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diff --git a/7763-8.txt b/7763-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..372dff7 --- /dev/null +++ b/7763-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4979 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Law-Breakers and Other Stories, by Robert Grant + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Law-Breakers and Other Stories + +Author: Robert Grant + + +Release Date: March, 2005 [EBook #7763] +This file was first posted on May 14, 2003 +Last Updated: May 26, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAW-BREAKERS AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Eric Eldred, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + +THE LAW-BREAKERS AND OTHER STORIES + +_The American Short Story Series_ + +Volume 58 + + +By Robert Grant + + + + + +CONTENTS + + The Law-Breakers + Against His Judgment + St. George and the Dragon + The Romance of a Soul + An Exchange of Courtesies + Across the Way + A Surrender + + + + +THE LAW-BREAKERS + + +I + + +George Colfax was in an outraged frame of mind, and properly so. +Politically speaking, George was what might be called, for lack of a +better term, a passive reformer. That is, he read religiously the New +York _Nation_, was totally opposed to the spoils system of party +rewards, and was ostensibly as right-minded a citizen as one would +expect to find in a Sabbath day's journey. He subscribed one dollar a +year to the civil-service reform journal, and invariably voted on +Election Day for the best men, cutting out in advance the names of the +candidates favored by the Law and Order League of his native city, and +carrying them to the polls in order to jog his memory. He could talk +knowingly, too, by the card, of the degeneracy of the public men of +the nation, and had at his finger-ends inside information as to the +manner in which President This or Congressman That had sacrificed the +ideals of a vigorous manhood to the brass idol known as a second term. +In fact, there was scarcely a prominent political personage in the +country for whom George had a good word in every-day conversation. And +when the talk was of municipal politics he shook his head with a +profundity of gloom which argued an utterly hopeless condition of +affairs--a sort of social bottomless pit. + +And yet George was practically passive. He voted right, but, beyond +his yearly contribution of one dollar, he did nothing else but cavil +and deplore. He inveighed against the low standards of the masses, and +went on his way sadly, making all the money he could at his private +calling, and keeping his hands clean from the slime of the political +slough. He was a censor and a gentleman; a well-set-up, agreeable, +quick-witted fellow, whom his men companions liked, whom women termed +interesting. He was apt to impress the latter as earnest and at the +same time fascinating--an alluring combination to the sex which always +likes a moral frame for its fancies. + +It was to a woman that George was unbosoming his distress on this +particular occasion, and, as has been already indicated, his +indignation and disgust were entirely justified. Her name was Miss +Mary Wellington, and she was the girl whom he wished with all his +heart to marry. It was no hasty conclusion on his part. He knew her, +as he might have said, like a book, from the first page to the last, +for he had met her constantly at dances and dinners ever since she +"came out" seven years before, and he was well aware that her physical +charms were supplemented by a sympathetic, lively, and independent +spirit. One mark of her independence--the least satisfactory to +him--was that she had refused him a week before; or, more accurately +speaking, the matter had been left in this way: she had rejected him +for the time being in order to think his offer over. Meanwhile he had +decided to go abroad for sixty days--a shrewd device on his part to +cause her to miss him--and here he was come to pay his adieus, but +bubbling over at the same time with what he called the latest piece of +disregard for public decency on the part of the free-born voter. + +"Just think of it. The fellow impersonated one of his heelers, took +the civil-service examination in the heeler's name, and got the +position for him. He was spotted, tried before a jury who found him +guilty, and was sentenced to six months in jail. The day he was +discharged, an admiring crowd of his constituents escorted him from +prison with a brass band and tendered him a banquet. Yesterday he was +chosen an alderman by the ballots of the people of this city. A +self-convicted falsifier and cheat! A man who snaps his fingers in the +face of the laws of the country! Isn't that a commentary on the +workings of universal suffrage?" This was a caustic summing up on +George's part of the story he had already told Miss Wellington +piecemeal, and he looked at her as much as to ask if his dejection +were not amply justified. + +"It's a humiliating performance certainly," she said. "I don't wonder +you are exercised about it. Are there no extenuating circumstances?" +Miss Wellington appeared duly shocked; yet, being a woman of an alert +and cheery disposition, she reached out instinctively for some +palliative before accepting the affair in all its stark offensiveness. + +"None which count--none which should weigh for a moment with any one +with patriotic impulses," he answered. "The plea is that the people +down there--Jim Daly's constituents--have no sympathy with the +civil-service examination for public office, and so they think it was +rather smart of him than otherwise to get the better of the law. In +other words, that it's all right to break a law if one doesn't happen +to fancy it. A nation which nurses that point of view is certain to +come to grief." + +Mary nodded gravely. "It's a dangerous creed--dangerous, and a little +specious, too. And can nothing be done about it? About Daly, I mean?" + +"No. He's an alderman-elect, and the hero of his district. A +wide-awake, square-dealing young man with no vices, as I heard one of +his admirers declare. By the time I return from my trip to the +Mediterranean I expect they will be booming him for Congress." + +Looking at the matter soberly, Mary Wellington perceived that Jim +Daly's performance was a disreputable piece of business, which merited +the censure of all decent citizens. Having reached this conclusion, +she dismissed George Colfax on his travels with a sense of +satisfaction that he viewed the affair with such abhorrence. For, much +as she liked George, her hesitation to become his wife and renounce +the bachelor-girl career to which, since her last birthday--her +twenty-fifth--she had felt herself committed, was a sort of +indefinable suspicion as to the real integrity of his standards. He +was an excellent talker, of course; his ideals of public life and +private ethics, as expressed in drawing-rooms, or during pleasant +dialogues when they were alone together, were exemplary. But every now +and then, while he discoursed picturesquely of the evils of the age +and the obligations of citizenship, it would occur to her to wonder +how consistent he would be in case his principles should happen to +clash with his predilections. How would he behave in a tight place? He +was a fashionable young man with the tastes of his class, and she +thought she had detected in him once or twice a touch of that +complacent egotism which is liable to make fish of one foible and +flesh of another, as the saying is, to suit convention. In short, were +his moral perceptions genuinely delicate? + +However, she liked him so well that she was anxious to believe her +questionings groundless. Accordingly, his protestations of repugnance +at Jim Daly's conduct were reassuring. For though they were merely +words, his denunciation appeared heartfelt and to savor of clean and +nice appreciation of the distinction between truth and falsehood. +Indeed, she was half-inclined to call him back to tell him that she +had changed her mind and was ready to take him for better or for +worse. But she let him go, saying to herself that she could live +without him perfectly well for the next sixty days, and that the +voyage would do him good. Were she to become his wife, it would be +necessary to give up the Settlement work in which she had become +deeply interested as the result of her activities as a bachelor-girl. +She must be certain that he was all she believed him to be before she +admitted that she loved him and burned her philanthropical bridges. + +Returning to her quarters in the heart of the city, Mary Wellington +became so absorbed in her work of bringing cheer and relief to the +ignorant and needy that she almost forgot George Colfax. Yet once in a +while it would occur to her that it would be very pleasant if he +should drop in for a cup of tea, and she would wonder what he was +doing. Did she, perchance, at the same time exert herself with an +ardor born of an acknowledged inkling that these might be the last +months of her service? However that may have been, she certainly was +very busy, and responded eagerly to every call upon her sympathy. + +Among the cases of distress brought to her attention which interested +her most was that of two children whose mother had just died. Their +father was a drinking man--a reeling sot who had neglected his family +for years. His wife, proud in her destitution, had worked her fingers +to the bone to maintain a tenement-roof over the heads of their two +little boys and to send them neat and properly nourished to school. +This labor of love had been too much for her strength, and finally she +had fallen a victim to consumption. This was shortly after her +necessities had become known to the Settlement to which Mary +Wellington belonged. The dying mother besought her visitor to keep +watch over her boys, which Mary promised faithfully to do. + +The waifs, Joe and Frank, were two bright-eyed youngsters of eleven +and nine. They stood so well in their classes at school that Mary +resolved that their attendance should not be interrupted during the +interval while a new home was being found for them. She accompanied +them to the school-house, on the morning after the funeral, in order +to explain the situation to their teacher and evince her personal +interest. Miss Burke was a pretty girl two or three years younger than +herself. She looked capable and attractive; a little coquettish, too, +for her smile was arch, and her pompadour had that fluffy fulness +which girls who like to be admired nowadays are too apt to affect. She +was just the sort of girl whom a man might fall desperately in love +with, and it occurred to Mary, as they conversed, that it was not +likely she would remain a public-school teacher long. + +Miss Burke evidently knew the art of ingratiating herself with her +pupils. Joe and Frank smiled bashfully, but contentedly, under her +sympathetic, sunny welcome. The two young women exchanged a few words, +the sequel of which was that Mary Wellington accepted the invitation +to remain and observe how the youthful mind was inoculated with the +rudiments of knowledge by the honeyed processes of the modern school +system. While the teacher stepped to the blackboard to write some +examples before the bell should ring, Joe, the elder of the two +orphans, utilized the occasion to remark in a low voice intended for +Mary's ear: + +"She's Jim Daly's mash." + +Mary, who failed on the instant to grasp the meaning of this piece of +eloquent information, invited the urchin to repeat it, which he did +with the sly unction of one proud of his secret. Mary laughed to +herself. Some girls would have repressed the youthful gossip, but she +was human. Somehow, too, the name sounded familiar. + +"Who's Jim Daly, Joe?" + +"He's the boss of the Ninth Ward." + +"The Daly who has just been elected alderman?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Then Mary understood. "Really, Joe!" she said in the stage whisper +necessary to the situation. + +"Maybe she's going to be married after Easter," the guileless prattler +continued, to make his confidence complete. + +"Then you and Frank would lose her." This was the answer which rose to +Mary's lips, partly prompted, doubtless, by her own instinctive +aversion to the match. + +The suggestion of another loss worked upon Joe's susceptible feelings. +Evidently he had not taken this side of the matter into consideration, +and he put up one of his hands to his eyes. Fortunately the bell for +the opening of the session broke in upon the conversation, and not +only diverted him, but relegated the whole subject to the background +for the time being. Nevertheless, the thought of it continued in +Mary's mind as she sat listening to the exercises. How could an +attractive girl like this take a fancy to such a trickster? It seemed +totally incompatible with the teacher's other qualities, for in her +attitude toward her pupils she appeared discerning and conscientious. + +When the time came to go, Mary referred to her connection with the +Settlement work in the course of the few minutes' further conversation +which they had together. Miss Burke expressed so lively an interest in +this that it was agreed before they parted that the schoolmistress +should pay Mary a visit some day later in the week, with the twofold +object of taking tea with the two orphans and of being shown the +workings of the establishment. + +At this subsequent interview, the two young women chatted briskly in a +cosey corner. Each found the other sympathetic, despite Mary's secret +prejudice; and it happened presently that Miss Burke, whose +countenance now and again had seemed a little pensive, as though she +had something on her mind, said after a pause: + +"I'd like to ask your advice about something, Miss Wellington, if you +don't object." + +Mary thought she knew what was coming, surprising as it was to be +consulted. She smiled encouragingly. + +"It's about a gentleman friend of mine," continued Miss Burke, with +rising color, "who wishes me to marry him. Perhaps you have heard of +him," she added with a suggestion of furtive pride. "His name is Jim +Daly." + +"I know all about him." + +Miss Burke was evidently not prepared for such a sweeping answer. "You +know what he did, then?" she asserted after a moment's hesitation. + +"He pretended to be some one else, and passed a civil-service +examination, wasn't it?" + +"Yes. I can tell by your tone that you think it was disreputable. So +do I, Miss Wellington; though some of my friends say that it was Jim's +desire to help a friend which led him to do it. But he had to serve +his time in jail, didn't he?" She looked as though she were going to +cry. Then she said awkwardly: "What I wished to ask was whether you +would marry him if you were I." + +Mary frowned. The responsibility was disconcerting. "Do you love him?" +she asked plumply. + +"I did love him; I suppose I do still; yes, I do." She jerked out her +answers in quick succession. "But our engagement is broken." + +"Because of this?" + +"Because he has been in jail. None of my family has ever been in +jail." Miss Burke set in place the loose hairs of her pompadour with a +gesture of severe dignity as she spoke. + +"And he knows, of course, that his dishonesty is the reason why you +feel that you cannot trust him?" inquired Mary, who, being a logical +person, regarded the last answer as not altogether categorical. + +"It wasn't like stealing," said the girl, by way of resenting the +phrase. + +"It was dishonorable and untrue." + +"The people down my way don't think much of the civil-service laws. +They call them frills, something to get round if you can. That's how +they excuse him." She spoke with nervous rapidity and a little warmth. + +"But they are our country's laws just the same. And a good man--a +patriotic man--ought not to break them." Mary was conscious of voicing +George Colfax's sentiments as well as her own. The responsibility of +the burden imposed on her was trying, and she disliked her part of +mentor. Nevertheless, she felt that she must not abstain from stating +the vital point clearly; so she continued: + +"Is not the real difficulty, my dear, that the man who could be false +in one thing might be false in another when the occasion arose?" + +Miss Burke flushed at the words, and suddenly covered her face with +her hands. + +"That's it, of course. That's what haunts me. I could forgive him the +other--the having been in jail and all that; but it's the possibility +that he might do something worse after we were married--when it was +too late--which frightens me. 'False in one thing, false in +everything,' that's what the proverb is. Do you believe that is true, +Miss Wellington?" + +Her unmasked conscience revealed clearly the distress caused by its +own sensitiveness; but she spoke beseechingly, as though to invite +comfort from her companion on the score of this adage. + +"Tell me what sort of a man Mr. Daly is in other respects," said Mary. + +"Oh, he's kind!" she answered with enthusiasm. "He has been a good son +and brother; he is always helping people, and has more friends than +any one in the district. I don't see why he cared for me," she added +with seeming irrelevance. + +"It's a great point in his favor that he does care for you, my dear. +Is he steady at his work?" + +"When he isn't too busy with politics. He says that he will give them +up, if I insist; but my doing so might prevent his being chosen to +Congress." There was again rueful pride in her plaint. + +Mary sat silent for a moment. "He stands convicted of falsehood." She +seemed to be speaking to herself. + +"Yes," gasped the girl, as her mentor paused to let the fell +substantive be weighed. + +"That seems terrible to me. But you know him better than I do." + +Miss Burke's face lighted at the qualification. Yet her quick +intelligence refused to be thus cajoled. "But what would you do in my +place? That's what I wish to know." + +Mary winced. She perceived the proud delicacy of the challenge, and +recognized that she had condescendingly shirked the real inquiry. + +"It is so hard to put oneself in another's place. The excuses you have +given for his conduct seem to me inadequate. That is, if a man gave +those reasons to me--I believe I could never trust him again." Mary +spoke with conviction, but she realized that she felt like a +grandmother. + +"Thank you," said Miss Burke. "That's what I wished to know." She +looked at the floor for an instant. "Suppose you felt that you could +trust him?" + +Mary smiled and reflected. "If I loved him enough for that, I dare say +I should forgive him." + +"You really would?" Then Miss Burke perceived that in her elation she +had failed to observe the logical inconsistency which the counsel +contained. "I don't know that I understand exactly," she added. + +Mary smiled again, then shook her head. "I doubt if I can make it any +plainer than that. I mean that--if I were you--I should have to feel +absolutely sure that I loved him; and even then--" She paused without +completing the ellipsis. "As to that, dear, no one can enlighten you +but yourself.' + +"Of course," said poor Miss Burke. Yet she was already beginning to +suspect that the sphinx-like utterance might contain both the kernel +of eternal feminine truth and the real answer to her own doubts. + + + + +II + + +Some two months later the _Meteoric_, one of the fast ocean +greyhounds, was approaching the port of New York. At sight of land the +cabin passengers, who had been killing time resignedly in one +another's society, became possessed with a rampant desire to leave the +vessel as soon as possible. When it was definitely announced that the +_Meteoric_ would reach her dock early enough in the afternoon to +enable them to have their baggage examined and get away before dark, +they gave vent to their pent-up spirits in mutual congratulations and +adieus. + +Among those on board thus chafing to escape from the limitations of an +ocean voyage was George Colfax, whose eagerness to land was enhanced +by the hope that his absence had made the heart of his lady-love +fonder. His travels had been restful and stimulating; but there is +nothing like one's own country, after all. So he reflected as, cigar +in mouth, he perused the newspapers which the pilot had brought, and +watched the coast-line gradually change to the familiar monuments of +Manhattan. + +Yet apparently there was a subconsciousness to his thought, for as he +folded his last newspaper and stretched himself with the languor of a +man no longer harried by lack of knowledge as to what has happened +during the last seven days, he muttered under his breath: + +"Confound the customs anyway!" + +A flutter of garments and a breezy voice brought him politely to his +feet. + +"That's over with, thank Heaven!" The speaker was a charming woman +from Boston, whose society he had found engrossing during the +voyage--a woman of the polite world, voluble and well informed. + +"I just signed and swore to the paper they gave me without reading +it," she added, with a gay shrug of her shoulders, as though she were +well content with this summary treatment of a distasteful matter. +"Have you made your declaration yet?" she asked indifferently. + +"No." + +"What I don't understand is why they should make you take oath to a +thing and then rummage through your trunks as though they didn't +believe you." + +"It's an outrage--an infernal outrage," said George. "Every time the +Government does it the spirit of American institutions is insulted." + +"I haven't much with me this time, anyway; they can hardly expect that +a person will go to Europe for six months and not bring back more than +one hundred dollars' worth of things," continued Miss Golightly +artlessly. "One might almost as well stay at home. It isn't as if I +bought them to sell. They are my own ownty donty effects, and I've no +intention of paying the Government one cent on them if I can help it. +And they charge one for presents. Of course, I won't pay on presents I +have bought to give other people. That would simply make them cost so +much more." + +"The whole thing is a wretched and humiliating farce," was George's +not altogether illuminating comment on this naive revelation of the +workings of the female mind. He spoke doggedly, and then hummed the +refrain of a song as though to keep up his courage. + +"Well, I'll go and take my turn," he said, with the air of +aristocratic urbanity which made him a favorite in social circles. + +Miss Golightly detained him to add: "If you find any better method, I +wish you'd let me know. It seemed the simplest way not to declare +anything, and to trust to luck." + +So great was the bustle and confusion that George was not conscious of +the presence of his lively companion again until he heard her voice in +his ear two hours later on the pier or platform where the baggage from +the _Meteoric_ was being inspected. + +"Well," she said under her breath, "I'm all through. They gave me a +jewel of a man. And you?" + +"I've had no trouble." George spoke with nonchalance as if to imply +that he had expected none. Out of the corner of his eye he was +following the actions of the custom-house official allotted to him who +was chalking his examined trunks with the hieroglyphics which +signified that the Government had released its grip on them. + +This done, George beckoned to an attendant porter, after which he +turned again to Miss Golightly. + +"If you'll wait a moment until I see these things of mine safely in +the hands of the transfer express, I'll put you into your carriage and +take a fond farewell." + +"You needn't hurry," was her answer. + +"My friend, Miss Pilgrim, has declared thirty-four articles, and she +doesn't know in which of her eight trunks any of them are. She and the +citizen in glasses meted out to her, who insists on finding every one, +are now engaged in ransacking her entire wardrobe. I intend to keep at +a safe distance from the scene of worry. That's what comes of being +conscientious." + +George and the inspector, preceded by the porter wheeling the +traveller's three trunks, hat-box, and small bags, set out for the +other end of the shed. + +George returned ten minutes later; he stepped briskly and was beaming. + +"Still waiting, I see," he said jocularly. + +"And in your eyes I read the purple light of love, young man. I wish +you success." Her words were the rallying outcome of confidences on +shipboard after five days at sea. + +George blushed, but looked pleased. "You may see her first," he said, +"for she is constantly at her cousin's, or was before she took up +Settlement life." + +"How much did you give him?" asked Miss Golightly. + +The reversion to their previous topic was so abrupt and barefaced that +the lover stared for a moment, then tried not to appear confused. + +"Oh, a mere trifle!" he said with offhand dignity. + +"I gave mine twenty-five dollars," she whispered. "Wasn't that +enough?" + +"Abundant, I should say. But I am not well posted on such matters." It +was evident he wished to avoid the subject, and was also impatient to +get away, for he took out his watch. "If Miss Pilgrim is really likely +to be detained--" he began. + +Miss Golightly rose to the occasion and dismissed him. "I understand," +she exclaimed amiably. "Every minute is precious." + +Nevertheless, it was not until two days later that he succeeded in +finding Mary Wellington at home. He called that evening, but was told +by the person in charge that she had taken a brief respite from work +and would not return for another twenty-four hours. On the second +occasion, as the first, he brought with him under his arm a good-sized +package, neatly done up. + +"I am back again," he said, and he pressed her hand with unmistakable +zeal. + +Her greeting was friendly; not emotional like his, or unreserved; but +he flattered himself that she seemed very glad to see him. He +reflected: "I don't believe that it did my cause a particle of harm to +let her go without the constant visits she had grown accustomed to +expect." + +He said aloud: "I came across this on the other side and took the +liberty of bringing it to you." + +Mary undid the parcel, disclosing a beautiful bit of jade; not too +costly a gift for a friend to accept, yet really a defiance of the +convention which forbids marriageable maidens to receive from their +male admirers presents less perishable than flowers or sweetmeats. + +"It is lovely, and it was very kind of you to remember me." + +"Remember you? You were in my thoughts day and night." + +She smiled to dispel the tension. "I shall enjoy hearing about your +travels. A friend of yours has told me something of them." + +"Ah! Miss Golightly. You have seen her, then, at your cousin's? A +companionable woman; and she knows her Europe. Yes, we compared notes +regarding our travels." + +He colored slightly, but only at the remembrance of having confided to +this comparative stranger his bosom's secret under the spell of an +ocean intimacy. + +"You brought home other things, I dare say?" Mary asked after a pause, +glancing up at him. + +"Oh, yes!" The trend of the question was not clear to him, but he was +impelled to add: "For one thing, I ordered clothes enough to last me +three years at least. I bought gloves galore for myself and for my +sister. As I belong to the working class, and there is no knowing how +soon I may be able to get away again, I laid in a stock of everything +which I needed, or which took my fancy. Men's things as well as +women's are so much cheaper over there if one knows where to go." + +"With the duties?" + +The words, gently spoken, were like a bolt from the blue. George +betrayed his distaste for the inquiry only by a sudden gravity. "Yes, +with the duties." He hastened to add: "But enough of myself and my +travels. They were merely to pass the time." He bent forward from his +chair and interrogated her meaningly with his glance. + +"But I am interested in duties." + +He frowned at her insistence. + +"Miss Golightly," continued Mary, "explained to us yesterday how she +got all her things through the custom-house by giving the inspector +twenty-five dollars. She gloried in it and in the fact that, though +her trunks were full of new dresses, she made oath that she had +nothing dutiable." + +He suspected now her trend, yet he was not certain that he was +included in its scope. But he felt her eyes resting on him +searchingly. + +"Did she?" he exclaimed, with an effort at airy lightness which seemed +to afford the only hope of escape. + +"How did you manage?" + +"I?" He spoke after a moment's pause with the calm of one who slightly +resents an invasion of his privacy. + +"Did you pay the duties on your things?" + +George realized now that he was face to face with a question which, as +lawyers say, required that the answer should be either "yes" or "no." +Still, he made one more attempt to avert the crucial inquiry. + +"Does this really interest you?" + +"Immensely. My whole future may be influenced by it." + +"I see." There was no room left for doubt as to her meaning. Nor did +he choose to lie. "No, I paid no duties." + +"I feared as much." + +There was a painful silence. George rose, and walking to the +mantel-piece, looked down at the hearth and tapped the ironwork with +his foot. He would fain have made the best of what he ruefully +recognized to be a shabby situation by treating it jocosely; but her +grave, grieved demeanor forbade. Yet he ventured to remark: + +"Why do you take this so seriously?" + +"I expected better things of you." + +He felt of his mustache and essayed extenuation. "It was--er--unworthy +of me, of course; foolish--pig-headed--tricky, I suppose. I got mad. +I'd nothing to sell, and the declaration is a farce when they examine +after it. So I left them to find what they chose. I'm terribly sorry, +for you seem to hate it so. But it's an idiotic and impertinent law, +anyway." + +"In other words, you think it all right to break a law if you don't +happen to fancy it." + +George started visibly and colored. He recognized the aphorism as his, +but for the moment did not recall the occasion of its use. He chose to +evade it by an attempt at banter. "You can't make a tragedy, my dear +girl, out of the failure to pay duties on a few things bought for +one's personal use, and not for sale. Why, nearly every woman in the +world smuggles when she gets the chance--on her clothes and finery. +You must know that. Your sex as a class doesn't regard it as +disreputable in the least. At the worst, it is a peccadillo, not a +crime. The law was passed to enable our native tailors to shear the +well-to-do public." + +Mary ignored the plausible indictment against the unscrupulousness of +her sex. "Can such an argument weigh for a moment with any one with +patriotic impulses?" + +Again the parrot-like reminder caused him to wince, and this time he +recognized the application. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed, with sorry yet protesting confusion. + +"It's the inconsistency," she answered without flinching, perceiving +that he understood. + +George flushed to the roots of his hair. "You compare me with +that--er--blatherskite?" he asked, conscious as he spoke that her +logic was irrefutable. Yet his self-respect cried out to try to save +itself. + +"Why not? The civil-service law seemed a frill to Jim Daly; the +customs law an impertinence to you." + +He looked down at the hearth again. There was an air of finality in +her words which was disconcerting. + +"I've been an ass," he ejaculated. "I'll give the things up; pay the +duties; go to prison, if you like. The punishment is fine or +imprisonment." He intended to be sincere in his offer of +self-humiliation, though his speech savored of extravagance. + +Mary shrugged her shoulders. "If you did, I dare say a bevy of society +women would tender you a banquet when you were released from jail." + +He bit his lip and stared at her. "You are taking this seriously with +a vengeance!" + +"I must." + +He crossed the room and, bending beside her, sought to take her hand. +"Do you mean that but for this--? Mary, are you going to let a little +thing like this separate us?" + +He had captured her fingers, but they lay limp and unresponsive in +his. + +"It is not a little thing; from my standpoint it is everything." + +"But you will give me another chance?" + +"You have had your chance. That was it. I was trying to find out +whether I loved you, and now I know that I do not. I could never marry +a man I could not--er--trust." + +"Trust? I swear to you that I am worthy of trust." + +She smiled sadly and drew away her hand. "Maybe. But I shall never +know, you see, because I do not love you." + +Her feminine inversion of logic increased his dismay. "I shall never +give up," he exclaimed, rising and buttoning his coat. "When you think +this over you will realize that you have exaggerated what I did." + +She shook her head. His obduracy made no impression on her, for she +was free from doubts. + +"We will be friends, if you like; but we can never be anything +closer." + +An inspiration seized him. "What would the girl whom Jim Daly loves, +if there is one, say? She has never given him up, I wager." + +Mary blushed at his unconscious divination. "I do not know," she said. +"But you are one person, Jim Daly is another. You have had every +advantage; he is a--er--blatherskite. Yet you condescend to put +yourself on a par with him, and condone the offence on the ground that +your little world winks at it. Remember + + "'Spirits are not finely touched + But to fine issues.' + +How shall society progress, unless my sex insists on at least that +patent of nobility in the men who woo us? I am reading you a lecture, +but you insisted on it." + +George stood for a moment silent. "You are right, I suppose." He +lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he turned and left the +room. + +As he passed out, Mary heard the voices of the orphans, Joe and Frank, +in the entry. The former in greeting her held out a letter which had +just been delivered by the postman. + +"You've come back, Miss Wellington," cried the little boy rapturously. + +"Yes, Joe dear." + +Mechanically she opened the envelope. As she read the contents she +smiled faintly and nodded her head as much as to say that the news was +not unexpected. + +"But _noblesse oblige_," she murmured to herself proudly, not +realizing that she had spoken aloud. + +"What did you say, Miss Wellington?" + +Mary recalled her musing wits. "I've something interesting to tell +you, boys. Miss Burke is going to be married to Jim Daly. That is bad +for you, dears, but partly to make up for it, I wish to let you know +that there is no danger of my leaving you any more." + + + + +AGAINST HIS JUDGMENT + + +Three days had passed, and the excitement in the neighborhood was +nearly at an end. The apothecary's shop at the corner into which John +Baker's body and the living four-year-old child had been carried +together immediately after the catastrophe had lost most of its +interest for the curious, although the noses of a few idlers were +still pressed against the large pane in apparent search of something +beyond the brilliant colored bottles or the soda-water fountains. Now +that the funeral was over, the womenkind, whose windows commanded a +view of the house where the dead man had been lying, had taken their +heads in and resumed their sweeping and washing, and knots of their +husbands and fathers no longer stood in gaping conclave close to the +very doorsill, rehearsing again and again the details of the +distressing incident. Even the little child who had been so +miraculously saved from the jaws of death, although still decked in +the dirty finery which its mother deemed appropriate to its having +suddenly become a public character, had ceased to be the recipient of +the dimes of the tender-hearted. Such is the capriciousness of the +human temperament at times of emotional excitement, the plan of a +subscription for the victim's family had not been mooted until what +was to its parents a small fortune had been bestowed on the rescued +child; but the scale of justice had gradually righted itself. +Contributions were now pouring in, especially since it was reported +that the mayor and several other well-known persons had headed the +list with fifty dollars each; and there was reason to believe that a +lump sum of from fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars would be +collected for the benefit of the widow and seven children before +public generosity was exhausted. + +Local interest was on the wane; but, thanks to the telegraph and the +press, the facts were being disseminated through the country, and +every leading newspaper in the land was chronicling, with more or less +prominence according to the character of its readers, the item that +John Baker, the gate-keeper at a railroad crossing in a Pennsylvania +city, had snatched a toddling child from the pathway of a swiftly +moving locomotive and been crushed to death. + +A few days later a dinner-company of eight was gathered at a country +house several hundred miles distant from the scene of the calamity. +The host and hostess were people of wealth and leisure, who enjoyed +inviting congenial parties from their social acquaintance in the +neighboring city to share with them for two or three days at a time +the charms of nature. The dinner was appetizing, the wine good, and +conversation turned lightly from one subject to another. + +They had talked on a variety of topics: of tarpon fishing in Florida; +of amateur photography, in which the hostess was proficient, and of +gardens; of the latest novels and some current inelegancies of speech. +Some one spoke of the growing habit of feeing employés to do their +duty. Another referred to certain breaches of trust by bank officers +and treasurers, which occurring within a short time of one another had +startled the community. This last subject begot a somewhat doleful +train of commentary and gave the lugubrious their cue. Complaints were +made of our easygoing standards of morality, and our disposition not +to be severe on anybody; of the decay of ideal considerations and the +lack of enthusiasm for all but money-spinning. + +"The gist is here," reiterated one of the speakers: "we insist on +tangible proof of everything, of being able to see and feel it--to get +our dollar's worth, in short. We weigh and measure and scrutinize, and +discard as fusty and outworn, conduct and guides to conduct that do +not promise six per cent per annum in full sight." + +"What have you to say to John Baker?" said the host, breaking the +pause which followed these remarks. "I take for granted that you are +all familiar with his story: the newspapers have been full of it. +There was a man who did not stop to measure or scrutinize." + +A murmur of approbation followed, which was interrupted by Mrs. Caspar +Green, a stout and rather languid lady, inquiring to whom he referred. +"You know I never read the newspapers," she added, with a decidedly +superior air, putting up her eye-glass. + +"Except the deaths and marriages," exclaimed her husband, a lynx-eyed +little stockbroker, who was perpetually poking what he called fun at +his more ponderous half. + +"Well, this was a death: so there was no excuse for her not seeing +it," said Henry Lawford, the host. "No, seriously, Mrs. Green, it was +a splendid instance of personal heroism: a gate-keeper at a railway +crossing in Pennsylvania, perceiving a child of four on the track just +in front of the fast express, rushed forward and managed to snatch up +the little creature and threw it to one side before--poor fellow!--he +was struck and killed. There was no suggestion of counting upon six +per cent there, was there?" + +"Unless in another sphere," interjected Caspar Green. + +"Don't be sacrilegious, Caspar," pleaded his wife, though she added +her mite to the ripple of laughter that greeted the sally. + +"It was superb!--superb!" exclaimed Miss Ann Newbury, a young woman +not far from thirty, with a long neck and a high-bred, pale, +intellectual face. "He is one of the men who make us proud of being +men and women." She spoke with sententious earnestness and looked +across the table appealingly at George Gorham. + +"He left seven children, I believe?" said he, with precision. + +"Yes, seven, Mr. Gorham--the eldest eleven," answered Mrs. Lawford, +who was herself the mother of five. "Poor little things!" + +"I think he made a great mistake," remarked George, laconically. + +For an instant there was complete silence. The company was evidently +making sure that it had understood his speech correctly. Then Miss +Newbury gave a gasp, and Henry Lawford, with a certain stern dignity +that he knew how to assume, said---- + +"A mistake? How so, pray?" + +"In doing what he did--sacrificing his life to save the child." + +"Why, Mr. Gorham!" exclaimed the hostess, while everybody turned +toward him. He was a young man between thirty and thirty-five, a +lawyer beginning to be well thought of in his profession, with a +thoughtful, pleasant expression and a vigorous physique. + +"It seems to me," he continued, slowly, seeking his words, "if John +Baker had stopped to think, he would have acted differently. To be +sure, he saved the life of an innocent child; but, on the other hand, +he robbed of their sole means of support seven other no less innocent +children and their mother. He was a brave man, I agree; but I, for +one, should have admired him more if he had stopped to think." + +"And let the child be killed?" exclaimed Mr. Carter, the gentleman who +had deplored so earnestly the decay of ideal considerations. He was a +young mill-treasurer, with aristocratic tendencies, and a strong +interest in church affairs. + +"Yes, if need be. It was in danger through no fault of his. Its +natural guardians had neglected it." + +"What a frightful view to take!" murmured Mrs. Green; and, although +she was very well acquainted with George Gorham's physiognomy, she +examined him disapprovingly through her glass, as if there must be +something compromising about it which had hitherto escaped detection. + +"Well, I don't agree with you at all," said the host, emphatically. + +"Nor I," said Mr. Carter. + +"Nor I, Mr. Gorham," said Mrs. Lawford, plaintively conveying the +impression that if a woman so ready as she to accept new points of +view abandoned him there could be no chance of his being right. + +"No, you're all wrong, my dear fellow," said Caspar Green. "Such ideas +may go down among your long-haired artistic and literary friends at +the Argonaut Club, but you can't expect civilized Christians to accept +them. Why, man, it's monstrous--monstrous, by Jove!--to depreciate +that noble fellow's action--a man we all ought to be proud of, as Miss +Newbury says. If we don't encourage such people, how can we expect +them to be willing to risk their lives?" Thereupon the little broker, +as a relief to his outraged feelings, emptied his champagne-glass at a +draught and scowled irascibly. His jesting equanimity was rarely +disturbed; consequently, everybody felt the importance of his +testimony. + +"I'm sorry to be so completely in the minority," said Gorham, "but +that's the way the matter strikes me. I don't think you quite catch my +point, though, Caspar," he added, glancing at Mr. Green. At a less +heated moment the company, with the possible exception of Mrs. Green, +might have tacitly agreed that this was extremely probable; but now +Miss Newbury, who had hitherto refrained from comment, in order to +digest the problem thoroughly before speaking, came to the broker's +aid. + +"It seems to me, Mr. Gorham," she said, "that your proposition is a +very plain one: you claim simply that John Baker had better not have +saved the child if, in order to do so, it was necessary to lose his +own life." + +"Precisely," exclaimed Mr. Green, in a tone of some contempt. + +"Was not Mr. Gorham's meaning that, though it required very great +courage to do what Baker did, a man who stopped to think of his own +wife and children would have shown even greater courage?" asked Miss +Emily Vincent. She was the youngest of the party, a beautiful girl, of +fine presence, with a round face, dark eyes, and brilliant +pink-and-white coloring. She had been invited to stay by the Lawfords +because George Gorham was attentive to her; or, more properly +speaking, George Gorham had been asked because he was attentive to +her. + +"Thank you, Miss Vincent: you have expressed my meaning perfectly," +said Gorham; and his face gladdened. He was dead in love with her, and +this was the first civil word, so to speak, she had said to him during +the visit. + +"Do you agree with him?" inquired Miss Newbury, with intellectual +sternness. + +"And do you agree with Mr. Gorham?" asked Mrs. Lawford, at the same +moment, caressingly. + +All eyes were turned on Emily Vincent, and she let hers fall. She felt +that she would give worlds not to have spoken. Why had she spoken? + +"I understand what he means; but I don't believe a man in John Baker's +place could help himself," she said quietly. + +"Of course he couldn't!" cried Mrs. Lawford. "There, Mr. Gorham, you +have lost your champion. What have you to say now?" A murmur of +approval went round the table. + +"I appreciate my loss, but I fear I have nothing to add to what has +been said already," he replied, with smiling firmness. "Although in a +pitiful minority, I shall have to stand or fall by that." + +"Ah, but when it came to action we know that under all circumstances +Mr. Gorham would be his father's son!" said Mrs. Lawford, with less +than her usual tact, though she intended to be very ingratiating. +Gorham's father, who was conspicuous for gallantry, had been killed in +the Civil War. + +Gorham bowed a little stiffly, feeling that there was nothing for him +to say. There was a pause, which showed that the topic was getting +threadbare. This prompted the host to call his wife's attention to the +fact that one of the candles was flaring. So the current of +conversation was turned, and the subject was not alluded to again, +thereby anticipating Mr. Carter, who, having caught Miss Newbury's +eye, was about to philosophize further on the same lines. + +During the twelve months following his visit at the Lawfords' the +attentions of George Gorham to Emily Vincent became noticeable. He had +loved her for three years in secret; but the consciousness that he was +not able to support a wife had hindered him from devoting himself to +her. He knew that she, or rather her father, had considerable +property; but Gorham was not willing to take this into consideration; +he would never offer himself until his own income was sufficient for +both their needs. But, on the other hand, his ideas of a sufficient +income were not extravagant. He looked forward to building a +comfortable little house in the suburbs in the midst of an acre or two +of garden and lawn, so that his neighbors' windows need not overlook +his domesticity. He would have a horse and buggy wherewith to drive +his wife through the country on summer afternoons, and later, if his +bank-account warranted it, a saddle-horse for Emily and one for +himself. He would keep open house in the sense of encouraging his +friends to visit him; and, that they might like to come, he would have +a thoroughly good plain cook--thereby eschewing French kickashaws--and +his library should contain the best new books, and etchings and +sketches luring to the eye, done by men who were rising, rather than +men who had risen. There should be no formality; his guests should do +what they pleased, and wear what they pleased, and, above all, they +should become intimate with his wife, instead of merely tolerating her +after the manner of the bachelor friends of so many other men. + +Thus he had been in the habit of depicting to himself the future, and +at last, by dint of undeviating attention to his business, he had got +to the point where he could afford to realize his project if his +lady-love were willing. His practice was increasing steadily, and he +had laid by a few thousand dollars to meet any unexpected emergency. +His life was insured for fifty thousand dollars, and the policies were +now ten years old. He had every reason to expect that in course of +time as the older lawyers died off he would either succeed to the +lucrative conduct of large suits or be made a judge of one of the +higher tribunals. In this manner his ambition would be amply +satisfied. His aim was to progress slowly but solidly, without splurge +or notoriety, so that every one might regard him as a man of sound +dispassionate judgment, and solid, keen understanding. His especial +antipathy was for so-called cranks--people who went off at half-cock, +who thought nothing out, but were governed by the impulse of the +moment, shilly-shally and controlled by sentimentality. + +It was with hope and yet with his heart in his mouth that he set out +one afternoon determined to ask Emily Vincent to become his wife. She +lived in the suburbs, within fifteen minutes by the train, or an +hour's walk from town. Gorham took the cars. It was a beautiful day, +almost the counterpart of that which they had passed together at the +Lawfords' just a year before. As he sat in the train he analyzed the +situation once more for the hundredth time, taking care not to give +himself the advantage of any ambiguous symptoms. Certainly she was not +indifferent to him; she accepted his attentions without demur, and +seemed interested in his interests. But was that love? Was it any more +than esteem or cordial liking, which would turn to pity at the first +hint of affection on his part? But surely she could not plead +ignorance of his intentions; she must long ere this have realized that +he was seriously attentive to her. Still, girls were strange +creatures. He could not help feeling nervous, because so very much was +involved for him in the result. Should she refuse him, he would be and +remain for a long time excessively unhappy. He obliged himself to +regard this alternative, and his heart sank before the possibility. +Not that the idea of dying or doing anything desperate presented +itself to him. Such extravagance would have seemed out of keeping with +respect either for her or for himself. Doubtless he might recover some +day, but the interim would be terribly hard to endure. Rejection meant +a dark, dreary bachelorhood; success, the crowning of his dearest +hopes. + +He found his sweetheart at home, and she came down to greet him with +roses that he had sent her in her bosom. It was not easy for him to do +or say anything extravagant, and Emily Vincent, while she might have +pardoned unseemly effusiveness to his exceeding love for her, was well +content with the deeply earnest though unriotous expression of his +passion. When finally he had folded her in his arms she felt that the +greatest happiness existence can give was hers, and he knew himself to +be an utterly blissful lover. He had won the prize for which he had +striven with a pertinacity like Jacob's, and life looked very roseate. + +The news was broken to her family that evening, and received +delightedly, though without the surprise which the lovers expected. +They were left alone for a little while before the hour of parting, +and in the sweet kisses given and taken Gorham redeemed himself in his +mistress's estimation for any lack of folly he had been guilty of when +he had asked her to be his wife. There was riot now in his eyes and in +his embraces, revealing that he had needed only to be sure of her +encouragement to become as ridiculous as she could desire. He stood +disclosed to himself in a new light; and when he had kissed her once +more for the last time he went tripping down the lawn radiantly happy, +turning now and again to throw back with his fingers a message from +his lips to the one being in all the world for him, who stood on the +threshold, adding poetry and grace to the beautiful June evening. + +When out of sight of the house, Gorham sped fleetly along the road. He +intended to walk to town, for he felt like glorying in his happiness +under the full moon which was shedding her silver light from a clear +heaven. The air was not oppressive, and it was scented with the +perfume of the lilacs and apple-blossoms, so that Gorham was fain +every now and then to draw a deep breath in order to inhale their +fragrance. There was no dust, and nature looked spruce and trig, +without a taint of the frowziness which is observable in the foliage a +month later. + +Gorham took very little notice of the details; his eyes were busy +rather with mind-problems than with the particular beauties of the +night; yet his rapt gaze swept the brilliant heavens as though he felt +their lustre to be in harmony with the radiance in his own soul. He +was imagining the future--his hearth forever blessed by her sweet +presence, their mutual joys and sorrows sweetened and alleviated +through being shared. His efforts to live worthily would be fortified +by her example and counsel. How the pleasures of walking and riding +and reading and travelling--of everything in life--would be a +hundredfold enhanced by being able to interchange impressions with +each other! He pictured to himself the cosey evenings they would pass +at home when the day's work was done, and the jolly trips they would +take together when vacation-time arrived. How he would watch over her, +and how he would guard her and tend her and comfort her if misfortune +came or ill health assailed her! There would be little ones, perhaps, +to claim their joint devotion, and bid him redouble his energies; he +smiled at the thought of baby fingers about his neck, and there arose +to his mind's eye a sweet vision of Emily sitting, pale but +triumphant, rocking her new-born child upon her breast. + +He walked swiftly on the wings of transport. It was almost as light as +day, yet he met but few travellers along the country road. An +occasional vehicle passed him, breaking the silvery stillness with its +rumble which subsided at last into the distance. A pair of whispering +lovers, arm in arm, who slunk into the shadow as he came abreast of +them, won from him a glance of sympathy. Just after he had left them +behind the shrill whistle of a locomotive jarring upon the silence +seemed to bring him a message from the woman he adored. Had he not +preferred to walk, this was the train he would have taken, and it must +have stopped not many hundred yards from her door. As he listened to +it thundering past almost parallel to him in the cut below he breathed +a prayer of blessing on her rest. + +A little beyond this point the road curved and ran at a gradual +incline so as to cross the railroad track at grade about half a mile +farther on. This stretch was lined on each side by horse-chestnut +trees set near to one another, the spreading foliage of which darkened +the gravelled foot-path, so that Gorham, who was enjoying the +moonlight, preferred to keep in the middle of the road, which, by way +of contrast, gleamed almost like a river. He was pursuing his way with +elastic steps, when of a sudden his attention was arrested about a +hundred and fifty yards from the crossing by something lying at the +foot of one of the trees on the right-hand side. At a second glance he +saw that it was a woman's figure. Probably she was asleep: but she +might be ill or injured. It was a lonely spot, so it occurred to him +that it was proper for him to investigate. Accordingly, he stepped to +her side and bent over her. From her calico dress, which was her only +covering, she evidently belonged to the laboring class. She was a +large, coarse-looking woman, and was lying, in what appeared to Gorham +to be drunken slumber, on her bonnet, the draggled strings of which +caught his eye. He hesitated a moment, and then shook her by the arm. +She groaned boozily, but after he had shaken her again two or three +times she rolled over and raised herself on her elbow, rubbing her +eyes and staring at him glassily. + +"Are you hurt, woman?" he asked. + +She made a guttural response which might have meant anything, but she +proved that she was uninjured by getting on her feet. She stared at +her disturber bewilderedly, then, perceiving her bonnet, stooped to +pick it up, and stood for a moment trying sleepily to poke it into +shape and readjust its tawdry plumage. But all of a sudden she gave a +start and began looking around her with recovered energy. She missed +something, evidently. Gorham followed the direction of her gaze as it +shifted, and as his glance met the line of the road he perceived a +little figure standing in the middle of the railway crossing. It was a +child--her child, without doubt--and as he said so to himself the roar +of an approaching train, coupled with the sound of the whistle, made +him start with horror. The late express from town was due. Gorham +remembered that there was a considerable curve in the railroad at this +point. The woman had not perceived the situation--she was too far in +the shade--but Gorham from where he stood commanded a clear view of +the track. + +Without an instant's hesitation, he sprang forward and ran at full +speed. His first thought was that the train was very near. He ran with +all his might and main, his eyes fixed on the little white figure, and +shouting to warn it of its danger. Suddenly there flashed before his +mind with vividness the remembrance of John Baker, and he recalled his +argument at the Lawfords'. But he did not abate his speed. The child +had plumped itself down on one of the sleepers, and was apparently +playing with some pebbles. It was on the farther track, and, startled +by his cries and by the clang of the approaching train, looked up at +him. He saw a pale, besmeared little countenance; he heard behind him +the agonizing screams of the mother, who had realized her baby's +peril; in his ears rang the shrill warning of the engineer as the +engine rounded the curve. Would he be in time? + +As he reached the edge of the tracks, thought of Emily and a terrible +consciousness of the sorrow she would feel if anything were to happen +to him compressed his heart. But he did not falter. He was aware of +the jangle of a fiercely rung bell, the hiss of steam, and a blinding +glare; he could feel on his cheek the breath of the iron monster. With +set teeth he threw himself forward, stooped, and reached out over the +rail: in another instant he had tossed the child from the pathway of +danger, and he himself had been mangled to death by the powerful +engine. + + + + +ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON + + +Paul Harrington, the reporter, shifted his eagle glance from one +feature to another of the obsequies with the comprehensive yet swift +perception of an artist. An experience of three years on the staff had +made him an expert on ceremonies, and, captious as he could be when +the occasion merited his scorn, his predilection was for praise, as he +was an optimist by instinct. This time he could praise unreservedly, +and he was impatient to transfer to the pages of his note-book his +seething impressions of the solemn beauty and simplicity of the last +rites in the painful tragedy. In the rustic church into which he had +wormed his way he had already found time to scribble a brief paragraph +to the effect that the melancholy event had "shrouded the picturesque +little town of Carver in gloom," and now as he stood on the greensward +near, though not too near, he hastily jotted down the points of +interest with keen anticipation of working out some telling +description on the way home. + +Out from the little church where the families of the pair of lovers +had worshipped in summer time for a generation, the two coffins, piled +high with flowers (Harrington knew them reportorially as caskets), +were borne by the band of pall-bearers, stalwart young intimate +friends, and lifted by the same hands tenderly into the hearse. The +long blackness of their frock-coats and the sable accompaniment of +their silk hats, gloves, and ties appealed to the observant faculties +of Harrington as in harmony both with the high social position of the +parties and the peculiar sadness of the occasion. That a young man and +woman, on the eve of matrimony, and with everything to live for, +should be hurled into eternity (a Harringtonian figure of speech) by a +railroad train at a rustic crossing, while driving, was certainly an +affair heartrending enough to invite every habiliment of woe. As he +thus reasoned Harrington became aware that one of the stalwart young +men was looking at him with an expression which seemed to ask only too +plainly, "What the devil are you doing here?" + +As a newspaper man of some years' standing Harrington was hardened. +Such an expression of countenance was an almost daily experience and +slipped off the armor of his self-respecting hardihood like water off +the traditional duck's back. When people looked at him like this he +simply took refuge in his consciousness of the necessities of the case +and the honesty of his own artistic purpose. The press must be served +faithfully and indefatigably--boldly, moreover, and at times +officiously, in order to attain legitimate results; yet he flattered +himself that no one could ever say of him that he had "butted in" +where others of his craft would have paused, or was lacking in +reportorial delicacy. Was he not simply doing his professional duty +for hire, like any respectable lawyer or doctor or architect, in order +to support his family? Were he to trouble his head because impetuous +people frowned, his wife, Amelia, and infant son, Tesla, would be the +sufferers--a thought which was a constant stimulus to enterprise. His +"job" required "cheek" perhaps, but nine people out of ten were not +sensible enough to realize that he was a modern necessity, and to ask +themselves, "Is this man doing his work creditably?" There was the +essence of the situation for Harrington, and from the world's lack of +nice perception he had made for himself a grievance which rendered him +indifferent to ill-considered scowls. + +But, however indifferent his attitude, nothing ever escaped +Harrington, and he noticed that the young man whose eyes met his with +the expression of annoyance was well set up and manly in appearance--a +"dude," in Harrington's parlance, but a pleasant-looking dude, with an +open and rather strong countenance. Such was Harrington's deduction, +in spite of the obvious hostility to himself, and in confirmation of +this view he had the satisfaction of perceiving the tension of the +young man's face relax, as though he had come to the conclusion, on +second thoughts, that interference was, on the whole, not worth while. + +"He realizes," said the reporter to himself approvingly, "that there's +no sense in being peevish. A swell funeral must be written up like any +other society function." + +While he thus soliloquized, the nearest relatives of the deceased +victims issued from the church, seeking the carriages in waiting for +them. Among those who came next was a handsome, spirited-looking girl +of twenty-five, who, though not of the family group, was a sincere +mourner. As she stepped forward with the elasticity of youth, glad of +the fresh air on her tear-stained cheeks, it happened that she also +observed the presence of the reporter, and she paused, plainly +appalled. Her nostrils quivered with horrified distress, and she +turned her head as though seeking some one. It proved to be the young +man who had misjudged Harrington a few moments before. At least, he +sprang to her side with an agility which suggested that his eyes had +been following her every movement, thereby prompting Harrington, who +was ever on the alert for a touch of romance amid the prose of +every-day business, to remark shrewdly: + +"That's plain as the nose on your face; he's her 'steady.'" + +He realized at the same time that he was being pointed out in no +flattering terms by the young lady in question, who cast a single +haughty glance in his direction by way of identification. He saw her +eyes flash, and, though the brief dialogue which ensued was +necessarily inarticulate to him, it was plain that she was laying her +outraged feelings at the feet of her admirer, with a command for +something summary and substantial by way of relief. + +At any rate, Harrington jumped at once to this conclusion, for he +murmured: "She's telling him I'm the scum of the earth, and that it's +up to him to get rid of me." He added, sententiously: "She'll find, I +guess, that this is about the most difficult billet a fair lady ever +intrusted to a gallant knight." Whereupon, inspired by his metaphor, +he proceeded to hum under his breath, by way of outlet to his amused +sensibilities, the dulcet refrain which runs: + + In days of old, when knights were bold + And barons held their sway, + A warrior bold, with spurs of gold. + Sang merrily his lay, + Sang merrily his lay: + "My love is young and fair, + My love hath golden hair, + And eyes so blue and heart so true + That none with her compare. + So what care I, though death be nigh? + I'll live for love or die! + So what care I, though death be nigh, + I'll live for love or die!" + +What was going to happen? How would Sir Knight set to work to slay or +expel the obnoxious dragon? Harrington felt mildly curious despite his +sardonic emotions, and while he took mental note of what was taking +place around him he contrived to keep an eye on his censors. He had +observed that the young man's face while she talked to him had worn a +worried expression, as though he were already meditating whether the +situation was not hopeless unless he had recourse to personal +violence; but, having put his Dulcinea into her carriage, he appeared +to be in no haste to begin hostilities. Indeed, without further ado, +or even a glance in Harrington's direction, he took his place in the +line of mourners which was moving toward the neighboring cemetery. + +Harrington was for a moment divided in his own mind between the claims +of reportorial delicacy and proper self-respect. It had been his +intention to absent himself from the services at the grave, out of +consideration for the immediate family. It occurred to him now that it +was almost his duty to show himself there, in order not to avoid a +meeting. But the finer instinct prevailed. Why allow what was, after +all, nothing save ignorant disapproval to alter his arrangements? He +had just time to walk leisurely to the station without overheating +himself, and delay would oblige him to take a later train, as there +was no vehicle at his disposal. + +Consequently, after his brief hesitation, he followed a high-road at +right angles to that taken by the funeral procession, and gave himself +up to the beguilement of his own thoughts. They were concerned with +the preparation of his special article, and he indulged in the +reflection that if it were read by the couple who had looked at him +askance they would be put to shame by its accuracy and good taste. + +Before Harrington had finished three-quarters of the distance which +lay between the church and his destination, the carriages of those +returning from the cemetery began to pass him. When the dust raised by +their wheels had subsided he looked for an undisturbed landscape +during the remainder of his walk, and had just given rein again to +contemplation when a sound which revealed unmistakably the approach of +an automobile caused him to turn his head. A touring car of large +dimensions and occupied by two persons was approaching at a moderate +rate of speed, which the driver, who was obviously the owner, reduced +to a minimum as he ran alongside him. + +"May I give you a lift?" asked a strong, friendly voice. + +Before the question was put Harrington had recognized in the speaker +the young man whose mission it had become, according to his shrewd +guess, to call him to account for his presence at the funeral. He had +exchanged his silk hat for a cap, and drawn on a white dust-coat over +his other sable garments, but his identity was unmistakable. Viewing +him close at hand Harrington perceived that he had large, clear eyes, +a smooth-shaven, humorous, determined mouth, and full ruddy cheeks, +the immobility of which suggested the habit of deliberation. +Physically and temperamentally he appeared to be the antipodes of the +reporter, who was thin, nervous, and wiry, with quick, snappy ways and +electric mental processes. It occurred to him now at once that the +offer concealed a trap, and he recalled, knowingly, the warning +contained in the classical adage concerning Greeks who bear gifts. +But, on the other hand, what had he to fear or to apologize for? +Besides, there was his boy Tesla to consider. How delighted the little +fellow, who already doted on electricity, would be to hear that his +father had ridden in a huge touring car! He would be glad, too, of the +experience himself, in order to compare the sensation with that of +travelling in the little puffing machines with which he was tolerably +familiar. Therefore he answered civilly, yet without enthusiasm: + +"I don't mind if you do, as far as the station." + +At his words the chauffeur at a sign made place for him, and he +stepped in beside his pseudo-enemy, who, as he turned on the power, +met Harrington's limitation as to distance with the remark: + +"I'm going all the way to New York, if you care to go with me." + +Harrington was tempted again. Apart from the peculiar circumstances of +the case he would like nothing better. Then, why not? What had he or +his self-respect to dread from a trip with this accommodating dude? He +would hardly sandbag him, and were he--Harrington grinned inwardly at +the cunning thought--intending to have the machine break down in an +inaccessible spot, and leave him stranded, what difference would it +make? His article was too late already for the evening papers, and he +would take excellent care to see that nothing should interfere with +its appearance the following morning, for at a pinch he was within +walking distance of the city. The thought of such an attempt to muzzle +the liberty of the press was rather an incentive than otherwise, for +it savored of real adventure and indicated that a moral issue was +involved. + +While he thus reflected he appeared not to have heard the observation. +Meanwhile the automobile was running swiftly and smoothly, as though +its owner were not averse to have his guest perceive what a superb +machine it was. + +"What make?" asked the reporter, wishing to show himself affable, yet +a man of the world. He had come to the conclusion that if the +invitation were repeated he would accept it. + +His companion told him, and as though he divined that the inquiry had +been intended to convey admiration, added, "She's going now only at +about half her speed." + +Harrington grinned inwardly again. "Springes to catch woodcock!" he +said to himself, quoting Shakespeare, then went on to reflect in his +own vernacular: "The chap is trying to bribe me, confound him! Well, +here goes!" Thereupon he said aloud, for they were approaching the +station: "If you really would like my company on the way to town I'd +be glad to see how fast she can go." As he spoke he drew out his watch +and added with suppressed humorous intention: "I suppose you'll +guarantee to get me there in a couple of hours or so?" + +"If we don't break down or are not arrested." The voice was gay and +without a touch of sinister suggestion. + +"Here's a deep one, maybe," thought Harrington. + +Already the kidnapper--if he were one--was steering the car into a +country way which diverged at a sharp curve from that in which they +had been travelling. It was a smooth, level stretch, running at first +almost parallel with the railroad, and in another moment they were +spinning along at a hair-lifting rate of speed, yet with so little +friction that the reporter's enthusiasm betrayed itself in a grunt of +satisfaction, though he was reflecting that his companion knew the way +and did not intend to allow him to change his mind. But Harrington was +quite content with the situation, and gave himself up unreservedly to +the pleasant thrill of skimming along the surface of the earth at such +a pace that the summer breeze buffeted his face so that his eyes +watered. There was nothing in sight but a clear, straight road flanked +by hedges and ditches, save the railroad bed, along which after a +while the train came whizzing. A pretty race ensued until it crossed +their path at almost a right angle. + +"Now he thinks he has me," thought Harrington. + +It almost seemed so, for in another moment he of the humorous, +determined mouth diminished the power, and after they were on the +other side of the railroad track he proceeded at a much less strenuous +pace and opened conversation. + +"You're a reporter, I judge?" + +Harrington, who was enjoying himself, would have preferred to avoid +business for a little longer and to talk as one gentleman to another +on a pleasure trip. So, in response to this direct challenge, he +answered with dry dignity: + +"Yes. I have the honor of representing the Associated Press." + +"One of the great institutions of the country." + +This was reasonable--so reasonable, indeed, that Harrington pondered +it to detect some sophistry. + +"It must be in many respects an interesting calling." + +"Yes, sir; a man has to keep pretty well up to date." + +"Married or single, if I may be so bold?" + +"I have a wife and a son nine years old." + +"That is as it should be. Lucky dog!" + +Harrington laughed in approval of the sentiment. "Then I must assume +that you are a bachelor, Mr. ----?" + +"Dryden. Walter Dryden is my name. Yes, that's the trouble." + +"She won't have you?" hazarded the reporter, wishing to be social in +his turn. + +"Exactly." + +"Mrs. Harrington would not the first time I asked her." + +"I have offered myself to her six separate times, and she has thus far +declined." + +Harrington paused a moment. The temptation to reveal his own +astuteness, and at the same time enhance the personal flavor which the +dialogue had acquired, was not to be resisted. "May I venture to ask +if she is the lady with whom you exchanged a few words this forenoon +at the door of the church?" + +The young man turned his glance from the road toward his questioner by +way of tribute to such acumen. "I see that nothing escapes your +observation." + +"It is my business to notice everything and to draw my own +conclusions," said the reporter modestly. + +"They are shrewdly correct in this case. Would you be surprised," +continued Dryden in a confidential tone, "if I were to inform you that +I believe it lies in your power to procure me a home and happiness?" + +Harrington chuckled in his secret soul. He would dissemble. "How could +that possibly be?" + +"I don't mind telling you that the last time I offered myself the +young lady appeared a trifle less obdurate. She shook her head, but I +thought I observed signs of wavering--faint, yet appreciable. If now I +could only put her under an obligation and thus convince her of my +effectiveness, I am confident I could win her." + +"Your effectiveness?" queried Harrington, to whom the interview was +becoming more psychologically interesting every moment. + +"Yes, she considers me an unpractical person--not serious, you know. I +know what you consider me," he added with startling divergence--"a +dude." + +Harrington found this searchlight on his own previous thought +disconcerting. "Well, aren't you one?" he essayed boldly. + +Dryden pondered a moment. "I suppose so. I don't wear reversible cuffs +and I am disgustingly rich. I've shot tigers in India, lived in the +Latin quarter, owned a steam yacht, climbed San Juan Hill--but I have +not found a permanent niche. There are not places enough to go round +for men with millions, and she calls me a rolling stone. Come, now, +I'll swap places with you. You shall own this motor and--and I'll +write the press notice on the Ward-Upton funeral." + +Harrington stiffened instinctively. He did not believe that the +amazing, splendid offer was genuine. But had he felt complete faith +that the young man beside him was in earnest, he would have been proof +against the lure of even a touring car, for he had been touched at his +most sensitive point. His artistic capacity was assailed, and his was +just the nature to take proper umbrage at the imputation. More; over, +though this was a minor consideration, he resented slightly the +allusion to reversible cuffs. Hence the answer sprang to his lips: + +"Can you not trust me to write the notice, Mr. Dryden?" + +"She would like me to write it." + +"Ah, I see! Was that what she whispered to you this morning?" + +Dryden hesitated. "Certainly words to that effect. Let me ask you in +turn, can you not trust me? If so, the automobile is yours and----" + +Harrington laughed coldly. "I'm sorry not to oblige you, Mr. Dryden. +If you understood my point of view you would see that what you propose +is out of the question. I was commissioned to write up the Ward-Upton +obsequies, and I alone must do so." + +As he spoke they were passing at a lively gait through the +picturesquely shaded main street of a small country town and were +almost abreast of the only tavern of the place, which wore the +appearance of having been recently remodelled and repainted to meet +the demands of modern road travel. + +"Your point of view? What is your point of view?" + +Before Harrington had time to begin to put into speech the statement +of his principles there was a sudden loud explosion beneath them like +the discharge of a huge pistol, and the machine came abruptly to a +stop. So unexpected and startling was the shock that the reporter +sprang from the car and in his nervous annoyance at once vented the +hasty conclusion at which he arrived in the words: "I see; this is a +trap, and you are a modern highwayman whose stunt will make good +Sunday reading in cold print." He wore a sarcastic smile, and his +sharp eyes gleamed like a ferret's. + +Dryden regarded him humorously with his steady gaze. "Gently there; +it's only a tire gone. Do you suspect me of trying to trifle with the +sacred liberties of the press?" + +"I certainly did, sir. It looks very much like it." + +"Then you agree that I chose a very inappropriate place for my +purpose. 'The Old Homestead' there is furnished with a telephone, a +livery-stable, and all the modern protections against highway robbery. +Besides, there is a cold chicken and a bottle of choice claret in the +basket with which to supplement the larder of our host of the inn. We +will take luncheon while my chauffeur is placing us on an even keel +again, and no time will be lost. You will even have ten minutes in +which to put pen to paper while the table is being laid." + +Harrington as a nervous man was no less promptly generous in his +impulses when convinced of error than he was quick to scent out a +hostile plot. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dryden. I see I was mistaken." +He thrust out a lean hand by way of amity. "Can't I help?" + +"Oh, no, thank you. My man will attend to everything." + +"You see I got the idea to begin with and then the explosion following +so close upon your offer----" + +"Quite so," exclaimed Dryden. "A suspicious coincidence, I admit." He +shook the proffered fingers without a shadow of resentment. "I dare +say my dust-coat and goggles give me quite the highwayman effect," he +continued jollily. + +"They sort of got on my nerves, I guess." Under the spell of his +generous impulse various bits of local color flattering to his +companion began to suggest themselves to Harrington for his article, +and he added: "I'll take advantage of that suggestion of yours and get +to work until luncheon is ready." + +Some fifteen minutes later they were seated opposite to each other at +an appetizing meal. As Dryden finished his first glass of claret, he +asked: + +"Did you know Richard Upton?" + +"The man who was killed? Not personally. But I have read about him in +the society papers." + +"Ah!" There was a deep melancholy in the intonation which caused the +reporter to look at his companion a little sharply. For a moment +Dryden stirred in his chair as though about to make some comment, and +twisted the morsel of bread at his fingers' ends into a small pellet. +But he poured out another glass of claret for each of them and said: + +"He was the salt of the earth." + +"Tell me about him. I should be glad to know. I might----" + +"There's so little to tell--it was principally charm. He was one of +the most unostentatious, unselfish, high-minded, consistent men I ever +knew. Completely a gentleman in the finest sense of that overworked +word." + +"That's very interesting. I should be glad----" + +Dryden shook his head. "You didn't know him well enough. It was like +the delicacy of the rose--finger it and it falls to pieces. No offence +to you, of course. I doubt my own ability to do him justice, well as I +knew him. But you put a stopper on that--and you were right. My kind +regards," he said, draining his second glass of claret. "The laborer +is worthy of his hire, the artist must not be interfered with. It was +an impertinence of me to ask to do your work." + +Harrington's eyes gleamed. "It's pleasant to be appreciated--to have +one's point of view comprehended. It isn't pleasant to butt in where +you're not wanted, but there's something bigger than that involved, +the----" + +"Quite so; it was a cruel bribe; and many men in your shoes would not +have been proof against it." + +"And you were in dead earnest, too, though for a moment I couldn't +believe it. But the point is--and that's what I mean--that the +public--gentlemen like you and ladies like the handsome one who looked +daggers at me this morning--don't realize that the world is bound to +have the news on its breakfast-table and supper-table, and that when a +man is in the business and knows his business and is trying to do the +decent thing and the acceptable artistic thing, too, if I do say it, +he is entitled to be taken seriously and--and trusted. There are +incompetent men--rascals even--in my calling. What I contend is that +you'd no right to assume that I wouldn't do the inevitable thing +decently merely because you saw me there. For, if you only knew it, I +was saying to myself at that very moment that for a funeral it was the +most tastefully handled I ever attended." + +"It is the inevitable thing; that's just it. My manners were bad to +begin to with, and later--" Dryden leaned forward with his elbows on +the table and his head between his hands, scanning his eager +companion. + +"Don't mention it. You see, it was a matter of pride with me. And now +it's up to me to state that if there's anything in particular you'd +like me to mention about the deceased gentleman or lady----" + +Dryden sighed at the reminder, "One of the loveliest and most +pure-hearted of women." + +"That shall go down," said the reporter, mistaking the apostrophe for +an answer, and he drew a note-book from his side pocket. + +Dryden raised his hand by way of protest. "I was merely thinking +aloud. No, we must trust you." + +Harrington bowed. He hesitated, then by way of noticing the plural +allusion in the speech added: "It was your young lady's look which +wounded me the most. And she said something. I don't suppose you'd +care to tell me what she said? It wasn't flattering, I'm sure of that, +but it was on the tip of her tongue. I admit I'm mildly curious as to +what it was." + +Dryden reflected a moment. "You've written your article?" he asked, +indicating the note-book. + +"It's all mapped out in my mind, and I've finished the introduction." + +"I won't ask to see it because we trust you. But I'll make a compact +with you." Dryden held out a cigar to his adversary and proceeded to +light one for himself. "Supposing what the lady said referred to +something which you have written there, would you agree to cut it +out?" + +Harrington looked gravely knowing. "You think you can tell what I have +written?" he asked, tapping his note-book. + +Dryden took a puff. "Very possibly not. I am merely supposing. But in +case the substance of her criticism--for she did criticise--should +prove to be almost word for word identical with something in your +handwriting--would you agree?" + +Harrington shrugged his shoulders. "Against the automobile as a stake, +if it proves not to be?" he inquired by way of expressing his +incredulity. + +"Gladly." + +"Let it be rather against another luncheon with you as agreeable as +this." + +"Done. I will write her exact language here on this piece of paper and +then we will exchange copy." + +Harrington sat pleasantly amused, yet puzzled, while Dryden wrote and +folded the paper. Then he proffered his note-book with nervous +alacrity. "Read aloud until you come to the place," he said jauntily. + +Dryden scanned for a moment the memoranda, then looked up. "It is all +here at the beginning, just as she prophesied," he said, with a +promptness which was almost radiant, and he read as follows: "The dual +funeral of Miss Josephine Ward, the leading society girl, and Richard +Upton, the well-known club man, took place this morning at--" He +paused and said: "Read now what you have there." + +Harrington flushed, then scowled, but from perplexity. He was seeking +enlightenment before he proceeded further, so he unfolded the paper +with a deliberation unusual to him, which afforded time to Dryden to +remark with clear precision: + +"Those were her very words." + +Harrington read aloud: "'Look at that man; he is taking notes. Oh, he +will describe them in his newspaper as a leading society girl and a +well-known club man, and they will turn in their graves. If you love +me, stop it.'" + +There was a brief pause. The reporter pondered, visibly chagrined and +disappointed. The silence was broken by Dryden. "Do you not +understand?" he inquired. + +"Frankly, I do not altogether. I--I thought they'd like it." + +"Of course you did, my dear fellow; there's the ghastly humor of it; +the dire tragedy, rather." As he spoke he struck his closed hand +gently but firmly on the table, and regarded the reporter with the +compressed lips of one who is about to vent a long pent-up grievance. + +"He was in four clubs; I looked him up," Harrington still protested in +dazed condition. + +"And they seemed to you his chief title to distinction? You thought +they did him honor? He would have writhed in his grave, as Miss +Mayberry said. Like it? When the cheap jack or the social climber +dies, he may like it, but not the gentleman or lady. Leading society +girl? Why, every shop-girl who commits suicide is immortalized in the +daily press as 'a leading society girl,' and every deceased Tom, Dick, +or Harry has become a 'well-known club man.' It has added a new terror +to death. Thank God, my friends will be spared!" + +Harrington felt of his chin. "You object to the promiscuity of it, so +to speak. It's because everybody is included?" + +"No, man, to the fundamental indignity of it. To the baseness of the +metal which the press glories in using for a social crown." + +Harrington drew himself up a little. "If the press does it, it's +because most people like it and regard it as a tribute." + +"Ah! But my friends do not. You spoke just now of your point of view. +This is ours. Think it over, Mr. Harrington, and you will realize that +there is something in it." He sat back in his chair with the air of a +man who has pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat and is well +content. + +Harrington meditated a moment. "However that be, one thing is +certain--it has got to come out. It will come out. You may rest +assured of that, Mr. Dryden." So saying he reached for his note-book +and proceeded to run a pencil through the abnoxious paragraph. + +"You have won your bet and--and the young lady, too, Sir Knight, I +trust. You seem to have found your niche." Which goes to prove that +the reporter was a magnanimous fellow at heart. + +Dryden forbore to commit himself as to the condition of his hopes as +he thanked his late adversary for this expression of good-will. Ten +minutes later they were sitting in the rehabilitated motor-car and +speeding rapidly toward New York. When they reached the city Dryden +insisted on leaving the reporter at his doorsteps, a courtesy which +went straight to Harrington's heart, for, as he expected would be the +case, his wife and son Tesla were looking out of the window at the +moment of his arrival and saw him dash up to the curbstone. His sturdy +urchin ran out forthwith to inspect the mysteries of the huge machine. +As it vanished down the street Harrington put an arm round Tesla and +went to meet the wife of his bosom. + +"Who is your new friend, Paul?" she asked. + +It rose to Harrington's lips to say--an hour before he would have said +confidently--"a well-known club man"; but he swallowed the phrase +before it was uttered and answered thoughtfully: + +"It was one of the funeral guests, who gave me a lift in his motor, +and has taught me a thing or two about modern journalism on the way +up. I got stung." + +"I thought you knew everything there is to know about that," remarked +Mrs. Harrington with the fidelity of a true spouse. + +To this her husband at the moment made no response. When, six months +later, however, he received an invitation to the wedding of Walter +Dryden and Miss Florence Mayberry, he remarked in her presence, as he +sharpened his pencil for the occasion: "Those swells have trusted me +to write it up after all." + + + + +THE ROMANCE OF A SOUL + + +When Marion Willis became a schoolmistress in the Glendale public +school at twenty-two she regarded her employment as a transient +occupation, to be terminated presently by marriage. She possessed an +imaginative temperament, and one of her favorite and most satisfying +habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, +shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would +picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, +punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her +fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own +advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. +On the morning when she entered the school-house door for the first +time the eyes of her mind saw the curtain which veils the years +divide, and she beheld herself a famous educator, still young, but +long since graduated from primary teaching. She forgot the vision of +her Sir Galahad there. Nor were the circumstances of her several +day-dreams necessarily consistent in other respects. It sufficed for +her spiritual exaltation that they should be merely a fairy-like +manifestation in her own favor. But though she loved to give her +imagination rein, the fairy-like quality of these visions was patent +to Miss Willis, for she possessed a quiet sense of humor as a sort of +east-wind supplementary to the sentimental and poetic properties of +her nature. She had a way of poking fun at herself, which, when +exercised, sent the elfin figures scattering with a celerity +suggestive of the departure of her own pupils at the tinkle of the +bell for dismissal. Then she was left alone with her humor and her New +England conscience, that stern adjuster of real values and enemy of +spiritual dissipation. This same conscience was a vigilant monitor in +the matter of her school-teaching, despite Miss Willis's reasonable +hope that Sir Galahad would claim her soon. The hope would have been +reasonable in the case of any one of her sex, for every woman is said +to be given at least one opportunity to become a wife; but in the case +of Miss Willis nature had been more than commonly bounteous. She was +not a beauty, but she was sweet and fresh-looking, with clear, honest +eyes, and a cheery, gracious manner such as is apt to captivate +discerning men. She was one of those wholesome spirits, earnest and +refined, yet prone to laughter, which do not remain long unmated in +the ordinary course of human experience. But her conscience did not +permit her to dwell on this advantage to the detriment of her +scholars. + +Miss Willis lived at home with her mother. They owned their small +house. The other expenses were defrayed from the daughter's salary; +hence strict economy was obligatory, and the expenditure of every +five-dollar bill was a matter of moment. Miss Willis's father had died +when she was a baby. The meagre sum of money which he left had +sufficed to keep his widow and only child from want until Marion's +majority. All had been spent except the house; but, as Miss Willis now +proudly reflected, she had become a breadwinner, and her mother's +declining years were shielded from poverty. They would be able to +manage famously until Sir Galahad arrived, and when he came one of the +joys of her surrender would be that her mother's old age would be +brightened by a few luxuries. + +Glendale, as its name denotes, had been a rustic village. When Miss +Willis was engaged (to teach school, not to be married) it was a +thriving, bustling, overgrown, manufacturing town already yearning to +become a city. By the end of another five years Glendale had realized +its ambition, and Miss Willis was still a teacher in its crowded +grammar-school. How the years creep, yet how they fly, when one is +busy with regular, routine employment! The days are such a repetition +of each other that they sometimes seem very long, but when one pauses +and looks back one starts at the accumulation of departed time, and +deplores the swiftness of the seasons. + +Five years had but slightly dimmed the freshness of Miss Willis's +charms. She was as comely as ever. She was a trifle stouter, a trifle +less girlish in manner, and only a trifle--what shall we call +it?--wilted in appearance. The close atmosphere of a school-room is +not conducive to rosiness of complexion; and the constant strain of +guiding over forty immature minds in the paths of knowledge will weigh +upon the flesh, though the soul be patient and the heart light. Miss +Willis's class comprised the children whose average age was twelve to +thirteen--those who had been in the school three years. There were +both boys and girls, and they remained with her a year. She had begun +with the youngest children, but promotion had presently established +her in this position. + +Forty immature minds--minds just groping on the threshold of life--to +be watched, shaped, and helped for ten months, and their individual +needs treated with sympathy and patience. For ten months--the school +term,--then to be exchanged for a new batch, and so from year to year. +Glendale's manufacturing population included several nationalities, so +that the little army of scholars which sat under Miss Willis's eye +included Poles, Italians, negroes, and now and then a youthful +Chinaman, as well as the sons and daughters of the merchant, the +tailor, the butcher, and baker, and other citizens whose title as +Americans was of older date. It was not easy to keep the atmosphere of +such a school-room wholesome, for the apparel of the poorest children, +though often well darned, was not always clean, and the ventilating +apparatus represented a political job. But it was Miss Willis's pride +that she knew the identity of every one of her boys and girls, and +carried it by force of love and will written on her brain as well as +on the desk-tablets which she kept as a safeguard against possible +lapses of memory. She loved her classes, and it was a grief to her at +first to be obliged to pass them on at the end of the school year. But +habit reconciles us to the inevitable, and she presently learned to +steel her heart against a too sensitive point of view in this respect, +and to supplement the bleeding ties thus rudely severed with a fresh +set without crying her eyes out. Yet though faithful teachers are thus +schooled to forget, they rarely do, and Miss Willis found herself +keeping track, in her mind's eye, of her little favorites--some of +them youthful reprobates--in their progress up the ladder of knowledge +and out into the world. + +But what of Sir Galahad? He had dallied, but about this time--the +sixth year of her life as a teacher--he appeared. Not as she had +imagined him--a lover of great personal distinction, amazing talents, +compelling virtues, and large estates; yet, nevertheless, a +presentable being in trousers, whose devotion touched her maidenly +heart until it reciprocated the passion which his lips expressed. He +was a young bookkeeper in a banker's office, with a taste for literary +matters and a respectable gift for private theatricals. A small social +club was the medium by which they became intimate. Sir Galahad was +refined in appearance and bearing, a trifle too delicate for perfect +manliness, yet, as Miss Willis's mother justly observed, a gentle soul +to live with. He had a taste for poetry, and a sentimental vein which +manifested itself in verses of a Wordsworthian simplicity descriptive +of his lady-love's charms. No wonder Marion fell in love with him, and +renounced, without even a sigh of regret, her vision of a husband with +lordly means. Sir Galahad had only his small means, which were not +enough for a matrimonial venture. They would wait in the hope that +some opportunity for preferment would present itself. So for three +years--years when she was in the heyday of her comeliness--they +attended the social club as an engaged couple, and fed their mutual +passion on the poets and occasional chaste embraces. Marion felt sure +that something would happen before long to redeem the situation and +establish her Sir Galahad in the seat to which his merit entitled him. +Her favorite vision was of some providential catastrophe, even an +epidemic or wholesale maiming, by which the partners of the +banking-house and all in authority over her lover should be +temporarily incapacitated, and the entire burden of the business be +thrown on his shoulders long enough to demonstrate his true worth. As +a sequel she beheld him promptly admitted to partnership and herself +blissfully married. + +The course of events did not respect her vision. After they had been +engaged nearly four years Sir Galahad came to the conclusion one day +that the only hope of establishing himself in business on his own +account was (to repeat his own metaphor) to seize the bull by the +horns and go West. Marion bravely and enthusiastically seconded his +resolution, and fired his spirit by her own prophecy as to his rapid +success. Western real estate for Eastern investors was the line of +business to which Sir Galahad decided to fasten his hopes. He set +forth upon his crusade protesting that within a twelvemonth he would +win a home for Marion and her mother in the fashionable quarter of St. +Paul, Minn., and carrying in his valise a toilet-case tastefully +embroidered by his sweetheart, in a corner of which were emblazoned +two hearts beating as one. + +Marion returned to her scholars more than ever convinced that her +employment was but a transient occupation. What followed was this: Sir +Galahad put out his sign as a broker in Western real estate for +Eastern investors, and fifteen months slipped away before he earned +more than his bare living expenses. He had carried with him his poetic +tastes and his gift for private theatricals. The first of these he +exercised in his fond letters home; the second he employed for the +entertainment of the social club in St. Paul, to which he presently +obtained admittance. By the end of the second year he was doing better +financially, but his letters to Marion had become less frequent and +less frank in regard to his own circumstances and doings. There came a +letter at last from Sir Galahad--a letter of eight pages of soul +stress and sorrow, as he would have called it, and of disingenuous +wriggling, as the world would call it--in which he explained as +delicately as was possible under the circumstances that his love for +Miss Willis had become the love of a brother for a sister, and that he +was engaged to be married to Miss Virginia Crumb, the only daughter of +Hon. Cephas I. Crumb, owner and treasurer of the Astarte Metal Works, +of Minnesota. Exit Sir Galahad! And following his perfidy Marion's +imagination evoked a vision of revenge in which she figured as the +plaintiff in a breach-of-promise suit, and had the fierce yet +melancholy joy of confronting him and his new love face to face before +a sympathizing judge and jury. But her New England conscience and her +sense of humor combined disposed of this vision in a summary fashion, +so that she let Sir Galahad off with the assurance that it was a +happiness to her that he had discovered how little he cared before it +was too late. Then her New England conscience bade her settle down to +her teaching with a grim courage, and be thankful that she had never +been unfaithful to her work. Also her sense of humor told her that she +must not assume all men to be false because Sir Galahad had been. It +was then, when she needed him sorely, that destiny introduced on the +scene Jimmy. + +Jimmy was no Sir Galahad. He was a chunky, round-faced school-boy with +brown hair, which, when it had not been cut for a month, blossomed +into close, curly tangles. At first sight Jimmy was dull-eyed, and in +the class his mental processes were so slow that he had already +acquired among his mates the reputation of being stupid. The teacher +who had taught him last confided to Miss Willis that she feared Jimmy +was hopeless. Hopeless! Somehow the word went to Marion's heart. Not +that she was hopeless; far from it, she would have told you. But her +sense of humor did not conceal from her that in spite of her +grin-and-bear-it mien, she was far from happy. At any rate, the +suggestion that Jimmy was hopeless awoke a sympathetic chord in her +breast, so that she looked at him more tenderly on the day after she +had been told. Jimmy was slow of speech and rather dirty as to his +face. There were warts on his hands, and his sphinx-like countenance +was impassive almost to the point of stolidity. Somehow, though, Miss +Willis said to herself, in her zeal to characterize him fairly, the +little thirteen-year-old product of democracy (Jimmy was the son of a +carpenter and a grocer's daughter) suggested power; suggested it as a +block of granite or a bull-dog suggests it. His compact, sturdy frame +and well-poised head, with its close, brown curls, seemed a protest in +themselves against hopelessness. On the third day he smiled; it was in +recess that she detected him at it. An organ-grinder's monkey in the +school-yard called it forth, a sweet, glad smile, which lit up his +dense features as the sun at twilight will pierce through and +illuminate for a few minutes a sullen cloud-bank. Miss Willis saw in a +vision on the spot a refuge from hopelessness. Behind that smile there +must be a winsome soul. That spiritless expression was but a veil or +rind hiding the germs of sensibility and reason. This was discovery +number one. After it came darkness again, so far as outward +manifestation was concerned. Jimmy's attitude toward his lessons +appeared to be one of utter density. He listened with blank but +slightly lowered eyes. When questioned he generally gurgled +inarticulately, as though seeking a response, then broke down. +Occasionally he essayed an answer, which revealed that he had +understood nothing. Oftener he sought refuge in complete silence. But +hope had been stimulated in Miss Willis's breast, and she relaxed +neither scrutiny nor tenderness. One day matters were brought to a +head by the thoughtless jest of a classmate, a flaxen-haired fairy, +who, in the recess following one of Jimmy's least successful gurgles, +crept up behind him and planted upon his curls a brown-paper cap, +across which the little witch had painted "DUNCE" in large capital +letters. + +Jimmy did not know what had happened. For a moment he thought, +perhaps, that he had been introduced to some new game. But the jeers +of the children checked the rising smile and led him to pluck at his +forehead. As he gazed at the fool's-cap in his hand a roar of +merciless laughter greeted his discovery. Miss Willis had realized the +fairy's deed too late to prevent the catastrophe. The sharp tap of her +ruler on the desk produced a silence interjected with giggles. The +fairy was a successful scholar, and would not have harmed a fly +willingly. It was a case of fun--the rough expression of an +indisputable fact. Jimmy was such a dunce that he ought really to wear +the brand as a notice to the world. What Miss Willis said by way of +reproof to the fairy is immaterial. If Jimmy heard it he gave no sign. +He dropped his head upon his desk and was sobbing audibly. The +bewildered children hearkened to the protest against cruelty with that +elfin look which mischievous youth dares assume, while the culprit +stood with a finger in her mouth, not quite understanding the enormity +of her conduct. In a moment more they were in the school-yard, and +Miss Willis was beside Jimmy's desk patting his tangled head. He wept +as though his heart would break. + +"No matter, Jimmy; it was only a thoughtless jest. She didn't mean to +hurt your feelings." + +Her words and variations on the same theme called forth successive +bursts of sobs. Only silence diminished their intensity. When at last +they had become only quiverings of his shoulders he looked up and +said, with a wail of fierce despair, but with a grasp upon self which +was a fresh revelation: + +"It's true; it's true! She did it because I'm so stupid!" + +Thereupon his shoulders shook again convulsively, and he burst into +fresh grief. + +Marion's arms were about him in an instant. "Jimmy, Jimmy, it is not +true! You are not stupid! You and I will fight it out together! Will +you trust me, Jimmy?" + +He sobbed, but she could perceive that he was listening. Had her hope +become his? Surely they were words he had never heard before. + +"Jimmy, listen to me. I have found out something, and all owing to +that ridiculous dunce-cap. It is I who have been stupid. I never knew +until now how much you wish to learn and to improve. You are not +stupid, Jimmy. I am sure of it. You are slow, but you and I will put +our heads together and make the best of that. Will you try with me, +Jimmy?" + +The curly head was raised again. His tear-stained eyes looked out at +her shyly, but with a beam of astonished gratitude. From his quivering +lips fell a low but resolute "Yes, ma'am!" + +"We will begin to-day. We need each other, Jimmy." + +As a work of art grows slowly from confusion and lack of form to +coherence and symmetry to the moral joy of its maker, so her +experience in human plastic enterprise filled the heart of Miss Willis +with a vital happiness. For two years--day in and day out--she never +flagged in her task of giving sight to the eyes and ears to the mind +of the unshaped clay which fate had put into her hands for making or +marring. How patient she had to be! How ingenious, vigilant, and +sympathetic! Through working upon the souls of Jimmy's father and +mother by pathetic appeal she obtained permission to keep him an hour +after school each day and drill him step by step, inch by inch. She +brought her midday meal and shared it with him. In the evening she +framed cunning devices to lure his budding intelligence. And from the +very first she beheld her figure of human ignorance respond to her +gentle moulding. Jimmy's soul was first of all a hot-spring of +ambition; the evidences of which, when once recognized, were ever +paramount. But how blocked and intricate were the passages through +which this yearning for fame sought to express itself! Sometimes it +seemed even to her as though she would never dissipate the fog-bank +which tortured his intelligence. But Jimmy was patient, too, and his +bull-dog features were but the reflex of a grim tenacity of purpose. +At the end of the first year she reported that he was unfit to be +promoted, in order that she need not lose him just when he needed her +most. She was able to make clear to Jimmy that this was not a +disgrace, but a sign of progress. But when the end of the second year +came she passed him on with only the qualm of love parting with its +own. Her task was done. The dull, clouded brow was clear with the +light of eager reason; the still struggling faculties had begun to +understand that in slowness there was the compensation of power, and +were resolute with hope. + +"Good-by, Miss Willis. I'm going to be at the head of my class next +year; see if I'm not!" + +So said Jimmy as he left her. She hesitated a moment, then stooped and +kissed him. It made her blush, for she had never kissed a pupil +before, nor any one but her mother since Sir Galahad. It made Jimmy +blush, too, for he did not know exactly what to make of it. So they +parted, and Jimmy went up the ladder of knowledge for two years more +at that school. He was not the head of his class; he was number five +the first year and number three the second. When he graduated he +promised to write; but, boylike, he never did, so he vanished into the +open polar world, and was lost to the eyes of the woman who had grown +gray in his service. + +Yes, Miss Willis had grown gray. That is, there were more or less +becoming threads of silver in her maiden tresses, and the dignity of +middle age had added inches to her waist and a few interesting lines +to her forehead. There was no new Sir Galahad on the horizon even of +her day-dreams, and her mother was in failing health. Mrs. Willis +continued now to fail for five years--years which taxed her daughter's +strength, though not her affection. Pupils came and went--pupils to +whom she gave herself with the faithfulness of her New England +conscience--but no one exactly like Jimmy. He remained unique, yet +lost in the maze of life. When her mother died she settled down as an +incorrigible old maid, and her daydreams knew no more the vision of a +love coming from the clouds to possess her. Nor did the years bring +with them realization of that other vision--herself enthroned in the +public mind as a wonderful educator to whom the world should bow. She +was only Miss Marion Willis, the next to the oldest and the most +respected teacher of the Glendale grammar-school. So she found herself +at the end of twenty-five years of continuous service. It did occur to +her as a delightful possibility that the authorities or scholars or +somebody would observe this quarter-centennial anniversary in a +suitable manner, and a vision danced before her mind's eye of a +surprise-party bearing a pretty piece of silver or a clock as a +memorial of her life-work. But the date came and passed without +comment from any source, and Marion's sense of humor made the best of +it by drinking her own health on the evening of the day in question, +and congratulating herself that she loved her work and was happy. At +that supper there was no guest save Jimmy's tintype, which she fetched +from the mantelpiece and leaned against the cake-basket on the table. +Jimmy stood now not only for himself, but for a little army of +struggling souls upon whom her patient intelligence had been freely +lavished. + +Of course, Jimmy was found. Miss Willis had always felt sure that he +would be. But ten years more had slipped away before he was brought to +light. One day she discovered his name in the newspaper as a rising +political constellation, and she was convinced, without the least +particle of evidence to support her credulity, that the James in +question was her Jimmy. His name had suddenly become prominent in the +political firmament on account of his resolute conduct as the mayor of +a Western city. The public had been impressed by his strength and +pluck and executive ability, working successfully against a gang of +municipal cutthroats, and his name was being paraded over the country. + +"I've half a mind to write to him and discover if it's he," Miss +Willis said to herself. "How surprised he would be to receive a postal +card 'Are you my Jimmy?'" But somehow she refrained. She did not wish +to run the risk of disappointment, though she was sure it was he. She +preferred to wait and to watch him now that she had him under her eye +again. This was an easy thing to do, for Jimmy the mayor became Jimmy +the governor before two years had passed, and one morning Miss Willis +found facing her in the Daily Dispatch a newspaper cut of large +dimensions which set her heart beating as it had not throbbed since +the days of Sir Galahad. It was a portrait of her Jimmy; Jimmy +magnified and grown into a hirsute man, but the same old Jimmy with +the tangled hair, serious brow, and large, pathetic eyes. Miss Willis +laughed and Miss Willis cried, and presently, after she had time to +realize the full meaning of what had happened, she had a vision of +Jimmy in the White House, and herself, a venerable yet hale old woman, +standing beside him in a famous company, and Jimmy was saying before +them all, "I wish to make you acquainted with my dear teacher--the +woman to whom I owe my start in life." The idea tickled her +imagination, and she said to herself that she would keep the secret +until that happy day arrived. What a delightful secret it was, and how +surprised he would be when she said to him, "I suppose you don't +recognize me, Jimmy?" Then, perhaps, he would embrace her before +everybody, and the newspapers would have her picture and give the +particulars of her life. + + * * * * * + +Jimmy was not elected President until four years later, and in the +meantime Miss Willis kept her secret. When he was nominated, and the +details of his career were eagerly sought for, it was announced by the +press that in early life he had attended the Glendale grammar-school, +and the fact was regarded by the authorities as a feather in the +school's cap, and was commemorated during the campaign by the display +in the exhibition hall of a large picture of the candidate festooned +with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been +under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was +unknown to anybody, and Marion's New England conscience shrank from +obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and +bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to +attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities +where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence--the +first she had ever requested in all her years of service. She was +setting forth on the spree of her life, and her spirit was jubilant at +the thought of Jimmy's amazement when he found out who she was. + +A day came at last, after the new chief magistrate had taken the oaths +of office and was in possession of the White House, when the American +public was at liberty to file past their President and shake his hand +in their might as free men and free women. Miss Willis had not been +able to obtain a location near enough to the inauguration proceedings +to distinguish more than the portly figure of a man, or to hear +anything except the roar of the multitude. But now she was to have the +chance to meet Jimmy face to face and overwhelm him with her secret. +Little by little the file of visitors advanced on its passage toward +the nation's representative, and presently Miss Willis caught her +first glimpse of Sir Galahad--her real Sir Galahad. Her heart throbbed +tumultuously. It was he--her Jimmy; he, beyond the shadow of a doubt; +a strong, grave, resolute man; the prototype of human power and +American intelligence. + +Her Jimmy! She let her eyes fall, for it would soon be her turn, and +her nerves were all tingling with a happy mixture of pride and +diffidence. Her vision, her dearest vision, was about to be realized. +There was no chance for delusion or disappointment now. So it seemed. +Yet, as she stood there waiting, with her New England conscience and +her sense of humor still active, of a sudden her imagination was +seized by a new prospect. Why should she tell her secret? What was the +use? There he stood--her Jimmy--good, great, and successful, and she +had helped to make him so. Nothing could ever deprive her of that. The +truth was hers forever. She was only an elderly spinster. Perhaps he +would have forgotten. He was but fifteen when he left her, and he had +never written to her during all these years. Very likely he did not +realize at all what she had done for him. Nothing which he could do +for her now would add to the joy of her heart. Secret? To share it +with him might spoil all. The chances were it was her secret only; +that only she could understand it. + +She was close to the President now, and some one at her ear was asking +her name. Suddenly she heard her name called, and stepping forward she +was face to face with her soul's knight, and he was holding her hand. + +"I am very glad to see you, Miss Willis," she heard him say. + +She had been stepping shyly, with her eyes lowered. At his words, +spoken in a voice which for all its manliness was still the same, she +looked up into his face and murmured, as she pressed his fingers: + +"God bless you, sir!" + +She did not even say "Jimmy." Then she passed, and--and her secret was +safe. + +Six months later Miss Willis was found one morning dead in her bed. +She had died peacefully in her sleep. When her personal effects were +administered there was noticed on the mantelpiece in her sitting-room +a mounted tintype, on the paper back of which were two inscriptions. +Of these the upper, in faded ink, was dated forty years before and +read "From Jimmy." The other, recent and written with the pen of an +elderly person, ran as follows: "Portrait of the President of the +United States as a school-boy." + + + + +AN EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES + + +I + + +In the opinion of many persons competent to judge, "The Beaches" was +suffering from an invasion of wealth. Unquestionably it had been +fashionable for a generation; but the people who had established +summer homes there were inhabitants of the large neighboring city +which they forsook during five months in the year to enjoy the ocean +breezes and sylvan scenery, for The Beaches afforded both. Well-to-do +New England families of refinement and taste, they enjoyed in comfort, +without ostentation, their picturesque surroundings. Their cottages +were simple; but each had its charming outlook to sea and a sufficient +number of more or less wooded acres to command privacy and breathing +space. In the early days the land had sold for a song, but it had +risen steadily with the times, as more and more people coveted a +foothold. The last ten years had introduced many changes; the older +houses had been pulled down and replaced by lordly structures with all +the modern conveniences, including spacious stables and farm +buildings. Two clubs had been organized along the six miles of coast +to provide golf and tennis, afternoon teas and bridge whist for the +entertainment of the colony. The scale of living had become more +elaborate, and there had been many newcomers--people of large means +who offered for the finest sites sums which the owners could not +afford to refuse. The prices paid in several instances represented ten +times the original outlay. All the desirable locations were held by +proprietors fully aware of their value, and those bent on purchase +must pay what was asked or go without. + +Then had occurred the invasion referred to--the coming to The Beaches +of the foreign contingent, so called: people of fabulous means, +multi-millionaires who were captains in one or another form of +industry and who sought this resort as a Mecca for the social +uplifting of their families and protection against summer heat. At +their advent prices made another jump--one which took the breath away. +Several of the most conservative owners parted with their estates +after naming a figure which they supposed beyond the danger point, and +half a dozen second-rate situations, affording but a paltry glimpse of +the ocean, were snapped up in eager competition by wealthy capitalists +from Chicago, Pittsburg, and St. Louis who had set their hearts on +securing the best there was remaining. + +Among the late comers was Daniel Anderson, known as the furniture king +in the jargon of trade, many times a millionaire, and comparatively a +person of leisure through the sale of his large plants to a trust. He +hired for the season, by long-distance telephone, at an amazing +rental, one of the more desirable places which was to let on account +of the purpose of its owners to spend the summer abroad. It was one of +the newer houses, large and commodious; yet its facilities were +severely taxed by the Anderson establishment, which fairly bristled +with complexity. Horses by the score, vehicles manifold, a steam +yacht, and three automobiles were the more striking symbols of a +manifest design to curry favor by force of outdoing the neighborhood. + +The family consisted of Mrs. Anderson, who was nominally an invalid, +and a son and daughter of marriageable age. If it be stated that they +were chips of the old block, meaning their father, it must not be +understood that he had reached the moribund stage. On the contrary, he +was still in the prime of his energy, and, with the exception of the +housekeeping details, set in motion and directed the machinery of the +establishment. + +It had been his idea to come to The Beaches; and having found a +foothold there he was determined to make the most of the opportunity +not only for his children but himself. With his private secretary and +typewriter at his elbow he matured his scheme of carrying everything +before him socially as he had done in business. The passport to +success in this new direction he assumed to be lavish expenditure. It +was a favorite maxim of his--trite yet shrewdly entertained--that +money will buy anything, and every man has his price. So he began by +subscribing to everything, when asked, twice as much as any one else, +and seeming to regard it as a privilege. Whoever along The Beaches was +interested in charity had merely to present a subscription list to Mr. +Anderson to obtain a liberal donation. The equivalent was +acquaintance. The man or woman who asked him for money could not very +well neglect to bow the next time they met, and so by the end of the +first summer he was on speaking terms with most of the men and many of +the women. Owing to his generosity, the fund for the building of a new +Episcopal church was completed, although he belonged to a different +denomination. He gave a drinking fountain for horses and dogs, and +when the selectmen begrudged to the summer residents the cost of +rebuilding two miles of road, Daniel Anderson defrayed the expense +from his own pocket. An ardent devotee of golf, and daily on the +links, he presented toward the end of the season superb trophies for +the competition of both men and women, with the promise of others in +succeeding years. In short, he gave the society whose favor he coveted +to understand that it had merely "to press the button" and he would do +the rest. + +Mr. Andersen's nearest neighbors were the Misses Ripley--Miss Rebecca +and Miss Caroline, or Carry, as she was invariably called. They were +among the oldest summer residents, for their father had been among the +first to recognize the attractions of The Beaches, and their childhood +had been passed there. Now they were middle-aged women and their +father was dead; but they continued to occupy season after season +their cottage, the location of which was one of the most picturesque +on the whole shore. The estate commanded a wide ocean view and +included some charming woods on one side and a small, sandy, curving +beach on the other. The only view of the water which the Andersons +possessed was at an angle across this beach. The house they occupied, +though twice the size of the Ripley cottage, was virtually in the rear +of the Ripley domain, which lay tantalizingly between them and a free +sweep of the landscape. + +One morning, early in October of the year of Mr. Anderson's advent to +The Beaches, the Ripley sisters, who were sitting on the piazza +enjoying the mellow haze of the autumn sunshine, saw, with some +surprise, Mr. David Walker, the real-estate broker, approaching across +the lawn--surprise because it was late in the year for holidays, and +Mr. Walker invariably went to town by the half-past eight train. Yet a +visit from one of their neighbors was always agreeable to them, and +the one in question lived not more than a quarter of a mile away and +sometimes did drop in at afternoon tea-time. Certain women might have +attempted an apology for their appearance, but Miss Rebecca seemed +rather to glory in the shears which dangled down from her +apron-strings as she rose to greet her visitor; they told so +unmistakably that she had been enjoying herself trimming vines. Miss +Carry--who was still kittenish in spite of her forty years--as she +gave one of her hands to Mr. Walker held out with the other a basket +of seckel pears she had been gathering, and said: + +"Have one--do." + +Mr. Walker complied, and, having completed the preliminary +commonplaces, said, as he hurled the core with an energetic sweep of +his arm into the ocean at the base of the little bluff on which the +cottage stood: + +"There is no place on the shore which quite compares with this." + +"We agree with you," said Miss Rebecca with dogged urbanity. "Is any +one of a different opinion?" + +"On the contrary, I have come to make you an offer for it. It isn't +usual for real-estate men to crack up the properties they wish to +purchase, but I am not afraid of doing so in this case." He spoke +buoyantly, as though he felt confident that he was in a position to +carry his point. + +"An offer?" said Miss Rebecca. "For our place? You know that we have +no wish to sell. We have been invited several times to part with it, +and declined. It was you yourself who brought the last invitation. We +are still in the same frame of mind, aren't we, Carry?" + +"Yes, indeed. Where should we get another which we like so well?" + +"My principal invites you to name your own figure." + +"That is very good of him, I'm sure. Who is he, by the way?" + +"I don't mind telling you; it's your neighbor, Daniel Anderson." David +Walker smiled significantly. "He is ready to pay whatever you choose +to ask." + +"Our horses are afraid of his automobiles, and his liveried grooms +have turned the head of one of our maids. Our little place is not in +the market, thank you, Mr. Walker." + +The broker's beaming countenance showed no sign of discouragement. He +rearranged the gay blue flower which had almost detached itself from +the lapel of his coat, then said laconically: + +"I am authorized by Mr. Anderson to offer you $500,000 for your +property." + +"What?" exclaimed Miss Rebecca. + +"Half a million dollars for six acres," he added. + +"The man must be crazy." Miss Rebecca stepped to the honeysuckle vine +with a detached air and snipped off a straggling tendril with her +shears. "That is a large sum of money," she added. + +David Walker enjoyed the effect of his announcement; it was clear that +he had produced an impression. + +"Money is no object to him. I told him that you did not wish to sell, +and he said that he would make it worth your while." + +"Half a million dollars! We should be nearly rich," let fall Miss +Carry, upon whom the full import of the offer was breaking. + +"Yes; and think what good you two ladies could do with all that +money--practical good," continued the broker, pressing his opportunity +and availing himself of his knowledge of their aspirations. "You could +buy elsewhere and have enough left over to endow a professorship at +Bryn Mawr, Miss Rebecca; and you, Miss Carry, would be able to revel +in charitable donations." + +Those who knew the Ripley sisters well were aware that plain speaking +never vexed them. Beating about the bush from artificiality or +ignoring a plain issue was the sort of thing they resented. +Consequently, the directness of David Walker's sally did not appear to +them a liberty, but merely a legitimate summing up of the situation. +Miss Rebecca was the spokesman as usual, though her choice was always +governed by what she conceived to be the welfare of her sister, whom +she still looked on as almost a very young person. Sitting upright and +clasping her elbows, as she was apt to do in moments of stress, she +replied: + +"Money is money, Mr. Walker, and half a million dollars is not to be +discarded lightly. We should be able, as you suggest, to do some good +with so much wealth. But, on the other hand, we don't need it, and we +have no one dependent on us for support. My brother is doing well and +is likely to leave his only child all that is good for her. We love +this place. Caroline may marry some day" (Miss Carry laughed +protestingly at the suggestion and ejaculated, "Not very likely"), +"but I never shall. I expect to come here as long as I live. We love +every inch of the place--the woods, the beach, the sea. Our garden, +which we made ourselves, is our delight. Why should we give up all +this because some one offers us five times what we supposed it to be +worth? My sister is here to speak for herself, but so far as I am +concerned you may tell Mr. Anderson that if our place is worth so much +as that we cannot afford to part with it." + +"Oh, no, it wouldn't do at all! Our heartstrings are round the roots +of these trees, Mr. Walker," added the younger sister in gentle echo +of this determination. + +"Don't be in a hurry to decide; think it over. It will bear +reflection," said the broker briskly. + +"There's nothing to think over. It becomes clearer every minute," said +Miss Rebecca a little tartly. Then she added: "I dare say it will do +him good to find that some one has something which he cannot buy." + +"He will be immensely disappointed, for his heart was set on it," said +David Walker gloomily. His emotions were not untinged by personal +dismay, for his commission would have been a large one. + +He returned forthwith to his client, who was expecting him, and who +met him at the door. + +"Well, Walker, what did the maiden ladies say? Have one of these," he +exclaimed, exhibiting some large cigars elaborately wrapped in gold +foil. "They're something peculiarly choice which a friend of mine--a +Cuban--obtained for me." + +"They won't sell, Mr. Anderson." + +The furniture king frowned. He was a heavily built but compact man who +looked as though he were accustomed to butt his way through life and +sweep away opposition, yet affable and easy-going withal. + +"They won't sell? You offered them my price?" + +"It struck them as prodigious, but they were not tempted." + +"I've got to have it somehow. With this land added to theirs I should +have the finest place on the shore." + +The broker disregarded this flamboyant remark, which was merely a +repetition of what he had heard several times already. "I warned you," +he said, "that they might possibly refuse even this munificent offer. +They told me to tell you that if it was worth so much they could not +afford to sell." + +"Is it not enough? They're poor, you told me--poor as church mice." + +"Compared with you. But they have enough to live on simply, and--and +to be able to maintain such an establishment as yours, for instance, +would not add in the least degree to their happiness. On the contrary, +it is because they delight in the view and the woods and their little +garden just as they see them that they can't afford to let you have +the place." Now that the chances of a commission were slipping away +David Walker was not averse to convey in delicate language the truth +which Miss Rebecca had set forth. + +Mr. Anderson felt his chin meditatively. "I seem to be up against it," +he murmured. "You think they are not holding out for a higher figure?" +he asked shrewdly. + +David shook his head. Yet he added, with the instinct of a business +man ready to nurse a forlorn hope, "There would be no harm in trying. +I don't believe, though, that you have the ghost of a chance." + +The furniture king reflected a moment. "I'll walk down there this +afternoon and make their acquaintance." + +"A good idea," said Walker, contented to shift the responsibility of a +second offer. "You'll find them charming--real thoroughbreds," he saw +fit to add. + +"A bit top-lofty?" queried the millionaire. + +"Not in the least. But they have their own standards, Mr. Anderson." + +The furniture king's progress at The Beaches had been so uninterrupted +on the surface and so apparently satisfactory to himself that no one +would have guessed that he was not altogether content with it. With +all his easy-going optimism, it had not escaped his shrewd +intelligence that his family still lacked the social recognition he +desired. People were civil enough, but there were houses into which +they were never asked in spite of all his spending; and he was +conscious that they were kept at arm's length by polite processes too +subtle to be openly resented. Yet he did resent in his heart the check +to his ambitions, and at the same time he sought eagerly the cause +with an open mind. It had already dawned on him that when he was +interested in a topic his voice was louder than the voices of his new +acquaintances. He had already given orders to his chauffeur that the +automobiles should be driven with some regard for the public safety. +Lately the idea had come to him, and he had imparted it to his son, +that the habit of ignoring impediments did not justify them in driving +golf balls on the links when, the players in front of them were slower +than they liked. + +On the way to visit the Misses Ripley later in the day the broker's +remark that they had standards of their own still lingered in his +mind. He preferred to think of them and others along the shore as +stiff and what he called top lofty; yet he intended to observe what he +saw. He had been given to understand that these ladies were almost +paupers from his point of view; and, though when he had asked who they +were, David Walker had described them as representatives of one of the +oldest and most respected families, he knew that they took no active +part in the social life of the colony as he beheld it; they played +neither golf, tennis, nor bridge at the club; they owned no +automobile, and their stable was limited to two horses; they certainly +cut no such figure as seemed to him to become people in their +position, who could afford to refuse $500,000 for six acres. + +He was informed by the middle-aged, respectable-looking maid that the +ladies were in the garden behind the house. A narrow gravelled path +bordered with fragrant box led him to this. Its expanse was not large, +but the luxuriance and variety of the old-fashioned summer flowers +attested the devotion bestowed upon them. At the farther end was a +trellised summer-house in which he perceived that the maiden ladies +were taking afternoon tea. There was no sign of hothouse roses or rare +exotic plants, but he noticed a beehive, a quaint sundial with an +inscription, and along the middle path down which he walked were at +intervals little dilapidated busts or figures of stone on +pedestals--some of them lacking tips of noses or ears. It did not +occur to Mr. Anderson that antiquity rather than poverty was +responsible for these ravages. Their existence gave him fresh hope. + +"Who can this be?" said Miss Carry with a gentle flutter. An unknown, +middle-aged man was still an object of curiosity to her. + +Miss Rebecca raised her eyeglass. "I do believe, my dear, that +it's--yes, it is." + +"But who?" queried Miss Carry. + +Miss Rebecca rose instead of answering. The stranger was upon them, +walking briskly and hat in hand. His manner was distinctly +breezy--more so than a first meeting would ordinarily seem to her to +justify. + +"Good afternoon, ladies. Daniel Anderson is my name. My wife wasn't +lucky enough to find you at home when she returned your call, so I +thought I'd be neighborly." + +"It's very good of you to come to see us," said Miss Rebecca, +relenting at once. She liked characters--being something of one +herself--and her neighbor's heartiness was taking. "This is my sister, +Miss Caroline Ripley," she added to cement the introduction, "and I am +Rebecca. Sit down, Mr. Anderson; and may I give you a cup of tea?" + +Four people were apt to be cosily crowded in the summer-house. Being +only a third person, the furniture king was able to settle himself in +his seat and look around him without fear that his legs would molest +any one. He gripped the arms of his chair and inhaled the fragrance of +the garden. + +"This is a lovely place, ladies," he asserted. + +"Those hollyhocks and morning-glories and mignonettes take me back to +old times. Up to my place it's all roses and orchids. But my wife told +me last week that she heard old-fashioned flowers are coming in again. +Seems she was right." + +"Oh, but we've had old-fashioned flowers for years! Our garden has +been always just like this--only becoming a little prettier all the +time, we venture to hope," said Miss Carry. + +"I want to know!" said Mr. Anderson; and almost immediately he +remembered that both his son and daughter had cautioned him against +the use of this phrase at The Beaches. He received the dainty but +evidently ancient cup from Miss Rebecca, and seeing that the subject +was, so to speak, before the house, he tasted his tea and said: + +"It's all pretty here--garden, view, and beach. And I hear you decline +to sell, ladies." + +Miss Rebecca had been musing on the subject all day, and a heartfelt +response rose promptly to her lips--spoken with the simple grace of a +self-respecting gentlewoman: + +"Why should we sell, Mr. Anderson?" + +The question was rather a poser to answer categorically; yet the +would-be purchaser felt that he sufficiently conveyed his meaning when +he said: + +"I thought I might have made it worth your while." + +"We are people of small means in the modern sense of the word," Miss +Rebecca continued, thereby expressing more concretely his idea; "yet +we have sufficient for our needs. Our tastes are very simple. The sum +which you offered us is a fortune in itself--but we have no ambition +for great wealth or to change our mode of life. Our associations with +this place are so intimate and tender that money could not induce us +to desecrate them by a sale." + +"I see," said Mr. Anderson. Light was indeed breaking on him. At the +same time his appreciation of the merits of the property had been +growing every minute. It was an exquisite autumn afternoon. From where +they sat he could behold the line of shore on either side with its +background of dark green woods. Below the wavelets lapped the shingle +with melodious rhythm. As far as the eye could see lay the bosom of +the ocean unruffled, and lustrous with the sheen of the dying day. +Accustomed to prevail in buying his way, he could not resist saying, +after a moment of silence: + +"If I were to increase my offer to a million would it make any +difference in your attitude?" + +A suppressed gurgle of mingled surprise and amusement escaped Miss +Carry. + +Miss Rebecca paused a moment by way of politeness to one so generous. +But her tone when she spoke was unequivocal, and a shade sardonic. + +"Not the least, Mr. Anderson. To tell the truth, we should scarcely +understand the difference." + + + + +II + + +One summer afternoon two years later the Ripley sisters were again +drinking tea in their attractive summer-house. In the interval the +peaceful current of their lives had been stirred to its depths by +unlooked-for happenings. Very shortly after their refusal of Mr. +Anderson's offer, their only brother, whose home was on the Hudson +within easy distance of New York, had died suddenly. He was a widower; +and consequently the protection of his only daughter straightway +devolved on them. She was eighteen and good-looking. This they knew +from personal observation at Thanksgiving Day and other family +reunions; but owing to the fact that Mabel Ripley had been quarantined +by scarlet fever during the summer of her sixteenth year, and in +Europe the following summer, they were conscious, prior to her arrival +at The Beaches, that they were very much in the dark as to her +characteristics. + +She proved to be the antipodes of what they had hoped for. Their +traditions had depicted a delicate-appearing girl with reserved +manners and a studious or artistic temperament, who would take an +interest in the garden and like nothing better than to read aloud to +them the new books while they did fancy-work. A certain amount of coy +coquetry was to be expected--would be welcomed, in fact, for there +were too many Miss Ripleys already. Proper facilities would be offered +to her admirers, but they took for granted that she would keep them at +a respectful distance as became a gentlewoman. She would be urged to +take suitable exercise; they would provide a horse, if necessary; and +doubtless some of the young people in the neighborhood would invite +her occasionally to play tennis. + +Mabel's enthusiasm at the nearness of the sea took precedence over +every other emotion as she stood on the piazza after the embraces were +over. + +"How adorably stunning! I must go out sailing the first thing," were +her words. + +Meanwhile the aunts were observing that she appeared the picture of +health and was tall and athletic-looking. In one hand she had carried +a tennis-racket in its case, in the other, a bag of golf clubs, as she +alighted from the vehicle. These evidently were her household gods. +The domestic vision which they had entertained might need +rectification. + +"You sail, of course?" Mabel asked, noticing, doubtless, that her +exclamation was received in silence. + +Aunt Rebecca shook her head. "I haven't been in a sail-boat for twenty +years." + +"But whose steam yacht is that?" + +"It belongs to Mr. Anderson, a wealthy neighbor." + +"Anyhow, a knockabout is more fun--a twenty-footer," the girl +continued, her gaze still fixed on the haven which the indentations of +the coast afforded, along which at intervals groups of yachts, large +and small, floated at their moorings picturesque as sea-gulls on a +feeding-ground. + +"There is an old rowboat in the barn. I daresay that Thomas, the +coachman, will take you out rowing sometimes after he has finished his +work," said Aunt Carry kindly. + +"Do you swim?" inquired Aunt Rebecca, failing to note her niece's +bewildered expression. + +"Like a duck. I'm quite as much at home on the water as on land. I've +had a sailboat since I was thirteen, and most of our summers have been +spent at Buzzard's Bay." + +"But you're a young lady now," said Aunt Rebecca. + +Mabel looked from one to the other as though she were speculating as +to what these new protectors were like. "Am I?" she asked with a +smile. "I must remember that, I suppose; but it will be hard to change +all at once." Thereupon she stepped lightly to the edge of the cliff +that she might enjoy more completely the view while she left them to +digest this qualified surrender. + +"'No pent-up Utica contracts her powers,'" murmured Miss Rebecca, who +was fond of classic verse. + +"It is evident that we shall have our hands full," answered Miss +Carry. "But she's fresh as a rose, and wide-awake. I'm sure the dear +girl will try to please us." + +Mabel did try, and succeeded; but it was a success obtained at the +cost of setting at naught all her aunts' preconceived ideas regarding +the correct deportment of marriageable girls. The knockabout was +forthcoming shortly after she had demonstrated her amphibious +qualities by diving from the rocks and performing water feats which +dazed her anxious guardians. Indeed, she fairly lived in her +bathing-dress until the novelty wore off. Thomas, the coachman, who +had been a fisherman in his day, announced with a grin, after +accompanying her on the trial trip of the hired cat-boat, that he +could teach her nothing about sailing. Henceforth her small craft was +almost daily a distant speck on the horizon, and braved the seas so +successfully under her guidance that presently the aunts forbore to +watch for disaster through a spyglass. + +She could play tennis, too, with the best, as she demonstrated on the +courts of The Beaches Club. Her proficiency and spirit speedily made +friends for her among the young people of the colony, who visited her +and invited her to take part in their amusements. She was prepared to +ride on her bicycle wherever the interest of the moment called her, +and deplored the solemnity of the family carryall. When her aunts +declared that a wheel was too undignified a vehicle on which to go out +to luncheon, she compromised on a pony cart as a substitute, for she +could drive almost as well as she could sail. She took comparatively +little interest in the garden, and was not always at home at +five-o'clock tea to read aloud the latest books; but her amiability +and natural gayety were like sunshine in the house. She talked freely +of what she did, and she had an excellent appetite. + +"She's as unlike the girls of my day as one could imagine, and I do +wish she wouldn't drive about the country bareheaded, looking like a +colt or a young Indian," said Miss Rebecca pensively one morning, just +after Mabel's departure for the tennis-court. "But I must confess that +she's the life of the place, and we couldn't get on without her now. I +don't think, though, that she has done three hours of solid reading +since she entered the house. I call that deplorable." + +"She's a dear," said Aunt Carry. "We haven't been much in the way of +seeing young girls of late, and Mabel doesn't seem to me different +from most of those who visit her. Twenty years ago, you remember, +girls pecked at their food and had to lie down most of the time. Now +they eat it. What I can't get quite used to is the habit of letting +young men call them by their first names on short acquaintance. In my +time," she added with a little sigh, "it would have been regarded as +inconsistent with maidenly reserve. I'm sure I heard the young man who +was here last night say, 'I've known you a week now; may I call you +Mabel?'" + +As to young men, be it stated, the subject of this conversation showed +herself impartially indifferent. Her attitude seemed to be that boys +were good fellows as well as girls, and should be encouraged +accordingly. If they chose to make embarrassing speeches regarding +one's personal appearance and to try to be alone with one as much as +possible, while such favoritism was rather a fillip to existence, it +was to be considered at bottom as an excellent joke. Young men came +and young men went. Mabel attracted her due share. Yet evidently she +seemed to be as glad to see the last comer as any of his predecessors. + +Then occurred the second happening in the tranquil existence of the +maiden ladies. One day at the end of the first summer, an easterly +day, when the sky was beginning to be obscured by scud and the sea was +swelling with the approach of a storm, Dan Anderson, the only son of +his father, was knocked overboard by the boom while showing the heels +of his thirty-foot knockabout to the hired boat of his neighbor, Miss +Mabel Ripley. They were not racing, for his craft was unusually fast, +as became a multi-millionaire's plaything. Besides, he and the girl +had merely a bowing acquaintance. The _Firefly_ was simply +bobbing along on the same tack as the _Enchantress_, while the +fair skipper, who had another girl as a companion, tried vainly, at a +respectful distance, to hold her own by skill. + +The headway on Dan's yacht was so great that before the two dazed +salts on board realized what had happened their master was far astern. +They bustled to bring the _Enchantress_ about and to come to his +rescue in the dingy. Stunned by the blow of the--spar, he had gone +down like a stone; so, in all probability, they would have been too +late. When he came up the second time it was on the port bow of the +_Firefly_, but completely out of reach. Giving the tiller to her +friend, and stripping off superfluous apparel, Mabel jumped overboard +in time to grasp and hold the drowning youth. There she kept him until +aid reached them. But the unconscious victim did not open his eyes +until after he had been laid on the Misses Ripley's lawn, where, by +virtue of brandy from the medicine-closet and hot-water bottles, the +flickering spark of life was coaxed into a flame. + +It was an agitating experience for the aunts. But Mabel was none the +worse for the wetting; and though she naturally made light of her +performance, congratulations on her pluck and presence of mind came +pouring in. David Walker suggested that the Humane Society would be +sure to take the matter up and confer a medal upon the heroine. The +members of the Anderson family came severally to express with emotion +their gratitude and admiration. The father had not been there since +his previous eventful visit, though once or twice he had met his +neighbors on the road and stopped to speak to them, as if to show he +harbored no malice in spite of his disappointment. + +Now with a tremulous voice he bore testimony to the greatness of the +mercy which had been vouchsafed him. + +The third and last happening might be regarded as a logical sequel to +the second by those who believe that marriages are made in heaven. It +was to ponder it again after having pondered it for twenty-four hours +that the Ripley sisters found themselves in their pleached garden at +the close of the day. That the event was not unforeseen by one of them +was borne out by the words of Miss Carry: + +"I remember saying to myself that day on the lawn, Rebecca, that it +would be just like the modern girl if she were to marry him; because +she saved his life, I mean. If he had saved hers, as used to happen, +she would never have looked at him twice. I didn't mention it because +it was only an idea, which might have worried you." + +"We have seen it coming, of course," answered Miss Rebecca, who was +clasping the points of her elbows. "And there was nothing to do about +it--even if we desired to. I can't help, though, feeling sorry that +she isn't going to marry some one we know all about--the family, I +mean. + +"Well," she added with a sigh, "the Andersons will get our place in +the end, after all, and we shall be obliged to associate more or less +with multi-millionaires for the rest of our days. It's depressing +ethically; but there's no use in quarrelling with one's own flesh and +blood, if it is a modern girl, for one would be quarrelling most of +the time. We must make the best of it, Carry, and--and try to like +it." + +"He really seems very nice," murmured Miss Carry. "He gives her some +new jewel almost every day." + +Miss Rebecca sniffed disdainfully, as though to inquire if love was to +be attested by eighteen-carat gold rather than by summer blooms. + +The sound of steps on the gravel path interrupted their confabulation. + +"It is Mr. Anderson, _père_" said Miss Carry laconically. + +"He is coming to take possession," responded her sister. + +The crunch of the gravel under his solid, firm tread jarred on their +already wearied sensibilities. Nevertheless they knew that it behooved +them to be cordial and to accept the situation with good grace. Their +niece was over head and ears in love with a young man whose personal +character, so far as they knew, was not open to reproach, and who +would be heir to millions. What more was to be said? Indeed, Miss +Rebecca was the first to broach the subject after the greetings were +over. + +"Our young people seem to have made up their minds that they cannot +live apart," she said. + +"So my son has informed me." + +Mr. Anderson spoke gravely and then paused. His habitually confident +manner betrayed signs of nervousness. + +"I told him this morning that there could be no engagement until after +I had talked with you," he added. + +One could have heard a pin drop. Each of the sisters was tremulous to +know what was coming next. Could he possibly be meditating purse-proud +opposition? The Ripley blue blood simmered at the thought, and Miss +Rebecca, nervous in her turn, tapped the ground lightly with her foot. + +"The day I was first here," he resumed, "you ladies taught me a +lesson. I believed then that money could command anything. I +discovered that I was mistaken. It provoked me, but it set me +thinking. I've learned since that the almighty dollar cannot buy +gentle birth and--and the standards which go with it." + +Unexpectedly edifying as this admission was, his listeners sought in +vain to connect it with the immediate issue, and consequently forebore +to speak. + +"The only return I can make for opening my eyes to the real truth is +by doing what I guess you would do if you or one of your folk were in +my shoes. I'm a very rich man, as you know. If your niece marries my +son her children will never come to want in their time. He's a good +boy, if I do say it; and I should be mighty proud of her." + +Miss Carry breathed a gentle sigh of relief at this last avowal. + +"I don't want her to marry him, though, without knowing the truth, and +perhaps when you hear it you'll decide that she must give him up." + +Thereupon Mr. Anderson blew his nose by way of gathering his faculties +for the crucial words as a carter rests his horse before mounting the +final hill when the sledding is hard. + +"I'm going to tell you how I made my first start. I was a clerk in a +bank and sharp as a needle in forecasting what was going to happen +downtown. I used to say to myself that if I had capital it would be +easy to make money breed money. Well, one day I borrowed from the +bank, without the bank's leave, $3,000 in order to speculate. I won on +that deal and the next and the next. Then I was able to return what +I'd borrowed and to set up in a small way for myself in the furniture +business. That was my start, ladies--the nest-egg of all I've got." + +He sat back in his chair and passed his handkerchief across his +forehead like one who has performed with credit an agonizing duty. + +There was silence for a moment. Unequivocal as the confession was, +Miss Rebecca, reluctant to believe her ears, asked with characteristic +bluntness: + +"You mean that you--er--misappropriated the money?" + +"I was an embezzler, strictly speaking." + +"I see." + +"Perhaps you wonder why I told you this," he said, bending forward. + +"No, we understand," said Miss Rebecca. + +"We understand perfectly," exclaimed Miss Carry with gentle warmth. + +"It's very honest of you, Mr. Anderson," said Miss Rebecca after a +musing pause. + +"I've never been dishonest since then," he remarked naïvely. "But a +year ago I wouldn't have told you this, though it's been in the back +of my mind as a rankling sore, growing as I grew in wealth and +respectability. I made a bluff at believing that it didn't matter, and +that a thing done has an end. Well, now I've made a clean breast of it +to the ones who have a right to know. I should like you to tell +Mabel." + +As he spoke the lovers appeared in the near distance at the edge of +the lawn, coming up from the beach. "But I don't think it will be +necessary to tell my son," he added yearningly. + +"Certainly _not_" said Miss Rebecca with emphasis. + +The sisters exchanged glances, trying to read each other's thoughts. + +"It's a blot in the 'scutcheon, of course," said Miss Rebecca. "It's +for our niece to say." But there was no sternness in her tone. + +This gave Miss Carry courage. Her hand shook a little as she put down +her teacup, for she was shy of taking the initiative. "I think I know +what she would say. In our time it would probably have been different, +on account of the family--and heredity; but Mabel is a modern girl. +And a modern girl would say that she isn't to marry the father but the +son. She loves him, so I'm certain she would never give him up. +Therefore is it best to tell her?" + +Daniel Anderson's face was illumined with the light of hope, and he +turned to the elder sister, whom he recognized as the final judge. + +Miss Rebecca sniffed. Her ideas of everlasting justice were a little +disconcerted. Nevertheless she said firmly after brief hesitation: + +"I was taught to believe that the sins of the fathers should be +visited on the children; but I believe, Carry, you're right." + +"Bless you for that," exclaimed the furniture king. Then, groping in +the excess of his emotion for some fit expression of gratitude, he +bent forward and, taking Miss Rebecca's hand, pressed his lips upon +her fingers as an act of homage. + +Miss Carry would have been justified in reflecting that it would have +been more fitting had he kissed her fingers instead. But she was used +to taking the second place in the household, and the happy expression +of her countenance suggested that her thoughts were otherwise engaged. + + + + +ACROSS THE WAY + + +The news that the late Mr. Cherrington's house on Saville Street had +been let for a school, within a few months after his death, could not +have been a surprise to any one in the neighborhood. Ten years before, +when Mr. Cherrington and those prominent in his generation were in +their heyday, Saville Street had been sacred to private residences +from one end to the other, but the tide of fashion had been drifting +latterly. There was already another school in the same block, and +there were scattered all along on either side of the street a +sprinkling of throat, eye, and ear doctors, a very fashionable +dressmaker or two, an up-town bank, and numerous apartments for +bachelors. + +The news could not have been a surprise even to Mr. Homer Ramsay, but +that crusty old bachelor in the seventies brought down his +walking-stick with a vicious thump when he heard it, and remarked that +he would live to be ninety "if only to spite 'em." This threat, +however, had reference, not to Mr. Cherrington's residence, but his +own, which was exactly opposite, and which he had occupied for more +than forty years. It was a conviction of Mr. Ramsay's that there was a +conspiracy on foot to purchase his house, and accordingly he took +every opportunity to declare that he would never part with an inch of +his land while he was in the flesh. A wag in the neighborhood had +expressed the opinion that the old gentleman waxed hale and hearty on +his own bile. He was certainly a churlish individual in his general +bearing toward his fellow-beings, and violent in his prejudices. For +the last ten years his favorite prophecy had been that the country was +going to the devil. + +Besides the house on Saville Street, Mr. Ramsay had some bonds and +stock--fifty or sixty thousand dollars in all--which tidy little +property would, in the natural course of events, descend to his next +of kin; in this case, however, only a first cousin once removed. In +the eye of the law a living person has no heir; but blood is thicker +than water, and it was generally taken for granted that Mr. Horace +Barker, whose grandmother had been the sister of Mr. Ramsay's father, +would some day be the owner of the house on Saville Street. At least, +confident expectation that this would come to pass had long restrained +Mr. Barker from letting any one but his better half know that he +regarded his Cousin Homer as an irascible old curmudgeon; and perhaps, +on the other hand, had justified Mr. Ramsay in his own mind for +referring in common parlance to his first cousin once removed as a +stiff nincompoop who had married a sickly doll. Not that Mr. Horace +Barker needed the money, by any means. He was well-to-do already, and +lived in a more fashionable street than Saville Street, where he +occupied a dignified-looking brown-stone house, from the windows of +which his three little people--all girls--peeped and nodded at the +organ-grinder and the street-band. + +The name of the person to whom Mr. Cherrington's house had been leased +was Miss Elizabeth Whyte. She was twenty-five, and she was starting a +school because it was necessary for her to earn her own living. She +considered that life, from the point of view of happiness, was over +for her; and yet, though she had made up her mind that she could never +be really happy again, she was resolved neither to mope nor to be a +burden on any one. Mr. Mills, the executor of Mr. Cherrington's +estate, who believed himself to be a judge of human nature withal, had +observed that she seemed a little overwrought, as though she had lived +on her nerves; but, on the other hand, he had been impressed by her +direct, business-like manner, which argued that she was very much in +earnest. Besides, she was vouched for by the best people, and Mrs. +Cyrus Bangs was moving heaven and earth to procure pupils for her. It +was clearly his duty as a business man to let her have the house. + +Until within a few months Elizabeth Whyte had lived in a neighboring +town--the seat of a college, where the minds of young men for +successive generations have been cultivated, but sometimes at the +expense of a long-suffering local community. Her father, who at the +time of her birth was a clergyman with a parish, had subsequently +evolved into an agnostic and an invalid without one, and she had been +used to plain living and high thinking from her girlhood. Even parents +who find it difficult to keep the wolf at a respectful distance by +untiring economy will devise some means to make an only daughter look +presentable on her first appearance in society. Fine feathers do not +make fine birds, and yet the consciousness of a becoming gown will +irradiate the cheek of beauty. Elizabeth at eighteen would have been +fetching in any dress, but in each of her three new evening frocks she +looked bewitching. She was a gay, trig little person, with snapping, +dark eyes and an arch expression; a tireless dancer, quick and +audacious at repartee; the very ideal of a college belle. The student +world had fallen prostrate at her feet, and Tom Whittemore most +conspicuously and devotedly of all. + +Tom was, perhaps, the most popular man of his day; a Philadelphian of +reputedly superfine stock, fresh-faced and athletic, with a jaunty +walk. There was no one at the college assemblies who whispered so +entrancingly in her ear when she was all alone with him in a corner, +and no one who placed her new fleecy wrap about her shoulders with +such an air of devotion when it was time to go home. She liked him +from the very first; and all her girl friends babbled, "Wouldn't it be +a lovely match?" But Tom's classmates from Philadelphia, when they +became confidential in the small hours of the morning, asked each +other what Tom's mother would say. Tom was a senior, and it was +generally assumed that matters would culminate on Class-day evening, +that evening of all evenings in the collegiate world sacred to +explanation and vows. Elizabeth lay awake all that night, remembering +that she had let Tom have his impetuous say, and that at the end he +had folded her in his arms and kissed her. Not until the next morning, +and then merely as an unimportant fact, did it occur to her that, +though Tom had told her she was dearer to him than all the world +besides, there was no definite engagement between them. It was only +when whispers reached her that Tom, who had gone to Philadelphia to +attend the wedding of a relation, was not coming back to his +Commencement, that she began to think a little. But she never really +doubted until the news came that Tom had been packed off by his mother +on a two years' journey round the world. + +What mother in a distant city would be particularly pleased to have +her only son, on whom rested the hopes of an illustrious stock, lose +his heart to a college belle? But Elizabeth can scarcely be blamed for +not having taken the illustrious stock into consideration. She kept +saying to herself, that, if he had only written, she could have +forgiven him; and it was not surprising that the partners with whom +she danced at the college assemblies during the next five years +described her to each other as steely. Indeed, she danced and prattled +with such vivacious energy, and her black eyes shone so like beads, +that college tradition twisted her story until it ran that she had +thrown over Tom Whittemore, the most popular man of his day, and that +she had no more heart than a nether millstone. And all the time, just +to prove to herself that she had not cared for him, she kept the roses +that he had given her on that Class-day evening in the secret drawer +of her work-box. It had been all sheer nonsense, a boy and girl +flirtation. So she had taught herself to argue, knowing that it was +untrue, and knowing that she knew it to be so. + +Then had come the deaths of her father and mother within three months +of each other, and she had awakened one morning to the consciousness +that she was alone in the world, and face to face with the necessity +of earning her daily bread. The gentleman who had charge of the few +thousand dollars belonging to her father's estate, in announcing that +her bonds had ceased to pay interest, had added that she was in the +same boat with many of the best people; which ought to have been a +consolation, had she needed any. But this loss of the means of living +had seemed a mere trifle beside her other griefs; indeed, it acted as +a spur rather than a bludgeon. The same pride which had prompted her +to continue to dance bade her bestir herself to make a living. Upon +reflection, the plan of starting a school struck her as the most +practicable. But it should be a school for girls; she had done with +the world of men. She had loved with all her heart, and her heart was +broken; it was withered, like the handful of dried roses in the secret +drawer of her work-box. + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth was fortunate enough to obtain at the outset the patronage +of some of those same "best people" in the adjacent city, who happened +to know her story. Fashionable favor grows apace. It was only after +hearing that Mrs. Cyrus Bangs had intrusted her little girl to the +tender mercies of Miss Whyte that Mrs. Horace Barker subdued the +visions of scarlet-fever, bad air, and evil communications which +haunted her, sufficiently to be willing to send her own darlings to +the new kindergarten. People intimate with Mrs. Barker were apt to say +that worry over her three little girls, who were exceptionally healthy +children, kept her a nervous invalid. + +"I consider Mrs. Cyrus Bangs a very particular woman," she said, with +plaintive impressiveness to her husband. "If she is willing to send +her Gwendolen to Miss Whyte, I am disposed to let Margery, Gladys, and +Dorothy go. Only you must have a very clear understanding with Miss +Whyte, at the outset, as to hours and ventilation and Gladys's hot +milk. We cannot move from the seaside until a fortnight after her term +begins, and it will be utterly impossible for me to get the children +to school in the mornings before half-past nine." + +It never occurred to Horace Barker, when one morning about ten +o'clock, some six weeks later, he called at the kindergarten with his +precious trio, that there was any impropriety in breaking in upon Miss +Whyte's occupations an hour after school had begun. What +school-mistress could fail to be proud of the distinction of obtaining +his three daughters as pupils at any hour of the twenty-four when he +saw fit to proffer them? He expected to find a cringing, deferential +young person, who would, in the interest of her own bread and butter, +accede without a murmur to any stipulations which so important a +patroness as Mrs. Horace Barker might see fit to impose. He became +conscious, in the first place, that the school-mistress was a much +more attractive-looking young person than he had anticipated, and +secondly, that she seemed rather amused than otherwise at his +conditions. No man, and least of all a man so consummate as Mr. +Barker--for he was a dapper little person with a closely cropped beard +and irreproachable kid gloves--likes to be laughed at by a woman, +especially by one who is young and moderately good-looking; and he +instinctively drew himself up by way of protest before Elizabeth +spoke. + +"Really, Mr. Barker," she replied, after a few moments of reflection, +"I don't see how it is possible for me to carry out Mrs. Barker's +wishes. To let the children come half an hour later and go home half +an hour earlier than the rest would interfere with the proper conduct +of the school. I will do my best to have the ventilation satisfactory, +and perhaps I can manage to provide some hot milk for the second one, +as her mother desires; but in the matter of the hours, I do not see +how I can accommodate Mrs. Barker. To make such an exception would be +entirely contrary to my principles." + +Horace Barker smiled inwardly at the suggestion that a school-mistress +could have principles which an influential parent might not violate. + +"When I say to you that it is Mrs. Barker's particular desire that her +preferences regarding hours should be observed, I am sure that you +will interpose no further objection." + +Elizabeth gave a strange little laugh, and her eyes, which were still +her most salient feature, snapped noticeably. "It is quite out of the +question, Mr. Barker," she said with decision. "Much as I should like +to have your little girls, I cannot consent to break my rules on their +account." + +"Mrs. Barker would be very sorry to be compelled to send her children +elsewhere," he said solemnly, with the air of one who utters a dire +threat. + +"I should be glad to teach your little girls upon the same terms as I +do my other pupils," said Elizabeth, quietly. "But if my regulations +are unsatisfactory, you had better send them elsewhere." + +Horace Barker was a man who prided himself on his deportment. He would +no more have condescended to express himself with irate impetuosity +than he would have permitted his closely cropped beard to exceed the +limits which he imposed upon it. He simply bowed stiffly, and turning +to the Misses Barker, who, under the supervision of a nurse, whom they +had been taught to address by her patronymic Thompson instead of by +her Christian name Bridget, had been open-mouthed listeners to the +dialogue, said, "Come, children." + +It so happened that as Mr. Horace Barker and the Misses Barker +descended the steps of the late Mr. Cherrington's house, they came +plump upon Mr. Homer Ramsay, who was taking his morning stroll. The +old gentleman was standing leaning on his cane, glaring across the +street; and, by way of acknowledging that he perceived his first +cousin once removed, he raised the cane, and, pointing in the line of +his scowling gaze, ejaculated: + +"This street is going to perdition. As though it weren't enough to +have a school opposite me, a fellow has had the impudence to put his +doctor's sign right next door to my house--an oculist, he calls +himself. In my day, a man who was fit to call himself a doctor could +set a leg, or examine your eyes, or tell what was the matter with your +throat, and not leave you so very much the wiser even then; but now +there's a different kind of quack for every ache and pain in our +bodies." + +"We live in a progressive world, Cousin Homer," said Mr. Barker, +placing his eyeglass astride his nose to examine the obnoxious sign +across the way. "Dr. James Clay, Oculist," he read aloud, +indifferently. + +"Progressive fiddlesticks, Cousin Horace. A fig for your oculists and +your dermatologists and all the rest of your specialists! I have +managed to live to be seventy-five, and I never had anybody prescribe +for me but a good old-fashioned doctor, thank Heaven! And I'm not dead +yet, as the speculators who have their eyes on my house and are +waiting for me to die will find out." Mr. Ramsay scowled ferociously; +then casting a sweeping glance from under his eyebrows at the little +girls, he said, "Cousin Horace, if your children don't have better +health than their mother, they might as well be dead. Do they go +there?" he asked, indicating the school-house with his cane. + +"I am removing them this morning. Anabel had concluded to send them +there, but I find that the young woman who is the teacher has such +hoity-toity notions that I cannot consent to let my daughters remain +with her. In my opinion, so arbitrary a young person should be +checked; and my belief is that before many days she will find herself +without pupils." Whereupon Mr. Barker proceeded on his way, muttering +to himself, when at a safe distance, "Irrational old idiot!" + +Mr. Ramsay stood for some moments mulling over his cousin's answer; by +degrees his countenance brightened and he began to chuckle; and every +now and then, in the course of his progress along Saville Street, he +would stand and look back at the late Mr. Cherrington's house, as +though it had acquired a new interest in his eyes. His daily promenade +was six times up and six times down Saville Street; and he happened to +complete the last lap, so to speak, of his sixth time down at the very +moment when Miss Whyte's little girls came running out on the sidewalk +for recess. Behind them appeared the school-mistress, who stood +looking at her flock from the top of the stone flight. + +Elizabeth knew the old gentleman by sight but not by name, and she was +therefore considerably astonished to see him suddenly veer from his +ordinary course, and come slowly up the steps. + +"You're the school-mistress?" he asked, with the directness of an old +man who feels that he need not mince his words. + +"Yes, sir. I'm Miss Whyte." + +"My name's Ramsay; Homer Ramsay. I live opposite, and I've come to +tell you I admire your pluck in not letting my cousin, Hortace Barker, +put you down. I'll stand by you, too; you can tell him that. Break up +your school? I should like to see him do it. Had to take his three +little girls away, did he? Ho, ho! A grand good joke that; a grand +good joke. What was it he asked you to do?" + +"Mr. Barker wished me to change some of my rules about hours, and I +was not able to accommodate him, that was all," answered Elizabeth, +who found herself eminently puzzled by the interest in her affairs +displayed by this strange visitor. + +"I'll warrant he did. And you wouldn't make the change. A grand good +joke that. I know him; he's my first cousin once removed, and the only +relation I've left. And he is going to try and break up your school. +I'd like to see him do it." + +"I don't believe that Mr. Barker would do anything so unjust," said +Elizabeth, flushing. + +"Yes, he would. I had it from his own lips. But he shan't; not while +I'm in the flesh. What did you say your name was?" + +"Whyte--Elizabeth Whyte." + +"And what made you become a school-teacher, I should like to know?" + +"I had to earn my living." + +"Humph! In my day, girls as pretty as you got married; but now the +rich ones are those who get husbands, and those who are poor have to +tend shop instead of baby." + +"I know a number of girls who were poor, who have excellent husbands," +said Elizabeth quietly, spurred into coming to the rescue of the sex +she despised. "But," she added, "there are many girls nowadays who are +poor who prefer to remain single." She was amused at having been led +into so unusual a discussion with this queer old gentleman. + +"Bah! That caps the climax. When pretty girls pretend that they don't +wish to be married, the world is certainly turned upside down. Well, I +like your spirit, though I don't approve of your methods. I just +dropped in to say that if Horace Barker does cause you any trouble, +you've a friend across the way. Good-morning." + +And before Elizabeth could bethink herself to say that she was very +much obliged to him, Mr. Ramsay was gone. + +That very day after school, while Elizabeth was on her way across the +park which lay between Saville Street and the section of the city +where her rooms were, she dodged the wrong way in a narrow path, so +that she ran plump into the arms of a young man who was walking in the +opposite direction. Most women expect men to look out for them when +they dodge, but Elizabeth's code did not allow her to put herself +under obligations to any man. To tell the truth, she was in such a +brown study over the events of the morning that she had become +practically oblivious of her surroundings. When she recovered +sufficiently from her confusion at her clumsiness to take in the +details of the situation, she realized that the individual in question +was a young man whom she was in the habit of passing daily at this +same hour. Only the day before he had rescued her veil which had been +swept away by a high wind; and here she was again, within twenty-four +hours, forcing herself upon his attention. She, too, of all women, who +had done with men forever! + +But Elizabeth's confusion was slight compared with that manifested by +her victim, who, notwithstanding that his hat had been jammed in by +her school-bag (which she had raised as a shield), was so profuse in +the utterance of his apologies and so willing to shoulder all +responsibility, that her own sensibilities were speedily comforted. +She found herself, after they had separated, much more engrossed by +the fact that he had addressed her by name. Although they had been +passing each other daily for over two months, it had never occurred to +her to wonder who he might be. But it was evident that she was not +unknown to him. She remembered now merely that he was a gentleman, and +that he had intelligent eyes and a pleasant, deferential smile. The +recollection of his blushing diffidence made her laugh. + +On the following day, when they were about to pass as usual, she was +suddenly confronted in her mind by the alternative whether to +recognize him or not. A glance at him as he approached told her that +he himself was evidently uncertain if she would choose to consider +their experience of the previous day as equivalent to an introduction, +and yet she noticed a certain wistfulness of expression which +suggested the desire to be permitted to doff his hat to her. To +acknowledge by a simple inclination of her head the existence of a man +whom she was likely to pass every day seemed the natural thing to do, +however unconventional; so she bowed. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Whyte," he said, lifting his hat with a glad +smile. + +How completely our lives are often appropriated by incidents which +seem at the time of but slight importance! For the next few months +Elizabeth was buffeted as it were between the persistent persecution +of Mr. Horace Barker and the persistent devotion of Mr. Homer Ramsay. +With Mr. Barker she had no further interview, but not many weeks +elapsed before the influence of malicious strictures and insinuations +circulated by him concerning the hygienic arrangements of her school +began to bear their natural fruit. Parents became querulous and +suspicious; and when calumny was at its height, a case of +scarlet-fever among her pupils threw consternation even into the soul +of Mrs. Cyrus Bangs, her chief patroness. But, on the other hand, she +soon realized that she possessed an ardent, if not altogether +discreet, champion in her enemy's septuagenarian first cousin once +removed, who sang her praises and fought her battles from one end of +Saville Street to the other. Mr. Ramsay no longer railed against +electric cars and specialists; all his fulminations were uttered +against the malicious warfare which his Cousin Horace and that blood +relative's sickly wife were waging against the charming little Miss +Whyte, who had hired Mr. Cherrington's house across the way. What is +more, he paid Elizabeth almost daily visits, during which, after he +had discussed ways and means for confounding his vindictive kinsman, +he was apt to declare that she ought to be married, and that it was a +downright shame so pretty a girl should be condemned to drudgery +because she lacked a dowry. This was a point on which the old +gentleman never ceased to harp; and Elizabeth labored vainly to make +him understand that teaching was a delight to her instead of a +drudgery, and that she had not the remotest desire for a husband. And +by way of proving how indifferent she was to the whole race of men, +she continued to bow to the unknown stranger of her daily walk without +making the slightest effort to discover his name. + +Pneumonia, that deadly foe of hale and hearty septuagenarians, carried +Mr. Homer Ramsay off within forty-eight hours in the first week of +May. And very shortly after, Elizabeth received a letter from Mr. +Mills, the lawyer, requesting her to call on a matter of importance. +She supposed that it concerned her lease. Perhaps her enemy had bought +the roof over her head. + +Mr. Mills ushered her into his private office. Then opening a +parchment envelope on his desk, he turned to her, and said: "I have +the pleasure to inform you, Miss Whyte, that my client, the late Mr. +Homer Ramsay, has left you the residuary legatee of his entire +property--some fifty or sixty thousand dollars. Perhaps," he added, +observing Elizabeth's bewildered expression, "you would like to read +the will while I attend to a little matter in the other office. It is +quite short, and straight as a string. I drew the instrument, and the +testator knew what he was about just as well as you or I." + +Mr. Mills, who, as you may remember, was a student of human nature, +believed that Miss Whyte lived on her nerves, and he had therefore +planned to leave her alone for a few moments to allow any hysterical +tendency to exhaust itself. When he returned, he found her looking +straight before her with the document in her lap. + +"Is it all plain?" he asked kindly. + +"Yes. But I don't understand exactly why he left it to me." + +"Because he liked you, my dear. He had become very fond of you. And if +you will excuse my saying so," he added, with a knowing smile, "he was +very anxious to see you well married. He said that he wished to +provide you with a suitable dowry." + +"I see," said Elizabeth, coloring. She reflected for a moment, then +looked up and said, "But I am free to use it as I see fit?" + +"Absolutely. I may as well tell you now as any time, however," Mr. +Mills added smoothly, "that Mr. Ramsay's cousin, Mr. Horace Barker, +has expressed an intention to contest the will. He is the next of kin, +though only a first cousin once removed." + +Elizabeth started at the name, and drew herself up slightly. + +"You need not give yourself the smallest concern in the matter," the +lawyer continued. "If Mr. Barker were in needy circumstances or were a +nearer relative, he might be able to make out a case, but no jury will +hesitate between a first cousin once removed, amply rich in this +world's goods, and a--a--pretty woman. I myself am ready to testify +that Mr. Ramsay was completely in his right mind," he added, with +professional dignity; "and as for the claim of undue influence, it is +rubbish--sheer rubbish." + +Elizabeth sat for a few moments without speaking. She seemed to pay no +heed to several further reassuring remarks which Mr. Mills, who judged +that she was appalled by the idea of a legal contest, hastened to let +fall. At last she looked straight at him, and said with firmness, "I +suppose that I am at liberty not to take this money, if I don't wish +to?" + +"At liberty? Bless my stars, Miss Whyte, anybody is at liberty to +refuse a gift of fifty thousand dollars. But when you call to see me +again, you will be laughing at the very notion of such a thing. Go +home, my dear young lady, and leave the matter in my hands. Naturally +you are overwrought at the prospect of going into court." + +"It isn't that, Mr. Mills. I cannot take this money; I have no right +to it. I am no relation to Mr. Ramsay, and the only reason he left it +to me was--was because he thought it would help me to be married. +Otherwise he would have left it to Mr. Barker. I have no intention of +marrying, and I should not be willing to take a fortune under such +circumstances." + +"The will is perfectly legal, my dear. And as to marrying, you are +free to remain single all your days, if you wish to," said Mr. Mills, +with another knowing smile. "Indeed, you are overwrought." + +Elizabeth shook her head. "I am sure that I shall never change my +mind," she answered. "I could never take it." + +Elizabeth slept little that night; but when she arose in the morning, +she felt doubly certain that she had acted to her own satisfaction. +What real right had she to this money? It was coming to her as the +result of the fancy of an eccentric old man, who, in a moment of +needless pity and passing interest, had made a will in her favor to +the prejudice of his natural heir. Of what odds was it that that heir +had ample means already, or even that he was her bitter enemy? Did not +the very fact that he was her enemy and that she despised him make it +impossible for her to take advantage of an old man's whim so as to rob +him? She would have no lawsuit; he might keep the fifty thousand +dollars, and she would go her way as though Mr. Homer Ramsay and Mr. +Horace Barker had never existed. Mr. Ramsay had left her his money on +the assumption that she would be able to marry. To have taken it +knowing that she intended never to marry would have been to take it +under false pretences. + +Mr. Mills consoled himself after much additional expostulation with +the reflection that if a woman is bent on making a fool of herself, +the wisest man in the world is helpless to prevent her. He set himself +at last to prepare the necessary papers which would put Mr. Horace +Barker in possession of his cousin's property; and very shortly the +act of signal folly, as he termed it, was completed. Tongues in the +neighborhood wagged energetically for a few days; but presently the +birth of twins in the next block distracted the public mind, and +Elizabeth was allowed to resume the vocation of an inconspicuous +schoolmistress. From the object of her bounty, Mr. Horace Barker, she +heard nothing directly; but at least he had the grace to discontinue +his persecutions. And parental confidence, which, in spite of +scarlet-fever, had never been wholly lost, was manifested in the form +of numerous applications to take pupils for the coming year. For the +first time for many weeks Elizabeth was in excellent spirits and was +looking forward to the summer vacation, now close at hand; during +which she hoped to be able to fit herself more thoroughly for her +duties after a few weeks of necessary rest. + +One evening, about a fortnight before the date when the school was to +close, she noticed that the print of her book seemed blurred; she +turned the page and, perceiving the same effect, realized that her +vision was impaired. On the following morning at school she noticed +the same peculiarity whenever she looked at a book. She concluded that +it was but a passing weakness, the result of having studied too +assiduously at night. Still, recognizing that her eyes were +all-important to her, she decided to consult an oculist at once. It +would be a simple matter to do, for was there not one directly +opposite in the house next to Mr. Ramsay's? The sign, Dr. James Clay, +Oculist, had daily stared her in the face. She resolved to consult him +that very day after school. To be sure she knew nothing about him +individually, but she was aware that only doctors of the best class +were to be found in Saville Street. + +She was obliged to wait in an anteroom, as there were three or four +patients ahead of her. When her turn came to be ushered into the +doctor's office, she found herself suddenly in the presence of the +unknown young man whom she was accustomed to meet daily on her way +from school. Her impulse at recognizing him, though she could not have +told why, was to slip away; but before she could move, he looked up +from the table over which he was bent making a memorandum. + +"Miss Whyte!" he exclaimed with pleased astonishment and some +confusion, advancing to meet her. "In what way can I be of service to +you?" + +"Dr. Clay? I should like you to look at my eyes; they have been +troubling me lately." + +Elizabeth briefly detailed her symptoms. He listened with gravity, and +then after requesting her to change her seat, he examined her eyes +with absorbed attention. This took some minutes, and when he had +finished there was something in his manner which prompted her to say: + +"Of course you will tell me, Dr. Clay, exactly what is the matter." + +"I am bound to do so," he said, slowly. "I wished to make perfectly +sure, before saying that your eyes are quite seriously affected--not +that there is danger of a loss of sight, if proper precautions are +taken--but--but it will be absolutely necessary for you to abstain +from using them in order to check the progress of the disease." + +"I see," she said, quietly, after a brief silence. "Do you mean that I +cannot teach school? I am a school-teacher." + +"I knew that; and knowing it, I thought it best to tell you the whole +truth. No, Miss Whyte; you must not use your eyes for at least a year, +if you do not wish to lose your sight." + +"I see," said Elizabeth again, with the hopeless air of one from whom +the impossible is demanded. "I thank you, Dr. Clay, for telling me the +truth," she added, simply. "Have I strained my eyes?" + +"You have evidently overtaxed them a little; but the disease is +primarily a disease of the nerves. Will you excuse me for asking if at +any time within the last few years you have suffered a severe shock?" + +"A shock?" Elizabeth hesitated an instant, and replied gently: "Yes; +but it was a number of years ago." + +"That would account for the case, nevertheless." + +A few minutes later Elizabeth was walking along the street, face to +face with despair. She had not been able to obtain permission from the +doctor to use her eyes even during the ten days which remained before +vacation. He had said that every moment of delay would make the cure +more difficult. She must absolutely cease to look at a book for one +whole year. It would be necessary at first for her to visit him for +treatment two or three times a week. He had said--she remembered his +exact words--"I cannot do a very great deal for you; we can rely only +on time for that; but believe me, I shall endeavor to help you so far +as it lies in human power. I hope that you will trust me--and--and +come to me freely." Kind words these, but of what avail were they to +answer the embarrassing question how she was to live? She must give up +her school at least for a year; that seemed inevitable. How was she to +earn her daily bread if she obeyed the doctor's orders? Would it not +be better to use her eyes to the end, and trust to charity to send her +to an infirmary when she became blind? Why had she been foolish enough +to refuse Mr. Ramsay's property? But for a quixotic theory, she would +not now have been at the world's mercy. + +It was the sting of shame which this last thought aroused, following +in the train of her bitter reasoning, that caused her to quicken her +pace and clinch her hands. That same pride, which had been her ally +hitherto, had come to her rescue once more. She said to herself that +she had done what she knew was right, and that no force of cruel +circumstances should induce her to regret that she had not acted +differently. She would prove still that she was able to make her own +way without assistance, even though she were obliged to scrub floors. +A shock? The shock of a betrayed faith which had arrayed her soul in +bitterness against mankind. Must she own that she was crushed? Not +while she had an arm to toil and a heart to strive. + +The next ten days were bitter ones. Elizabeth, after disbanding her +school, began to plan and contrive for the future. Schemes bright with +prospect suggested themselves, and faded into smoke at the touch of +practicability. She had a few hundred dollars, which would enable her +to live until she had been able to devise a plan, and she determined +that the world should not think that she was discouraged. The world, +and chiefly at the moment Dr. Clay, whose kindness and earnest +attention during the visits which she paid him suggested that he felt +great pity for her. Pity? She wished the pity of no man. + +One evening while she was alone in her parlor, wrestling with her +schemes, the maid entered and said that a gentleman wished to see her. +A gentleman? She could think of none who would be likely to call upon +her, but she bade the girl show him in; and a moment later she was +greeting Dr. Clay. Presently, while she was wondering why he had come, +she found herself listening to these words: "I am a stranger to you to +all intents and purposes, but you are none to me. For months I have +dogged your footsteps unknown to you, and haunted this house in my +walks because I knew that you lived here. The memory of your face has +sweetened my dreams, and those brief moments when we have passed each +other daily have been sweeter than any paradise. I know the story of +your struggle with that coward and of your noble act of renunciation. +It cut into my heart like a knife to speak to you those necessary +words the other day, and I have been miserable ever since. I said to +myself at last that I would go to you and tell you that I could not be +happy apart from you; and that your happiness was mine. This seems +presumptuous, intrusive: I wish to be neither. I have merely come to +ask that I may be free to call upon you and to try to make you love +me. I am not rich, but my practice is such that I am able to offer you +a home. Will you allow me to come to see you, at least to be your +friend?" + +The silence which followed this eager question seemed to demand an +answer. Elizabeth, who had been sitting with bent head, looked up +presently and answered with a sweet smile: + +"I have no friends, Dr. Clay. I think it would be very pleasant to +have one." + +A few minutes later when he was gone, Elizabeth sat for some time +without moving, with the same happy smile on her lips. He had asked +nothing more and she had given him no greater assurance. Why was it +that at last she buried her face in her hands and sobbed as though her +bosom would break? Why was it, too, that before she went to bed that +night she took a handful of withered flowers, mere dust and ashes, +from the secret drawer of her work-box, and, wrapping them in the +paper which had enclosed them, held them in the flame of the lamp +until they were consumed? Why? Because love, unwatched for, unbidden +had entered her heart, which she thought sere as the rose-leaves, and +restored light to the sunshine and joy to the world. + + + + +A SURRENDER + + +Morgan Russell and I were lolling one day on the beach at Rock Ledge +watching the bathers. We had played three sets of tennis, followed by +a dip in the ocean, and were waiting for the luncheon hour. Though +Russell was my junior by four years, we were old friends, and had +prearranged our vacation to renew our intimacy, which the force of +circumstances had interrupted since we were students together at +Harvard. Russell had been a Freshman when I was a Senior, but as we +happened to room in the same entry, this propinquity had resulted in +warm mutual liking. I had been out of college for eight years, had +studied law, and was the managing clerk of a large law firm, and in +receipt of what I then thought a tremendous salary. Russell was still +at Cambridge. He had elected at graduation to pursue post-graduate +courses in chemistry and physics, and had recently accepted a +tutorship. He had not discovered until the beginning of the Junior +year his strong predilection for scientific investigation, but he had +given himself up to it with an ardor which dwarfed everything else on +the horizon of his fancy. It was of his future we were talking, for he +wished to take his old chum into his confidence and to make plain his +ambition. "I recognize of course," he told me, "that I've an uphill +fight ahead of me, but my heart is in it. My heart wouldn't be in it +if I felt that the best years of my life were to be eaten up by mere +teaching. Nowadays a man who's hired to teach is expected to teach +until his daily supply of gray matter has run out, and his original +work has to wait until after he's dead. There's where I'm more +fortunate than some. The fifteen hundred dollars--a veritable +godsend--which I receive annually under the will of my aunt, will keep +the wolf at a respectful distance and enable me to play the +investigator to my heart's content. I'm determined to be thorough, +George. There is no excuse for superficiality in science. But in the +end I intend to find out something new. See if I don't, old man." + +"I haven't a doubt you will, Morgan," I replied. "I don't mind letting +on that I ran across Professor Drayson last winter, and he told me you +were the most promising enthusiast he had seen for a long time; that +you were patient and level-headed as well as eager. Drayson doesn't +scatter compliments lightly. But fifteen hundred dollars isn't a very +impressive income." + +"It was very good of the old fellow to speak so well of me." + +"Suppose you marry?" + +"Marry?" Russell looked up from the sea-shells with which he had been +playing, and smiled brightly. He had a thin, slightly delicate face +with an expression which was both animated and amiable, and keen, +strong gray eyes. "I've thought of that. I'm not what is called +contemplating matrimony at the moment; but I've considered the +possibility, and it doesn't appall me." + +"On fifteen hundred a year?" + +"And why not, George?" he responded a little fiercely. "Think of the +host of teachers, clerks, small tradesmen, and innumerable other +reputable human beings who marry and bring up families on that or +less. Which do you think I would prefer, to amass a fortune in +business and have my town and country house and steam yacht, or to +exist on a pittance and discover before I die something to benefit the +race of man?" + +"Knowing you as I do, there's only one answer to that conundrum," said +I. "And you're right, too, theoretically, Morgan. My ancestors in +Westford would have thought fifteen hundred downright comfort, and in +admitting to you that five thousand in New York is genteel poverty, I +merely reveal what greater comforts the ambitious American demands. I +agree with you that from the point of view of real necessity one-half +the increase is sheer materialism. But who's the girl?" + +"There is no girl. Probably there never will be. But I'm no crank. I +like a good dinner and a seat at the play and an artistic domestic +hearth as well as the next man. If I were to marry, of course I should +retain the tutorship which I accepted temporarily as a means of +training my own perceptions, though I should try to preserve as at +present a considerable portion of my time free from the grind of +teaching. Then much as I despise the method of rushing into print +prematurely in order to achieve a newspaper scientific reputation, I +should expect to eke out my income by occasional magazine articles and +presently a book. With twenty-five hundred or three thousand a year we +should manage famously." + +"It would all depend upon the woman," said I with the definiteness of +an oracle. + +"If the savants in England, France, and Germany--the men who have been +content to starve in order to attain immortality--could find wives to +keep them company, surely their counterparts are to be found here +where woman is not the slave but the companion of man and is +encouraged to think not merely about him but think of him." After this +preroration Russell stopped abruptly, then raised himself on one +elbow. Attracted by his sudden interest I turned lazily in the same +direction, and after a moment's scrutiny ejaculated: "It looks just +like her." + +As it was nearing the luncheon hour, most of the bathers had retired. +Two women, one of them a girl of twenty-five, in the full bloom of +youth and vigor, with an open countenance and a self-reliant, slightly +effusive smile, were on the way to their bath. They were stepping +transversely across the beach from their bath-house at one end in +order to reach the place where the waves were highest, and their +course was taking them within a few yards of where we lay. For some +reason the younger woman had not put on the oil-skin cap designed to +save her abundant hair from getting wet, but carried it dangling from +her fingers, and, just as Russell noticed her, she dropped it on the +beach. After stooping to pick it up, she waited a moment for her +friend to join her, revealing her full face. + +"Yes, it's certainly she," I announced. "I spoke to her on the pier in +New York last autumn, when she was returning from Europe, and it's +either she or her double." + +"You know her?" + +"Yes, the Widow Spaulding." + +"Widow? You mean the girl?" + +There was just a trace of disappointment in the tone of Russell's +surprise. + +"Yes, I mean the girl. But you needn't dismiss her altogether from +your fastidiously romantic soul merely because she has belonged to +another. There are extenuating circumstances. She married the Rev. +Horace Spaulding, poor fellow, on his deathbed, when he was in the +last stages of consumption, and two days later she was his widow." + +"You seem to know a good deal about her." + +"I ought to, for she was born and bred in Westford. Edna Knight was +her name--the daughter of Justin Knight, the local attorney, +half-lawyer and half-dreamer. His parents were followers of Emerson, +and there have been plain living and high thinking in that family for +three generations. Look at her," I added, as she breasted a giant wave +and jubilantly threw herself into its embrace, "she takes to the water +like a duck. I never saw a girl so metamorphosed in three years." + +"What was she like before?" asked Russell. + +"Changed physically, I mean, and--and socially, I suppose it should be +called. Three years ago, at the time of her marriage to Spaulding, she +was a slip of a girl, shy, delicate, and introspective. She and her +lover were brought up in adjacent houses, and the world for her +signified the garden hedge over which they whispered in the gloaming, +and later his prowess at the divinity school and his hope of a parish. +When galloping consumption cut him off she walked about shrouded in +her grief as one dead to the world of men and women. I passed her +occasionally when I returned home to visit my family, and she looked +as though she were going into a decline. That was a year after her +marriage. Solicitous sympathy was unavailing, and the person +responsible for her regaining her grip on life was, curiously enough, +a summer boarder whom old Mrs. Spaulding had taken into her family in +order to make both ends meet. Westford has been saved from rusting out +by the advent in the nick of time of the fashionable summer boarder, +and Mrs. Sidney Dale, whose husband is a New York banker, and who +spent two summers there as a cure for nervous prostration, fascinated +Edna without meaning to and made a new woman of her in the process. +There is the story for you. A year ago Mrs. Dale took her to Europe as +a sort of finishing touch, I suppose. I understand Westford thinks her +affliction has developed her wonderfully, and finds her immensely +improved; which must mean that she has triumphed over her grief, but +has not forgotten, for Westford would never pardon a purely material +evolution." + +"I noticed her at the hotel this morning before you arrived, and +admired the earnestness and ardor of her expression." + +"And her good looks presumably. I saw you start when she approached +just now. She may be just the woman for you." + +"Introduce me then. And her companion?" + +"Will fall to my lot, of course, but I have no clew as to her +identity." + +Mrs. Spaulding enlightened me on the hotel piazza, after luncheon, +when, as a sequence to this persiflage I brought up my friend. The +stranger proved to be Mrs. Agnes Gay Spinney, a literary person, a +lecturer on history and literature. It transpired later that she and +Edna had become acquainted and intimate at Westford the previous +spring during a few weeks which Mrs. Spinney had spent there in the +preparation of three new lectures for the coming season. She was a +rather serious-looking woman of about forty with a straight figure, +good features, and a pleasant, but infrequent smile, suggesting that +its owner was not susceptible to flippancy. However, she naïvely +admitted that she had come away for pure recreation and to forget the +responsibilities of life. + +Morgan and the widow were conversing with so much animation that I, to +whom this remark was addressed, took upon myself to give youth a free +field; consequently I resigned myself to Mrs. Spinney's dignified +point of view, and, avoiding badinage or irony, evinced such an +amiable interest in drawing her out that by the end of fifteen minutes +she asked leave to show me the catalogue of her lectures, a proof of +which she had just received from the printer. When she had gone to +fetch it, I promptly inquired: + +"Why don't you two young people improve this fine afternoon by a round +of golf?" + +A gleam of animation over Morgan's face betrayed that he regarded the +suggestion as eminently happy. But it was Edna who spoke first. + +"If Mr. Russell will put up with my poor game, I should enjoy playing +immensely. But," she added smiling confidently and regarding him with +her large, steady brown eyes, "I don't intend to remain a duffer at it +long. I see," she continued after a moment, "from your expression, Mr. +Randall, that you doubt this. I could tell from the corners of your +mouth." + +"I must grow a mustache to conceal my thoughts, it seems. I was only +thinking, Mrs. Spaulding, that golf is a difficult game at which to +excel." + +"Yes, but they say that care and determination and--and keeping the +eye on the ball will work wonders even for a woman. I shall be only a +moment in getting ready, Mr. Russell." + +"But what is to become of you, George?" asked Morgan as she +disappeared. + +"I noticed that a sensitive conscience kept you tongue-tied. This is +probably one of the most self-sacrificing acts which will be performed +the present summer. But you will remember that Mephistopheles on a +certain occasion was equally good-natured." + +"Don't be absurd. Is she very trying?" + +"Dame Martha had some humor and no understanding; Mrs. Spinney has +some understanding and no humor. Here she comes with her catalogue of +lectures. There are over fifty of them, and from their scope she must +be almost omniscient. How are you getting on with the widow?" + +"Mrs. Spaulding seems to me an interesting woman. She has opinions of +her own, which she expresses clearly and firmly. I like her," +responded Morgan with a definiteness of manner which suggested that he +was not to be debarred by fear of banter from admitting that he was +attracted. + +It seems that as they strode over the links that afternoon he was +impressed by her fine physical bearing. There were a freedom and an +ease in her movements, essentially womanly and graceful, yet +independent and self-reliant, which stirred his pulses. He had been a +close and absorbed student, and his observation of the other sex had +been largely indifferent and formal. He knew, of course, that the +modern woman had sloughed off helplessness and docile dependence on +man, but like an ostrich with its head in the sand he had chosen to +form a mental conception of what she was like, and he had pictured her +either as a hoyden or an unsympathetic blue-stocking. This trig, +well-developed beauty, with her sensible, alert face and capable +manner was an agreeable revelation. If she was a type, he had +neglected his opportunities. But the present was his at all events. +Here was companionship worthy of the name, and a stimulating +vindication of the success of woman's revolt from her own weakness and +subserviency. When at the conclusion of their game they sat down on a +bank overlooking the last hole and connected conversation took the +place of desultory dialogue between shots, he was struck by her common +sense, her enthusiasm, and her friendliness. He gathered that she was +eager to support herself by some form of intellectual occupation, +preferably teaching or writing, and that she had come to Rock Ledge +with Mrs. Spinney in order to talk over quietly whether she might +better take courses of study at Radcliffe or Wellesley, or learn the +Kindergarten methods and at the same time apply herself diligently to +preparation for creative work. Of one thing she was certain, that she +did not wish to rust out in Westford. While her father lived, of +course her nominal home would be there, but she felt that she could +not be happy with nothing but household employment in a small town out +of touch with the movement and breadth of modern life. The substance +of this information was confided to me by Morgan before we went to bed +that night. + +It is easy and natural for two young people vegetating at a summer +resort to become exceedingly intimate in three or four days, +especially when facility for intercourse is promoted and freedom from +interruption guaranteed by a self-sacrificing accessory. My complicity +at the outset had been pure off-hand pleasantry, but by the end of +thirty-six hours it was obvious to me that Morgan's interest was that +of a man deeply infatuated. Seeing that the two young people were of +marriageable age and free, so far as I knew, from disqualifying +blemishes which would justify me in putting either on guard against +the other, I concluded that it behooved me as a loyal friend to keep +Mrs. Spinney occupied and out of the way. Consequently Morgan and Mrs. +Spaulding were constantly together during the ensuing ten days, and so +skilfully did I behave that the innocent pair regarded the flirtation +which I was carrying on as a superb joke--a case of a banterer caught +in the toils, and Mrs. Spinney's manners suggested that she was +agreeably flattered. + +Morgan's statement that he had never contemplated marriage was true, +and yet in the background of his dream of the future lurked a female +vision whose sympathy and companionship were to be the spur of his +ambition and the mainstay of his courage. Had he found her? He did not +need to ask himself the question more than once. He knew that he had, +and, knowing that he was deeply in love, he turned to face the two +questions by which he was confronted. First, would she have him? +Second, in case she would, was he in a position to ask her to marry +him, or, more concretely, could he support her? The first could be +solved only by direct inquiry. The answer to the second depended on +whether the views which he had expressed to me as to the possibilities +of matrimonial content in circumstances like his were correct. Or was +I right, and did it all depend upon the woman? But what if it did? Was +not this just the woman to sympathize entirely with his ambition and +to keep him up to the mark in case the shoe pinched? There was no +doubt of her enthusiasm and interest when in the course of one of +their walks he had confided to her that he had dedicated his life to +close scientific investigation. Well, he would lay the situation +squarely before her and she could give him his answer. If she was the +kind of woman he believed her to be and she loved him and had faith in +him, would the prospect of limited means appall her? He felt sure that +it would not. + +By the light of subsequent events, being something of a mind reader, I +know the rest of their story as well as though I had been present in +the flesh. + +Before the end of the fortnight he made a clean breast of his love and +of his scruples. He chose an occasion when they had strolled far along +the shore and were resting among picturesque rocks overlooking the +ocean. She listened shyly, as became a woman, but once or twice while +he was speaking she looked up at him with unmistakable ardor and joy +in her brown eyes which let him know that his feelings were +reciprocated before she confessed it by speech. He was so determined +to make clear to her what was in store for her if she accepted him +that without waiting for an answer to his burning avowal he proceeded +to point out and to reiterate that the scantiest kind of living so far +as creature comforts were concerned was all which he could promise +either for the present or for the future. + +When, having satisfied his conscience, he ceased speaking, Edna turned +toward him and with a sigh of sentiment swept back the low bands of +profuse dark hair from her temples as though by the gesture she were +casting all anxieties and hindrances to the winds. "How strange it +is!" she murmured. "The last thing which I supposed could happen to me +in coming here was that I should marry. But I am in love--in love with +you; and to turn one's back on that blessing would be to squander the +happiness of existence." She was silent a moment. Then she continued +gravely, "As you know, I was engaged--married once before. How long +ago it seems! I thought once, I believed once, that I could never love +again. Dear Horace, how wrapped up we were in each other! But I was a +child then, and--and it seems as though all I know of the real world +has been learned since. I must not distrust--I will not refuse the +opportunity to make you happy and to become happier myself by +resisting the impulse of my heart. I love you--Morgan." + +"Thank God! But are you sure, Edna, that you have counted the cost of +marrying me?" + +"Oh, yes! We shall manage very well, I think," she answered, speaking +slowly and contracting a little her broad brow in the attempt to argue +dispassionately. "It isn't as if you had nothing. You have fifteen +hundred dollars and your salary, nearly two thousand more. Five years +ago that would have seemed to me wealth, and now, of course, I +understand that it isn't; and five years ago I suppose I would have +married a man if I loved him no matter how poor he was. But to-day I +am wiser--that's the word, isn't it? For I recognize that I might not +be happy as a mere drudge, and to become one would conflict with what +I feel that I owe myself in the way of--shall I call it civilizing and +self-respecting comfort? So you see if you hadn't a cent, I might feel +it was more sensible and better for us both to wait or to give each +other up. But it isn't a case of that at all. We've plenty to start +on--plenty, and more than I'm accustomed to; and by the time we need +more, if we do need more, you will be famous." + +"But it's just that, Edna," he interjected quickly. "I may never be +famous. I may be obscure, and we may be poor, relatively speaking, all +our lives," and he sighed dismally. + + +"Oh, yes, you will, and oh, no, we shan't!" she exclaimed buoyantly. +"Surely, you don't expect me to believe that you are not going to +succeed and to make a name for yourself? We must take some chances--if +that is a chance. You have told me yourself that you intended to +succeed." + +"In the end, yes." + +"Why, then, shouldn't I believe it, too? It would be +monstrous--disloyal and unromantic not to. I won't listen to a word +more on that score, please. And the rest follows, doesn't it? We are +marrying because we love each other and believe we can help each +other, and I am sure one of the reasons why we love each other is that +we both have enthusiasm and find life intensely absorbing and admire +that in the other. There's the great difference between me now and +what I was at eighteen. The mere zest of existence seems to me so much +greater than it used. There are so many interesting things to do, so +many interesting things which we would like to do. And now we shall be +able to do them together, shan't we?" she concluded, her eyes lighted +with confident happiness, her cheeks mantling partly from love, +partly, perhaps, from a sudden consciousness that she was almost +playing the wooer. + +Morgan was equal to the occasion. "Until death do us part, Edna. This +is the joy of which I have dreamed for years and wondered if it could +ever be mine," he whispered, as he looked into her face with all the +ardor of his soul and kissed her on the lips. + +That evening he hooked his arm in mine on the piazza after dinner and +said, "You builded better than you knew, George. We are engaged, +and she's the one woman in the world for me. I've told her +everything--everything, and she isn't afraid." + +"And you give me the credit of it. That's Christian and handsome. I'll +say one thing for her which any one can see from her face, that she +has good looks and intelligence. As to the rest, you monopolized her +so that our acquaintance is yet to begin." + +"It shall begin at once," said Morgan, with a happy laugh. "But what +about you, George?" + +"I leave for New York to-night. Now that the young lovers have +plighted their troth my presence is no longer necessary. A sudden +telegram will arrive." + +"But Mrs. Spinney? We have begun to--er--hope--" + +"Hope?" + +"Begun to think--wondered if--" + +"I were going to marry a woman several years my senior who has the +effrontery to believe that she can lecture acceptably on the entire +range of literary and social knowledge from the Troubadours and the +Crusades to Rudyard Kipling and the Referendum? Such is the reward of +disinterested self-sacrifice!" + +"Forgive me, George. I knew at first that you were trying to do me a +good turn, but--but you were so persistent that you deceived us. I'm +really glad there's nothing in it." + +"Thanks awfully." Then bending a sardonic glance on my friend, I +murmured sententiously: + + "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, + And therefore is Winged Cupid painted blind." + + * * * * * + +"Edna, why don't you take a more active interest in these club +gatherings?" asked Morgan Russell one afternoon eight years subsequent +to their marriage. He had laid aside his work for the day, and having +joined his wife on the piazza was glancing over a printed notice of a +meeting which she had left on the table. "I'm inclined to think you +would get considerable diversion from them, and the study work at home +would be in your line." + +Edna was silent a moment. She bent her head over her work--a child's +blouse--that he might not notice that she was biting her lip, and she +managed to impart a dispassionate and almost jaunty tone to the +indictment which uttered. + +"Every now and then, Morgan, you remind me of Edward Casaubon in +'Middlemarch.' Not often, but every now and then lately." + +"That selfish, fusty, undiscerning bookworm?" + +"You're not selfish and you're not fusty; but you remind me of him +when you make remarks like your first." She brushed a caterpillar from +her light summer skirt, and noticing the draggled edge held it up. +"There's one answer to your question about taking an active interest +in clubs. There are twenty others, but this is one." + +Her husband appeared puzzled. He looked well, but pale and thin, as +though accustomed to close application. + +"I mean I can't afford it," she added. + +"I see. Then it was stupid of me--Casaubonish, I dare say, to have +spoken. I was only trying to put a little more variety into your life +because I realized that you ought to have it." + +Edna gave a faint sigh by way of acquiescence. Marriage had changed +her but little in appearance. She looked scarcely older, and her +steady eyes, broad brow, and ready smile gave the same effect of +determination and spirit, though she seemed more sober. + +"I'm a little dull myself and that makes me captious," she asserted. +Then dropping her work and clasping her hands she looked up earnestly +at him and said, "Don't you see the impossibility of my being active +in my club, Morgan? I go to it, of course, occasionally, so as not to +drop out of things altogether, but in order to take a prominent part +and get the real benefit of the meetings a woman needs time and money. +Not so very much money, nor so very much time, but more of either than +I have at my disposal. Of course, I would like, if we had more +income--and what is much more essential--more time, to accept some of +the invitations which I receive to express my ideas before the club, +but it is out of the question. I have a horror of superficiality just +as you have." + +"A sad fate; a poor man's wife," said Morgan with a smile which, +though tranquil, was wan. + +"And you warned me. Don't think for a moment I'm complaining or +regretting. I was only answering your question. Do you realize, dear, +we shall have been married eight years day after to-morrow?" + +"So we have, Edna. And what a blessing our marriage has been to me!" + +"We have been very happy." Then, she said, after a pause, as though +she had been making up her mind to put the question, "You are really +content, Morgan?" + +"Content?" he echoed, "with you, Edna?" + +"Not with me as me, but with us both together; with our progress, and +with what we stand for as human beings?" + +"I think so. That is, relatively speaking, and provided I understand +correctly what you mean." + +She had not resumed her work, and her eager, resolute expression +indicated that she was preparing to push the conversation to a more +crucial point. + +"I suppose what I mean is, would you, if we were going to start over +again, do just as you have--devote yourself to science?" + +"Oh!" Morgan flushed. "I don't see the use of considering that +conundrum. I have devoted myself to science and there is no help for +it, even if I were dissatisfied." + +"No present help." + +"No help at any time, Edna. But why resurrect this ghost? We burned +our bridges at the altar." + +"We did. And don't misunderstand me, dear. I'm not flinching, I'm not +even regretting, as I said to you before. Perhaps it may seem to you +brutal--which is worse than Casaubonish--to ask you such a question. +Still, we're husband and wife, and on an anniversary like this why +isn't it sensible to look matters squarely in the face, and consider +whether we've been wise or not? You ask the use. Are we not both +seeking the truth?" + +"Just as a tradesman takes an account of stock to ascertain whether he +is bankrupt. I suppose you are thinking of the children and--and you +admitted that you are a little tired yourself." + +"I wasn't thinking of any one. I was simply considering the question +as an abstract proposition--by the light, of course, of our +experience." + +"It is hard for you, Edna; yes, it is hard. I often think of it." + +"But I shouldn't mind its being hard if I were sure we were +wise--justified." + +Morgan leaned toward her and said with grave intensity, "How, dear, +are the great truths of science to be ascertained unless men--men and +their wives--are willing to delve lovingly, to sacrifice comforts, and +even endure hardships in pursuit of them?" + +Edna drew a deep breath. "But you must answer me a question. How are +children to be educated, and their minds, bodies, and manners guarded +and formed in the ideal way on a small income such as ours?" + +"I thought it was the children." + +"It isn't merely the children. It's myself and you--you, Morgan. It +breaks my heart to see you pale, thin, and tired most of the time. You +like good food and we can't afford to keep a decent cook. You have to +consider every cent you spend, and the consequence is you have no +amusement, and if you take a vacation, it is at some cheap place where +you are thoroughly uncomfortable. And, of course, it is the children, +too. If you, with your talents had gone into business or followed +medicine or the law, like your friend Mr. Randall, we should have an +income by this time which--well, for one thing, we should be able to +keep the children at the seaside until October, and for another have +Ernest's teeth straightened." + +"Perhaps I can manage both of those, as it is. But, Edna, what's the +advantage of considering what might have been? Besides, you haven't +answered my question." + +"I know it," she said slowly. "You mustn't misunderstand me, Morgan. +I'm very proud of you, and I appreciate fully your talent, your +self-sacrifice, and your modesty. I thought you entirely right the +other day in repulsing that odious reporter who wished to make a +public character of you before you were ready. I'm content to wait--to +wait forever, and I shall be happy in waiting. But, on the other hand, +I've never been afraid to face the truth. It's my way. I've done so +all my life; and my growth mentally and morally has come through my +willingness to acknowledge my mistakes. Every one says it is fine for +other people to starve for the sake of discovery, but how few are +willing to do it themselves! If we were in a book, the world would +admire us, but sometimes I can't help wondering if we would not be +happier and more satisfactory human products if you had done something +which brought you rewards more commensurate with your abilities. I'm +merely thinking aloud, Morgan. I'm intensely interested, as you know, +in the problems of life, and this is one of them." + +"But you know foreigners claim that we as a nation are not really +interested in culture and knowledge, but only in their money value. +What becomes of the best scholarship if we are ready to admit it?" + +"Ah! but Professor Drayson told me only the other day that abroad, in +Germany, for instance, they give their learned professors and savants +suitable salaries and make much of them socially, because it is +recognized that otherwise they wouldn't be willing to consecrate +themselves to their work." + +"Then the essential thing for me to do is to invent some apparatus +which I can sell to a syndicate for half a million dollars." + +"That would be very nice, Morgan," she answered, smiling brightly. +"But you know perfectly well that if we go on just as we are to the +end, I shall be thoroughly proud of you, and thoroughly +happy--relatively speaking." So saying she put her arm around her +husband's neck and kissed him affectionately. + +Although this conversation was more definite than any which had taken +place between them, Morgan was not seriously distressed. He knew that +it was his wife's method to think aloud, and he knew that she would be +just as loyal to him and no less cheerful because of it. She was +considering a problem in living, and one which indisputably had two +sides. He had always been aware of it, and the passage of time without +special achievement on his part had brought it more pointedly before +him now that there were two children and the prospect of a third. +He was absorbed in his vocation; and the lack of certain +comforts--necessities, perhaps--though inconvenient, would not have +weighed appreciably in the scale were he the only one affected. But +though he was pursuing his course along the path of investigation +eagerly and doing good work without a shadow of disappointment, he was +aware not merely that he had not as yet made a concrete valuable +discovery, but might never do so. This possibility did not appall him, +but he recognized that it was a part of the circumstances of his +particular case viewed from the standpoint of a contemplative judgment +on his behavior. He was succeeding, but was his success of a character +to justify depriving his wife and children of what might have been +theirs but for his selection? The discussion was purely academic, for he +had made his choice, but he did not question Edna's privilege to weigh +the abstract proposition, and accordingly was not depressed by her +frankness. + +It happened a few weeks later that Edna received a letter from Mrs. +Sidney Dale inviting her and Morgan to spend a fortnight at the Dale +spring and autumn home on the Hudson. Edna had seen Mrs. Dale but +twice since their trip abroad. She had been unable to accept a +previous similar invitation, but on this occasion Morgan insisted that +she should go. He argued that it would refresh and rest her, and he +agreed to conduct her to Cliffside and remain for a day or two +himself. + +Cliffside proved to be a picturesque, spacious house artistically +situated at the vantage point of a domain of twenty acres and +furnished with the soothing elegancies of modern ingenuity and taste. +Among the attractions were a terrace garden, a well-accoutred stable, +a tennis court, and a steam yacht. Mrs. Dale, who had prefaced her +invitation by informing her husband that she never understood exactly +why she was so fond of Edna and feared that the Russells were very +poor, sat, a vision of successive cool, light summer garments, doing +fancy work on the piazza, and talking in her engaging, brightly +indolent manner. Morgan found Mr. Dale, who was taking a vacation +within telephonic reach of New York, a genial, well-informed man with +the effect of mental strength and reserve power. They became friendly +over their cigars, and a common liking for old-fashioned gardens. On +the evening before he departed, Morgan, in the course of conversation, +expressed an opinion concerning certain electrical appliances before +the public in the securities of which his host was interested. The +banker listened with keen attention, put sundry questions which +revealed his own acuteness, and in pursuance of the topic talked to +Morgan graphically until after midnight of the large enterprises +involving new mechanical discoveries in which his firm was engaged. + +Morgan was obliged to go home on the following morning, but Edna +remained a full fortnight. On the day of her return Morgan was pleased +to perceive that the trip had evidently done her good. Not only did +she look brighter and fresher, but there was a sparkling gayety in her +manner which suggested that the change had served as a tonic. Morgan +did not suspect that this access of spirits was occasioned by the +secret she was cherishing until she confronted him with it in the +evening. + +"My dear," she said, "you would never guess what has happened, so I +won't ask you to try. I wonder what you will think of it. Mr. Dale is +going to ask you--has asked you to go into his business--to become one +of his partners." + +"Asked me?" + +"Yes. It seems you made a good impression on him from the +first--especially the last evening when you sat up together. It came +about through Mrs. Dale, I think. That is, Mr. Dale has been looking +about for some time for what he calls the right sort of man to take +in, for one of his partners has died recently and the business is +growing; and Mrs. Dale seems to have had us on her mind because she +had got it into her head that we were dreadfully poor. I don't think +she has at all a definite idea of what your occupation is. But the +long and short of it is her husband wants you. He told me so himself +in black and white, and you will receive a letter from him within a +day or two." + +"Wants me to become a broker?" + +"A banker and broker." + +"And--er--give up my regular work?" + +Edna nervously smoothed out the lap of her dress as though she +realized that she might be inflicting pain, but she raised her steady +eyes and said with pleasant firmness: + +"You would have to, of course, wouldn't you? But Mr. Dale explained +that you would be expected to keep a special eye on the mechanical and +scientific interests of the firm. He said he had told you about them. +So all that would be in your line of work, wouldn't it?" + +"I understand--I understand. It would amount to nothing from the point +of view of my special field of investigation," he answered a little +sternly. "What reply did you make to him, Edna?" + +"I merely said that I would tell you of the offer; that I didn't know +what you would think." + +"I wish you had refused it then and there." + +"I couldn't do that, of course. The decision did not rest with me. +Besides, Morgan, I thought you might think that we could +not--er--afford to refuse it, and that as you would still be more or +less connected with scientific matters, you might regard it as a happy +compromise. Mr. Dale said," she continued with incisive clearness in +which there was a tinge of jubilation, "that on a conservative +estimate you could count on ten or twelve thousand dollars a year, and +his manner suggested that your share of the profits would be very much +more than that." + +"The scientific part is a mere sop; it amounts to nothing. I should be +a banker, engaged in floating new financial enterprises and selling +their securities to the public." + +There was a brief silence. Edna rose and seating herself on the sofa +beside him took his hands and said with solemn emphasis, "Morgan, if +you think you will be unhappy--if you are satisfied that this change +would not be the best thing for us, say so and let us give it up. Give +it up and we will never think of it again." + +He looked her squarely in the face. "My God, Edna, I don't know what +to answer! It's a temptation. So many things would be made easy. It +comes to this, Is a man justified in refusing such an opportunity and +sacrificing his wife and children in order to be true to his----?" + +She interrupted him. "If you put it that way, Morgan, we must decline. +If you are going to break your heart--" + +"Or yours--" + +"Morgan, whichever way you decide I shall be happy, provided only you +are sure. If you feel that you--we--all of us will be happier and +er--more effective human creatures going on as we are, it is your duty +to refuse Mr. Dale's offer." + +"It's a temptation," murmured Morgan. "I must think it over, Edna. Am +I bound to resist it?" + +"Bound?" + +"You know I may never be heard of in science outside of a few partial +contemporaries." His lip quivered with his wan smile. + +"That has really nothing to do with it," she asserted. + +"I think it has, Edna," he said simply. Then suddenly the remembrance +of the conversation with his friend Randall recurred to him with vivid +clearness. He looked up into his wife's eyes and said, "After all, +dear, it really rests with you. The modern woman is man's helpmate and +counsellor. What do you advise?" + +Edna did not answer for a few moments. Her open, sensible brow seemed +to be seeking to be dispassionate as a judge and to expel every +vestige of prejudice. + +"It's a very close question to decide, Morgan. Of course, there are +two distinct sides. You ask me to tell you, as your wife, what I think +is wisest and best. I can't set it forth as clearly as I should +like--I won't attempt to give my reasons even. But somehow my instinct +tells me that if you don't accept Mr. Dale's offer, you will be sorry +three years hence." + +"Then I shall accept, Edna, dear," he said. + +Three years later I took Mrs. Sidney Dale out to dinner at the house +of a common friend in New York. In the course of conversation I +remarked, "I believe it is you, Mrs. Dale, who is responsible for the +metamorphosis in my friend, Morgan Russell." + +"Is he a friend of yours?" + +"An old friend since college days. I never saw any one so spruced up, +shall I call it? He has gained fifteen pounds, is growing whiskers, +and is beginning to look the embodiment of worldly prosperity." + +"It is delightful to see them--both him and his wife. Yes, I suppose I +may claim to be responsible for rescuing him from obscurity. My +husband finds him a most valuable man in his business. I'm very fond +of Mrs. Russell. She hasn't the obnoxious ways of most progressive +women, and she certainly has executive ability and common sense. Being +such an indolent person myself, I have always been fascinated by her +spirit and cleverness. I'm glad she has been given a chance. They are +getting on nicely." + +"I think she is in her element now. I was at their house the other +day," I continued blandly. "It seems that Edna is prominent in various +educational and philanthropic bodies, high in the councils of her +club, and a leading spirit in diverse lines of reform. They are +entertaining a good deal--a judicious sprinkling of the fashionable +and the literary. The latest swashbuckler romances were on the table, +and it was evident from her tone that she regarded them as great +American literature. Everything was rose color. Morgan came home while +I was there. His hands were full of toys for his children and violets +for his wife. He began to talk golf. It's a complete case of +ossification of the soul--pleasant enough to encounter in daily +intercourse, but sad to contemplate." + +Mrs. Dale turned in her chair. "I believe you're laughing at me, Mr. +Randall. What is sad? And what do you mean by ossification of the +soul?" + +Said I with quiet gravity, "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year. +Morgan Russell's life is ruined--and the world had great hopes of +him." + +Mrs. Dale, who is a clever person, in spite of her disclaimers, was +silent a moment. "I know what you mean, of course. But I don't agree +with you in the least. And you," she added with the air of a woman +making a telling point--"you the recently appointed attorney of the +paper trust, with a fabulous salary, you're the last man to talk like +that." + +I regarded her a moment with sardonic brightness. "Mrs. Dale," I said, +"it grieves us to see the ideals of our friends shattered." + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Law-Breakers and Other Stories, by Robert Grant + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAW-BREAKERS AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 7763-8.txt or 7763-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/6/7763/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Eric Eldred, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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