experienced a -revulsion of feeling against the ghost of her Ziegfeld "Follies" -self--unluckily too late to do her any good.) You watched the crude -boyish cynicism of Harry Kelly turn into a morose pessimism, and in -Cornelia you felt the growth or stiffening of all that was grasping and -cruel. - -As Janet saw these metamorphoses, she realized that the house of -Paulette was a house of bondage. It was not an institution with which a -free-spirited woman would wish permanently to throw in her lot. - -For practical purposes, then, her choice lay between the managership -under Mrs. Jerome and a "marriage of convenience" with M. St. Hilaire. - -Instinct, to be sure, pointed to another alternative in which the name -of Robert figured in capital letters. But this was a romantic dream, a -dream which her fancy might embroider but which her courage and common -sense had to dispel. Thus, when instinct urged, "A little feminine -beguilement will bring him swiftly to your feet," common sense rejoined, -"You may elect life-long poverty for yourself; dare you inflict it on -Robert?" Instinct could rear and curvet, it could champ the bit; but it -was not in the saddle. - -As between the two available courses, she had vastly preferred the -managership. She would have jumped at it when Mrs. Jerome first offered -it, but for a tacit understanding with Henriette. What a pull on her -affections the little girl exercised! In a moment of weakness, or -rather of passionate disgust with Paulette's, Janet had given her former -pupil all but an outright promise to become her second mother. Yet, -though the father's proposal was a handsome one, full of concessions to -Janet's conception of a modern woman's sphere, it was difficult to -ignore the likelihood of a bitter conflict after the wedding. A -conflict on the issue of these very concessions. For between the feudal -traditions of a man like M. St. Hilaire and the equalitarian assumptions -of a woman like herself, there was a great gulf fixed. Could it ever be -bridged? - -Anyhow, Mrs. Jerome's offer had blazed out the real path of independence -for her, and no mistake. Or so she had thought. A dozen times of late -she had been on the point of imparting her final decision to Henriette -and facing Cornelia and M. St. Hilaire with it. Lack of courage had not -restrained her. A very different consideration had given her pause. -Might net her "past" prove a source of serious embarrassment to Mrs. -Jerome's work? The last two years had taught her something of the -"chemical" methods of warfare, the "poison gas" attacks which the foes -of progress did not scruple to adopt. Was it likely that the enemies of -the women's movement would lose the chance of wrecking Mrs. Jerome's -scheme by raising against her young manager the hue and cry of -_immorality_, that cry with which a handful of knaves had so often -brought a whole nation of fools and cowards to heel? - -None the less, good sense had suggested that if Mrs. Jerome could risk -it, so could she. And she had at last nerved herself to a conclusive -interview with M. St. Hilaire. It was no more than fair that after so -much shilly-shallying, she should explain at first hand her definitive -refusal. - -She was awaiting him now. Had everything gone smoothly, she could have -shown him that her career was already booked for passage by a different -route. Booked! But at this critical moment she had struck a snag in the -shape of Mrs. Jerome's intimation that the shortest way with an awkward -past was to "marry it down," so to speak. Had she been mistaken in Mrs. -Jerome? Was the good lady so bravely taking a risk only with the quiet -resolve to insure this risk at the earliest opportunity? Well, if she -had to get married for her sins, one thing was certain. The St. Hilaire -she did know was better than the St. Hilaire she didn't. - -These reflections were brought to an abrupt close by the return of -Cornelia. - -"Monsieur St. Hilaire is below," she announced, stormily. "It seems to -me that you owe an explanation to me as well as to him." - -"If you don't mind," returned Janet in a voice that was strangely calm, -"let me accept him first. I'll explain to you afterwards." - -Cornelia stared at her. For some time she had believed that, despite -the disturbing influence of Mrs. Jerome and Robert, there was a fairly -good chance of putting the St. Hilaire marriage through. She had -cherished this belief until today. Then she suddenly learned that Janet -had all along been carrying on an intrigue with Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, -the upshot of which was that the benevolent Cornelia's plans were to be -set wholly at naught. And as if this humiliation were not enough, Janet -had entertained the disloyal scheme of deserting the Maison Paulette at -barely a day's notice. - -These distressing facts had transpired scarcely half an hour ago. And -now Janet was again serenely proposing to marry M. St. Hilaire! She had -been acting in this erratic fashion ever since Robert came on the scene. -Had he had anything to do with this latest change of heart? - -"I'll tell M. St. Hilaire to come up," she said tonelessly, paralyzed by -the instability of her friend's decisions. "The coast is quite clear. -Mazie is upstairs with Harry, and Robert has just gone to Fontainebleau -for the day." - -She omitted to say that she had packed him off on a factitious errand. - -"Yes," she continued, her cadenced speech picking up as she went on. "I -told him to make the most of his glorious freedom. You know, he's as -good as betrothed to Charlotte Beecher." - -"How lucky for them both!" said Janet hypocritically. - -Cornelia went out, having thus drawn the long bow at a venture. And -not, she trusted, in vain. - - - - *VI* - - -M. St. Hilaire came in. Janet had never been tempted to rave over him -as Cornelia lately did. She thought him a little too short, but she -admitted that his well-poised figure, ruddy complexion, and auburn beard -were a delight to the eye. And she liked his courtly and somewhat -superior demeanor. - -Yet, at the first intimate touch of his hand, she recoiled almost with -violence. - -Her sudden start robbed him of every shred of confidence. And it -astonished Janet herself. The fascination of Claude and the voltaic -attraction of Robert had put these two, for her, in a class by -themselves. But she had met men who were not half so agreeable to talk -to or to look upon as M. St. Hilaire--men whose company was dull or -whose personalities she disapproved of and yet whose caresses she would -not have wished to repel. - -It had been this way ever since their first meeting in Brussels. M. St. -Hilaire had befriended her in a time of need, he possessed many mental -and material advantages, he was the father of Henriette. But he lacked -some one thing needful. When she dreamed her day dreams, she never -pictured him; and when he touched her, she never thrilled. - -True, in his absence, she thought of him (if she thought of him at all) -as precisely the sort of man a girl ought to be able to love. But in -his presence she was overwhelmed with the single conviction that to live -with him would be more than she could bear. The conviction was absurd, -unjust, incomprehensible; yet it was not to be gainsaid. - -Sensing her thoughts, M. St. Hilaire was disheartened. - -"I hoped I had made amends," he said, in sorrowful allusion to the cause -of their rupture in Brussels. "But I see you've never forgiven me." - -"Oh, no, no," she cried, with a pang of remorse. "I've forgotten all -about that. Please believe me. It isn't that at all. It's--I don't -quite know--something tells me that I simply can't live with you as your -wife." - -He rose, by main force suppressing caustic and resentful comments that -leapt to the tip of his tongue. He had one more card to play. - -"And you mean to--to go back on Henriette?" he asked, in measured tones. - -She came to his side and, affectionately taking his hand, began: - -"I'm terribly fond of Henriette--" - -The door flew open and in walked Robert! But stopped on the instant! -He saw Janet caressing the arm of M. St. Hilaire, heard the tender -words, and felt the whole universe reel. - -In the flash of an eye, he pulled himself together. - -"Pardon," he said between his teeth. And, turning sharply round, flung -headlong out. - -Janet gazed after him in stupefaction. - -She never knew how she finished the interview with M. St. Hilaire, nor -how, with a hardening of her voice, she made it clear to him that, in a -straight conflict between Henriette's self-interest and her own, it was -not the former that she was bound to consult. - -M. St. Hilaire took his dismissal with a good deal of dignity and -self-control, albeit Janet's display of firmness had excited a deeper -emotion than any woman had ever aroused in him before. An unconsidered -trifle, snatched away, may become the heart's desire. And Janet had -ranked far higher than a trifle in M. St. Hilaire's European scale of -values, at least since her departure from Brussels. Yet, throughout his -courtship of this strange, incalculable American girl, he had never been -quite free from an uneasy fear that the marriage might prove a social -indiscretion. He now felt certain that his choice had been in keeping -with the very best taste. And this certainty, while adding poignancy to -his loss, afforded some consolation to his pride. - - - - *VII* - - -As for Janet, she fairly bolted upstairs and threw a bombshell into the -gymnasium by the summary announcement of her intention to leave for -England with Mrs. Jerome next day. An unalterable intention. She was -determined to establish her independence not by marriage but by hard -work. - -Mazie listened to her with very mixed feelings; Harry Kelly looked like -one who heard the rumble of an approaching earthquake; Cornelia stood -petrified. - -She came to life again with a sinister, arpeggiative laugh. - -"So you'll go trapesing to America on Robert's heels, after all?" she -said. "To dish his whole career!" - -"Cornelia, you're a devil!" cried Janet, incandescent with anger. "I'd -like to know the reason, the real reason for your anxiety to get me -married to M. St. Hilaire. Not to do me a good turn, that's one sure -thing." - -Mazie advanced between them. - -"Say, Janet," she called out, pacifico-satirically, "even the devil -sometimes does a pal a good turn--just for a change." - -Cornelia extinguished her with a gesture. - -"Why did you ever run away with Claude," she said, turning to Janet -again, "if you were so gone on Robert?" - -"How was I to tell the difference between an infatuation that was bound -to perish and a love that had scarcely been born?" replied Janet, once -more her cool, keen self. "How was I to tell, until I had tried them -out?" - -"Tried them out! Words fail to describe your morals, Janet. But go on -your own way rejoicing, my dear. Hang yourself around Robert's neck, if -you like. You'll make a charming picture there, I'm sure. Of course, -clinging vines have gone out of fashion. But clinging leeches are -always with us." - -Janet went out ignoring these insults and mutely denying Harry Kelly's -passionate appeal to her not to mind what Cornelia was saying in a -vertigo of rage. - -"For God's sake, Cornelia," said Harry, making a frantic demonstration, -"don't let her leave us like that." - -"Hold your tongue, you imbecile!" called out his wife, turning on him -fiercely. "When I want to play the fool. I'll ask for your advice." - -Her exit, a tempestuous one, left Mazie and Kelly alone and forlorn. -Poor Harry Kelly collapsed in his swivel chair, while Mazie hovered -around the desk like a gadfly. - -"Unless you give her what for," she warned him, "_you'll_ never travel -on asphalt." - -He looked up and feebly waved her away. - -"What can I do?" he said plaintively. "Just jawing back won't help -matters." - -"No," said Mazie scornfully. "Jawing back won't. But how about -knocking her down and jumping on her with both feet? Gee, if I had your -strength for five minutes! I tell you what, my frazzled Gorilla, if you -don't mop up the floor with her this very minute, she'll make a doormat -of you for the rest of your life." - -Her tone was slighting, and there was bark in the dose she administered. -For a second, he straightened up. Then he shook his head at her, -slumped again, and buckled down to the papers on the desk. Poor Harry! -His muscle was willing, but his nerve was weak. - - - - - *CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE* - - *I* - - -The blow which Robert got between the eyes when he saw Janet and St. -Hilaire together had left him shunned. And he was on the train speeding -to Fontainebleau before he began coming to, a painful process of -returning sensibility, beside which the pins and needles of a limb that -had been asleep would have seemed the merest child's play. - -The wild nomadic images that chased one another across the field of his -consciousness! They racked his brain, his world-reforming brain, and -limited his feverish introspection to one discovery, the startling -discovery of how very much he was in love. - -Rather an awkward plight, he told himself, for a young man who had -purposed the moral regeneration of mankind and in pursuit of this -purpose had sworn to spurn fate, scorn death, and set his hopes above -happiness and love. Especially love! Didn't all the Dick Dudgeons and -Devil's Disciples begin by renouncing love? Indeed, didn't they make -this renunciation a cardinal point of honor? - -To think that even Cornelia had cautioned him against making an utter -ass of himself about Janet! Cautioned him in vain. And Janet, too, had -tried her hardest to warn him off by jibing at his poverty. This cruel -kindness had almost worked; almost, but not quite. The poet, the -lunatic, the lover--they were the embodiments of diseases (Shakespeare -had said it!), diseases that resisted the most desperate remedies. - -Of course she preferred St. Hilaire to himself. Why not? According to -his own theories, he should be the first to dub her an imbecile if she -didn't. When she needed sex to gratify desire, she had taken Claude by -preference. Now that she needed a position, she would take St. Hilaire. -And rightly so. - -He had nothing to offer her but his brains. - -Brains and no money! And that in the twentieth century, the triumphant -mechanical century, in which any fool with a little low cunning and a -good thick skin could make money by the bushel. - -What on earth had possessed Mark Pryor to start him on this trail? -Confound it! It had all grown out of a chance encounter with Pryor in -Charlotte Beecher's studio one fatal afternoon. The fellow had taken -him aside and poured out a harrowing story of Janet's miseries coupled -with a picture of her dependence on Cornelia! But for that _rencontre_, -he wouldn't have gone on this wild-goose chase from Geneva to Paris to -rescue Janet from a gilded cage. - -A gilded cage! No, by heaven! He might be living in a gilded cage -himself (the gilt being drawn from Charlotte Beecher's gilt-edged -securities), instead of in one-third of a model tenement flat in Kips -Bay. To think that Pryor, the transcendently practical Pryor, should -have been the instigator of this fatuous proceeding! Hang the fellow -for his unwarranted meddling and plausible tongue! - -He reached Fontainebleau in a drizzling rain and voted it a sleek and -stupid place. In the chilly Hotel de Londres he had ample leisure to -reflect on his folly. Sightseeing! His business in the world was to -create new sights not to see old ones. A fat lot he cared for chateaux -in which the greasy Bourbons had entertained their mistresses and in -which streams of tourists would be sure to blink in awe at vulgarly -showy decorations or childishly ornamented bric-a-brac, not to mention -the celebrated, idiotic insipidities painted by Boucher and David. - -Merely to read about these "sights" in the guidebook made him sick. Why -hadn't he followed his own nose instead of letting Cornelia map, or -rather, Baedeker, his course for him? - -"What dire offence from trivial causes springs," he silently quoted. -His present plight was the result of putting Cornelia into a bad temper -at the breakfast table that morning. Afterwards, he had gone to pacify -her, a feat he had so often accomplished before. So often, in fact, -that it seemed to him rather a joke to watch Cornelia's stony heart melt -into abject sentimentality. A double-edged joke, now he came to think -it over, in his present plight. - -Well, on this occasion she had _not_ been as wax in his hands. Nor had -she been sentimental. True, she had apparently let herself be mollified -as of old. But he was so absorbed in Janet that he failed to be struck -by her unusual manner. In retrospect it stood out. Cornelia had become -playful: it was the playfulness of the panther. - -She had begged him to go to Fontainebleau, pointing out that everybody -went at least once in a lifetime, and that he could oblige her by doing -his duty to himself and performing a service for her at one and the same -time. The service (it would save Harry a journey!) was to give a -commission for a special Paulette design to an artist who had an -open-air studio in the famous Fontainebleau forest. - -On his way from Paulette's to the Gare de Lyon he had wondered whether -Janet wouldn't be mightily piqued by his unannounced absence of two -days. Two days cut clean out of a visit that was not scheduled to be a -long one! Well, if she was piqued, so much the better. - -Yes, but mightn't she suppose him deeply wounded by her wantonly -taunting shot at his impecunious, ineligible pretentions? Possibly. -But, as a matter of fact, he had been deeply wounded. A taunt from her -lips, at such a moment, and in such a style! It was horribly unlike the -Janet he had known in Kips Bay. Had she really become calculating to -her finger tips in accordance with the law of the evolution of the -Lorillardian female? Did her rapturous return of his kisses mean -nothing to her? - -Oh, well, after a tremendous love affair like hers with Claude, a young -lady was probably as much thrilled by a kiss of rapture now and then, as -by an extra slice of toast at breakfast. - -So he had reasoned as he was about to jump on a bus running to the Lyon -station. He had stopped and retraced his steps to the Maison Paulette, -telling himself that as a sane and sensible citizen of the world it -would be much better to bid her a brief good-bye. - -Here in Fontainebleau his memory retraced these steps for the fiftieth -time. Cornelia had been in the exhibition room, thank heaven. So he -had hurried upstairs to the gymnasium, stopping to glance in at the -private office on his way. That was how he had come to swing open the -door and burst incontinently upon Janet and St. Hilaire. - -Certainly, there was nothing like a smasher in the face for making you -feel things you had been innocent of feeling before. - -"Let the pain do the work!" said Robert, quoting to himself the oldest -and most respected maxim known to the medical profession. Then he went -to bed. - -A sleepless night followed. - - - - *II* - - -The weather next morning was brisk and clear. Under its inspiration -Robert began to recover from the depression of the night before and, for -a time at least, to drive away the misgivings that had tormented him. -He yielded to the beauty of the forest of Fontainebleau, a fact which -made the discharge of his mission for Cornelia much less tedious than he -had dreaded. - -During his return through wooded walks to the town, he so far regained -his self-confidence that he was able to laugh at yesterday's morbid -speculations and nightmarish fancies. What a bother he had made about a -crisis that ought to have been foreseen, and a sequel that ought to have -been taken for granted! - -And, as a pure point of information, could he be absolutely sure that -Janet really did mean to marry St. Hilaire? - -This startling query, coming like a whisper from the void, crystallized -a decision towards which he had unconsciously been groping. He would -return posthaste to Paris and level the invisible wall that had sprung -up between Janet and himself. "An invisible wall!" To suppose that a -figment like that could separate two people endowed with good will, -quick wit, and flexible tongues, was to insult his intelligence. - -Parks, palaces, gardens, and all the other sights of Fontainebleau could -go hang! - -He tingled with shame as he reflected that now, more than at any other -moment since the dissolution of the firm of Barr and Lloyd, Janet might -need the friendly counsel or the sympathetic ear that he had pressed -upon her with unlimited enthusiasm in their Kips Bay workshop. Yet this -was the moment he had chosen in which to act like the screen hero who -advances his money or his time to the heroine in amounts arithmetically -proportioned to the exact quantity of amorous response from the lady's -side. True, this sordid barter was the popular American conception of -the course of true love. But did he propose to fall in with this -conception? Was he ready to prostitute his gifts to the worship of the -great Atlantic bitch-goddess, _Success_? - -If only he had been in a position to make Janet a tolerably acceptable -offer of marriage! - -Still, no need to blink the fact that he was now better circumstanced -than at any time since leaving the _Evening Chronicle_. Hadn't the -Confederated Press given him this assignment at Geneva, the most -responsible assignment in its province? He flattered himself that he -had reported the proceedings of the Labor Congress with a color, -vividness, trenchancy, and fire none too common in American journalism. -It ought to make people at home sit up and take notice; it might lead to -a much more profitable commission. Look where Hutchins Burley's -articles on the Colorado mine strike had carried him, chock-full of -rhetorical clap-trap and maudlin pathos though the beggar's work had -been! - -A pity that the Confederated Press served chiefly radical newspapers -with a limited circulation! It kept your tenure on quicksand. He might -have to yield to temptation and falsify his better self by sinking into -one of the fat jobs that the plutocratic press would now be sure to -offer him. - -For the sake of marrying Janet? No, no, it wouldn't do at all. Not -even if she were insane enough to be willing to take the plunge. He -pictured himself and her together in the marital state, saw the cramped -Harlem flat in which they'd be boxed up. Both working of course! No -conveniences, no facilities for either sociability or solitude, no -children (on less than ten thousand a year birth control would be -imperative), no health. And the economies they'd have to practice! -They'd have to deny themselves freedom of movement, shun social and -professional contacts, and take refuge in an isolation paralyzing to -their talents. - -Until death did them part-- - -Thousands of childless couples in every big city existed thus. And the -lives they led were hell. - -In spite of which solemn conclusion Robert had no sooner reached his -hotel than he prepared to desert the spacious freedom of Fontainebleau. -And he actually took the first afternoon train back to Paris with the -express purpose of seeking Janet out for a heart-to-heart talk. - -The perfection of French "system," so extensively advertised on paper, -is also realized on paper, and there only. This truth was once more -brought home to Robert when, grimy with soot, he reached the capital -long after his train was due. He decided to skip the supper at -Paulette's, partly from a desire to avoid Cornelia, partly from a hope -that he might find Janet alone after Harry Kelly and his wife had left, -as they often did, for an evening's entertainment. - -A bus to the American Express Company enabled him to get his mail just -before the office closed. He kept the dozen-odd letters in his pocket, -intending to read them whilst taking a snack in a quaint, spotless -little dairy restaurant (the _a toute heure_ shop, as he and Janet -called it, in allusion to its boast of never closing) in the Boulevard -Montmartre. - -The waitress having taken his order, he rapidly sorted out his letters, -seven or eight of which had official or commercial headings that at once -betrayed the enclosures as mere announcements or bills. These he -stuffed back unread into his pocket. Of the remaining few, the first -one proved to be from the London agent of the Confederated Press. This -was the man under whose orders he worked while in Europe. A grudging, -carping cuss! Robert hoped that the fellow had at last seen the light -(of Robert's merit), and that handsome amends were forthcoming. - -The message ordered him home to New York at once! - -So much for the recognition and advancement which his gorgeous accounts -of the Labor Congress were to bring him. Had the ironical shafts, tipped -with caustic wit and aimed at the rancor and obstructiveness of some of -the labor leaders, given mortal offence to his own side? - -With a horrible sense of the insecurity of life, and with a nameless -dread more invasive and powerful than any he had ever known before, he -reached the Maison Paulette about an hour later. He met one of the -principal manikins at the door. - -"Mademoiselle Janet? Hadn't he heard the tragic news? _C'est si -triste_. The whole Maison was in mourning. Mademoiselle had departed -that very noon with Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome, the great rich lady without a -heart. _Ah, comme c'est triste_!" - - - - *III* - - -The "Touraine" had been two days out from Havre in weather decidedly -rough, before Robert got his sea-legs back again. Others on board were -doubtless still deploring the pit of instability that lurks beneath the -surface of things. But as a rule their reflections had an origin that -was strictly physical. Robert, on his first brisk walk around the -second-class deck, reasoned from premises of a very different nature. - -For he had reached a point where he felt constrained to take a sort of -inventory of himself, a mental stock-listing of his reverses, his -prospects, and his altered outlook on affairs. - -Not that his theories had changed in substance. - -From first to last, his mind had been filled with a fierce impatience of -the stupidity of man today and an unquenchable faith in a sanity to -come. Evil; as he conceived it, was a by-product of human growth, and -not, as Shelley conceived it, something imposed on man by a malignant -external power on the fall of which the race would at once become -perfect. In short, he believed that the incessant conflict of life was -largely a struggle between high and low desires, with money and numbers -on the side of Satan, and high-spirited intelligence on the side of the -angels. - -In America, to be sure, where achievements not open to a flat cash -interpretation are passed by with a shrug or a vulgar joke, Robert's -view of life had excited as much interest as a whisper in the wind. The -few who gave his philosophy a brief attention had hastily dismissed it -as a matter for milksops or imbeciles; on the fool who preached this -philosophy they had bestowed a cynical pity, and on the failure who -practised it, an amused contempt. - -The failure who practised it! Robert knew that, judged by every -standard save his own, he was a failure, a complete, incurable failure. -He did not try to dodge this unanimous judgment. He despised it as much -as he exulted in his own faith. To be exact, as much as he _had_ -exulted in his own faith. - -For the blow that had knocked him galley-west in the office of the -Maison Paulette had seriously shaken his self-confidence. - -A review of his recent conduct led him straight to a very unpalatable -verdict. He had behaved as stupidly towards Janet as any average man of -stone-age instincts. Because she had made one risky experiment in the -field of sex and had almost been tempted to make an even riskier -experiment in the field of subsistence, he had displayed in turn his -pique, jealousy, anger and scorn. The childish resentment that had -mastered him! And this when he owed Janet unbounded gratitude for her -wisdom in frightening him off from a suicidal offer of marriage. In his -varied exhibition of neolithic folly, where was the high-spirited -intelligence he boasted of possessing? - -Look how Janet had stuck to _her_ guns! As he might have foreseen (if -he hadn't been a perfect donkey!), she was going to make a glorious -fight of it, on her own. She had given to Caesar the things that were -Caesar's; and for the rest, she had kept her integrity intact. - -Incidentally, there was a grain of comfort in the fact that she hadn't -accepted M. St. Hilaire after all. A grain! Say rather, several tons. - -Suspending this train of thought, Robert turned to his other great -problem, his work in the labor movement. He asked himself whether he, -like Janet, had kept _his_ integrity intact. Two weeks ago he would -have shouted out a triumphant yes. But now the thin edge of doubt had -entered his soul. This incorruptible, critical gift--the gift above all -others that he prized--was he justified in pushing its exercise to the -furthest limit? He had always rejoiced in the uncompromising candor -with which he had exposed and flayed the special weaknesses of the -radical leaders, the general deficiencies of his own side. But when -candor compelled you to smite people in the fifth rib in order to save -their souls, weren't you carrying virtue a little too far? - -Well, his employers on the Confederated Press thought so. And that they -were not alone in their opinion was evident from his several failures. -He counted them up: the _Evening Chronicle_, the Guild movement, the -attempt to unionize the mercantile workers, the Labor Party publicity, -and now this latest debacle. Not to mention his friendships! - -He retained the hearty confidence of nobody. - -Ought a successful honest man, then, to show as much discretion in the -practice of candor as a successful knave shows in the practice of -deceit? It would seem so. Plainly, he who would change the moral -standards of his kind could not afford to be one thing to all men. Not -a specialist or an extremist, in short. - -How to be an aggressive revolutionist and at the same time a progressive -evolutionist--this was the paradox that every effective radical had to -embody in his own life. - -It was clear that he would have to begin again at the bottom of the -ladder. - -This being so, the first thing to do was to ascertain his liabilities, -material no less than spiritual. - -Here Robert was reminded abruptly of the half dozen letters--bills, -circulars, and the like, as he surmised--which he had rammed into his -coat pocket at the _a toute heure_ restaurant. The coat in question was -in his stateroom and he would look for the letters when he went below. - -Half an hour later he found them. One of the first envelopes bore the -heading: Simons and Hunt, Attorneys-at-Law, 150 Broadway. It had two -enclosures. The first one he opened read: - -..vspace:: 2 - -My Dear Nephew: - -About a year ago you wrote to me suggesting that I do something handsome -by you. In your own delicate words you asked me to subsidize your -imagination, a quality you believed of sufficient value to your fellow -men to be worth preserving. As a proof that you possessed this quality, -you provided me with an outline of your career in all its ups and downs, -chiefly downs. You were also good enough to favor me with copies of -your several articles on social and industrial reform. - -As I am in receipt of some ten thousand requests for money every year, -it is obviously impossible for me to comply with them all. And I am -bound to say that I saw no reason for complying with your request, the -more so in that its tone of mockery and sly derision led me to doubt -whether it was made in entire good faith. The claim of kinship which -you advanced (somewhat belatedly I thought) had little weight with me. -You know what family ties are amongst the Lloyds! I was but a youngster -of fourteen when my father and my elder brother (_your_ father) ripped -up my gilded dreams of a future as an artist and hashed my romantic -plans by a single practical act. They pitched me out of the house into -the street. There I remained to live on my own wits, and this fate I -have had little occasion to complain of. - -But to return to your letter. It did not win me to your way of -thinking. Nor, to be candid, did your articles on "the collapse of -modern society." I will admit that your attacks on land speculators -(like myself) were witty, if not wise. And when you sailed into the -monopoly on land values, you wrote with astonishing authority; indeed -the only flaw I could find in your otherwise perfect qualifications for -solving the economic problem of land was the trifling fact that you had -never owned a foot of it. - -This might have passed. Not so your observations on the distribution of -the country's wealth and other related iniquities. Here you repeated -the usual flub-dub with the usual fine flourish of the man who imagines -he has made a startling discovery. Thus, you solemnly pointed out that -there are only two kinds of people on earth: those who prey and those -who are preyed upon. You announced that you had never seen the -profiteer forsaken, nor the preying man begging his bread. And you -informed the world that the [Transcriber's note: some text appears to be -missing from the source book] intensified every year, the sheep being -now more securely muzzled and more efficiently fleeced than ever before. - -Now, my dear nephew, there is nothing new in your "discovery." Since -the days of Plato all prudent men have been of one opinion respecting -the class war, but no prudent man has ever admitted it. Conscious of -this, I was unmoved by your ringing call to the sheep that they had -nothing to lose but their muzzles; and your desire to see them organize -for the purpose of destroying the wolves by mass action, left me cold. -A world of sheep--and nothing but sheep--would not be to my taste. For -the wolves, whatever else we may say of them, at least vary the drab -monotony here below. Besides, I suspect that your indignation in the -matter of the muzzles is largely shandygaff. It is not necessary to -muzzle sheep! - -In fine, your credentials did not greatly impress me. Your writings, it -is true, were clever, witty, imaginative. - -But what is imagination without matter or money to work upon? Like a -spark without tinder on a wet day in the woods. At all events, I could -scarcely overlook the fact that, whereas _I_ had made a fortune by my -real estate speculation, _you_ were unable to make so much as a bare -living by your real estate denunciation. - -Have patience a little longer with the garrulity of a dying man. A few -weeks ago, I was taken ill with a fatal dilatation of the aorta, and the -end may come in a day, a month, a year. What to do with my investments -became an immediately pressing problem. The charities I had named in my -last will were administered, as I well knew, by a host of -charity-mongers even more distasteful to me than kith and kin. - -In this painful dilemma I read your letter again, thinking that my -reaction to it, a year ago, had been hasty or unfair. Perhaps the wish -was father to the thought; perhaps my infirmity has softened my brain. -Whatever the cause, one passage in your letter struck me. My eyes were -opened and I saw, or believed I saw, that you were a chosen vessel to -bear my name and fortune before the American people. Accordingly I -revoked all charitable bequests and appointed you as my principal heir -and assign. - -The passage that took my fancy was the one in which you declared that it -is nobler to spend a fortune than to make one. Unhappily, I have never -been able to practice this sentiment in full. Not that I have failed to -try. I have spent millions in my time. Indeed I feel justified in -saying that I have been a constant and deliberate spendthrift in the -most literal sense of the word. But, like you, I have an imagination -(although, unlike you, I have always prudently given my imagination the -wherewithal to work upon). Thus, in the teeth of a free and incessant -expenditure, my mind has always produced far more than my body could -possibly consume or my hands give away. And so I come at last to the -most tragic moment in a rich man's life: that in which he arranges for -others to spend what he himself has earned. - -But spent it must be. And when I consider your Lloyd heredity, your -childlike ignorance of the ease with which money is made, and your -crushing innocence of the difficulty with which it is spent, I feel I -can hardly put my future in better hands than yours. God bless you, my -dear nephew, and may your efforts at noble disbursement be attended by -success. - -Your affectionate uncle, - Allan D. Lloyd. - - -Robert's feelings beggared expression. - -Half dazed, he took out the second enclosure, a brief communication from -Messrs. Simons and Hunt, his uncle's attorneys. This notified him of -Mr. Lloyd's death, and confirmed the fact of his designation as the -residuary legatee. After putting an estimate of two million dollars on -the minimum value of the estate, Messrs. Simons and Hunt placed their -services at the disposal of the heir and announced their readiness to -receive his instructions. - -Followed a blank in Robert's consciousness. Slowly, very slowly, this -was replaced by the sound of the steamer throbbing its way across the -Atlantic. - - - - *IV* - - -The day after landing, Robert paid Messrs. Simons and Hunt a visit, with -the result that, on leaving their offices in lower Broadway, he was a -little less haunted by the suspicion that the reality was a dream. A -most reassuring item was tucked away in his pocket in the shape of an -advance of cold cash amounting to two thousand dollars, a sum far larger -than any he had ever been in possession of before. - -On the theory that excess of joy, like excess of sorrow, had better be -skimmed off by a long, brisk walk, Robert trusted to his two legs to get -him back to Kips Bay. He had planned no change in his habits as yet; -hence he still shared part of a model flat with the sporting editor of -one of the evening newspapers. - -He had just turned from the open court of the Lorillard tenement block -into the rather dark entrance, when what appeared to be a shadow on the -wall assumed solidity and life, stepped alertly forward, and tapped him -on the shoulder. - -"The one man in New York I particularly want to see," cried Mark Pryor, -in his cool, staccato tones. - -"The one man in New York I particularly want to avoid," retorted Robert, -not ill-naturedly, but with a lively remembrance of Pryor as the -engineer of his Parisian misadventures. "How in thunder did you know I -was back?" - -"I didn't. Luck simply drifted my way." - -His cordial handshake accelerated Robert's returning sense of the -reality of earthly affairs. Pryor might be slim and wiry enough to slip -in or out of the most impossible places. He might be as elusive as a -ghost. But there was nothing weak or spirituelle about his grasp of -one's hand or his grip on life. As for his voice, which had a ring of -decency and good intent always attractive to Robert, it dispelled -fanciful grudges and installed common sense. - -They went to lunch together in a favorite restaurant of Pryor's, a -little Austrian place in one of the side streets east of the Pershing -Square district. - -"A fine scrape you got me into with your tip about Paris!" began Robert, -as soon as they were served. - -"I've never seen you in better spirits," returned Pryor, cool as a -cucumber. "Are you engaged to marry Janet?" - -Robert stared at him. - -"No," he said emphatically. - -"Then you're not the man I took you for." - -"I'm not," said Robert, chuckling. - -So Pryor knew nothing of the inheritance! And if Pryor knew nothing, -who would know? He had rather supposed that the news would create -something of a stir. The Lorillard tenements and Kips Bay generally -should, in all conscience, have been agog with it. But so far not a -word had been said by anybody he had met. - -Clearly, it took a good deal to ripple the pachydermatous surface of -this monster city of New York! - -Well, he would volunteer nothing. It was just as well to keep one or -two cards up your sleeve, especially when you matched your wits against -a clever man like Pryor. - -Meanwhile Pryor did the talking. Did Robert mean to sit there and tell -him that he had missed the opportunity of a lifetime? He'd be blessed -if he ever threw him a chance like that again. - -"A chance!" interrupted Robert. "Are you sure it wasn't a noose?" - -"Don't talk through your hat, Lloyd," said Pryor, affecting indignation. -"Janet's a girl in a million. Whoever marries her is a made man." - -"You are a cool hand," said Robert, lost in admiration. "I don't know -what in thunder your game is. Let me say this, though. As a man of -mystery you may be as superb a demon as Mark Twain's _Mysterious -Stranger_. But as a matchmaker you're a hopeless old blunderbuss." - -He briefly outlined his recent experiences in Paris, including the -tableau of himself in the act of stumbling upon Janet and M. St. -Hilaire; he also sketched the sequel to this climax. - -Pryor's restless eyes remained singularly still during this recital. At -its close, he offered one enigmatic remark: - -"If Janet's coming to New York, we may yet be able to pull the chestnuts -out of the fire." - -In response to further questions, Robert gave a few intimate word -pictures of unpublishable incidents at the Geneva Labor Congress. He -also touched rather pepperily on his recall by the Confederated Press. - -"Serve you right," said Pryor. "To a plain man like me reformers who -try to change moral standards, whether for better or for worse, are a -nuisance. Too many obstacles cannot be put in their path." - -"All I did was to tell the truth about my own side," said Robert -indignantly. - -"What! Peach on your own side? Why, even the yeggmen consider that bad -form." - -Robert smiled in spite of himself. - -"Nonsense," he said. "Facts are facts. The truth is, Americans -habitually act like feeble-minded weaklings in the way they receive -criticism. And we radicals share the national infirmity. Let the least -suggestion of disapproval be levelled at _Columbia, the gem of the -ocean_, and all America foams at the mouth. This is a joke to -foreigners; it's a tragedy to us. I tell you, Pryor, unless Americans -learn to stand up to criticism like men and to tolerate dissent as the -English, the Germans, and even the French do, they'll stand where they -are--at the tail end of the procession of nations. Don't you agree with -me?" - -"Lord, yes! Have it your own way. Pull your fellow radicals to pieces -if necessary. Treat 'em rough. But don't slaughter 'em. Remember -they're the only leaven in the slimy dough." - -"For an avowed conservative, Pryor, that's going pretty far." - -"Oh, I'll go farther than that. I'll say that if the Confederated Press -were to come to grief--which Heaven forbid!--I should have no means of -getting at the real news of the world. None whatever. Unless I could -sneak into some private whispering gallery in Washington, D.C., or in -Wall Street, N.Y." - -"You perverse standpatter, what do you mean by sticking up for _my_ -side? It looks fishy to me. What's your little game now, I wonder?" - -"Lloyd, the time has come to give you a straight answer to that -question. I'm an agent of the Secret Service; at present, I'm detailed -to help the Department of Justice." - -"The deuce you are!" - -"My game has been to watch the most dangerous radicals in New York--some -five hundred of them--whose names are listed in the department's books. -You are one of the five hundred." - -"Really! I hope I've been a source of ample diversion? As a friend, I'm -always glad to oblige." - -"_Dienst ist dienst_, as the Germans say. While on duty, I had no -friends; I merely had five hundred suspects to keep track of. In point -of fact, my men have been through your effects several times. We found -nothing treasonable, nothing seditious, nothing compromising, except a -copy of the Declaration of Independence with the first eight lines -underscored. I tried to have your name removed from the black list. -But the damaging evidence aforesaid was the ground on which my -recommendation was ignored." - -"Is this a joke?" - -"No, it's the gospel truth. But you needn't feel as though you had been -singled out for persecution. Not at all. I'm a marked man as much as -you. If the Intelligence Service of the Government detects an atom of -intelligence in one of its agents, it makes it a special point always to -ignore that agent's recommendations. Never mind. I wrote out my -resignation this morning. Here it is. It goes to Washington at once." - -"Surely, Pryor, you have other reasons for resigning the job?" - -"Ah, now you're coming to it. For weeks past, I've been saturating my -mind with radical literature. Tons of it. From professional motives -solely, of course. After a studious and impartial consideration of -facts and principles, I've come to a very curious pass." - -"You don't mean to say that you've been converted!" said Robert, rising -excitedly from his chair. - -"Yes, I've been converted. Not to radicalism, mind. Personally, I'm a -firm believer in the aristocratic state as championed by Plato, Ruskin, -and Carlyle, the state in which the Government is carried on by those -whose equipment best fits them to govern. We'll reach this state--in -about a thousand years. Meanwhile, I've been converted not to -radicalism, but to the view that the radicals are right in theory and -the Government wrong in practice; the former right in demanding a -complete restoration of civil liberty and an enormous grant of -industrial liberty, the latter wrong in thwarting these demands." - -After a few moments spent in digesting Pryor's astonishing admissions, -Robert said: - -"One good surprise deserves another." - -"Fire away." - -"I've just inherited two million dollars!" - -Pryor was stupefied. - -"Where the blue blazes did you get it from?" he cried, his long neck -rising telescopically out of his stand-up collar. - -"That's one piece of information that hasn't drifted your way, at all -events," said Robert, taking a malicious pleasure in Pryor's -stupefaction. - -A marked pause followed. Then Pryor, having congratulated Robert, said -abruptly: - -"As far as I can see, nothing now stands in the way of your marriage to -Charlotte Beecher." - -"What do you mean?" - -Searching glances were exchanged. Each recognized in the other a man of -rare talent and unusual probity, and trusted him accordingly. Pryor -took the plunge. - -He remarked quietly that, during Robert's absence abroad, he and -Charlotte had become very good friends. He was well aware of her intense -attachment to Robert. She had, in fact, talked about it freely and -frankly to him. Thus he knew that she had taken the initiative in -proposing marriage to Robert, a very natural step, inasmuch as she was -in the vastly superior position. He knew, however that Robert had -refused on the ground of the extreme inequality of their circumstances. - -With the best will in the world, Robert found it difficult to reply. -Habit and custom were strong against a ventilation of his refusal and of -the real reasons underlying it. - -"The truth is," he said, after a second's hesitation, "Charlotte and I -would be very poor partners on a long dull grind, and this is what -modern marriage has become. We're excellent friends. We put a fine edge -on each other's faculties. When we meet, the blue sparks fly. In fact, -they fly too much." - -"Say what you like, she could at least take you to art galleries and -concerts, and count on you as a sympathetic companion. That's where I -failed her. I'm such a duffer in matters of art. And as for music! -Lord, I hardly know the difference between Beethoven and a beet." - -"Don't let that worry you. For all that Charlotte and I pull so well -together, our points of agreement are mostly on the surface. True, we -both get recreation from looking at pictures or sculpture and listening -to music. But not from the same pictures or sculpture, nor from the -same music. She's all for chastity and restraint in art--Hellenism or -aristocracy, you'd call it. She resents Strauss's volcanic turbulence; -Epstein's rough-hewn symbolism merely disgusts her; the brutal abandon -of Augustus John drives her mad. Yet I swear by these artists as she -swears by the Donatellos, Brahmses, and Raphaels whose exhibitions of -technical mastery bore me to extinction. We really have nothing in -common except our recognition of honest craftsmanship and our joy in the -clash of temperaments, instincts and opinions." - -"These differences that you speak of: how do you know that they matter?" - -"Because they go so deep. Her hopes are not my hopes, her dreams are -not my dreams, her gods are not my gods. These things are of the essence -of comradeship, and comradeship is the soul of love." - -"Well, I'm as much in love with Charlotte as any normally sane man can -be in love," said Pryor, quizzically. "But on the points you mention, -_I_ don't hit it off with her, either. Her Brahms and your Strauss are -equally Greek to me, and I'd give up their collective compositions in a -jiffy for half an hour of the "Mikado" or the "Gondoliers." - -He supposed he'd have to work backwards and find out what the essence of -comradeship consisted in. He sincerely trusted that it was not bound -up, in his case, with Charlotte's money. As it was, she was terribly -suspicious on that score. She was quite unshakable in the conviction -that Robert was the only man she had ever known who was not a fortune -hunter. - -"You see the devilish harm you've done," said Pryor, in conclusion, -"with your reputation for disinterestedness." - -"Quite an undeserved one, too," replied Robert, smiling. "Like most -reputations it was founded on my deficiencies and not on my -accomplishments. If I had known as much about money two years ago as I -do now, Charlotte might have a very different opinion of my -disinterested motives, as well as of me." - -He assured Pryor that he would do his level best to free Charlotte from -her delusion. In return, Pryor was to keep secret the fact of Robert's -accession to a fortune. - -"I'd like to enjoy the luxury of being a poor man with plenty of money -in my pocket," he said. - -Nobody was to be told and, in particular, the news was to be kept from -Janet. He didn't expect to indulge this rather childish whim for more -than a few days. All New York would be talking about his good luck by -that time, no doubt. - -"My dear fellow! A paltry two millions?" said Pryor with a short laugh. -"A mere pebble on the beach. Why, the reigning plutocrats here hand out -millions to charity as I'd give pennies to a beggar." - -They settled their bill. - -On their way out, Robert said: - -"Now tell me how you caught that blackguard Burley smuggling diamonds -for the Fontaines." - -"Who told you I caught them? In the strict etiquette of the Secret -Service, the names of the agents in specific cases are never made -public." - -"Oh, the information just drifted my way," said Robert, bantering him. -"Even without it, though, I should have put two and two together. -Nobody admires the richness and variety of your knowledge more than I -do, Pryor. Yet I'm bound to say that your disguises seem puerile to me. -Among the Outlaws, although we didn't guess the Secret Service, we -spotted you as a Pinkerton, or something of that sort, almost from the -first." - -"Precisely what I wanted you to do, my friend. My game was to spread -the truth broadcast. People simply will not believe the truth. Ask any -detective worth his salt and he'll tell you that being himself is the -best of all possible disguises, one that saves no end of trouble in -'make-up' and character acting. It causes every suspect to feel that he -and the sleuth are in each other's confidence, as it were. And this -puts people so much at their ease that they positively can't help giving -themselves away." - -"So that's how you double crossed Hutchins Burley?" - -"It's a long, amusing story, Lloyd. I'll keep the details for another -day. The poor wretch is doing five years in a Federal prison. Mr. Rene -Fontaine, for whom he was a mere tool, paid a fine of three million -dollars (not your beggarly two million!) without turning a hair, and -then decamped to England, where he lives in a regal villa somewhere in -Essex.--Lord, it's nearly three! I must make a move. Where are you -bound for?" - -"Home, now. California, the day after tomorrow." - -"California!" - -Robert explained that all his uncle's realty holdings were on the -Pacific Coast. His mother, too, was there. What with one thing and -another, his presence out West was imperative. - -"I shall return in two months for a quest of quite another sort," he -added, significantly. - -"Walk a few blocks towards the Subway with me," said Pryor, "and I'll -show you one of the high lights of our low life." - -As they drew near the Grand Central Palace, the streets grew thick with -people. Traffic along Lexington Avenue was suspended and a cordon of -New York's "finest" was drawn up in front of the Palace, with night -sticks polished to a turn. - -Robert and Mark Pryor had just reached the outskirts of the crowd, when -several imposing motor cars drew up in front of the exhibition building. - -"What on earth's the matter now?" said Robert. "Has our Anglo-American -Prince of Wales returned?" - -A very handsome young man with two richly dressed young ladies alighted -from the first car, whilst the moving picture brigade went into -immediate action and the crowds thundered out cheers. - -"It's the first day of the great Allied Armies' Bazaar," said Pryor. -"The Duchess of Keswick and Mr. and Mrs. Claude Fontaine are to open the -affair at three o'clock. There they go now." - -"What a match for him!" murmured Robert, setting eyes for the first time -on Marjorie Armstrong's proud beauty. - -"More than a match," said Pryor, softly. - - - - - *CHAPTER THIRTY* - - *I* - - -"You don't love me, Robert!" - -"It's false," he said, retreating. "I do love you. I've loved you -madly ever since you fled to Paris." - -"Then why do you run away? I don't want you to marry me. You're too -poor! But you might at least kiss me. Come back, Robert, please come -back!" - -Following him, she put her arms around his neck and clasped him tight. - -"Let me go, Janet. I won't marry you. I won't! I'll never, _never, -NEVER_ marry a woman who has had a free lover!" - -Still he receded, and ever so gently tried to unclasp her hands. - -"You needn't marry me, Robert. Only treat me just as you'd treat a man. -Don't you remember that you promised you would? You promised on the -pier in Kips Bay, when your heart was a free and a fetterless thing." - -She concentrated all her magic upon him, upon his pale thoughtful face -and discerning hazel-brown eyes. But look! The eyes were not -hazel-brown--they were a flashing blue! And these were not the mobile -sensitive features of Robert, but the bold virile features (somewhat -distorted by angry passion) of Claude. - -"What!" he cried. "Marry you here--here in Brussels--after all I've -suffered on your account? Serpent! Shall I never escape your sting?" - -Hovering somewhere in the background, a thin-edged female with -horn-rimmed spectacles took a malignant joy in fanning the flames of his -rage. - -Claude wrenched both her hands loose and flung them off, the violence of -the action sending her prone to the floor. - - - - *II* - - -Janet sat up in bed and shook back the tangles of her nut-brown hair. - -What a horrible nightmare! - -All on account of the rumpus started last night by the thin-edged female -with the horn-rimmed spectacles. - -Not in Brussels, but in New York. Not in the Grand Hotel, Boulevard -Anspach, but in the Susan B. Anthony House, Park Avenue, Mrs. R. H. L. -Jerome's new apartment house for self-supporting professional women with -children. - -Well, this particular rumpus had been settled, and the attack of -officious Pharisaism upon Janet's reputation had received a black eye. -Janet wondered whether the blow was to be recorded as a knockout or -merely as the end of the first round. - -Time would show. Meanwhile, she dressed and breakfasted; then, with all -the gravity of her twenty-seven years, she began to discharge the -responsible duties of manager of the House. - -But the memory of the nightmare would not down. Not even the excitement -she still felt in making the rounds of her three departments sufficed to -dispel it. In the children's section, she applauded the new floor games -which the kindergartner had invented for her wards; she became a ready -listener to the woes of the matron in charge of the household division; -on her way through the cuisine, she devoted her faculties to the task of -adjudicating the claims of the cook against the dietitian in command. -And she sought distraction in the stupendous thought that these three -great departments of the Susan B. Anthony House were coordinated in the -person of Miss J. Barr, the business manager and personal representative -of Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome. - -Yet, although these occupations drove away the haunting nightmare for -minutes at a time, they were impotent to banish it permanently. - -The chief trouble was, of course, that her nerves were still shaken by -the emotional explosion in which the whole House had been involved the -day before. The explosion was the cause of the nightmare. And the -nightmare itself, its several metamorphoses and all, had marched in such -a logical, well arranged order, that she was greatly tempted to tell it -to Lydia Dyson, the novelist, who was a crank on the subject of Freud -and dreams. - -Lydia, to be sure, would pronounce it a contemptible dream, lamentably -short of knives, pitchforks, corks, bottles and other shining symbolic -materials. Contemptible or not, she would none the less insist that it -must be submitted to a psychoanalyst. - -Yes, Lydia Dyson would torment her to be psychoanalyzed. With a smile -she recalled the novelist's visit to the Susan B. Anthony House a week -ago. Lydia, in search of material for her new novel, _The Soul Pirates_ -(expression derived from Cornelia Covert), had set the members of the -house to narrating their worst dreams. Then she had beguiled more than -half of them into having themselves psychoanalyzed by Aristide Cambeau, -an amazingly brilliant speaker whose lectures (at the Ritz--five dollars -a ticket!) were the latest social rage, and whose clinic was daily -besieged by a long queue of fashionable ladies impatient to have their -souls laid bare. - -Janet believed she could interpret her dream fully as well as the -fascinating Mr. Cambeau. - -Her attempt to do so led her to a review of her own recent history. - -Seven weeks ago she had returned with Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome to the United -States. Mrs. Jerome had resumed training her as soon as the Statue of -Liberty was sighted. Thus, the good lady reminded her that they had come -from England (where plenty of explosive insurrectionary material was -lying around) to their own land with its "tendency to normalcy" as a -noted politician expressed it. That is, they had come back to the -America of the women's vote, the high cost of living, the housing -shortage, the unemployment menace, the deportation of radicals and -Japanese, the reception of hoards of unhealthy South-European -immigrants, the ouija board, the stock market slump and jazz. The same -old America! It was reading "Main Street" just then; and Mrs. Jerome -opined that all America was reading the book, _not_ because it gave a -memorable picture of the soul of a nation in all its drab, desolating -mediocrity, but because it gratified the furious national craving to be -paid attention to and talked about, it mattered nothing whether in terms -of praise, disparagement or abuse. - -Mrs. Jerome's gloomy view rolled off Janet like water off a duck's back. -She had youth, enthusiasm, vigor; there was a great civilizing work to -be done. And though, as Mark Pryor took pains to assure her, it might -take a thousand years to do it, she threw herself into it heart and -soul, just as if the goal were attainable next year. - -Two weeks after their arrival in New York, the Susan B. Anthony House -had been opened, undemonstratively but successfully. Mrs. R. H. L. -Jerome, an omnipresent deity at first, relinquished the reins of -government gradually; all the reins save one, for it was well understood -that she was to be the power behind the scenes. Within a week, every -suite in the house was occupied and hundreds of applicants were turned -away. The rents, though far from low, were not unreasonable; and, as -special provision had been made for the care of children, and competent -experts placed in control of each department ("quality not quantity" was -the specific motto throughout), the house was a godsend for precisely -the ones it was designed to serve, that is, for self-supporting -professional women with one or two children. - -For a time, things had gone swimmingly. Almost too swimmingly. As the -news spread, social workers and social science students began to pay the -place a visit. Before long the unofficial busybodies followed and, with -the kindliest intentions in the world, did their level best to -disorganize the machinery of the house and subvert the discipline. - -And the reporters took up the scent! All the magazine sections of the -Sunday newspapers had articles describing Mrs. Jerome's "latest hobby." -Interviews with Mrs. Jerome--some real, some alleged--appeared in -increasing numbers and with increasingly pungent specimens of this -lady's sprightly wit. Writers of special features in the evening sheets -praised or deplored the "communal upbringing" of the children. The -photogravure supplements took up the sport and favored their readers -with pictures of every conceivable corner of the house, and also with -tableaux in which the children, looking remarkably happy and well -dressed, were grouped about three adults (from left to right): the -Duchess of Keswick, Mrs. R. H. L. Jerome and Miss J. Barr. - -Finally, the Infamous Players-Smartcraft Company offered a fabulous sum -for the use of the Susan B. Anthony House as the scene of an "action" -(with adagio "close-ups"), which it insisted on calling (doubtless in -irony) a "moving" picture. - -But the marvel of marvels was that, throughout this period of unbought, -unsought advertising, nobody breathed the suspicion that Miss J. Barr, -the calm, collected young manageress in the neat blouse and trim skirt, -might be the notorious Janet Barr who had eloped two years before with -Claude Fontaine! - -Then, one fine day, as she was leaving the Broadway side of Wanamaker's, -a man had leapt out of a magnificent limousine drawn up at the curb, and -had seized her hands. - -It was Claude himself! Handsome and imposing as ever, with perhaps a -dash less of self-confidence. - -He had implored her for a meeting later in the day. No, no, he wouldn't -make love to her, he solemnly swore he wouldn't! He wanted to get a -load off his conscience. His wife? Oh, he got along well enough with -Marjorie, only-- Well, surely Janet knew _why_ he had married her? -There had simply been no alternative! If Colonel Armstrong hadn't stood -back of Fontaine and Company at the time of the smuggling exposure, the -firm would have gone to smash. And so on-- - -Janet peremptorily refused to meet him. There was no sense in a -meeting, she urged. He was importunate. "What about my House?" said -she. "What about my state of mind?" said he. She had tried hard to be -firm. - -"Come not between the lion and his wrath or the tigress and her work," -she said, torn this way and that between the comedy and the tragedy of -the situation. - -To get rid of him, she had at length made an appointment for the -afternoon. - -The appointment was never kept! - -The sequel proved that her encounter with Claude had been observed. -That night the bloodhounds of scandal were unleashed in the Susan -Anthony House. The ring-leader was the thin-edged woman with the -horn-rimmed spectacles. - -This precious female was the mother of a whining little boy whose father -was authenticated by due process of law. The law had not sufficed, -however, to keep the gentleman faithful for long to the nuptial vows. -After his disappearance from New York, his wife was left to support -herself and to wreak vengeance where vengeance was not due. - -The first that Janet knew about the coming storm was when the dietitian -took her aside and told her that the house had been divided into two -camps: for and against Janet; or, as the anti-Janet crowd put it: for -and against Morality. - -Two days before the nightmare, things had come to a head. In the -absence of the manager, the anti-Janet faction had assembled under the -chairmanship of the thin-edged agitator. - -This lady had opened the meeting with the bitter announcement that those -present were liberal and fairminded, but that they had their children to -think of. Their darling children! Mothers, _married_ mothers, mind you -(and she, for her part, had consented to join the Susan B. Anthony House -_only_ on the confident assumption that _all_ the mothers were as -_regularly_ married as herself)--mothers, as such, could afford to take -no chances! Unhappily, she was persuaded that in the other camp there -were ladies who had more than _one good reason_ for standing by the -manager. She surmised that some of these ladies were _unmarried -mothers_! Scarcely mothers at all (if morals counted for anything), and -certainly no better than they should be. - -After much nursing of self-righteousness, suitable resolutions were -moved, and a deputation was appointed to present the facts to Mrs. R. H. -L. Jerome; also to demand the discharge of Janet and the vindication of -American morality. - -The great impeachment had occurred last night. Mrs. Jerome had motored -into town, and both factions had turned out for the occasion in the -large reception room on the ground floor. Mrs. Jerome had refused to -start the proceedings until Janet was seated at her right hand. This -settled, the thin-edged spokesman had made the formal charges. - -Then the fun had begun-- - -At this point, a telephone bell jangled across Janet's reflections. - -"Who is it?" she asked the switchboard girl. - -"Mr. Pryor." - -"Let him come up," said Janet eagerly. - - - - *III* - - -As usual, Mark Pryor's spare form was dressed from head to foot in -materials of one color. But even Janet noticed that, for once, the -inevitable stand-up collar, with its two prongs tilting its wearer's -chin upwards, had been replaced by a low-lying collar of creamiest silk. - -"Circles under the eyes!" he began severely. "What's wrong?" - -"Nightmares, witches, broomsticks," she replied laughing. - -"Out with it!" he commanded. - -In her calm, clear tones she gave him a graphic account of the -unpleasantness of the last few days, from its inception in her chance -encounter with Claude Fontaine down to the demand made upon Mrs. Jerome -for her dismissal. - -"And how did little Apple Dumpling meet this demand?" inquired Pryor. - -"Like a trump! Said she'd stand by me to the limit--also that the Susan -B. Anthony House, being designed for busy people and not for -busy*bodies*, Mrs. Farrar (the one with the horn-rimmed spectacles) -would have to vacate at the end of the week. Further that, in the -future, it is to be a fixed rule of the house that any mother, married -or unmarried, may become a tenant, and no questions asked other than -those needed to satisfy Mrs. Jerome or her representative that the -applicant is both self-supporting and self-respecting--" - -"Bravo!" - -"And, furthermore, she then and there dictated a letter to be sent to -the liberal weeklies in New York, informing their readers of the -adoption of this new rule." - -"Hurrah!" cried Pryor. "The next time anybody queries, in the words of -the immortal William: - - "'What king so strong - Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?' - -I'll answer: No king; but let me tip you the name of a _queen_--Mrs. R. -H. L. Jerome, the magnificent. _She_ can turn the trick." - -"Yes, she's a perfect darling. Do you know, I didn't mind the -backbiting of those silly women a bit. But Mrs. Jerome's unhesitating -support made me want to cry." - -She added that in a private conversation with the dear lady she had -urged her own resignation as a matter of practical wisdom. Wasn't the -cause greater than the individual?--"Rubbish!" Mrs. Jerome had replied -with a considerable show of heat. No cause was worth the cowardly -abandonment of a comrade! For two thousand years men had prated of the -holy duties of friend to friend, and had committed one crime against -friendship after another. And when these crimes were committed, what -did they do? They folded their hands, raised pious eyes to heaven, and -sang (through their noses), "Alas for the rarity of Christian charity!" -etc. Well, women would show them that the time to be loyal was not when -the pack curried favor with your friend but when it turned to rend him. - -"What do you mean to do now?" asked Pryor. - -"I shall stick it out. After all, I'm not looking for social or -official favors. All I ask is to be allowed to do the best work of -which I'm capable. Surely, I have that right." - -"So you think," said Pryor drily. "But bear in mind that for every -_bona fide_ worker in New York, there are nine idlers or time wasters, -nine breeders of noise, disorder and disease. And don't forget that the -chief objection to the idler is not that he neglects his own work, but -that he insists on interrupting or damaging yours. The doer is the -waster's sworn enemy to all eternity. And the waster knows it! -Therefore, he spies out your vulnerable spot: social, economic, psychic, -whatever it be; and the first moment he catches you off guard, he sends -his poisoned arrow straight to your Achilles' heel." - -"I suppose I must take my chance of that. What else can I do?" - -"You might imitate me." - -"Imitate you! What do you mean?" - -"Why, get married! I'm going to marry Charlotte Beecher." - -"But I thought that Charlotte--" - -"Yes, she's very fond of Robert Lloyd. And I'm only her second string. -But bless your wayward curls, we're all second strings on somebody's -violin! What's the odds--especially after the first string has snapped? -I've been madly in love myself, twice before. Once, down south in -Colon, with a dusky Isthmian beauty. The second time, with you." - -"Don't be silly, Mark, or I shall stop envying Charlotte her -extraordinary good luck." - -"Hers _and_ mine! Charlotte was looking for a husband with enough -brains to manage a fortune, and yet with heart enough not to love her -for her fortune alone. I was looking for a wife with heart enough to -lay her fortune at my feet, and yet with enough brains to permit me to -enjoy her society. Are we well matched or not?" - -"'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment,'" quoted -Janet, laughing. - -"Now you're talking sense as well as poetry, dear girl." - -"I didn't say I'd follow your example, though." - -"All in good time! It's human nature for young blood to rebel against -wedlock--and to come around to it in the long run. Marriage, as Lydia -Dyson says, is the easiest way!" - -"Yes, for Lydia, who changes her lover once a season, while her husband -stays at home and keeps the household in smooth running order. But my -needs don't run in Lydia's line." - -Pryor admitted this. But he pointed out that marriage was a human -institution. There it was, for every one of us to reckon with. Either -you made use of it, or it made use of you. Sensible people adopted the -former alternative. - -"Why, look at me!" he said, waxing strangely eloquent. "I've knocked -about the world a good bit in the last twenty years. A born adventurer -if ever there was one. Do you see me settling down to matrimony like -any spirit-broken married man in the pinchbeck salaried class? No, by -Jupiter! I've waited for the right conditions to come to pass so that I -could take up marriage as one more great adventure." - -"Your last one, Mark!" said Janet, bantering him. - -More seriously, she asked him whether all his other adventures had been -in the Secret Service. - -"Lord no! I've taken a shot at all sorts of jobs and been all sorts of -things from a West Point cadet to a buccaneer in the South Seas." - -This quiet, self-contained man, spare of frame but tough as a hickory -stick, had he really been a gorgeous sea-rover? Looking into his -humorously inquisitive gray eyes, Janet could not doubt his words. And, -like Desdemona entranced by Othello, she listened whilst he dipped into -a store of reminiscences and, in his own inimitably laconic style, gave -her an outline of his picturesque career. - -Pryor as a West Point cadet, as a lieutenant in the Engineer Corps, in -service against the Moros in the Philippines, on the sanitary staff in -the thick of the Panama Canal construction, again as a civilian on a -dare-devil voyage to Tahiti--these pictures took the romantic side of -Janet by storm. She made him tell the Tahitian story most minutely, and -hung on his lips with bated breath as he recounted the capture of his -tiny steamer by real pirates who gave him a Hobson's choice of joining -them in their marauding trips near the Society Islands, or of walking -the plank. - -"But I never gave full satisfaction anywhere," he concluded ruefully. -"Secrets that I had better not have known were incessantly coming my way -and causing me no end of trouble. Once, when we unexpectedly sighted a -Dutch merchantman laden with coffee and spices, I ran up the red flag -instead of the black! My shipmates swore that I did it on purpose and -assured me that, as a pirate, I was a failure. It was true. I _was_ a -failure! Almost a dead failure, in fact, for they left me on what they -thought was a desert island." - -When he got back to the United States, the Great War had begun, but the -officials in Washington were extremely slow to utilize his services. -His record was against him. He was one of those men with whom two and -two didn't inevitably make four, but sometimes footed up to a sum that -included human as well as mathematical factors. For an army man, this -was a fatal defect. - -Impatient to be of use, he eventually joined the Secret Service. - -"Why?" asked Janet. - -"Nothing else was open to me," he replied, with a twinkle in his roving -eyes. "When a man is a pronounced failure, there are only three -professions that will take him into their ranks: those of detective, -writer and teacher. I chose the first as the least degrading of the -three. Also because it gave me a chance to use my gift as a telepath, -an elemental telepath." - -"You can't pretend that you haven't made good at _that_!" - -"Oh, I've done so-so." - -"So-so!" cried Janet indignantly. "Look how you caught Hutchins Burley -red-handed!" - -"True enough. I'm bound to confess, however, that I went to the pier to -arrest him for treason. When his boxes of Oriental books were opened, -it was the smuggled diamonds that we found and not (as I had predicted) -the evidence of his sale of United States military secrets to the -Japanese. Later on, we got that evidence too; but that was Smilo's -doing more than mine. Ah, wait till you hear Robert's opinion of my -sleuthing skill." - -"Oh, Robert!" she said, with the faintest quiver of her lip. "He hasn't -been near me. I'm not even sure that he's in America." - -"Well, he is! And I happen to know that urgent business is keeping him -out of New York." - -"What can it be?" - -"It's a peculiar business. In a sense, it's the reverse of what I was -engaged upon. I was in pursuit of rogues; but rogues are in pursuit of -him." - -"I must say, you're as enigmatic as ever." - -"Only till tomorrow, Janet. I pledge my word to have everything -explained to your satisfaction if you'll come tomorrow to Charlotte's -studio in Washington Mews. The party begins at four." - -"The party!" - -"Precisely. An engagement party for Charlotte; a surprise party for -you." - -Saying which, and protesting that he had talked her deaf, dumb and -blind, and affirming that he had never felt so horribly out of character -in his life, Mark Pryor gravely took his leave. - - - - *IV* - - -In fulfillment of her promise, Janet went the following afternoon to the -converted stable in Washington Mews where Charlotte Beecher cultivated -sculpture in an atmosphere of aristocratic Bohemianism. It was the same -studio in which, of old, Cornelia Covert had luxuriated whenever the -routine of Outlawry in Kips Bay got on her nerves. - -Spring and hope in a young woman's breast usually add love to their -number. In Janet's case they added thoughts of Robert. All morning she -had been plagued with a feeling, amounting to a conviction, that he -would be at Charlotte's party. But when she reached the Mews, she found -that Pryor and Lydia Dyson were the only other guests at a gathering -which bade fair to be intimate and exclusive. - -For a minute or two her spirits were considerably dashed. She waited for -Pryor's advertised surprise to eventuate; but she waited in the dark, -nobody offering so much as a ray of enlightenment. - -While Lydia Dyson stretched herself supine upon the magnificent tiger -rug before the blazing fire, Pryor fetched wineglasses and poured out -champagne. - -"Here's to those about to wed!" cried Lydia, raising her glass, and then -quoting: - - "'Farewell, happy fields where Joy forever dwells, - Hail Horrors!'" - - -"You might give us a more cheerful toast, old girl," protested -Charlotte. - -"An occasion like this conduces to high philosophy rather than to vulgar -good cheer," retorted Lydia, whose Egyptian beauty--ebony hair against a -pale olive skin--had never been more stunning. "However, since you wish -it, I'll take another shot: 'Here's to continued failure for all of -us!'" - -"Lydia, you _are_ a merry soul today," exclaimed Janet, amidst the -general laughter. - -"And why not?" inquired Lydia, with a provoking drawl. "Why not? When I -see my last blood curdler running well into the two hundred thousands!" - -"Lydia is right," said Pryor. "In the present state of civilization, -all the best people are failures, glorious failures." - -He contrasted the fortunes of Lydia's pornographic romances with the -fate of her one serious experiment in fiction. The romances sold like -hot cakes. But the serious work, a short novel in which, with pitiless -Hogarthian realism, she had developed an episode between a brother and a -sister, had been refused by her publisher on the ground that "it was too -terrible!" Then there was his own case! Had he not failed as a -detective because too much secret information was always breezing his -way? - -"Don't forget our young feminist over there," cried Lydia, indicating -Janet. "Don't forget her, or her heroic gesture against wedlock!" - -"A bark is not as good as a bite," retorted Janet. "But isn't it better -than a tame crawl into the yoke?" - -By way of reply, Lydia half raised herself from the tiger skin and, in -measured tones, recited: - -"O Dewdrop, thou hast fought the better fight--in vain! Some women are -born to be wedlocked, some achieve wedlock, and some have wedlock thrust -upon them. Janet belongs to the first group, Charlotte belongs to the -second, I belong to the third." - -"You to the third!" cried Charlotte. "How do you make that out? From -all I see, though Charley Morrow is a perfect dragon of jealousy, you -cling to him pretty tightly." - -"I have to, Charlotte! I have to keep him in countenance (and in pocket -money, too!), because I'm afflicted with what the doctors call 'a -floating stomach.' Now, Charley is not only the best housekeeper in New -York, he's the best cook, too. There's simply nobody else whom I can -depend on not to sneak lard instead of butter into my bread--" - -"Or to mix cottonseed oil instead of olive oil with your salads?" thrust -in Pryor. - -"Precisely. Sometimes, when I eat at home I say: How can I stand -Charley another twenty-four hours? Next day I eat at a restaurant, and -say: I can stand Charley forever!" - -They all laughed, and Lydia buried herself in the rug again. - -"All the same," she went on meditatively, "I've never really got used to -marriage. It's a well of never-ending surprises." - -"What about _my_ surprise?" asked Janet, for the fourth time. - -The bell rang and Charlotte went to the door a few feet away. - -"Here it comes!" announced Pryor, as a man entered. - -"Janet!" - -"Robert!" - -Greetings all round cut their glances short. - - - - *V* - - -Janet was struck with the fact that he had never looked better. Robert, -as dynamic as a battery giving out blue sparks, was familiar enough to -her. But Robert, with a deepening pink spreading over his pale cheeks, -and with a suit that showed the craftsmanship of a fashionable Fifth -Avenue tailor, was a sight to make one gasp and stare. Nor was this -all. In times past, she had often conjured up a picture of him poised -as on a springboard, preparing to leap upward to join the spirits of the -air. But there was nothing aerial about the way in which his feet now -gripped the solid ground. - -She couldn't get over the change! - -When he alluded briefly to a trip to California from which he had just -returned and on which he appeared to have done some work for the -Confederated Press, she had the sensation of not being in a secret that -all the rest shared. This was the sort of discourtesy that had hitherto -been taboo in Charlotte's crowd, and she resented being made a victim of -it. - -"Then the Confederated Press knew better than to give you your walking -papers?" drawled Lydia. - -"They knew nothing," replied Robert. "I simply paid them to keep me on -and to let me say exactly what I pleased." - -This was more mystifying to Janet than ever. - -Presently, Mark Pryor proposed a walk to the Lorillard model tenements -to inspect Number Fifteen, Cornelia's old flat. It turned out that -Robert had rented it and that Donald Kyrion, perhaps the youngest and -certainly the most talented interior designer in New York, had decorated -it for him as a labor of love. Pryor pronounced the result: "Art that -congealed art!" - -"Donald Kyrion?" said Lydia. "If Robert got him to do anything for -nothing he ought to get the Nobel prize for wonder-working." - -"Ahem!" said Pryor, and again he and Robert exchanged knowing glances. - -Charlotte protested with all her soul against being dragged to Kips Bay. -Now that Robert could earn an honest living, why didn't he rent a -lodging in a decent locality instead of consorting with the Outlaws -who--what with their talk of wrongs, their love of dirt, and their smell -of tobacco--were tiresome enough to bore Mephistopheles himself. - -"The Outlaws parted company with me long ago," replied Robert, putting -up a vigorous defence. "It is not they who lure me back." - -He said that the Outlaws were, after all, not the whole of Kips Bay. -They were the most picturesque element in the population, but they were -only a tiny fraction of the total. True, they behaved in every respect -as though no other element besides their own existed. Wasn't this, -however, merely a proof that they were New Yorkers to the manner born? -It was, in fact, undeniable that there were plenty of simple, -self-respecting toilers in Kips Bay, plenty of them right in the very -citadel of Outlawry, the Lorillard model tenements themselves. Nay, -candor compelled the admission that there were even "rich but honest" -toilers in the Kipsian district--to be specific, in the new "art -colonies" planted around Sutton Terrace and Turtle Bay Gardens. - -He had found this out after the dispersal of Cornelia's set. Force of -circumstances having obliged him to look out into the Kips Bay that -extended beyond the model flats, he had learned how parochial, in their -assumptions about the district, the Outlaws had been. - -"The fact is," he added, "I often think it's a hankering after the paths -of rectitude and respectability that makes me enjoy a Lorillard -flat--for short stretches only, needless to say. Anyhow, the older I -get and the more I study the flibbertigibbet Bohemian in _his_ lair and -the heavy-footed Bourgeois in his, the more I'm struck with the bond -between them." - -"The bond, Robert!" exclaimed Charlotte. "Call it a touching point, -common ground, but don't call it a bond." - -"Well, it's a hidden bond. For the irregular doings of the strait-laced -people and the comparatively regular doings of the gypsies show me how -Bohemian the Bourgeois is, and how Bourgeois the Bohemian." - -"What Robert says reminds me forcibly of a passage in _Gulliver's -Travels_," interposed Mark Pryor. "I mean the passage in which the -horses, the noble highborn creatures that govern, move about stark -naked, whilst the Yahoos, the loathsome human creatures that live like -beasts, yearn to cover their shame with rags and strings of beads." - -"For the matter of that," continued Robert, "look at our little group -here. We've all lived and worked quite contentedly in the thick of Kips -Bay. Yet there's nothing in our daily behavior at which a Philistine of -the deepest dye would turn a hair. Where, in fact, could one find a -more incurably respectable lot of people--always counting out Lydia who, -I believe, is still a member in good standing among the Outlaws?" - -"Look here, old boy!" Lydia called out. "Are you attacking or defending -me?" - -"As the supreme ornament of Charlotte's studio, you can always count on -my homage, Lydia. But as an Outlaw, you must expect no quarter. I've -lived among the Outlaws and weighed them in the balance." - -"Meaning what?" said Lydia, groaning for effect. "That their honor -rooted in dishonor stands?" - -"Not a bad way of putting it, Lydia," replied Robert, smiling. "Shall I -give you the gist of Outlawry? Well, it is an excrescence of -Radicalism, often a decorative, sometimes a merely indecorous -excrescence. The purpose of Radicalism is to remove the obstacles that -lie athwart the course of life, of life aspiring to an estate infinitely -higher than that of man. What part in this mighty purpose is played by -the mummers of Greenwich Village, the camp-stool triflers of Washington -Square, the picarescos of Kips Bay, and the other Outlaw aggregations?" - -"They stand for insurgency, don't they?" drawled Lydia. - -"For insurgency, yes. But what sort of insurgency? Your typical Outlaw -'insurges' against perfectly harmless laws and conventions: obstacles of -no importance. And at the very same time, he conforms to ruthlessly -strangling laws and conventions: obstacles that really matter." - -"Kips Bay or bust!" announced Lydia, reluctantly abandoning her tiger -skin as the only alternative to a pursuit of Robert's theme. - - - - *VI* - - -On the walk uptown, Lydia attached herself to Pryor and Charlotte, while -Robert with Janet soon fell far behind. - -What a first aid to free speech an independent income is! Dozens of -questions which, in Paris, had stuck on the tip of Robert's tongue now -rolled off as freely as down a buttered slide. He was the first to -break boldly into the vicious circle of topics of the day. - -"You'd better return my pearls and diamonds!" he began with a grave -smile. "As for me, I'll send back all your letters and also the lock of -your hair that I've worn next my heart." - -He said that there was only one conclusion to be drawn from the unbroken -silence she had maintained ever since the end of the partnership of Barr -and Lloyd; an end, he reminded her, not of _his_ making. - -Well, she liked that! She had written long letters, addressed to -Cornelia, but expressly intended for the whole Lorillard circle; and, -seeing that several people had replied, it would seem that her intention -had been respected. In these letters she had more than once fished for a -crumb of sympathy from him. She might say that, on reaching the very -bottom of the ladder of luck, she had signalled to him almost as -abjectly as Dives had to Lazarus. But no Lazarus had responded. - -This reproach led, on both sides, to a rapid fire of questions and -answers in the course of which one of their chief misunderstandings was -cleared up. Janet learned that Cornelia had never shown her letters to -Robert. What she had done was to give him subtly to understand that -Janet, in the hope of inducing Claude to legitimate their love affair, -was prudently burning her Kips Bay connections behind her. - -"It was only one of a score of things that Cornelia did to queer the -pitch between us," was Robert's comment. - -They were silent for a space, whilst they adjusted their thoughts to a -much clearer interpretation of the curious way that Cornelia had acted -out her part in the triangle of their relations. - -Robert's mind reverted to a bit of news which Pryor had passed on to him -the night before, after the arrival of the San Francisco Limited at the -Pennsylvania Station. Pryor had picked up the information in the course -of an interview with Hutchins Burley in the Tombs, where the fallen -editor, garbed as a Federal convict (he had begun to serve his sentence -for smuggling), was being detained to testify against a former -confederate in the Japanese espionage case. Burley, raging like the bull -of Bashan, had lashed out against all the people who had ever given him -offence, and against some who hadn't. As a by-product of sheer, -overflowing hatred, he had let slip the item that it was to Cornelia -that he was really indebted for having been able to get on Janet's track -in Brussels. Cornelia had not known Janet's precise whereabouts, yet -she had shown Burley the letters, the very letters she had withheld from -Robert! This was a piquant bit of gossip, but Robert decided to suppress -it for the time being. Until he had finished with the delicate job he -had in hand! - -Crossing Astor Place, they proceeded along Bookworm Lane to Union -Square. Janet stopped halfway and pointed out a quaint old shop where -she had bought at secondhand many of the text-books used in her Evening -Law School. "You are on the primrose path of dalliance!" exclaimed -Robert, who heard of these studies for the first time. "Do you keep -your mother posted regarding your wicked ways or has she closed the -front door to you forever, as she threatened?" - -"No, the front door has been left on a crack," said Janet. And she -recounted a visit she had lately paid her home. The family atmosphere -was exactly as she had left it, the only change being that her father, -having retired from business as the result of a serious accident, had -ceased to be even the titular head of the house. - -"The poor old man, a mere ghost of his former handsome self, was in a -state of coma, Robert. And I fear that, as his salary days are over, -his approaching dissolution is being firmly and not too gently -accelerated. He sat huddled up in an invalid's chair, from time to time -mumbling that he hoped I'd be a sensible girl, and stay with them in -Brooklyn now, and learn to appreciate my mother for the brave and -unselfish woman she has always been! He'll lick the whip to the very -last breath. The sight of him was heartrending!" - -Otherwise, the atmosphere of the Barr household had not changed one -whit. The same musty, fusty ideas prevailed, and the same hollow, -stagnant, make-believe existence went on. Here, at least, was one spot -in America where pre-war conditions prevailed unchallenged! - -"How could I ever have stood it as long as I did! Mother pecked at my -cheek and, without turning a hair, asked me was I coming home at last -(to be a young lady of the house I suppose!) or did I mean to go on -wasting the Lord's time? Wasting the Lord's time! I replied that if she -was alluding to my work and to my legal studies--which together occupied -me from ten to sixteen hours a day--wasting the Lord's time wasn't the -picnic it sounded like. She muttered something about the wages of sin -being death! 'Oh, no,' I said, 'I get a very fat salary from Mrs. R. H. -L. Jerome.' I mentioned the exact figure--the amount quite made Emily -sit up!--and I added that Mrs. Jerome, my friend as well as my employer, -had undertaken to advance my career. - -"Well, it seemed to me that this piece of news stumped mother a bit, -although she closed her eyes in that trance-like, oblivious way of hers -and affected never to have heard of a Mrs. Jerome. Perhaps she really -hadn't. Nobody has ever fathomed the bottomless ignorance of the Barr -mind." - -"Nobody _could_--not even God!" said Robert. - -Janet nodded and went on: - -"Don't forget that the Barrs are inordinately vain and aggressively -jealous of the things they don't know. This is the fact that makes -their ignorance sublime! Take Emily. I got her to talk about herself -for a while. She is now one of the head teachers in a public high -school. Her devotion to her business is pathetic. She teaches, eats, -sleeps--and teaches! Once in a while she shops or sews. These acts -complete the cycle of her life from day to day, from year to year. No -books, no concerts, no theatres, no travel, no meditation, no -self-training, no real companionship with equals or superiors--never one -piercing or shattering experience of novelty--nothing that might make -the pulse go fast or the heart beat high. 'But how can you teach them -anything real, anything about life?' I maliciously asked her." - -"'Anything real!' she sneered. 'I suppose you mean romantic adventures! -Well, teaching is real enough for me. I study the science of pedagogy -every night of the week. And when I want to learn anything more about -life, I read the _Saturday Evening Post_!' - -"Yes, Robert; it sounds like a line from _The Old Homestead_. But -that's exactly what she said." - -"I don't doubt it," said Robert. "I know the Barrs of Brooklyn. I've -met them in every part of the United States, and one runs across them -even in Europe. Age cannot wither nor custom stale their infinite -monotony. As on creation's day, so they'll remain till the trump of -doom." - -"Of course, Mother isn't as stupid as Emily, not by half," said Janet. -"Her behavior at parting convinces me that she really does have an -inkling of who Mrs. Jerome is and of how my position near this -influential lady sends my stock up in the world of cash realities. When -I left, she didn't peck at my cheek as at first. No, she kissed me -almost affectionately and said, in a tone so relenting that I'm sure -Emily was greatly shocked: 'Now that you've found the way back, my -child, come and see us again soon.' And I had always believed that -Mother's moral and religious prejudices were incorruptible--absolutely -money-proof, if nothing else in this age was! It was quite a blow to -me." - -"Never mind," rejoined Robert. "We're all easily taken in by other -people's moral counterfeit. Haven't you observed that it's usually a -Barr who circulates the Biblical saying that a man cannot serve both God -and Mammon? Yet, though too modest to acknowledge it, the Barrs -themselves accomplish this miracle daily. It's precisely the Barrs who, -in their heart of hearts, worship these two deities as one." - -They had now reached the Lorillard tenements. In the dimly lit foyer of -the middle house they rested on the settee, quite as in the chummiest -days of Barr and Lloyd. - -"Speaking of Mammon," he resumed, in the most offhand way imaginable, -"don't you think you ought to marry a rich man? Of course I mean your -own sort of rich man, not the St. Hilaire sort." - -Janet gave him a puzzled look. - -"I should hate a welter of trivial responsibilities," she said -decisively. "A great big house and a lot of servants to manage--to say -nothing of a husband!--the mere prospect terrifies me." - -"Now I'm doubly sure that we're birds of a feather, Janet! Still, -aren't you rather difficult to please? In Paris you said you wouldn't -marry a man if he was poor? Here you say you won't marry a man if he's -rich." - -"Does it matter, Robert? What rich man is likely to ask me?" - -"You're quite wrong. One is asking you now." - -"You!" Had he suddenly lost his senses? - -"I've inherited a couple of millions, Janet!" - -He briefly put her in possession of the facts. Then he made her a -formal offer of marriage, in tones so restrained that she could hardly -guess the immortal longing beneath them. - -"I need a partner to share the rich man's burden!" he said, with a -quizzical smile. "And I know from experience that you are the one -partner in the world for me." - -"No!" she said, her eyes half closed, her cheeks rather pale. "I--I'm -not sure that I'm ready for marriage." - -"Oh, don't let that stop you! Nobody is ever ready for birth, marriage, -or death. We're just plunged in--doubts, hesitations, and all. You -don't suppose any sane man or woman _wants_ to take the plunge, do you? -I know _I_ don't. But since I've got to marry somebody, I've made up my -mind to marry no one but you." - -"At least you're quite frank," she said, with a rather trembling lip. - -"Are you angry? Heaven knows it would be easier for me to use the stock -phrases on which we were brought up and fed up. But you're a woman of -the new age! And I'm proposing partnership to an equal, to a fellow -worker--not to a goddess-drudge!" - -They both rose from the settee. - -"Surely," he said, wondering at her silence, "it isn't the Free Love -philosophy that's in the way?" - -"No, no!" she said, emphatically. "I thought I'd told you that in -Paris." - -She repeated that she was done with all that! She admitted that, for a -time, Cornelia had won her over to what Bernard Shaw called the -_Love-Is-All_ school of fanatics. And, so she feared, she had actually -believed in her own readiness to give up _All for Love_! But the hard -knocks of the last two years had opened her eyes to the inadequacy as -well as to the inexpediency of this philosophy. When the Hutchins -Burleys, the Cornelia Coverts, the women with horn-rimmed spectacles, -and their like--when these successively popped up to interfere with her -purposes, she had realized that love, far from being _all_ to her, was -simply one of her heart's desires. She still held to the view that the -love relation between two people should be subject to no other law than -that of their own consciences. And she still hoped that society would -be converted to this view, although she no longer had a mind to risk her -soul's welfare in its behalf. - -"You see, Robert, how fully I've come round to your opinion! If I'm to -risk my salvation for anything, it must be for something bigger than the -love chase." - -After a pause, she added, with a faintly ironical smile: - -"For something bigger, too, than a mere husband, don't you think?" - -"But you won't risk your salvation with me, Janet," said Robert, coming -close to her side. "You're in a position to make your own terms, -absolutely--for have you I must! Stick to your practical terms but not -to your abstract ideas. And be generous! Remember, a man who's obliged -to take care of a fortune, needs a wife to take care of him." - -"Indeed! But why expect one able-bodied human being to 'take care of' -another human being, equally able-bodied? Or why ask a woman to become -what men gallantly call a ministering angel, but what ought bluntly to -be called a domestic drudge?" - -"I admit it's a very stupid arrangement. Yet at present it's the only -tolerable arrangement I know of. Unquestionably, it's haphazard, -wasteful, anarchic! And no doubt a later generation of men and women, -fired with a collective purpose, will regulate domestic affairs much -better. But what am I to do? Wasn't I born and bred on the -understanding that some ministering angel would drudge my home to -rights? Well, I'm extremely uncomfortable without one!" - -"Selfish wretch. Do you know what Mrs. Jerome says?" - -"No." - -"She says that women have been men's cat's-paws long enough. It's time -for them to abdicate the job. If we are to make any headway, the -unmarried girls will have to be strong enough and self-respecting enough -to refuse the empty honors offered as bribes for their servitude. They -must put a high price on their freedom!" - -"Good! I offer you a million dollars, cash down, for yours. It's half -my fortune." - -Janet turned away, chilled to the soul. - -"You're mocking me," she said. - -"Not a bit of it," he retorted, following her. "I don't propose to live -with an economic inferior. Such a course would wreck us at the start. -That there can be no genuine comradeship between people of unequal means -is a truth which every philosopher from Plato to William James has -pointed out." - -"Did they point it out, in the midst of a proposal?" - -He held both her hands in a firm grip. - -"Darling, don't pretend to misunderstand me. Do you want me to sink to -my knees in this public place and overwhelm you with ardors and -protestations? It's easy enough, and I'm quite mad enough now. Mad -with the enchantment of your touch, that turns my heart to fire; with -the music of your voice, in which I hear all Elfland calling; with your -haunting mystery and lilac fragrance, at which my senses reel and swim! -I'm ninety-nine parts drenched with ecstasy! If you reproach me because -one thin gleam of sanity still remains at the helm I shall be--" - -"Arithmetical!" - -At the word, he seized her and kissed her and--Time being Love's -fool--they were imparadised in each other's arms. - - - - *VII* - - -After a while, between endearments, she managed to say: - -"So you _do_ want me to make a marriage of convenience?" - -"No, I want you to make a convenience of marriage. That's what all -sensible people do." - -"Splendid! Then you won't expect me to give up the Susan B. Anthony -House? I couldn't leave Mrs. Jerome in the lurch now, you know." - -"Of course not!" he said. - -She was to go on with her work, he with his. They should have living -places to be alone in, and living places to be together in, like the -Havelock Ellises. They'd have a house together in the mountains or the -seashore, remote from other people--a biggish house, this would perhaps -have to be. But she need manage it no better (or no worse, he trusted) -than she now managed the Susan B. Anthony House. - -Janet laughed at his incorrigible, man-made outlook on the future. -Indulgent and happy, she rested her head on his shoulder. - -"Why didn't you take your own advice," she asked, "and marry some -independently rich woman--Charlotte, for instance?" - -"Because there are a good many women that I could work with, yet never -love. And some few that I could love, yet never work with. But there's -only one that I could work with _and_ love as well. At least, I've -never met another." - -"That's a very pretty speech, Robert, for you. We _were_ good comrades, -weren't we? In the days of Barr and Lloyd!" - -"From now on, Barr and Lloyd, Inc." - -"But it isn't the same Barr nor the same Lloyd that are to be -incorporated again. Suppose we prove not to be good comrades, this -time?" - -"In that case, we shall hie us to some genuinely civilized -country--Sweden or Cape Comorin--where breach of comradeship is the sole -ground for divorce--" - -Indignant voices from the staircase penetrated their mutual absorption. - -"Where in the world can they be!" - -"So this is your _radical_ hospitality!" - -"Robert--latest method?--proposing by telepathy--imperfect -communications--vast silences--heavenly harmony--" - -"Pooh! Janet's no fool--nothing like a bee line--marriage license -bureau--bird in the bush, you know--" - -Blushing and looking like culprits, they climbed the stairs and braved -the mock indignation meeting which their three friends were holding in -the hall between flats 13 and 15. (Robert had rented both flats, as a -surprise for Janet.) - -Lydia went straight to Janet and enfolded her in a copious embrace, -whilst Charlotte stood by, ready for a cordial handshake. Mark Pryor, -stupefied at this exhibition of feminine perspicacity, could only stare -at Robert and mutter: - -"What! Already?" - -"Was ever woman in this humor won!" drawled Lydia, as she led the way -into Number Thirteen, Kelly's old flat. "I must say, Janet, I'm not much -impressed with Robert's 1921 revision of the Lord of Burleigh stunt. -Like all modern versions of fine old idylls, it's gingerbread without -the ginger. Give me the village painter who leads his sweetheart to a -palace! There's the thrill that comes but once in a lifetime. But -fancy a millionaire taking his bride to a Kips Bay model tenement--and -Number Thirteen at that!" - -"You forget," said Robert, who, with Pryor, had followed the ladies in. -"You forget that '_leiser Nachhall längst verklungner Lieder, zieht mit -Erinnenings-Schauer durch die Brust_." - -"Which means, I take it," Pryor said: - - "'I saw her then, as I see her yet, - With the rose she wore, when first we met.'" - - -"Pooh! Male parsimony disguised as Teuton sentiment," said Lydia. -"Don't be put upon, Janet, by this _love-in-a-tenement_ stuff. Let me -give you a tip. Laurence Twickenham, my publisher, has just put his -Long Island home on the market. He says that the ruinous royalties he's -compelled to pay me do not permit him to keep up an expensive -establishment. It's a perfectly gorgeous estate, right next to mine, -and not too far from New York. Do make Robert buy it and settle down to -a useful life as a country gentleman." - -"What! Foster his mania for hearth and home?" cried Janet, laughing. -"Catch me! Nowadays men are almost incurably domestic, as it is." - -"Well, what _are_ you children going to do?" - -"Children!" said Robert, coming forward, and lecturing Lydia with gusto. -"None of your wiseacre airs, Lydia. Our program will show you that we -know our own minds. Hear ye! We shall be married as soon as Janet can -get a day off. After the ceremony Janet will return to her job of -running the Susan B. Anthony House; I shall return to my job of trying -to make America safe for those who don't happen to be grafters, -parasites, or profiteers. During the better part of the year, our -offices will be in the Kips Bay tenements here, Numbers Thirteen and -Fifteen, respectively--we shall toss up to see who gets which. No -attempt on the part of either to impose his or her friends, diet, -hygiene, or recreations upon the other without consent, will be -tolerated for a moment. Each is to be absolute master in what may -jointly be agreed upon to be his own domain, provided only that Janet is -to darn all my socks or buy new pairs as fast as the big toe protrudes. -At the end of nine months, we shall both be ready for a trip to--" - -"To Sweden," Janet put in softly, going to his side and caressing his -arm. - -"To Sweden!" exclaimed Lydia, while Charlotte and Pryor laughed at her -bewilderment. "To the psychopathic ward, if you ask _me_!" - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - *BY FELIX GRENDON* - - -WILL HE COME BACK? - A Play - -NIXOLA OF WALL STREET - A Novel - -FREEDOM IN THE WORKSHOP - A Study - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - -[Transcriber's note: Inconsistent spelling and punctuation has been -preserved as printed.] - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE CHASE *** - - - - -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/49632 - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. -Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this -license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg(tm) -electronic works to protect the Project Gutenberg(tm) concept and -trademark. 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