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+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: ASCII
+
+*** 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 employes 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, _pere_" 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 naively. "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 naively
+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
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