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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bacillus of Beauty, by Harriet Stark
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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+
+Title: The Bacillus of Beauty
+       A Romance of To-day
+
+Author: Harriet Stark
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9081]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 4, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BACILLUS OF BEAUTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                                  BACILLUS
+
+                                     OF
+
+                                   BEAUTY
+
+                          _A Romance of To-day_
+
+                                  _BY_
+
+                               HARRIET STARK
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER
+
+            Book I: _The Broken Chrysalis:_
+
+      I. THE METAMORPHOSIS
+     II. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD
+    III. THE HORNETS' NEST
+     IV. THE GODDESS AND THE MOB
+      V. A HIGH-CLASS CONCERT
+
+           Book II: _The Birth of the Butterfly:_
+
+      I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT
+     II. A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON
+    III. THE QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE
+     IV. GIRL BACHELOR AND BIOLOGIST
+      V. THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS
+     VI. THE GREAT CHANGE
+    VII. THE COMING OF THE LOVER
+
+           Book III: _The Joy of the Sunshine:_
+
+      I. CHRISTMAS
+     II. A LOOKING OVER BY THE PACK
+    III. SNARLING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK
+     IV. IN THE INTERESTS OF MUSIC
+      V. A PLAGUE OF REPORTERS
+     VI. LOVE IS NOTHING
+    VII. LOVE IS ALL
+   VIII. A LITTLE BELATED EARL
+
+           BOOK IV: _The Bruising of the Wings:_
+
+      I. THE KISS THAT LIED
+     II. THE IRONY OF LIFE
+    III. THE SUDDENNESS OF DEATH
+     IV. SOME REMARKS ABOUT CATS
+      V. THE LOVE OF LORD STRATHAY
+     VI. LITTLE BROWN PARTRIDGES
+    VII. LETTERS AND SCIENCE
+   VIII. A CHAPERON ON A CATTLE TRAIN
+     IX. A BURST OF SUNLIGHT
+      X. PLIGHTED TROTH
+
+           BOOK V: _The End of the Beginning:_
+
+      I. THE DEEDS OF THE FARM
+     II. CADGE'S ASSIGNMENT
+    III. "P.P.C."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+THE BROKEN CHRYSALIS.
+
+_(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.)_
+
+
+THE BACILLUS OF BEAUTY
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE METAMORPHOSIS.
+
+NEW YORK, Sunday, Dec. 16.
+
+I am going to set down as calmly and fully as I can a plain statement of
+all that has happened since I came to New York.
+
+I shall not trim details, nor soften the facts to humour my own amazement,
+nor try to explain the marvel that I do not pretend to understand.
+
+I begin at the beginning--at the plunge into fairy tale and miracle that I
+made, after living twenty-five years of baldest prose, when I met Helen
+Winship here.
+
+Why, I had dragged her to school on a sled when she was a child. I watched
+her grow up. For years I saw her nearly every day at the State University
+in the West that already seems so unreal, so far away, I loved her.
+
+Man, I knew her face better than I knew my own! Yet when I met her here--
+when I saw my promised wife, who had kissed me good-by only last June--I
+did not recognise her. I looked full into her great eyes and thought she
+was a stranger; hesitated even when she called my name. It's a miracle! Or
+a lie, or a wild dream; or I am going crazy. The thing will not be
+believed. And yet it's true.
+
+This is my calmness! If I could but think it might be a tremendous blunder
+out of which I would sometime wake into verity! But there has been no
+mistake; I have not been dreaming unless I am dreaming now.
+
+As distinctly as I see the ugly street below, I remember everything that
+has befallen me since my train pulled into Jersey City last Thursday
+morning. I remember as one does who is served by sharpened senses. Only
+once in a fellow's lifetime can he look upon New York for the first time--
+and to me New York meant Helen. Everything was vividly impressed upon my
+mind.
+
+I crossed the Cortlandt Street ferry and walked up Broadway, wondering
+what Helen would say if I called before breakfast. I could scarcely wait.
+I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story
+building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as
+if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had
+come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office,
+the City Hall, the restaurant where I ate breakfast, studying upon the
+wall the bible texts and signs bidding me watch my hat and overcoat; the
+_Tribune_ building, just as it looks on the almanac cover--all these
+made an instant, deep impression. Not in the least like a dream.
+
+By the statue of Horace Greeley I stood a moment irresolute. I knew that,
+before I could reach her, Helen would have left her rooms for Barnard
+College; breakfast had been a mistake. Then I noticed that Nassau Street
+was just opposite; and, in spite of my impatience to be at her door, I
+constrained myself to look up Judge Baker.
+
+Between its Babel towers narrow Nassau Street was like a canyon. The
+pavements were wet, for folks had just finished washing windows, though it
+was eight o'clock in the forenoon. Bicycles zipped past and from somewhere
+north a freshet of people flooded the sidewalk and roadway.
+
+Down a steep little hill and up another--both thronged past belief--and in
+a great marble maze of lawyers' offices I found the sign of Baker &
+Magoun.
+
+The boy who alone represented the firm said that I might have to wait some
+minutes, and turned me loose to browse in the big, high-ceiled outer room
+or library of the place where I am to work. After the dim corridors it was
+a blaze of light. On all sides were massive bookshelves; the doorways gave
+glimpses of other rooms, fine with rugs and pictures and heavy desks,
+different enough from the plain fittings of the country lawyers' workshops
+I had known. The carpet sank under my feet as I went to the window.
+
+I stood looking at the Jersey hills, blue and fair in the distance, and
+dreaming of Helen, who was to bless and crown my good fortune, when I
+heard a step at the door and a young man came in--a tall, blonde, supple
+fellow not much older than I. Then the Judge appeared, ponderous, slow of
+tread, immaculate of dress; the same, unless his iron-gray locks have
+retreated yet farther from his wall of a brow, that I have remembered him
+from boyhood.
+
+"Burke!" he said, "I am glad to see you. Welcome to New York and to this
+office, my boy!"
+
+The grasp of his big warm hand was as good as the words and the eyes
+beneath his heavy gray brows were full of kindness as, holding both my
+hands in his, he drew me toward the young man who had preceded him. With a
+winning smile the latter turned.
+
+"Hynes," said the Judge, with a heartiness that made one forget his formal
+manner, "you have heard me speak of Burke's father, the boyhood companion
+with whom, when the finny tribes were eager, I sometimes strayed from the
+strait and narrow path that led to school. Burke, Hynes is the sportsman
+here--our tiger-slayer. He beards in their lairs those Tammany ornaments
+of the bench whom the flippant term 'necessity Judges,' because of their
+slender acquaintance with the law."
+
+"Glad to see you, Burke," said Hynes, as dutifully we laughed together at
+the time-honoured jest.
+
+I knew from the look of him that he was a good fellow, and he had an
+honest grip; though out where I come from we might call him a dude. All
+New Yorkers seem to dress pretty well.
+
+Presently Managing Clerk Crosby came, and Mr. Magoun, as lean, brusque and
+mosquito-like as his partner is elephantine; and after a few words with
+them I was called into the Judge's private room, where a great lump rose
+in my throat when I tried, and miserably failed, to thank him for all his
+great kindness.
+
+"Consider, if it pleases you," he said, to put me quite at my ease, "that
+I have proposed our arrangement, not so much on your own account as
+because I loved your father and must rely upon his son. It brings back my
+youth to speak his name--your name, Johnny Burke!"
+
+Yes, I remember the words, I remember the tremour in the kind voice and
+the mist of unshed tears through which he looked at me. I'm not dreaming;
+sometimes I wish I were, almost.
+
+When I left the Judge, of course I pasted right up to Union Square, though
+I felt sure that Helen would be at college. No. 2 proved to be a dingy
+brick building with wigs and armour and old uniforms and grimy pictures in
+the windows, and above them the signs of a "dental parlour" and a school
+for theatrical dancing.
+
+It seemed an odd place in which to look for Nelly, but I pounded up the
+worn stairs--dressmakers' advertisements on every riser--until I reached
+the top floor, where a meal-bag of a woman whose head was tied up in a
+coloured handkerchief confronted me with dustpan and broom.
+
+"I'm the new leddy scrubwoman, and not afther knowin' th' names av th'
+tinants," she said, "but av ut's a gir-rul ye're seekin', sure they's two
+av thim in there, an' both out, I'm thinkin'."
+
+I pushed a note for Nelly under the door she indicated--it bore the cards
+of "Miss Helen Winship" and "Miss Kathryn Reid"--and hurried away to look
+up this gem of a hall bedroom where I am writing; you could wear it on a
+watch chain, but I pay $3 a week for it. The landlady would board me for
+$8, but regular dinners at restaurants are only twenty-five cents; good,
+too. And anybody can breakfast for fifteen.
+
+Then I went back to Union Square, where I hung about, looking at the
+statues. Once I walked as far as Tammany Hall and rushed back again to
+watch Helen's door. Finally I sat down on a bench from which I could see
+her windows; and there in the brief December sunlight, with the little
+oasis around me green even in winter, and the roar of Dead Man's Curve
+just far enough away, I suppose I spent almost the happiest moments of my
+life.
+
+I was looking at Nelly's picture, taken in cap and gown just before she
+graduated last June. My Nelly! Nelly as she used to be before this strange
+thing happened; eager-eyed, thin with over-study and rapid growth. Nelly,
+whose bright face, swept by so many lights and shadows of expression,
+sensitive to so many shifting moods, I loved and yearned for. Nearly six
+months we'd been apart, but at last I had followed to New York to claim
+her. As I sat smiling at the dream pictures the dear face evoked, my brain
+was busy with thoughts of the new home we would together build. I'd hoard
+every penny, I planned; I'd walk to save car-fare, practice all
+economies--
+
+Wasn't that a face at her window?
+
+I reached the top landing again, three steps at a time; but the voice that
+said "Come!" was not Helen's and the figure that turned from pulling at
+the shades was short and rolypoly and crowned by flaming red hair.
+
+"Miss Winship?" said the voice, as its owner seated herself at a big
+table. "Can't imagine what's, keeping her. Are you the John Burke I've
+heard so much about? And--perhaps Helen has written to you of Kitty Reid?"
+
+Without waiting for a reply, she bent over the table, scratching with a
+knife at a sheet of bold drawings of bears.
+
+"You won't mind my keeping right on?" she queried briskly, lifting a rosy,
+freckled face. "This is the animal page of the Sunday _Star_ and
+Cadge is in a hurry for it, to do the obbligato."
+
+I suppose I must have looked the puzzlement I felt, for she added
+hastily:--
+
+"The text, you know; a little cool rill of it to trickle down through the
+page like a fine, thin strain of music that--that helps out the song--tee-
+e-e-um; tee-e-e-um--" She lifted her arm, sawing with a long ruler at a
+violin of air,--"but you don't have to listen unless you wish--to the
+obbligato, you know."
+
+"Doesn't the writer think the pictures the unobtrusive embroidery of the
+violin, and the writing the magic melody one cannot choose but hear?"
+
+I thought that rather neat for my first day in New York, but the shrewd
+blue eyes opened wide at the heresy.
+
+"Why, no; of course Cadge knows it's the pictures that count; everybody
+knows that."
+
+A writing-table jutted into the room from a second window, backing against
+Miss Reid's. On its flap lay German volumes on biology and a little
+treatise in English about "Advanced Methods of Imbedding, Sectioning and
+Staining." The window ledge held a vase of willow and alder twigs, whose
+buds appeared to be swelling. Beside it was a glass of water in which
+seeds were sprouting on a floating island of cotton wool.
+
+"Admiring Helen's forest?" came the voice from the desk. "I'm afraid
+there's only second growth timber left; she carried away the great
+redwoods and all the giants of the wilderness this morning. Are you
+interested in zoology? Sometimes, since I have been living with Helen, I
+have wished more than anything else to find out, What is protoplasm? Do
+you happen to know?"
+
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Neither does Helen--nor any one else."
+
+Miss Reid's merry ways are infectious. I'm glad Helen is rooming with a
+nice girl.
+
+The place was shabby enough, with cracked and broken ceiling, marred
+woodwork and stained wall paper; but etchings, foreign photographs,
+sketches put up with thumb tacks and bright hangings made it odd and
+attractive. On a low couch piled with cushions lay Helen's mandolin and a
+banjo. A plaster cast of some queer animal roosted on the mantel, craning
+its neck down towards the fireplace.
+
+"That's the Notre Dame devil," Miss Reid said, following my glance; "the
+other is the Lincoln Cathedral devil." She nodded at a wide-mouthed imp,
+clawing at a door-top. "Don't you just adore gargoyles?"
+
+"Yes; that is--very much," I stammered, wandering back to Helen's desk.
+And then!
+
+And then I heard quick steps outside. They reached the door and paused. I
+looked up eagerly. "There's Helen now," said Miss Reid; "or else Cadge."
+
+A tall girl burst into the room, dropping an armful of books, and sprang
+to Miss Reid.
+
+"Kitty! Kitty!" she cried, in a voice of wonderful music. "Two camera
+fiends! One in front of the college, the other by the elevated station;
+waiting for me to pass, I do believe! And such crowds! They followed me!
+Look! Look! Down in the Square!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD.
+
+Both girls ran to the window. Miss Reid laughed teasingly. "I see nobody--
+or all the world; it's much the same," she said; "but you have a caller."
+
+I rose from behind the desk with some confused, trivial thought that I
+ought to have spent part of the afternoon getting my hair cut.
+
+I had had but a glimpse of the new comer in her flight across the floor; I
+knew she had scarlet lips and shining eyes; that youth and joy and
+unimagined beauty had entered with her like a burst of sunlight and
+flooded the room. I felt, rather than saw, that she had turned from the
+window and was looking at me, curiously at first, then smiling. Her smile
+had bewildered me when she opened the door; it was a soft, flashing light
+that shone from her face and blessed the air. She seemed surrounded by an
+aureole.
+
+But she--how could this wonderful girl know me?--she surely was smiling!
+She was coming towards me. She was putting out her hands. That glorious
+voice was speaking.
+
+"John! Is it you? I'm so glad!" it said.
+
+Had I read about her? Had I seen her picture? Had Helen described her in a
+letter? Was she Cadge? No; not altogether a stranger; somewhere before I
+had seen--or dreamed--
+
+"John," she persisted. "Why didn't you write? I thought you were coming
+next week. Did you plan to surprise me?"
+
+Miss Reid must have made a mistake, I felt; I must explain that I was
+waiting for Helen. But I could not speak; I could only gape, choking and
+giddy. I did not speak when the bright vision seemed to take the hands I
+had not offered. I could feel the blood beat in my neck. I could not
+think; and yet I knew that a real woman stood before me, albeit unlike all
+the other women that ever lived in the world; and that something surprised
+and perplexed her. The smile still curved her lips; I felt myself grin in
+idiotic imitation.
+
+"What is the matter?" the radiant stranger persisted. "You act as if--"
+
+The smile grew sunnier; it rippled to a laugh that was merriment set to
+music.
+
+"John! John Burke!" she said, giving my hands a little, impatient shake,
+just as Nelly used to do. "It isn't possible! Don't you--why, you goose!
+Don't you know me?"
+
+"Helen!"
+
+Of course! I had known her from the beginning! A man couldn't be in the
+same room with Nelly Winship and feel just as if she were any other girl.
+But she was not Helen at all--that radiant impossibility! And yet she was.
+Or she said so, and my heart agreed. But when I would have drawn her to
+me, she stepped back in lovely confusion, with a fluttered question:--
+
+"How long have you been here, John?"
+
+That voice! Sweet, fresh; full of exquisite cadences such as one might
+hear in dreams and ever after yearn for--from the first it had baffled me
+more than the beautiful face. It was not Helen's. What a blunder!
+
+I gazed at her, still giddy. Who was she? I could not trust the astounding
+recognition. She returned the look, bending towards me, seeking as
+eagerly, I saw with confused wonderment, to read my thought as I to fathom
+hers. Then, as some half knowledge grew to certainty, the light of her
+beauty became a glory; she seemed transfigured by a mighty joy such as no
+other woman could ever have felt.
+
+An instant she stood motionless, the sunshine of her eyes still on me.
+Then, drawing a long breath, she turned away, pulling the pins out of her
+feathered hat with hands that trembled.
+
+I watched the process with the strained attention one gives at crucial
+moments to nothings. I laughed out of sheer inanity; every pulse in my
+body was throbbing. She lifted the hat from her shining head. She put it
+down. She unfastened her coat. In a minute she would turn again, and I
+should once more see that face imbued with light and fire. I waited for
+her voice.
+
+"I'm sure of it!" she cried, wheeling about of a sudden, with a laugh like
+caressing music, and confronting me again. "You didn't know me, John; did
+you?"
+
+"Why didn't I know you?" I gasped. "Why are you glad I don't know you?
+What does it all mean, Helen?"
+
+Instead of answering she laughed again. It was the happiest joy-song in
+the world. A mirthful goddess might have trilled it--a laugh like sunshine
+and flowers and chasing cloud shadows on waving grass.
+
+"Helen Winship, stop it! Stop this masquerade!" I shouted, not knowing
+what I did.
+
+"But I--I'm afraid I can't, John."
+
+The glorious face brimmed with mischief. In vain the Woman Perfect
+struggled to subdue her mirth to penitence.
+
+"I--I'm so glad to see you, John. Won't you--won't you sit down and let
+Kitty give you some tea?"
+
+Tea! At that moment!
+
+Clattering little blue and white cups and saucers, Miss Reid recalled
+herself to my remembrance. I had forgotten that she was in the room. I
+suspect that she dared not lift her head for fear I might see the laughter
+in her eyes.
+
+"I've made it extra strong, Mr. Burke," she managed to say, "because I'm
+starting for the _Star_ office to find the photo-engravers routing
+the noses and toeses off all my best beastesses."
+
+"Kitty thinks all photo-engravers the embodiment of original sin," said
+the Shining One. "They clip her bears' claws."
+
+"Well," returned Miss Reid, making a flat parcel of her drawings, "this is
+the den of Beauty and the beasts, and the beasts must be worthy of Beauty.
+Mr. Burke, don't you know from what county of fairyland Helen hails? Is
+she the Maiden Snow-white--but no; see her blush--or the Princess Marvel?
+And if she's Cinderella, can't we have a peep at the fairy godmother?
+Cadge will call her nothing but 'H. the M.'--short for 'Helen the
+Magnificent.' And--and--oh, isn't she!"
+
+"Kathryn!"
+
+Before that grieved organ-tone of reproach, Kitty's eyes filled. I could
+have wept at the greatness and the beauty of it, but the little artist
+laughed through her tears.
+
+"Helen Eliza, I repent," she said. "Time to be good, Mr. Burke, when she
+says 'Kathryn.'"
+
+Adjusting her hat before a glass, Kitty hummed with a voice that tried not
+quaver:--
+
+"Mirror, mirror on the wall,
+Am I most beautiful of all?
+
+"Queen, thou art not the fairest now;
+Snow-white over the mountain's brow
+A thousand times fairer is than thou.
+
+"Poor Queen; poor all of us. I'm good, Helen," she repeated, whisking out
+of the room.
+
+"Such a chatterbox!" the goddess said. "But, John, am I really so much
+altered? Is it true that--just at first, you know, of course--you didn't
+know me?"
+
+She bent on me the breathless look I had seen before. In her eagerness, it
+was as if the halo of joy that surrounded her were quivering.
+
+"I know you now; you are my Helen!"
+
+Again I would have caught her in my arms; but she moved uneasily.
+
+"Wait--I--you haven't told me," she stammered; "I--I want to talk to you,
+John."
+
+She put out a hand as if to fend me off, then let it fall. A sudden heart
+sickness came upon me. It was not her words, not the movement that chilled
+me, but the paling of the wonderful light of her face, the look that crept
+over it, as if I had startled a nymph to flight. I was angry with my
+clumsy self that I should have caused that look, and yet--from my own
+Helen, not this lovely, poising creature that hardly seemed to touch the
+earth--I should have had a different greeting!
+
+I gazed at her from where I stood, then I turned to the window. The rattle
+of street cars came up from below. A child was sitting on the bench where
+I had sat and feasted my eyes upon the flutter of Helen's curtains. My
+numb brain vaguely speculated whether that child could see me. The sun had
+gone, the square was wintry.
+
+After a long minute Helen followed me.
+
+"John," she said, "I am so glad to see you; but I--I want to tell you.
+Everything here is so new, I--I don't--"
+
+It must all be true; I remember her exact words. They came slowly,
+hesitated, stopped.
+
+"Are you--what do you mean, Helen?"
+
+"Let me tell you; let me think. Don't--please don't be angry."
+
+Through the fog that enveloped me I felt her distress and smarted from the
+wrong I did so beautiful a creature.
+
+"I--I didn't expect you so soon," the music sighed pleadingly. "I--we
+mustn't hurry about--what we used to talk of. New York is so different!--
+Oh, but it isn't that! How shall I make you understand?"
+
+"I understand enough," I said dully; "or rather--Great Heavens!--I
+understand nothing; nothing but that--you are taking back your promise,
+aren't you? Or Helen's promise; whose was it?"
+
+I could not feel as if I were speaking to my sweetheart. The figure before
+me wore her pearl-set Kappa key--the badge of her college fraternity; it
+wore, too, a trim, dark blue dress--Helen's favourite colour and mine--but
+there resemblance seemed to stop.
+
+Confused as I still was by the glory I gazed on, I began painfully
+comparing the Nelly I remembered and the Helen I had found. My Helen was
+not quite so tall, but at twenty girls grow. She did not sway with the
+yielding grace of a young white birch; but she was slim and straight, and
+girlish angles round easily to curves. Though I felt a subtle and wondrous
+change, I could not trace or track the miracle.
+
+My Helen had blue-gray eyes; this Helen's eyes might, in some lights, be
+blue-gray; they seemed of as many tints as the sea. They were dark,
+luminous and velvet soft as they watched my struggle. A few minutes
+earlier they had been of extraordinary brilliancy.
+
+My Helen had soft brown hair, like and how unlike these fragrant locks
+that lay in glinting waves with life and sparkle in every thread!
+
+My Helen's face was expressive, piquantly irregular. The face into which I
+looked lured me at moments with a haunting resemblance; but the brow was
+lower and wider, the nose straighter, the mouth more subtly modelled. It
+was a face Greek in its perfection, brightened by western force and
+softened by some flitting touch of sensuousness and mysticism.
+
+My Helen blushed easily, but otherwise had little colour. This Helen had a
+baby's delicate skin, with rose-flushed cheeks and red, red lips. When she
+spoke or smiled, she seemed to glow with an inner radiance that had
+nothing to do with colour. And, oh, how beautiful! How beautiful!
+
+I don't know how long I gazed.
+
+I was trying to study the girl before me as if she had been merely a
+fact--a statue, a picture. But here was none of the calm certainty of art;
+I was in the grip of a power, a living charm as mighty as elusive, no more
+to be fixed in words than are the splendours of sunset. Yet I saw the
+vital harmonies of her figure, the grace of every exquisite curve--the
+firm, strong line of her white throat, the gracious poise of her head, her
+sweeping lashes.
+
+I looked down at her hands; they were of marvellous shape and tint, but I
+missed a little sickle-shaped scar from the joint of the left thumb. I
+knew the story of that scar. I had seen the child Nelly run to her mother
+when the knife slipped while she was paring a piece of cocoanut for the
+Saturday pie-baking. That scar was part of Helen; I loved it. I felt a
+sudden revolt against this goddess who usurped little Nelly's place, and
+said that she had changed. Why was she looking at me? What did she want?
+
+"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," said a choked voice that
+I hardly recognised as my own.
+
+Instantly the joy light shone again from her face, bathing me in its
+sunshine, and the world was fair. She started forward impulsively, holding
+out her hands.
+
+"Then it's true! Oh, it's true!" she cried. "How can I believe it? I--
+Nelly Winship--am I really--"
+
+"Ah--you are Nelly! My Nelly!"
+
+What happened is past telling!
+
+With that jubilant outburst, as naive as a child's, she was my own love
+again, but dearer a thousand times. Would I have given her up if her hair
+were blanched by pain or sorrow, her cheeks furrowed, her face grown pale
+in illness? Need I look upon her coldly because she had become radiant,
+compellingly lovely? Why, she was enchanting!
+
+And she was Helen. A miracle had been worked, but Helen's self was looking
+at me out of that goddess-like face as unmistakably as from an unfamiliar
+dress. It was seeing her in a marvellous new garb of flesh.
+
+"Oh, I'm so happy! I'm the happiest girl on earth; I'm--am I really
+beautiful?"
+
+The rich, low, brooding, wondering voice was not Helen's, but in every
+sentence some note or inflection was as familiar as were her tricks of
+manner, her impulsive gestures. Yes, she was Helen; warm-breathing,
+flushed with joy of her own loveliness, her perfect womanhood--the girl I
+adored, the loveliest thing alive!
+
+I seized the hands she gave me; I drew her nearer.
+
+"Helen," I cried, "you are indeed the most beautiful being God ever
+created, and--last June you kissed me--"
+
+"I didn't!"
+
+"--Or I kissed you, which is the same thing--after the Commencement
+reception, by the maple trees, in front of the chapter house; and----"
+
+"And thence in an east-southeasterly direction; with all the hereditaments
+and appurtenances--Oh, you funny Old Preciseness!"
+
+"And now I'm going to----" The words were brave, but there was something
+in the pose and poise of her--the wonder of her beauty, the majesty--
+perhaps the slightest withdrawal, the start of surprise--that awed me.
+Lamely enough the sentence ended:
+
+"Helen, kiss me!" I begged, hoarsely.
+
+For just a fraction of a second she hesitated. Then the merriment of
+coquetry again sparkled in her smile.
+
+"Ah, but I'm afraid--" she mocked.
+
+Her eyes danced with mischief as she drew away from me.
+
+"I'm afraid of a man who's going to be a great city lawyer. And then--oh,
+listen!"
+
+Hurried, ostentatiously heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. They stopped
+at the door, and some one fumbled noisily at the knob. There was a stage
+cough, and Kitty plunged into the room, carefully unnoticing.
+
+"Such an idea for--a hippopotamus comic," she panted; "a darling! Sent
+drawings down--messenger--rushed back to sketch--"
+
+Here she paused to take breath.
+
+"--lest I forget."
+
+Snatching off her gloves she resumed her place at the big table, and began
+making wild strokes with a crayon on a great sheet of cardboard.
+
+"I just _had_ to do it," said she apologetically over her shoulder;
+"but--don't mind me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE HORNETS' NEST.
+
+It was dusk when I left Helen. My head was buzzing.
+
+Out of her presence what I had seen was unthinkable, unbelievable. I could
+do nothing but walk, walk--a man in a dream.
+
+I rushed ahead, jostling people in silly haste; I dawdled. I carefully set
+my feet across the joinings of paving blocks; I zigzagged; I turned
+corners aimlessly. Once a policeman touched me as I blinked into the
+roaring torches of a street-repairing gang. Once I found myself on
+Brooklyn Bridge, looking down at big boats shaped like pumpkin seeds, with
+lights streaking from every window. Once I woke behind a noisy group under
+the coloured lights of a Bowery museum.
+
+It rained, for horses were rubber-blanketed, and umbrellas dripped on me
+as I passed. I was hungry, for I smelled the coffee a sodden woman drank
+at the side of a night lunch wagon. But how could I believe myself awake
+or sane?
+
+Again and again I found my way back to the bench on Union Square, from
+which I could gaze at Helen's window, now dark and forbidding. Across an
+open space was a garish saloon. When the door swung open, I saw the towels
+hanging from the bar. Two men reeled across the street and sat down by me.
+
+"Oo-oo!" one gurgled.
+
+"Dan's goin' t' kill 'imself 'cause 'is wife's gone," blubbered the other.
+"Tell 'm not ter, can't ye, matey? Tell 'im' t's 'nough fer one t' die!"
+
+"Oo-oo!" bellowed Dan.
+
+I walked away in the darkness, but I felt better. Drunkenness was no
+miracle: I was awake and sane, sane and awake in a homely world of sorrow
+and folly and love and mystery.
+
+I went to bed thinking of Cleopatra, "brow-bound with burning gold"; of
+Fair Rosamond; Vivien, who won Merlin's secret; of Lilith and strange,
+shining women--not one of them like the goddess the glory of whose smile
+had dazzled me. At last I slept, late and heavily.
+
+Next morning I was again first at the office; and by daylight in the
+bustling city, things took a different complexion. I had gone to my
+sweetheart tired by a long journey, and I felt sure, or tried to feel
+sure, that my impressions of change in her were fantastic and exaggerated.
+
+Judge Baker, on his arrival, installed me in Hynes's room, behind the
+library, between the corridor and one of the courts that light the inner
+offices. In his own room, to the left, he detained me for some business
+talk, after which he said, carefully rubbing his glasses:
+
+"I trust that you will not find yourself altogether a stranger in the
+city. My wife will wish to see you, and my sister, Miss Baker, cherishes
+pleasant recollections of your mother. I believe you are already
+acquainted with Mrs. Baker's young cousin, Miss Winship. You know that,
+since graduation, she has come to New York for the purpose of pursuing
+post-graduate studies in Barnard?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I drew a breath of relief. There was nothing in the Judge's manner to give
+significance to his mention of Helen. I must have deceived myself.
+
+"A most charming young lady."
+
+He glanced at the letters on his desk and methodically cut open an
+envelope. Then he dropped the paper knife, raising his bushy brows, a
+gesture that indicates his most genial humour, as he continued with more
+than usual deliberateness:--
+
+"You knew her, no doubt, as an intelligent student; you may be surprised
+to learn that she has developed extraordinary--the word is not too
+strong--extraordinary beauty."
+
+"Always a lovely girl," I muttered.
+
+"From her childhood Nelly has been a favourite with me;" the Judge leaned
+back in his big chair, seeming to commit himself to an utterance; "but her
+attractions were rather those of mind and heart, I should have said, than
+of personal appearance. The change to which I have alluded is more than
+the not uncommon budding of a plain girl into the evanescent beauty of
+early womanhood; it is the most remarkable thing that has ever come under
+my observation. I am getting to be an elderly man, Burke, and I have been
+a respectful admirer of many, many fair women, but I have never seen a
+girl like Miss Winship; she is phenomenal."
+
+"You--you think so?"
+
+It was true, then!
+
+"I have ceased to think; I am nonplussed. Witchcraft, though not in the
+older sense of the word, is still no doubt exercised by young ladies, and
+there are certain improvement commissions that undertake, for a suitable
+consideration, the--ah--redecoration of feminine architecture, or even the
+partial restoration of human antiques. But this is a different matter."
+
+"I saw Miss Winship yesterday."
+
+"You will not then accuse me of overstatement?"
+
+"She is indeed beautiful."
+
+The restraint with which I spoke evidently puzzled him. He continued to
+look at me curiously, as he said slowly:--
+
+"From a young man I should have expected more enthusiasm. At times I
+suspect that the youth of today are less susceptible than were those of
+twenty-five years ago. But this affair has perhaps occupied my thoughts
+more than otherwise it might, because Helen is in a measure my ward during
+her stay in the East, and because of my daughters' affection--"
+
+"Judge, I had supposed you aware of an engagement between Helen and
+myself."
+
+"Ah, that accounts for much. To you, no doubt, she is little altered. Your
+eyes have seen the budding of that beauty which but now becomes visible to
+those less partial. I believe Mrs. Baker did hint at something between
+you, but it had escaped my mind."
+
+The Judge's bright eyes that contradict so pleasantly the heavy cast of
+his features began to twinkle. Little lines of geniality formed at their
+corners and rayed out over his cheeks. He beamed kindliness, as he
+continued:--
+
+"Accept my congratulations. A most excellent family. Mrs. Winship is Mrs.
+Baker's cousin. Ah, time flies; time flies! It seems but yesterday that my
+little girls were running about with Nelly, pigtailed, during their visits
+in the West."
+
+"Does Mrs. Baker also think Nelly--changed?"
+
+"Only on Tuesday my wife returned from nursing an ailing relative. She has
+not seen Helen in some time. I believe we are to have her with us at
+Christmas. We must have you also. But I cannot altogether admit that the
+change is a matter of my opinion. It has been commented upon by my
+daughters in terms of utmost emphasis."
+
+"She is the most beautiful woman in the world!"
+
+"There we shall not disagree. To Nelly herself the riddle of nature that
+we seek to read is doubtless also a mystery, but one for whose unraveling
+she is happy to wait. My daughters have a picture of her, taken at the
+age, possibly, of six, which gives inartistic prominence to 'Grandpa
+Winship's ears'--the left larger than the right. You know the family
+peculiarity owned by the eldest child in each generation? The loss of this
+inheritance may not be, to a young lady, matter for regret; but as a mark
+of identification and descent, the Winship ears might have entitled her to
+rank among the Revolutionary Daughters. However, she is a poor woman who
+has not a club to spare."
+
+"Judge, how long is it since this--transformation took place? You speak of
+it as recent."
+
+"Nelly comes to me," said the Judge, "with--ah--natural punctuality for
+monthly remittances from her father. In November I was struck with the
+fact that New York agreed with her; yet even then I did not miss the
+family nose--a compromise of pug and Roman. But ten days ago, when I saw
+her last, I recognised her with difficulty. For more precise information
+you must ask my daughters."
+
+"Then it was only ten days ago that you saw anything wrong--?"
+
+"Wrong! My dear young friend, if Nelly's case obtained publicity, would
+not the world, which loves beauty, be divided between a howling New York
+and a wilderness?"
+
+The Judge glanced up at me, slipping his paper knife end over end through
+his fingers.
+
+"I have spoken of myself as nonplussed," he said more seriously, "and I
+am. I was never more so; but I see no occasion for anxiety. Since when has
+it been thought necessary to call priest or physician because of a young
+lady's growing charm? Confronted by an ugly duckling, we must congratulate
+the swan."
+
+"Judge, how much money does one need to marry on in New York?"
+
+"All that a man has; all that he can get; often more. But--ah--is the
+question imminent? Nelly is in school; you have come out of the West, as I
+understand it, to attack New York. Conquer it, Sir; conquer New York
+before you speak of marriage to a New York woman."
+
+"Helen is not a New York woman."
+
+"We naturalize them at the docks and stations."
+
+"But you--" I repressed a movement of impatience. "Didn't you marry
+young?"
+
+"Mrs. Baker and I began our married life in one room; cooked over the gas
+jet, in tin pails. And if little Nelly is the equal of other women of her
+family--but that is practice versus principle, my young friend; practice
+versus principle."
+
+He turned again to his letters, and I understood that the interview was
+closed.
+
+Right after lunch I started for Barnard. Helen has written so much about
+the college that as soon as I struck the Boulevard I knew the solid brick
+building with its trimmings of stone fasces. I turned into the cloistered
+court on One Hundred and Nineteenth Street and paused a minute, looking up
+at its Ionic porticoes and high window lettered "Millbank Hall."
+
+Then I entered, and a page, small, meek and blue-uniformed, trotted ahead
+of me through a beautiful hall, white with marble columns and mosaics,
+sumptuous with golden ceiling, dazzling with light and green with palms,
+to the curtained entrance of a dainty reception room.
+
+"Stop a minute, Mercury," I said as he turned to leave; "where is Miss
+Winship?"
+
+He reappeared from an office beyond, replying:--
+
+"Biol'gy lab'r'tory. What name?"
+
+Instead of waiting until Nelly could be summoned, I followed the mildly
+disapproving boy up a great, white stairway, past groups of girls, some in
+bright silk waists and some in college gowns. Even in the farthest corner
+remote from the hubbub, a musical echo blent of gay talk and laughter
+filled the air; a light body of sound that the walls held and gave out as
+a continuous murmur.
+
+A second time piping, "What name, Sir?" Mercury opened the door of a large
+room with many windows. At the far corner my eyes sought out Helen in
+conversation with a keen-eyed, weazened little man, at sight of whom the
+boy took to his heels.
+
+Three women besides Helen were in the room, bunched at a table that ran
+along two sides under the windows. They wore big checked aprons, and one
+of them squinted into her microscope under a fur cap. Wide-mouthed jars,
+empty or holding dirty water, stood on other tables ranged up and down the
+middle of the room, and there was a litter of porcelain-lined trays, test
+tubes, pipettes, glass stirring-rods and racks for microscope slides.
+
+Against the wall to the left were cabinets with sliding doors, showing
+retorts, apparatus, bottles of drugs, jars of specimens and large,
+coloured models of flowers and of the lower marine forms. Against the
+right hand wall were sinks, an incubator and, beyond, a door leading into
+a drug closet. There was the usual laboratory smell, in which the
+penetrating fume of alcohol, the smokiness of creosote and carbolic acid,
+the pungency of oil of clove and the aroma of Canada balsam struggled for
+the mastery.
+
+In her college gown Helen looked more like herself than the day before and
+less so, the familiar dress accentuating every difference. Against the
+flowing black her loveliness shone fair and delicate as a cameo, I thought
+of the Princess Ida,
+
+  Liker to the inhabitant
+Of some far planet close upon the sun
+Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head,
+And so much grace and power--
+Lived through her to the tips of her long hands
+And to her feet.
+
+She had not noticed my entrance, but as I stepped forward, she turned, and
+I was again lost in wonder at her marvellous grace. Her beauty seemed a
+harmony so vitally perfect that the sight of it was a joy approaching
+pain.
+
+I had not been mistaken! She was the rarest thing in human form on this
+earth. I was awed and frightened anew at her perfection.
+
+"Why, how did you find your way out here?" she asked with girlish
+directness. "I'm not quite ready to go; I must finish my sections for
+Prof. Darmstetter."
+
+The Professor--I had guessed his identity--joined us, glancing at me
+inquisitively. His spare figure seemed restless as a squirrel's, but
+around the pupils of his eyes appeared the faint, white rim of age.
+
+"You are friendt of Mees Veensheep?" he asked. "Looks she not vell? New
+York has agreed vit' her; not so?"
+
+At my awkward, guarded assent, I thought that something of the same
+surprise Judge Baker had voiced at my moderation flitted over the old
+man's face.
+
+"I find you kvite right; kvite right," he said, "New York has done Mees
+Veensheep goot; she looks fery vell."
+
+He whisked into the drug closet, and Helen seated herself before a
+microscope next that of the fur-capped woman.
+
+"Do you care for slides?" she said. "I'll get another microscope and while
+I draw you may look at any on my rack. But be careful; most of the things
+are only temporarily mounted--just in glycerine. Here is the sweetest
+longitudinal section of the tentacle of an _Actinia_, and here--look
+at these lovely transverse sections of the plumule of a pea; you can see
+the primary groups of spiral vessels. They've taken the carmine stain
+wonderfully! But my work is not advanced; I wish you could see that of the
+other girls."
+
+"I mustn't interfere with your task; I'll look about until you are ready."
+
+Her shining head was already bent over the microscope; her pencil was
+moving, glad to respond to the touch of that lovely hand.
+
+I picked up a book, the same little volume I had noticed the day before,
+on "Imbedding, Sectioning and Staining." Near it lay a treatise on
+histology. I opened to the first chapter, on "Protoplasm and the Cell,"
+but I couldn't fix my thoughts on _Bathybius_ or the _Protomoeba_.
+I walked toward an aquarium, flanking which stood a jar half-filled
+with water in which floated what seemed a big cup-shaped flower
+of bright brown jelly with waving petals of white and rose colour.
+
+While I looked, thinking only of the curve of Helen's lips and the dancing
+light in her eyes, and the glowing colour of her soft flesh, Prof.
+Darmstetter's thin, high-pitched voice grated almost at my ear.
+
+"T'at is _Actinia_--sea anemone."
+
+"I come from the West; I have never seen the sea forms living," I answered
+with an effort, fearing that he meant to show me about the laboratory.
+
+"It is fery goot sea anemone; fery strong, fery perfect; a goot organism."
+
+He bent over the jar, rubbing his hands. His parchment face crackled with
+an almost tender complacency. For a full minute he seemed to gloat over
+the flower-like animal.
+
+"Very pretty," I said, carelessly.
+
+"Fery pretty, you call it? T'e prettiness is t'e sign of t'e gootness, t'e
+strengt', t'e perfection. You know t'at?"
+
+To his challenging question, in which I saw the manner of a teacher with
+his pupils, I replied:
+
+"In your estimation goodness and beauty go together?"
+
+"T'ey are t'e same; how not? See t'is way."
+
+He shook his lean, reproving forefinger at a shapeless, melting mass that
+lay at the bottom of a second jar, exuding an ooze of viscid strings.
+
+"T'at,"--he spat the word out--"is also sea anemone. It is diseased; it is
+an ugly animal."
+
+"The poor thing's dying," said Helen, coming to his side. "There ought to
+have been some of the green seaweed, Ulva, in the water. Wouldn't that
+have saved it?"
+
+"Ugliness,"--Darmstetter disregarded the question--"is disease; it is bat
+organism; t'e von makes t'e ot'er. T'e ugly plant or animal is diseased,
+or else it is botched, inferior plant or animal. It is t'e same vit' man
+and voman; t'ey are animals. T'e ugly man or voman is veak, diseased or
+inferior. On t'e ot'er hand,"--I felt what was coming by the sudden oiling
+of his squeak--"t'e goot man or voman, t'e goot human organism, mus' haf
+beauty. Not so?" Again he rubbed his hands.
+
+Helen glanced mischievously at me, as a half-repressed snort interrupted
+his dissertation.
+
+The woman in the fur cap, who might have been a teacher improving odd
+hours, had knocked up the barrel of her microscope; she gazed through the
+window at the dazzling Hudson. Next her a thin, sallow girl, whose dark
+complexion contrasted almost weirdly with her yellow hair, slashed at a
+cake of paraffine, her deep-set eyes emitting a spark at every fall of the
+razor. The other student, a young woman with the heavy figure of middle
+age, went steadily on, dropping paraffine shavings into some fluid in a
+watch crystal. With a long-handled pin she fished out minute somethings
+left by the dissolving substance, dropping these upon other crystals--some
+holding coloured fluids--and finally upon glass slides. She worked as if
+for dear life, but every quiver of her back told that she was listening.
+
+"You agree vit' me?"
+
+"It seems reasonable; the subject is one that you have deeply studied."
+
+"Ach so! T'e perfect organism must haf t'e perfect beauty. T'e vorld has
+nefer seen a perfectly beautiful man or voman. Vat vould it say to von,
+t'ink you? But perfection, you vill tell me, is far to seek," he went on,
+without waiting for a reply. "Yet people haf learned t'at many diseases
+are crimes. By-and-by, we may teach t'em t'at bat organism is t'e vorst of
+crimes; beautiful organism t'e first duty. V'at do you say?"
+
+The fur-capped girl pushed back her chair.
+
+"Prof. Darmstetter," she said, "will you be good enough to look at my
+sections?"
+
+"He's stirred up the hornets' nest," whispered Helen. "But come; perhaps
+they will show us. Those girls are so clever; they're sure to have
+something interesting."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THE GODDESS AND THE MOB.
+
+As we descended the stairway and passed groups of students in front of the
+bulletin boards in the hall, Helen said:--
+
+"I am afraid you shouldn't have called for me. It isn't usual here."
+
+"We'll introduce the custom. How could I help coming--after yesterday?
+Helen--"
+
+"Have you seen Grant's tomb?" she inquired hastily. "It's just beyond the
+college buildings, hidden by them. You mustn't miss it, after coming so
+far."
+
+We had issued on the Boulevard, and a few steps brought us in view of the
+stately white shrine on Claremont Heights. But I looked instead at her
+brilliant face against the velvety background of black hat and feather
+boa.
+
+The sun's rays, striking across the river, played hide-and-seek in her
+shimmering hair, warming it to gold and touching the rose of her cheeks to
+a clear radiance. Her eyes were scintillant with changing, flashing
+lights.
+
+"Well?" she challenged at last, half daring, half afraid. "You know me
+to-day?"
+
+"You are a sun goddess. Helen, what does it mean?"
+
+"New York agrees vit' me," Her laugh was irresistible--low and sweet, a
+laugh that made the glad day brighter. "How not? It is vun fine large
+city."
+
+We laughed together to the memory of _Actinia_.
+
+"I am a goot organism. T'e bat organisms vish to scratch me; but t'ey are
+not so fery bat. In time ve may teach t'em gootness."
+
+"If Darmstetter doesn't think you a perfect organism, he must be hard to
+satisfy. He's a peculiar organism himself. Has he true loves among sand
+stars or jelly fish, or does he confine his affections to sea anemones?"
+
+"Prof. Darmstetter is a great biologist. It's a shame he has to teach.
+Don't you think such a man should be free to devote himself to original
+work? He might in England, you know, if he were a fellow of a University.
+But we're proud of him at Barnard; and the laboratory--oh, it's the most
+fascinating place!"
+
+We came slowly down the Boulevard, looking out at the sweep of the Hudson,
+while she talked of her studies and her college mates, trying, I thought,
+to keep me from other topics.
+
+I scarcely noticed her words; her voice was in my ears, fresh and musical.
+The new grace of her shining head and wondrous, swaying figure, the beauty
+and spirit of her carriage, filled my consciousness. A schooner with a
+deck load of wood drifted with the tide, her sails flapping; I saw her in
+a blur. When I turned from the sheen of the river, the bicyclists whizzing
+past left streaks of light. A man cutting brush in a vacant lot leaned on
+his axe to look after us. The sudden stopping of his "chop, chop"--he too
+was staring at the vision of beauty before his eyes--brought me out of my
+revery.
+
+"Nelly," I said, "your father will expect a letter from me. What shall I
+say?"
+
+"Tell him I am studying hard and like the city."
+
+"But about us--about you and me?"
+
+"Must we talk of that here--on the street?"
+
+She spoke almost pleadingly, with the same soft clouding of her loveliness
+that I had seen the day before?
+
+"But I must speak," I said. "You were right yesterday, I won't ask
+anything of you until I have made a start; but I must know that you still
+love me; that will be enough. I can wait. I won't hurry you. That is all,
+Helen. Everything shall be as you wish; but--you do love me?"
+
+"Oh, you great tease! Why, I suppose I do; but--so much has happened, I
+don't know myself now; you didn't know me when you first saw me here. Why
+can't you wait and--don't you hope New York vill agree vit' you?"
+
+She laughed with tantalizing roguery. "You _do_ love me!" I cried.
+"And we shall be so happy with all our dreams come true--happy to be
+together and here! If you knew how I have looked forward to coming, and
+now--yesterday I thought myself insane, but I wasn't! You are the most
+marvellous--"
+
+"Am I? Oh, I'm glad! So glad!"
+
+I was confused, overjoyed at her sudden sparkle; the soft, flashing light
+of her was fire and dew. She made visible nature sympathize with her
+moods. The sky smiled and was pensive with her.
+
+"But see," she cried with another of her bewildering changes; "we're at
+Columbia."
+
+We had left the Boulevard, and were approaching the white-domed library.
+
+"Look at the inscription," Helen said, as students carrying notebooks
+began to pass us. "'KING'S COLLEGE FOUNDED UNDER GEORGE II.' Doesn't that
+seem old after the State University? Ours, I mean."
+
+Our inspection was brief. Before the open admiration of the students Helen
+seemed, like a poising creature of air and sunshine, fairly to take wing
+for flight.
+
+"Tell me about yourself," she commanded, when we were beyond the flights
+of terraced steps. "You are really in Judge Baker's office? You--you
+_won't_ say anything more?"
+
+"You--darling! You have almost said you love me; do you know that? Well,
+I'll be considerate. I will work and I will wait and I will believe--no,
+I'll be certain that some day a woman more beautiful than the Greeks
+imagined when they dreamed of goddesses who loved mortal men will come to
+me and, because it is true, will quite say 'I love you.' But I may not
+always be patient; for you do. After all, you are Nelly!"
+
+I was almost faint with love of her and wonder; I adored her the more for
+the earnestness with which she lifted her flushed, smiling, innocent face
+to say:
+
+"But tell me about the office, _please_. You wouldn't want me to
+say--would you, if I wasn't sure? Isn't the Judge the most delightful man?
+So--not pompous, you know; but so good. Don't you like Judge Baker?"
+
+"I love you! Oh, yes, the Judge says, 'if we are confronted with an ugly
+duckling we must congratulate the swan.' Were you ever an ugly duckling?
+I'm sure you love me, Helen."
+
+"Did he say that? Well, even when I last saw him why that was nearly two
+weeks ago--I--oh, I was an ugly duckling!"
+
+We laughed like children. In the sunshine of her joy-lit eyes I forgot the
+miracle of it, forgot everything except that I had reached New York and
+Nelly, and that the world was beautiful when she looked upon it.
+
+We came down from Cathedral Heights; and as we boarded a train on the
+elevated, eyes peered around newspapers. An old gentleman wiped his
+glasses and readjusted them, his lips forming the words, "most
+extraordinary," and again, "most extraordinary!" A thin, transparent-
+looking woman followed the direction of his glance and querulously touched
+his elbow. Two slender girls looked and whispered.
+
+I thought at first that city folks had no manners, but presently began to
+wonder that Helen escaped so easily. She had drawn down a scrap of a veil
+that scarcely obscured her glow and colour and, as the train gathered
+headway, our neighbours settled in their places almost as unconcernedly as
+if no marvel of beauty and youth were present. Indeed, most of them had
+never looked up. The two young girls continued to eye Helen with envy; and
+I was conscious of an absurd feeling of resentment that they were the only
+ones. I wanted to get up and cry out: "Don't you people know that this car
+contains a miracle?"
+
+Why, when Helen lifted to her knee a child that tugged at the skirts of
+the stout German hausfrau in the next seat, the mother vouchsafed hardly a
+glance.
+
+"How old are you?" asked Helen.
+
+"Sechs yahre," was the shy answer.
+
+"Such a big girl for six!"
+
+"So grosse! So grosse!"
+
+The little thing measured her height by touching her forehead.
+
+"Shump down," admonished the mother stolidly, while Helen bent over the
+child, wasting upon her the most wonderful smile of the everlasting years.
+
+"It was long ago, wasn't it," Nelly asked, when the child had slid from
+her lap, "that Uncle promised to take you into his office?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "When Father died, the Judge told me that when I had
+practised three years--long enough to admit me to the New York bar--he'd
+have a place for me. It was because the three years were nearly up, you
+know, that I dared last June to ask you--"
+
+"You'd dare anything," she interrupted hastily. "Remember how, when I was
+a Freshman, you raced a theologue down the church aisle one Sunday night
+after service, and slammed the door from the outside? 'Miss Winship,' you
+said--I had sat near the door and was already in the entry--'may I see you
+home?'--"
+
+"The theologue and the congregation didn't get out till you said yes, I
+remember! They howled and hammered at the door in most unchristian rage?"
+
+"I _had_ to say yes; why, I had to walk with you even when we
+quarrelled; it would have made talk for either of us to be seen alone."
+
+She breathed a sigh that ended in rippling laughter.
+
+"You'll have to say yes again."
+
+But at that she changed the subject, and we talked about her work at
+Barnard until we left the train at Fourteenth Street, where we met the
+flood tide of Christmas surging into the shops and piling up against gaily
+decked show windows.
+
+Street hawkers jingled toy harnesses, shouted the prices of bright truck
+for tree ornaments, and pushed through the crowd, offering holly and
+mistletoe. Circles formed around men exhibiting mechanical turtles or
+boxing monkeys. From a furry sledge above a shop door, Santa Claus bowed
+and gesticulated, shaking the lines above his prancing reindeer. I had
+never seen such a spectacle.
+
+"What a jam!" cried Helen, her cheeks flooded with colour. "Come, let's
+hurry!"
+
+Indeed, as we threaded our way in and out among the throng, her beauty
+made an instant impression.
+
+"There she goes!"
+
+"Where? Where? I don't see her."
+
+"There! The tall one, with the veil--walking with that jay!"
+
+Not only did I hear such comments; I felt them. Yet even here there were
+many who did not notice; and again I sensed that odd displeasure that
+people could pass without seeing my darling.
+
+It was a relief to leave the neighbourhood of Sixth Avenue and cross to
+the open space of Union Square.
+
+The east side of the little park was quiet.
+
+"All right?" I asked.
+
+"All right."
+
+Her breath came quickly as if she had been frightened.
+
+"But see," she said a moment later, "there comes Kitty trundling her
+bicycle down Madison Avenue. You'd better come in, and be on your best
+behaviour; yesterday Kitty thought we were quarrelling."
+
+"Sorry I'm wanted only to vindicate--is it your character or mine that
+would stand clearing? And will you tell me----"
+
+A little old Frenchman, with a wooden leg, who was singing the
+"Marseillaise" from door to door, approached, holding out his hat.
+
+"Merci, M'sieu', Madame," he said, carelessly pocketing a nickel; then, as
+he fairly caught sight of the face that Helen of old might have envied, he
+started back in amazement, slowly whispering:--
+
+"Pardon! Mon dieu! Une Ange!"
+
+We left him muttering and staring after us.
+
+"I'll really have to get a thicker veil," said Helen hastily; "stuffy
+thing! I like to breathe and see. At first it was--oh, delightful to be
+looked at like that--or almost delightful; for if no had one noticed, how
+was I to be sure that--that New York was agreeing vit' me? But now they
+begin to----"
+
+"Then New York hasn't always agreed vit' you? Aren't you going to tell
+me----"
+
+"Oh, I've been well," she interrupted, "ever since I came. But here's
+Kitty. Any adventures, Goldilocks?"
+
+"A minute ago a tandem cuffed my back wheel," said Miss Reid, coming up.
+"My heart jumped into my mouth and--and I'm nibbling little scallops out
+of it right now."
+
+And then we trooped upstairs together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+A HIGH-CLASS CONCERT.
+
+I stayed for supper, over which Kitty's big Angora cat presided; Kitty
+herself, her red curls in disorder, whimsical, shrewd, dipping from jest
+to earnest, teased Helen and waited on her, wholly affectionate and, I
+guessed, half afraid.
+
+The little den was cosy by the light of an open fire--for it seemed to be
+one function of the tall, pink-petticoated lamp to make much darkness
+visible; and Nelly was almost like the Nelly I had known, with her eager
+talk of home folks and familiar scenes.
+
+She asked about my mother's illness and death that had held me so long in
+the West, and her great eyes grew dim and soft with tears, and she looked
+at me like a Goddess grieving; until, sweet as was her sympathy, I forced
+myself to speak of other topics. And then we grew merry again, talking of
+college mates and the days when I first knew her, when I was a Sophomore
+teaching in Hannibal and she was my best scholar--only twelve years old,
+but she spelled down all the big, husky boys.
+
+"I didn't know what I was doing, did I," I said, "when your father used to
+say: 'Bright gal, ain't she? I never see the beat of Helen Lizy;' and I
+would tell him you ought to go to the State University?"
+
+"Think of it!" cried Helen. "If I hadn't gone to college, I shouldn't have
+come to New York, and, oh, if--but how you must have worked, teaching and
+doubling college and law school! Why, you were already through two years
+of law when I entered, only three years later."
+
+"Well, it's been easy enough since, even with tutoring and shorthanding;
+six lawyers to every case--"
+
+"Wasn't tutoring Helen your main occupation?" asked Kitty Reid
+audaciously. "I have somehow inferred that--"
+
+But there was a sound of hurrying feet on the stairs, and she sprang to
+the door, crying:--
+
+"Cadge and Pros.! They said they were coming."
+
+On the threshold appeared a lank girl with shining black hair and quick,
+keen, good-humoured eyes.
+
+"Howdy?" she asked with brisk cordiality; "angel children, hope I see you
+well."
+
+In her wake was a tall, quiet-looking young man with a reddish-brown
+beard.
+
+"Salute; salaam," he said; "all serene, Kitty? And you, Miss Winship?"
+
+Then as the two became accustomed to the light, I saw what I had nervously
+expected. There was a little start, an odd moment of embarrassment. They
+gazed at Helen with quick wonder at her loveliness, then turned away to
+hide their surprise.
+
+It was as if in the few days since they had seen her--for the new comers
+were Kitty's brother and the Miss Bryant of whom everyone speaks as
+"Cadge"--Helen's beauty had so blossomed that at fresh sight of her they
+struggled with incredulous amazement almost as a stranger might have done.
+
+Talking rapidly to mask embarrassment, they joined us round the fire, Reid
+dropped a slouch hat and an overcoat that seemed all pockets bulging with
+papers, while Miss Bryant and Kitty began a rapid fire of talk about
+"copy," "cuts," "the black," "the colour" and other mysteries.
+
+"Wish you could have got me a proof of the animal page," said Kitty
+finally; "if they hurry the etching again, before my poor dear little
+bears have been half an hour on the presses, they'll fill with ink and
+print gray. I'll--I'll leave money in my will to prosecute photo-
+engravers."
+
+"Oh, don't fret," said Miss Bryant. "Magazine'll look well this week. Big
+Tom's the greatest Sunday editor that ever happened; and I've got in some
+good stuff, too."
+
+"Of course your obbligato'll be all right," Kitty sighed; "but--oh, those
+etchers and----Yes, Big Tom'll do; I never see him fretting the Art
+Department, like the editor before last, to sketch a one-column earthquake
+curdling a cup of cream."
+
+"How _could_ anybody do that?" cried Helen.
+
+"Just what the artist said."
+
+Miss Bryant looked slightly older than Helen; in spite of her brusque,
+careless sentences, I suspected that she was a girl of some knowledge,
+vast energy and strength of will. And suspicion grew to certainty that she
+and Reid were lovers.
+
+I might have read it in his tone when in the course of the evening he
+asked her to sing.
+
+"Then give me a baton," she responded, springing to her feet.
+
+Rolling up a newspaper and seizing a bit of charcoal from the drawing
+table, she beat time with both hands, launching suddenly into an air which
+she rendered with dramatic expression as rare as her abandon.
+
+"Applaud! Applaud!" she cried, clapping her own hands at the end of a
+brilliant passage, her colourless, irregular face alive with enthusiasm,
+her black eyes snapping. "If you don't applaud, how do you expect me to
+sing? _Vos plaudite!_"
+
+"I'll applaud when you've surely stopped," said Kitty Reid demurely; "but
+before we begin an evening of grand opera, I want you to hear the
+Princess. Helen, you know you promised."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Helen, colouring at the title, "I can't sing before
+Cadge; but if you like, I'll play for you. See if I'm not improving in my
+tremolo."
+
+Helen did not sing in the old days, so that I was not surprised at her
+refusal. Taking her mandolin, she tinkled an air that I have often heard
+her play, but neither I nor any one else had ears for it, so absorbed was
+the sense of sight.
+
+Her long lashes swept her cheeks as she bent forward in the firelight, her
+vivid colouring subdued by the soft, playing glow to an elusive charm. At
+one moment, as the flames flickered into stronger life, her beauty seemed
+to grow fuller and to have an oriental softness and warmth; the next, the
+light would die away, and in the cooler, grayer, fainter radiance, her
+perfect grace of classic outline made her seem a statue--Galatea just
+coming to life, more beautiful than the daughters of men, her great
+loveliness delicately spiritualized.
+
+If I were a beautiful woman, I'd learn to play a mandolin.
+
+"Sing, Helen," begged Kitty in a whisper.
+
+In a voice that began tremulously, low and faltering, and slowly gained
+courage, she sang the ballad she had been playing. It was easy to see that
+she was not a musician; but, as she forgot her listeners, we forgot
+everything but her.
+
+Miss Bryant put down the compasses and scale rule she had been restlessly
+fingering, and her keen eyes softened and dilated. Kitty dropped on the
+floor at Helen's feet; the hush in the room was breathless. Reid sat in
+the dark, still as a statue; I clenched my hands and held silence.
+
+The words were as simple as the air. But the voice, so clear, so sweet, so
+joyous, like Helen's own loveliness--to hear it was an ecstasy. We were
+listening to the rarest notes that ever had fallen on human ears--unless
+the tale of the sirens be history.
+
+As the last note died, the fire leaped, dropped and left us in dusk and
+silence. Kitty buried her face against Helen's dress. My heart was
+pounding until in my own ears it sounded like an anvil chorus. I don't
+know whether I was very happy or very miserable. I would have died to hear
+that voice again. It is the truth!
+
+With a sudden sob and a sniffing that told of tears unashamed, Miss Bryant
+found frivolous words to veil our emotion.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," she quavered, "this is a high-class concert; three
+dollars each for tickets, please. Helen, you don't know how to sing, but--
+don't learn! Come Pros."--the big drops ran down her cheeks; "I've got to
+look up a story in the morning."
+
+"Wait a minute," said Reid, his long, delicately shaped fingers trembling.
+"Let me recover on something."
+
+Picking up Kitty's banjo, he smote the strings uncertainly and half sang,
+half declaimed:--
+
+"'With my Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul!
+Oh, the green that thunders aft along the deck!
+Are you sick of towns and men? You must sign and sail again,
+For it's Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!'
+
+"By Jove! Kipling's right; nothing like a banjo, is there? Now then, Young
+Person, I'm with you. Good night; good night!"
+
+While his voice was still echoing down the stairway, Miss Bryant came
+running up again.
+
+"Say, got a photograph of yourself, Helen?" she asked.
+
+She had apparently quite recovered from her emotion, and her tone
+expressed an odd mixture of business and affection.
+
+"I believe if I showed Big Tom a picture of you," she explained, "he'd run
+a story--there's your science, you know, and your music--on the Society
+page, maybe."
+
+"But I haven't any picture; at least, any that you'd want--only a few
+taken months ago, for my father."
+
+"Show me those; why won't they do?"
+
+"Oh, they aren't good; they--they don't look like me. Besides, I really
+couldn't let you print my picture, Cadge."
+
+"All right. Good night, then; good night, Kitty."
+
+"Perhaps I was just the least bit homesick; I'm glad you've come," Helen
+said to me at good-by.
+
+She did not withdraw the hand I pressed. She was still under the
+excitement of the music; the song had left on her face a dreamy
+tenderness.
+
+"Don't you like Cadge?" she asked, checking with shy evasiveness the words
+I would have spoken. "She can do anything--sing, talk modern Greek and
+Chinese--Cadge is wonderful."
+
+"I know some one more wonderful. Helen, when did you begin to sing?"
+
+"I don't sing; to-night was the first time I ever tried before any one but
+Kitty. Did I sing well?"
+
+"I can't believe you're real! I can't--"
+
+"Don't! Don't!" she laughed. "Remember your promise."
+
+And with that she ran away from the door where I stood, and I came
+directly home. Home, to set down these notes; to wonder; to doubt; to
+pinch myself and try to believe that I am alive.
+
+I am alive. This that I have written is the truth! This is what I have
+seen and heard since a common, puffing railroad train brought me from the
+West and set me down in the land of miracles.
+
+It is the truth; but out of that magic presence I cannot--I am as
+powerless to believe as I am powerless to doubt.
+
+God help me--it is the truth!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE BUTTERFLY.
+
+(_From the Autobiography of Helen Winship_.)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT
+
+No. 2 Union Square, December 14.
+
+I am the most beautiful woman in the world!
+
+I feel like a daughter of the gods. Bewildered, amazed, at times
+incredulous of my good fortune--but happy, happy, happy!
+
+There is no joy in heaven or earth like the joy of being beautiful--
+incomparably beautiful! It's such a never-ending surprise and delight that
+I come out of my musings with a start, a dozen times a day, and shudder to
+think: "What if it were only a dream!"
+
+Happy? I have no faith in the old wives' fables that we are most miserable
+when we get what we want. It isn't true that the weak and poor are to be
+envied beyond the powerful. Ask the fortunate if they would change! I
+wouldn't; not for the Klondike?
+
+I'm so happy! I want to take into my confidence the whole world of women.
+I want them to know how the gift was gained that they are some day to
+share. I want them to know that there are still good fairies in the world;
+and how I was fated to meet one, how he waved his wand over me and how my
+imperfections fled. Every woman will read the story of my life with rapt
+attention because of the Secret. I shall tell that last of all. Now it's
+my own.
+
+Is it true that I have longed for beauty more passionately than most
+women; or is it only that I know myself, not the others? I can remember
+the time, away back, when the longing began--when I was----
+
+Incredible! Was I ever an ugly little girl, careless of my appearance,
+happiest in a torn and dirty dress; and homely, homely, homely? Oh,
+miracle! The miracle!
+
+They say all girls begin life thus heedless of beauty; but none get far
+along the road before they meet the need of it. So it was with me; and now
+I love to recall every pitiful detail of the beginning of the Quest of
+Beauty, the funny little tragedy of childhood that changed the current of
+my life--and of your lives, all you women who read.
+
+It was one day after school, in the old life that has closed forever--
+after the prairie school, dull, sordid, uninspiring, away in the West--
+that a playmate, Billy Reynolds, was testing upon me his powers of
+teasing. I remember the grin of pleasure in his cruelty that wrinkled his
+round, red face when at last he found the dart that stung. His words--ah,
+they are no dream! They were the awakening, the prelude of to-day.
+
+"Janey's prettier'n what you be," he said; and of a sudden I knew that it
+was true, and felt that the knowledge nearly broke my heart.
+
+But could there be any doubt of the proper reply?
+
+"Huh!" I said, shrugging my lean shoulders. "I don't care!"
+
+The day before it would have been true, but that day it was a lie. I did
+care; the brave words blistered my throat, sudden tears burned my
+eyeballs, and to hide them I turned my back upon my tormentor.
+
+It was not that I was jealous. I cared no more for Billy than for a dozen
+other playmates. It was just the fact that hurt. I was homely! Not that
+the idea was new to me, either. Dear me, no! Why, from my earliest years I
+had been accustomed to think of myself as plain, and had not cared. My
+earliest recollection, almost, is of two women who one day talked about me
+in my presence, not thinking that I would understand.
+
+"Ain't she humbly?" said one.
+
+"Dretful! It's a pity. Looks means so much more to a gal."
+
+"But she's smart."
+
+By these words--you can see that I was young--I was exalted, not cast
+down. And for five years, remembering them, I had been proud of being
+"smart." But now, in the moment of revelation, the law of sex was laid
+upon me, and the thought failed to bring its accustomed comfort. Smart?
+Perhaps. But--homely!
+
+With feet as light as my heart was heavy because of Billy's taunt, I flew
+home and ran up to my room. I had there a tiny mirror, about two-thirds of
+which had fallen from its frame. I may before that day have taken in it
+brief, uncritical glimpses at my face, but they had not led to self-
+analysis. Now, with beating heart and solemn earnestness, I balanced a
+chair against the door--there was no lock--and looked long and unlovingly
+at my reflected image.
+
+I saw many freckles, a nose too small, ears too big, honest eyes, hair
+which was an undecided brown; in short, an ordinary wind-blown little
+prairie girl. Perhaps I was not so ill-looking, nor Janey so pretty, as
+Billy affected to think, but no such comforting conclusion then came to
+me. Sorrow fronted me in the glass.
+
+The broken mirror gave no hint of my figure, but I know that I was lean
+and angular, with long legs forever thrusting themselves below the hem of
+my dress; the kind of girl for whose growth careful mothers provide skirts
+with tucks that can be let out to keep pace with their increasing stature.
+
+Yes, I was homely! I could not dispute the evidence of the bit of shivered
+glass.
+
+My heart was swelling with grief as I slowly went down stairs, where my
+mother was getting supper for the hired men. I think it must have been
+early spring, for prairie schools need not expect boy pupils in seeding
+time; I know that the door was open and the weather warm.
+
+"Ma," I said as I entered the dining room, "will I ever be pretty?"
+
+"Sakes alive! What _will_ the child think of next?"
+
+"But will I, Ma?"
+
+"'Han'some is as han'some does,' you know, Nelly," my mother responded, as
+she set on the table two big plates piled high with slices of bread. Then
+she went into the buttery and brought out a loaf of temperance cake, a
+plate of doughnuts and a great dish of butter.
+
+"Oh, come now, Ma; please tell me," I wheedled, not content with a
+proverb.
+
+"Why, Nelly, I don't know; the' ain't nobody does know. I was well-
+favoured at your age, but your pa wan't much on looks. But Pa had a sister
+who was reel good-lookin', an' some says you've got her eyes. Maybe you'll
+take after her. But land! You can't never tell. I've seen some of the
+prettiest babies grow up peaked and pindlin' an' plain as a potato;
+whilst, on the other hand, reel homely children sometimes come up an' fill
+out rosy-cheeked an' bright-eyed as you please. There was my half-sister
+Rachel, now, eight years younger'n me. I remember well how folks said she
+was the homeliest baby they ever see; an' she grew up homely, too, just a
+lean critter with big eyes an' tousled hair; but she got to be reel pretty
+'fore she died. Then there's my own Cousin Francie, she that married
+Tim'thy Baker an' went to New York to live. She's a bright, nice-lookin'
+woman, almost han'some; an' her little girls are, too; about your age they
+be. An'--"
+
+I suppose the lonely prairie life had made Ma fond of talking, without
+much regard for her audience. Often have I heard her for an hour at a time
+steadily whispering away to herself. Now she had forgotten her only
+auditor, a wide-eyed little girl, and was fairly launched upon monologue,
+the subject answering as well as another her imperious need.
+
+"Which of Pa's sisters, Ma?" I asked, interrupting.
+
+"W'ich of his sisters--w'at? Wat you talkin' 'bout now?"
+
+"Which is the good-looking one?"
+
+"Oh, your Aunt Em'ly, o' course. Nobody ain't ever accused S'renie or
+Keren-Happuch o' bein' sinfully beautiful, fur's I know."
+
+My Aunt Em'ly was invested for me with a new interest. Perhaps some day I
+might take after her and grow equally well-favoured. I did not remember
+having noticed that she was beautiful, and resolved to study her at the
+first opportunity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON.
+
+Going to church was a good old New England custom that in our family had
+borne transplanting to the West. Sunday was almost the pleasantest day in
+the week to me--not elbowing school-less Saturday from its throne; not of
+course even comparing with the bliss of Friday just after school, but
+easily surpassing the procession of four dull, dreaded, droning days the
+ogre Monday led.
+
+The beauty and fragrance of the summer Sabbath began in the early morning,
+when I went out into the garden, before putting on my Sunday frock, and
+picked a quantity of the old-fashioned flowers that grew there. I arranged
+them in two flat bouquets, with tall gladiolus stalks behind and smaller
+growths ranging down in front so that they might see and be seen, peeping
+over each other's heads, when placed against the wall in church.
+
+Then after the great toilet-making of the week we were off. The drive over
+the prairie in the democrat wagon behind our smartest pair of plough
+horses was a pleasure that never grew tame from repetition. Arriving at
+the church, I would give my bouquets to the old stoop-shouldered sexton
+and watch him anxiously as he ambled down the aisle with them. Perhaps my
+flowers--yes, the very flowers that I had dashed the dew from that
+morning--would be placed on the pulpit itself, not on the table below, nor
+yet about the gallery where sat the choir. Then indeed I felt honoured.
+But wherever they might be, I could watch them all through the services,
+perhaps catch their fragrance from some favouring breeze, and feel that
+they were own folks from home.
+
+Even sermon time did not seem long. After I had noted the text to prepare
+for catechism at home, I was free to dream as I chose until the rustle of
+relief at the close of the speaking. And the droning of bees and buzzing
+of flies, or the sudden clamour of a hen somewhere near would come
+floating in through the open window, and the odour of the flowers and the
+twigs of the "ellum" tree tapping at the pane helped to make the little
+church a haven of restfulness.
+
+But on the Sunday following my awakening I had no care for sounds outside,
+no eyes for my bouquets, though they stood at either hand of the pulpit; I
+got permission to sit in Aunt Keren's pew, where I could see Aunt Em'ly's
+face; and all through the sermon I studied it with big, round eyes.
+
+Yes, and with sorrow growing leaden in my heart.
+
+For I was not old enough to see in her face what it had been, nor to
+appreciate the fine profile that remained. Hers was not the pink-and-white
+of rosy girlhood, the only beauty I could understand; and wherein her
+toil-set features differed from those of the other drudging farmers' wives
+or the shut-in women of the little village, I could not see.
+
+A lump rose in my throat; this wrinkled and aging person was the beautiful
+woman I might take after!
+
+I'm afraid I returned from church that day without the consolations of
+religion.
+
+There followed an anxious time of experimenting. Some one had told me that
+lemon juice would exorcise freckles, and surreptitiously I tried it. How
+my face smarted after the heroic treatment, and how red and inflamed it
+looked! But then in a little while back came the freckles again and they
+stayed, too, until--but how they went, I am to tell you.
+
+I wheedled from mother the privilege of daily wearing my coral beads--the
+ones my cousins Milly and Ethel Baker had sent me from New York--and had
+an angry fit of crying when one day, while we children were racing for the
+schoolhouse door at the end of recess, the string broke and they were
+nearly all trampled upon before I could pick them up.
+
+Youth is buoyant. Next I begged the sheet lead linings of tea chests from
+the man who kept the general store, and cut them into little strips that I
+folded into hair-curlers, covering them with paper so that the edges
+should not cut. I would go to sleep at night with my short, dampened hair
+twisted around these contrivances, and in the morning comb it out and
+admire it as it stood about my head in a bushy mass, like the Circassian
+girl's at the circus.
+
+Thus beautified, I happened one day to meet our white-headed old pastor!
+How he stared!
+
+"Stand still a minute, Nelly, child, and let's look at you," he commanded.
+"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?"
+
+The good man's accent wasn't admiring; sadly I realised the failure of my
+attempt to compel beauty. When I reached home I sternly soaked the curl
+out of my hair, brushed it flat and braided it into two exceedingly tight
+pig-tails. Ah, me! It's easy--afterwards--to laugh at the silent sorrows
+of childhood, bravely endured alone. At least, it's easy for me, now!
+
+I began to worry Ma about my clothes. I grew ashamed of red-and-black,
+pin-checked woollen frocks, and sighed for prettier things. One of the
+girls wore at a Sunday school concert a gray and blue dress with many
+small ruffles, that seemed to me as elegant as a duchess could want. The
+children whispered that it had cost $20, and I wondered if I should ever
+again see raiment so wonderful. I knew that it was useless to ask for such
+a dress for myself; I should be told that I was not old enough for fine
+feathers.
+
+It was our Sabbath day custom to pass directly from the church services to
+those of Sunday school, and drive home after these. One stormy day I was
+the only scholar in my class, and when we had finished the Bible Lesson
+Leaflets and I was watching the long rows of bobbing heads, flaxen and
+dark, in the pews full of restless, wriggling children, I turned to the
+teacher with a question that I had long been meditating.
+
+"Miss Coleman," I began desperately, "ain't there any way to get pretty?"
+
+"I wish there were a way and I knew it," she responded with a smile. "But
+you should say 'isn't,' you know."
+
+"Oh, but you are pretty," I cried, not with the intent of compliment, but
+as merely stating a fact.
+
+I do not now think that it was a fact. Miss Coleman's features were
+irregular, her nose prominent, her forehead too high; but she had a fair,
+pure complexion and fine eyes, and somehow reminded me of the calla lilly
+that Ma was always fussing about in our sitting room.
+
+And she was good and wise. I have often thought how different my life
+might have been if her orbit had not briefly threaded mine. If I had asked
+that question of some simpering girl a few years older than I--the average
+Sunday school teacher--she would have replied, from under the flower-
+burdened hat that had cost her so much thought, that all flesh was grass
+and beauty vain; and I should have known that she didn't believe it.
+
+"For that matter," said Miss Coleman, after a little pause in which she
+seemed considering her words with more than usual care, "there are ways of
+growing beautiful; and, so far as she can, it is a woman's duty to seek
+them; would you like to know how?"
+
+A duty to be beautiful! Here was novel doctrine.
+
+I gazed with eyes and mouth wide open as she continued: "For one with good
+lungs and a sound body, the first law of beauty is to be healthy; and
+health is not just luck. To get it and keep it seek constant exercise in
+the open air. Middle-aged women lose their looks because they stay in too
+constantly; when they were girls and played out-of-doors they had roses in
+their cheeks. Most handsome women of sixty are those who go among people
+and keep their interest in what is going on.
+
+"And the second law is intelligence. For thinking gives the eyes
+expression. A foolish girl may be fair and rosy, yet far from beautiful.
+Many of the world's famous beauties have suffered serious blemishes; but
+they have all had wit or spirit to give their faces charm. You have
+planted flowers?"
+
+"I guess so; yes'm." I didn't see the connection.
+
+"You know then that if you kept digging them to see if they had sprouted,
+they never would sprout. So it is not well to think too much about growth
+in beauty. Don't be impatient. It is a work of years. But the method is
+certain, within limits. I should think that by exercise for the body and
+study for the mind you might easily become a beautiful woman. Another
+thing; don't slouch."
+
+I sat up straight as a grenadier, my shoulders absurdly stiff.
+
+"No, nevermind your shoulders," said Miss Coleman, smiling; "they'll take
+care of themselves if you keep your head right. Practise sitting and
+standing erect. And never wear a corset. If the Almighty had meant woman
+to be corset-shaped, He'd have made her so."
+
+The superintendent's bell, tinkling for the closing hymn, and the rustle
+of the leaves of singing books broke in upon our talk; for the first time
+I failed to welcome the interruption.
+
+"Why, I've delivered quite a lecture upon beauty," Miss Coleman said. "Now
+just a word more. Try to remember that by making yourself a good and wise
+woman you will also make yourself more beautiful."
+
+"Oh, I'll remember; I will!" I cried.
+
+And I have done so! Every word! And if Miss Coleman could only see me now!
+How could I forget?
+
+I was silent all the way home. At the dinner table, as my father was
+tucking his napkin under his chin, he said: "Well, Nelly, w'at was Mr.
+Stoddard's text?"
+
+"I--I guess it was something about the children of Israel."
+
+"Yes, prob'ly it was something about 'em," Pa assented with a chuckle.
+
+But Ma spoke more sharply: "I guess you won't get let to set in Aunt
+Keren-Happuch's pew again right away, Helen 'Lizy." For before my lesson I
+had once more been studying Aunt Em'ly's face.
+
+I didn't mind the prohibition the least bit. I had a new idea and a new
+hope. The idea was exaggerated, the hope vain.--Was vain? Ah, it has been
+more than realised, as you shall hear; realised in a way that amazes me
+the more, the more I think upon it. Realised as yours shall be, some day,
+through me!
+
+Realised! Great Heavens! It is a miracle!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE.
+
+Our district schoolhouse was a shadeless, unpainted box. Within, whittled
+desks, staring windows and broken plastering made it a fit prison for the
+boys, whose rough ways were proof of the refining influence of their daily
+intercourse with the hired men. I wonder such places are tolerated. What a
+contrast to Barnard's white and gold!
+
+John Burke was our teacher the following winter. He was only seventeen
+then, but already tall and well grown, in appearance quite a man. He was a
+student working his way to an education, and his example was a help to me.
+For I no longer hated lessons. Miss Coleman's talk had filled me with such
+zeal for knowledge that I became, before the term was over, the phenomenon
+of the school. Mr. Burke boarded at our house and he would bring home
+shining tales of my prowess, and often I would listen open-mouthed as we
+sat about the table at night and he told stories of the State University
+and the students and the merry life they led.
+
+Every one was amazed at my industry. I played as heartily as I worked, but
+I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy
+enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure
+hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating
+apples under the friendly shelter of the desks.
+
+At the end of the term I received a prize--a highly coloured print of
+"Washington Crossing the Delaware," which Pa and Ma used long after to
+bring out and exhibit with pride. It is still somewhere in the old house--
+hung up in Ma's bedroom, I think, along with the blue-and-tinseled crown,
+marked "Charity" in gilt letters across the front, which I wore in the
+exciting dialogue of "Faith, Hope and Charity" at a Sunday school
+exhibition.
+
+But more than any prize I valued the help and friendship of John Burke and
+the consciousness that he considered me his most promising pupil. Upborne
+by new ideals, I resolved to study through the vacation that followed, and
+to my surprise this was not an infliction but a pleasure, now that I was
+my own task-mistress.
+
+Next term the "girl teacher"--for economy's sake we had them in summer
+when there were no big boys to thrash--was astonished at my industry and
+wisdom, and as I could see, a little afraid of them. At the end of the
+first week I went home bursting with an idea that in secret I had long
+cherished. Aunt Keren was at tea, I remember, and the talk fell upon my
+work in school, giving me my opportunity.
+
+"Who'd a thought a mischeevious little tyke like her would ha' turned out
+a first-rate learner, after all?" queried Auntie, beaming upon me good-
+naturedly from behind her gold-bowed spectacles. "I al'ays tol' ye, Ezry,
+ye'd be proud o' her some day."
+
+"I guess Sue Arkwright's a famous good teacher; that's one thing," said
+Ma, amiably. "Sis never done near so well before; at least, not till last
+term."
+
+"I never thought Sue was anythin' remarkable," Pa broke in. "How is that,
+Sis? Is she a good teacher?"
+
+"No, she ain't," I responded, with quickened beating of the heart.
+Criticism of teachers was admissible in my code of ethics, but
+justification must follow; there must be proof--or reproof.
+
+"What's that?" said Pa, looking at me curiously. "Ever ketch her in a
+mistake?"
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"Bring the book."
+
+I ran and fetched a well-thumbed book from the sewing machine and turned
+to the definitions of familiar foreign words.
+
+"There," said I, spreading the speller flat on the table and pointing with
+my finger. "French word for 'Mister.' Teacher called it 'Monshure,' just
+as they all do. But that's wrong. To-day I showed her how it is. See, the
+book says it's pronounced 'm-o-s-s-e-r' and that little mark means an
+accent on the last syllable and it's 'long e.' 'Mosseer' is right. But
+when I showed it to teacher, she looked at it awhile, and then she
+wrinkled up her eye-brows, and whispered it once or twice and said: 'Oh,
+yes; "mosser."' And she made us call it 'mosser' all the rest of the day,
+too," I ended triumphantly.
+
+"Why, o' course that ain't right; 'mosser' ain't it!" volunteered one of
+the hired men, who had lingered to hear the discussion. "I've heerd that
+word a thousan' times; right way seems like 'M'shoo.' Shucks! Can't get my
+tongue 'round it, nohow."
+
+"Yes, I know", said Pa "you go call Frenchy."
+
+Joe Lavigne, summoned from the barn, came, followed by all the rest,
+curious to see what was wanted--a rough, kindly gang of men in blue
+overalls and big, clumping boots.
+
+"Joe," said Pa; "you say 'Mister' in French."
+
+"Ya-a-as, M'sieu' Weensheep, so I call heem: M'sieu'; M'sieu'; M'sieu'."
+
+Very carefully Frenchy pronounced the clipped word.
+
+"That's all, Joe; I s'pose book French is a good deal diff'rent from
+ord'nary Kanuck. 'Mosseer' is right anyhow, for the book says so. Teacher
+had ought to know enough to go by the book, I sh' think."
+
+"Tain't her fault, Pa," I said, relenting. "She never went to any good
+school. I want to go somewhere where the teachers know a real lot; not
+just a little bit more than me. I want to go"--I paused to gain courage--
+"I want to go to the University, like--like Mr. Burke."
+
+"The State University!" Pa repeated, in a tone of awe; "Thunder! Don't
+believe we could manage that, Sis."
+
+"W'y, yes, y'can, too, Ezry," Aunt Keren argued, "seems to me you're
+forehanded enough, to do for an only child. 'Tain't 's if you was like me
+'n' Ab., with our four chunies."
+
+"She'd have to go to an academy first to get fitten for it," said Ma. "She
+couldn't go to the Univers'ty for three or four years yet."
+
+"Of course not," I answered; "but you might write to Mr. Burke to send me
+a catalogue to find out how much I'd have to know to get taken in. Then I
+could study at home till I got pretty near ready, and then take a year at
+the Academy."
+
+The words flowed easily, eagerly; I had so often gone over the plan.
+
+"Good idee," said Pa, nodding his head, relieved to find that I wasn't
+seeking to leave home at once; and so it was arranged.
+
+Isn't it wonderful? Plain and bald and homely the house, unpretending the
+surroundings, simple and primitive the life, that sent forth the world's
+first beautiful woman, the Woman of the Secret! I have tried to set it all
+down exactly as it happened--the quaint, old-fashioned dialect, the homely
+ways, the bearded, booted men. For this place, just as it was, was the
+birthplace of the new glory; out of this homely simplicity dawned the new
+era of beauty that is to make the whole world glad.
+
+A catalogue was sent for, books were bought and I set to work unaided,
+though Mr. Stoddard took an interest in my studies and often helped me out
+of difficulties. I chose the classical course, undeterred by parental
+demonstrations of the "plum uselessness" of Latin and Greek; I had for the
+choice no better reason than that it was more difficult. I no longer went
+to the little red schoolhouse.
+
+All this time I had almost forgotten Billy, to whom I owed such a debt of
+gratitude for sending me upon the Quest. Once I met him on the road.
+
+"Ain't ye never comin' to school no more?" he queried.
+
+"No, I am never going again; I am preparing for the State University; I
+shall take a classical course," I answered with hauteur, looking down upon
+him as I spoke. Only that morning Ma had let out another tuck in my gown.
+
+"I'm aw'fly sorry," Billy murmured with a foolish, embarrassed grin.
+"Guess I'll walk along of ye, if ye don't care."
+
+My triumph found me cold. The sting of Billy's words yet rankled, and
+perhaps I was not so grateful to the little wretch as he deserved. It was
+about a quarter of a mile to our house; we walked the distance in unbroken
+silence. Once there, Billy rallied.
+
+"Good-by, Miss Winship," he said, holding open the gate for me. It was the
+first time that any one had addressed me by that grown-up title.
+
+"Good-by, Billy."
+
+And that was the end of the beginning of the Quest.
+
+In blizzard time and through the fierce heat of summer I toiled at self-
+set tasks in our ugly, comfortable home. During the blessed intervals when
+we could induce "girl help" to stay with us I had scarcely any housework
+to do. Fairly regular exercise came to be a habit and I worried admiring
+relatives into thinking me a candidate for an early grave by taking a cold
+bath every morning. In the end I managed, with a single year in a
+cheerless boarding house near a village academy, where I studied greedily,
+devouring my books, to enter the State University with a scholarship to my
+credit.
+
+I took half the examination in Spring and read extra Virgil and Ovid all
+summer. Then in August, when the long vacation was nearly over, came the
+village dressmaker. Ma had promised me two new dresses, and I would sit
+hemming towels or poring over Greek and Roman history while they turned
+the leaves of fashion magazines and discussed materials and trimmings.
+
+I secretly hoped for a silk, but Mother, to whom I suppose I am even now--
+now!--a little girl, vetoed that as too showy, and the dressmaker added
+her plea for good, durable things. The choice fell upon a golf suiting for
+school and a black cashmere for church.
+
+I begged hard to have the cashmere touch the ground, but both women smiled
+at the folly of the child who forgot the many re-bindings a long skirt
+would call for. There was a comic side to my disappointment, for I guessed
+that the widow Trask could not make the designs I coveted, nor anything of
+which she could not buy a paper pattern.
+
+But when I went up to the University and became entitled to join in the
+cry:--
+
+S!----U!
+We're----a----few!
+S!----T!----A--T--E!
+U!----ni----ver--si--tee!
+Wow!----Wow!----Wow!
+
+--I found that I compared favourably enough with my mates. Dress played
+little part in every day college life, and for such occasions as socials
+or Friday night debating society I soon learned from upper class girls to
+mitigate ugly gowns with pretty ribbons. And I congratulated myself upon
+the fact that I was not by any means the plainest girl in my class. My
+face was hopeless, but my hard-won fight for an erect posture had given me
+a bearing that seemed almost distinguished. And--well, even my face wasn't
+so bad, I thought then!
+
+We were a jolly set; most of us poor as church mice, and caring little.
+Making rather a boast of it, indeed. John Burke's roommate, Jim Reeder,
+cooked his own meals--mostly oatmeal--in his room and lived on less than a
+dollar a week until fairly starved. I suppose they'll call him "old Hoss"
+to his dying day. Until his mother moved to town, John was almost as ill-
+fed. He was just completing his law course when I was a Freshman, and used
+to make brave jests at poverty, even after his admission to the bar.
+
+Of course I was glad to meet him again, and, though I was puzzled just at
+first, to see how little older than I my former teacher was, yet
+afterwards--why, I haven't answered his last--I don't know how many
+letters; I simply must remember to write to him!
+
+I think the best part of the teaching wasn't in the books. Some of the
+students were queer and uncouth when they came, the boys eating with their
+knives in the fashion of the farm; some of the brightest girls in ill-
+fitting clothes--perfect guys they'd be thought in the city. But there
+were others of quite different manner, and from them and from professors
+who had seen the world, we learned a little--a very little--of its ways.
+And perhaps we were not unfavourable specimens of young republicanism,
+with our merry, hopeful outlook upon life, and our future governors and
+senators all in the raw--yes, and our countesses and vice-reines!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+GIRL BACHELOR AND BIOLOGIST
+
+Merrily flew the years and almost before I realised it came graduation. In
+the leafy dark of the village street, in the calm of a perfect June night,
+John Burke told me that he loved me, and I plighted my troth to him.
+
+We laid plans as we bade each other good-by, to meet again--perhaps--in
+New York in the fall; and even that little separation seemed so long. We
+did not guess that the weeks would grow to months, and--oh, dear, what
+will he think of me when he gets here? And what--now--shall I say to him?
+
+Father for the first time visited college to see me graduate. Between his
+pride in my standing at the head of my class and his discomfort in a
+starched collar, he was a prey to conflicting emotions all Commencement
+week, and heaved a great sigh of relief when at last the train that bore
+us home pulled out of the station. But as we approached our own he again
+grew uneasy, and kept peering out at the car window as if on the watch for
+something.
+
+At length we descended in front of the long yellow box we called the
+"deepo." And there was Joe Lavigne to meet us, not with the democrat
+wagon, but with a very new and shiny top buggy.
+
+When we reached the farmhouse, I saw proofs of a loving conspiracy. The
+addition of a broad veranda and a big bay window, with the softening
+effect of the young trees that had grown up all around the place, made it
+look much more homelike than the bare box that had sheltered my childhood.
+A new hammock swung between two of the trees.
+
+Mother met me at the door with more emotion than I had ever before
+detected upon her thin face. Then I saw that the dear people had been at
+work within the house as well. Cosey corners and modern wall paper and
+fittings such as I had seen at the professors' houses and had described at
+home to auditors apparently slightly interested, had been remembered and
+treasured up and here attempted, to make my homecoming a festivity. The
+house had been transformed, and if not always in the best of taste, love
+shone through the blunders.
+
+"Oh, Father," I cried, "now I am surprised! How much wheat it must have
+cost!"
+
+"Well, I guess we can stand it," he said, grimly pleased and proud and
+anxious all at once. "We wanted to make it kind o' pleasant for ye, Sis;
+an'--an' homelike."
+
+There was something so soft and tremulous in his voice that it struck me
+with a great pang of contrition that I had left him for so many years,
+that already I was eager to go away again--to the great city where John
+was soon to be.
+
+I turned quickly away and went from room to room admiring the changes, but
+after supper, when we were all gathered about the sitting room table,
+Father returned to the subject most upon his mind. He had seen me with
+John during Commencement week, and must have understood matters.
+
+"Ready t' stay hum now, I s'pose, ain't ye?" he asked with a note in his
+voice of cheery assurance that perhaps he did not feel, tilting back and
+forth in his old-fashioned rocking chair, as I had so often seen him do,
+with closed eyes and open mouth, his face steeled against expression. And
+the slow jog, jog, jog of the chair reminded me how his silent evening
+vigils had worn away the rockers until they stood flat upon the floor,
+making every movement a clacking complaint.
+
+To-night--to-night, he is rocking just the same, in silence, in
+loneliness. Poor, dear Pa!
+
+"I'm glad to get home, of course," I said; "but--I wanted to speak with
+you. But not to-night."
+
+"Why, ye're through school."
+
+"Yes, but I--I wish I could go on studying; if I may."
+
+The words tripped over each other in my embarrassment.
+
+The jog, jog of the chair paused suddenly, leaving for a moment only the
+ticking of the clock to break the silence.
+
+"Not goin' to put up 'ith us an' stay right alon', eh?" he asked; and
+rocked twice, then stopped again, in suspense for the answer.
+
+"Why, Father," I stammered, "of course I don't want to do anything unless
+you're willing, but I had thought I'd like--I did want to go and study in
+the city--I think--or somewhere."
+
+"Dear me! Dear me!" he mused, his voice very low and even; "an' you just
+through the University; 'way up to the top, too. Can't ye--seems as if ye
+better stop alon' of us an' study home, same's you used to? Mebbe--mebbe
+'twon't be good for ye, studyin' so much."
+
+"Of course I can, you dear old Dad," I cried; and horribly guilty I felt
+as I looked at the kindly, weather-beaten face. "I shall do just whatever
+you say. But oh, I wish I _could go to the city_! Don't you suppose
+I could?"
+
+"Chicago, mebbe?"
+
+"I had thought of a post-graduate course in Barnard College--that's in New
+York, you know."
+
+Father knew John's plans. I blushed hotly. In the pause that followed I
+knew that he was thinking of a well-thumbed map in my old school
+geography; of the long, long journey to Chicago, and the thousand weary
+miles that stretched beyond. Hastily I went on:--
+
+"But I know how you have saved for me and worked for me and pinched; and
+I'd be ashamed to be a burden upon you any longer; I can teach to get
+money to go on with."
+
+"No;" said Pa, sitting up straight and striking the arm of the chair with
+his clenched fist a blow that gave some hint of the excitement that moved
+him. "Guess a child o' mine don't need to teach an' get all dragged out,
+alon' of a passel o' wild children! No, no, Helen 'Lizy;" he added more
+softly, sinking back into the old attitude and once more closing his eyes;
+"if the's so much more to learn, an' you want to go ahead an' learn it,
+just you go an' get it done with. I'm right sorry to have ye go so fur
+away; I did think--but it's nat'ral, child; it's nat'ral. I s'pose John
+Burke's goin' to the city, too, and you kinder--I s'pose young folks likes
+to be together."
+
+"I--I--we have talked of it."
+
+Talked about it! John and I had talked of nothing else for a week. I sat
+very still, my eyes on the carpet.
+
+"Guess John Burke'll have all he cares to do for one while, gittin'
+started in the law office, 'thout runnin' round with Nelly," said Ma. "Ye
+seem bent on spoilin' the child, Ezry. Al'ays the same way, ever sin'
+she's a little girl."
+
+Her lips were compressed, the outward symbol of a life of silent hours and
+self restraint.
+
+"There, there, Ma," said Father, jogging his chair again. "Don't ye worry
+no more 'bout that. What's ourn is hern in the long run, an' she may as
+well have some of it now when she wants it, an' it'll do her some good. I
+s'pose Frank Baker--she that's your mother's cousin an' married Tim'thy
+Baker an's gone to New York to live--I s'pose she might look after you;
+but it's a long way off, New York--seems like a dretful long way off. What
+ye goin' to learn, Sis, if ye should go t' the city?"
+
+"Well, I was good in chemistry; Prof. Meade advised me--I might study
+medicine; I don't know. And I want to know more about books and pictures
+and the things that people talk about, out in the world, though I can
+hardly call that a study, I suppose."
+
+The words somehow disappointed me when uttered. They didn't sound
+convincing. Such pursuits seemed less serious, there in the old farm-house
+that spoke of so much painful toil, than when John and I had discussed
+them on the sunny campus.
+
+"I--I don't know yet, just what to do; there's all summer to plan; but I
+want--somehow--to make the very most and the best of myself," I added
+earnestly.
+
+It was true, and the nearest I could come to the exact truth; that love
+urged me yet more eagerly upon the Quest, and that with all my heart I
+longed to become a wise and brilliant woman, for John's sake, and as a
+step towards beauty, according to Miss Coleman's words.
+
+"I don't hold with women bein' doctors," said Ma, as she energetically
+knitted into the middle of her needle before looking up. "I don't know
+what we're comin' to, these days."
+
+"There, there, Ma, I don't know why women shouldn't be doctors, if they
+want to. They make better nusses'n men. Mebbe--mebbe Sis'll be gettin'
+married some day, an' I tell ye a little doctorin' know-how is mighty
+handy in a house. A doctor an' a lawyer, now, would be a gret team, right
+in the fambly, like. Well, Sis, we'll see; we'll see."
+
+I knew that the matter was practically settled; and there was little sleep
+for me, or for any one, that night in the old farm-house.
+
+I stayed at home until September, and then one morning Father drove me
+again to the little yellow station whose door opens wide upon all the
+world.
+
+"Well, good-by, Helen 'Lizy," he said.
+
+"Good-by, Father."
+
+For weeks I had been eager to be off, but as the train began to move and I
+looked back at his patient figure--he made no more show of his deep
+emotion than if the parting were for a day--a big lump rose in my throat
+at leaving him and Ma--old before their time with toil and privation and
+planning and striving for me.
+
+I knew how lonely it would be in the sitting room that night without me.
+Father with closed eyes jogging away in his chair, Mother bolt upright and
+thin and prim, forever at her knitting or sewing; no sound but the chair
+and the ticking clock upon the shelf--that night and every night. And the
+early bedtime and the early morning and the long, long day--what a
+contrast to this!
+
+I pressed my face against the window, but a rush of tears blurred all the
+dear, familiar landmarks--Barzillai Foote's red barn, the grain elevator
+at the siding, the Hartsville road trailing off over the prairie; I would
+have given worlds to be in the top buggy again, moving homeward, instead
+of going swiftly out, out, alone, into the world. Three months ago! I did
+not dream what miracles were in store!
+
+And so one day I reached the New York I had dreamed about. It wasn't as a
+shrine of learning that it appealed to me, altogether; but as a wonderful
+place, beautiful, glittering, feverish with motion, abounding with gayety,
+thronged with people, bubbling with life.
+
+How it fascinated me!
+
+Just at first of course I was lonely because John had not yet come, and
+Mrs. Baker, mother's cousin, was away from home. But I soon made friends
+with my cousins, Ethel and Milly; shy, nice girls, twins and precisely
+alike, except, that Ethel is slightly lame. And at my boarding place I
+made the acquaintance of an art student from Cincinnati three or four
+years older than I, who proposed that we should become girl bachelors and
+live in a studio.
+
+"But I didn't know people ever lived in studios," I objected.
+
+"Oh, you dear goose!" said Kathryn Reid--it's really her name, though of
+course I call her Kitty--"Live in studios? Bless you, child, everybody
+does it. And I know a beyewtiful studio that we can have cheap, because
+we're such superior young persons; also because it's ever so many stories
+up and no elevator. Can you cook a little? Can you wash dishes, or not
+mind if they're not washed? You got the blessed bump of disorder? You good
+at don't care? Then live with me and be my love. You've no idea the money
+you'll save."
+
+That's just the way Kitty talks. You can't induce her to be serious for
+three minutes at a time--I suppose it's the artistic temperament. But
+she's shrewd; studio life _is_ better than the kind of boarding house
+we escaped from. And so jolly! Kitty has more chums than I, of course. Her
+brother, Prosper K., and Caroline Bryant--"Cadge," for short--a queer girl
+who does newspaper work and sings like an angel, are the ones I see most.
+Though for that matter the city's full of girls from the country, earning
+or partly earning their living. One will be studying music, another art;
+one "boning" at medicine, another selling stories to the newspapers and
+living in hope of one day writing a great American play or novel. Such
+nice girls--so brave and jolly.
+
+My new home is in a building on Union Square. And I like it--the place,
+the people, the glimpse of the wintry Square, the roaring city life under
+my window. I'm sure I don't want a quiet room. It's such fun, just like
+playing house, to be by ourselves and independent of all the world. I
+think it's an intoxicating thing, just at first, for a girl to be really
+independent. Boys think nothing of it; it's what they've been brought up
+to expect.
+
+Well, I tore myself away from the dear place to get at my work. I really
+mean to work hard and justify Father's sacrifices. I tried to take singing
+lessons, because John is so fond of music, but there I made a dismal
+failure; I had, three months ago, neither ear nor voice. The day before
+the fall semester opened, I climbed the long hill to Barnard College, fell
+in love with its gleaming white and gold, so different from the State
+University, and arranged for a course in biology. Then I began physical
+culture in a gymnasium.
+
+I couldn't have made a queerer or a better combination. For it was in the
+Barnard laboratory that I met Prof. Darmstetter; and it was my bearing, my
+unending practice of the West Point setting-up drill, my Delsarte, my
+"harmonic poise" and evident health that drew his attention to me.
+
+How well I remember the day I made his acquaintance! I had entered the
+laboratory without knowing what manner of man he was, for all my
+arrangements about my course had been made with clerks. So it was with
+genuine surprise that I turned from an inspection of the apparatus to
+answer when a squeaking voice at my elbow suddenly saluted me:--
+
+"Mees Veenship, not so?"
+
+The owner of the voice was a little old fellow, whose dry, weazened face
+gave no hint of his years. I guessed that he was probably seventy, though
+he might as easily be much younger. His skin was parchment-coloured and
+cross-hatched by a thousand wrinkles and the hair under his skull-cap was
+as white as snow, but he was as bright of eye and brisk of manner as a
+youth of twenty.
+
+"Yes, sir," I replied rather awkwardly; "I am Miss Winship."
+
+"V'at for you study biology?" was his surprising query, uttered in a tone
+between a squeak, a snarl, and a grunt.
+
+"Because I wish to learn," I replied, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"No, mine vriendt," he snapped, "you do not vish to learn. You care
+not'ing for science. You are romantic, you grope, you change, you are
+unformed. In a vord, you are a voman. You haf industry--mine Gott, yes!--
+and you vill learn of me because I am a man and because you haf not'ing
+better to do. And by-and-by behold Prince Charming--and you vill meet and
+marry and forget science. V'at for I vaste my time vit' you? Eh? I do not
+know any voman who becomes a great scientist. Not so? T'ose young vomen,
+t'ey vaste t'eir time and t'ey vaste mine."
+
+I followed his gesture and saw two or three nice-looking girls in big
+checked aprons amiably grinning at me. One of them by a solemn wink
+conveyed the hint that such hazing of new arrivals was not unusual.
+
+"You're paid to waste your time on me," I answered hotly. "I'm here to
+work and to listen to you; my plans are my own affair, and if I never
+become a great scientist, I don't see what difference that makes to you."
+
+The meekest looking girl gasped, wide eyed at my temerity. But Prof.
+Darmstetter's shrewd little eyes twinkled with reassuring good-nature.
+
+"Vell, vell, ve shall see," said he, wagging his head; "maybe I find some
+use for you. I vatch you. Maybe I find for you some use t'at you don't
+expect, eh? Ve shall see."
+
+So he walked away, shrugging his shoulders and snapping his fingers and
+muttering to himself: "Ve shall see; we shall see." And at times
+throughout the session he chuckled as if he had heard of an excellent
+joke.
+
+"Good gracious!" I whispered to one of the aproned girls that had watched
+the encounter--students like myself--"that's an encouraging reception,
+isn't it?"
+
+"It is," she gravely replied. "We're all jealous of you. You are evidently
+destined to become Prof. Darmstetter's favourite pupil. I know I cried
+half the night at the way he greeted me. We were all watching you and you
+got off easy. Brought an apron? I can lend you one, if you didn't. It's
+pretty mussy here."
+
+"Thank you," I said, "but really I can't get my mind off Prof.
+Darmstetter, all in a minute so. What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"Oh, irritating sometimes, but a genius; I suppose his treatment of the
+girls is a sample of his Early Teutonic ideas of civility. He likes better
+to teach the Columbia boys--says their work in future years'll do him more
+credit. But we get used to him and don't mind it, we who were here last
+year. And he's a great scientist; has a world-wide reputation. He almost
+lives in the laboratory, here and at Columbia; has no home life or friends
+or relatives. And oh, it's such a privilege," she said with a sudden
+change of tone, a schoolmistressly manner, looking upon me more austerely,
+"to study under such a man. He is a Master."
+
+The Master! She little knew how true was the word! To-morrow, if his
+secret and mine were known, the world would hail him as its lord. He would
+be a greater man than has yet lived on the earth. Armies would fight for
+his favour at the bidding of queens--to get what I have! And to think that
+chance led me from two thousand miles away, straight to him.
+
+From the first he seemed to take an interest in my doings. He never
+troubled himself to be polite, but he watched me; always he watched me. I
+often saw him chuckling and rubbing his hands as if in approbation. But of
+what? Not of my work, for of that he never took the slightest notice,
+except when I compelled him to do so by some question.
+
+Then, in quick-flung sentences, he would condense the results of a
+lifetime of study into phrases filled with meaning, that seemed to cast
+light upon principles, not facts, and make wonderfully clear the very
+purpose of Nature. Then indeed he almost forgot that we were women, and
+talked with kindling enthusiasm of his pet subject. I ceased to wonder
+that he held such high rank in college.
+
+Under such conditions I made rapid progress. I thoroughly enjoyed the
+work, though I was not absorbed in it, like most of my companions; but I
+was quick enough to keep pace with them and to make occasional shrewd
+suggestions that pleased Prof. Darmstetter not half so much as some sudden
+display of spirit. He did not seem to care whether I became a student. And
+always he watched me, for what purpose I could not determine.
+
+My home life--if existence in a studio can be so called--was merry. I was
+learning the ways of the world. I liked the life. I wrote to John almost
+every day. The freedom of the den, the change from rote lessons to post-
+graduate work was pleasant. I was happy.
+
+Happy? I must have dreamed it.
+
+What I thought happiness was nothing to what I now know happiness can be.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS.
+
+If I have dwelt so long upon the laboratory and its master, it is because
+there the great blessing came that has glorified my whole existence. This
+was the way of it.
+
+One day I asked Prof. Darmstetter some question about the preparation of a
+microscopic slide from a bit of a frog's lung.
+
+"Vait!" he snapped, "I vill speak vit' you aftervards."
+
+The girls prophesied the terrible things that were to happen, as they
+lingered in the cloak room, waiting their turn on the threadbare spot in
+the rug which a rich girl had bought to cover the threadbare spot in the
+carpet in front of the mirror. "Now you'll catch it!" the last one said,
+as she carefully put her hat straight with both hands and ran out of the
+room.
+
+When I returned to the laboratory Prof. Darmstetter motioned me to a chair
+and took one opposite, from which he fixed his keen eyes upon my face.
+Again he seemed weighing, judging, considering me with uncanny, impersonal
+scrutiny.
+
+"How I despise t'ose vomen!" he said at last, throwing up his hands with
+an impatient gesture.
+
+Used to his ways, I waited in silence.
+
+"I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em," he added.
+
+"If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it," I retorted hotly. "But I don't
+believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls--why, some of
+them are bound to be heard from in science some day!"
+
+"In science? Bah!"
+
+"Why not? There was Mary Somerville and--and--and Caroline Herschel and--
+well, I can't think of their names all in a minute, but I'm proud to be
+one of the girls here anyway."
+
+"You are not one of t'em," he cried angrily. "T'ey are life failures. You
+fancy t'ey are selected examples, but t'ey are not; t'ey are t'e rejected.
+T'ey stood in t'e market place and no man vanted t'em; or else t'ey are
+fools as vell as failures and sent t'e men avay. You know me. I am
+biologist, not true? I hate t'e vord. I am physiologist, student of t'e
+nature of life--all kinds of life, t'e ocean of life of v'ich man is but a
+petty incident."
+
+"You were speaking about--"
+
+"Ach, so! Almost t'ou has t'e scientific mind t'at reasons and remembers.
+I said, I am physiologist. I study v'at Nature is, v'at she means to do.
+V'en Nature--Gott, if you vant a shorter name--makes a mistake, Gott says:
+'Poor material; spoiled in shaping, wrong in t'e vorks; all failures;
+t'row t'em avay. Ve haf plenty more to go on vit'. You know. You study
+Nature, also, a little. You know she is law, she is power. To t'e
+indifidual pitiless, she mofes vit' blind, discompassionate majesty ofer
+millions of mangled organisms to t'e greater glory of Pan, of Kosmos, of
+t'e Universe. She vastes life. And how not? Her best vork lives a little
+v'ile and produces its kind, and t'e vorst does not, and t'ey go down t'e
+dark vay toget'er and Nature neit'er veeps nor relents Kosmos is greater
+t'an t'e indifidual and a million years are short.
+
+"T'ose young vomen--Nature meant t'em to desire beauty and dream of lofe.
+Vat is lofe? It is Nature's machinery. T'ose vomen are old enough for
+lofe, but t'ey haf it not. So t'ey die. T'ey do not reproduce t'eir kind,
+not'ing lifing comes from t'em, to go on lifing, on and on, better and
+better--or vorse, as Nature planned--vit' efery generation. If a voman haf
+t'e desire of lofe and of beauty, and lofe and beauty come not to her,
+t'en I pity her, because I am less vise and resolute to vit'hold pity t'an
+Nature is. Efen if she haf not lofe, but only t'e ambition of power or
+learning or vealt', I might pity her vit' equal injustice, but I cannot.
+She vill not let me. She does not know t'at she is a failure. She prides
+herself upon being so mis-made. She cannot help t'at; neit'er can I help
+despising her. Such vomen are abnormal, monstrous, in a vord, failures.
+Let t'em die! You, I t'ink, are not so. You study to bide t'e time. You
+haf a fine carriage. You comb t'e hair, you haf pretty ribbons, you make
+t'e body strong and supple, you look in t'e glass and vish for more
+beauty. Not so?"
+
+"Of course I do," I cried angrily, wondering for the moment if he had lost
+his senses. It seemed as if he knew little about women for a man who
+professed to make all life his study. If there were one of his despised
+girls who lacked the desire of beauty and the dream of love, I am much
+mistaken. But I came to see afterward that he understood them as well as
+myself.
+
+"I t'ought so," he mused, his eyes still upon my face. "And you are not
+too beautiful now; t'ey could not doubt. Yes; I vatch you, I study you.
+Seldom I make t'e mistake; but it is fery important. So I vatch you a
+little v'ile longer yet. T'en I say to myelf: 'Here is t'e voman; yes, she
+is found.'"
+
+And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so often seen
+him do.
+
+The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary man meditated a
+proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion as ridiculous.
+
+The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in a
+hoarse whisper, tense with excitement:--
+
+"Mees Veenship, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature,
+yearning for perfection after your kind. I--I can gife it you. You can
+trust me; I am ready. I can gif you your vish, t'e vish of efery normal
+voman. Science--t'at is I--can make you t'e most beautiful being in t'e
+vorld!"
+
+Another Sunday school lesson! Miss Coleman and her unforgotten lecture
+upon beauty flashed upon my mind. But this man was promising me more than
+she had done, and his every word was measured. What was the mystery? What
+had he to say to me?
+
+"T'e most beautiful--voman--in t'e vorld," he went on in a slow, cadenced
+whisper. "Do you vish it?"
+
+His glittering eyes held mine again. No, he was not jesting at my expense;
+rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon
+which much depended. He was in very serious earnest.
+
+But was ever a question more absurd? Who of women would not wish it? But
+to get the wish--ah, there's a different matter! I thought he must be
+crazed by over-study, and I could only sit and stare at him, open-mouthed.
+
+"Listen!" he went on more rapidly, as if to forestall objection. "You are
+scholar, too, a little. You know how Nature vorks, how men aid her in her
+business. Man puts t'e mot'er of vinegar into sweet cider and it is
+vinegar. T'e fermenting germs of t'e brewery chemist go in vit' vater and
+hops and malt, and t'ere is beer. T'e bacilli of bread, t'e yeast,
+svarming vit millions of millions of little spores, go into t'e
+housevife's dough, and it is bad bread; but t'at is not t'e fault of t'e
+bacilli--mein Gott, no!--for vit' t'e bacilli t'e baker makes goot bread.
+T'e bacilli of butter, of cheese--you haf studied t'em. T'e experimenter
+puts t'e germs of good butter into bad cream and it becomes goot. It
+ripens. It is educated, led in t'e right vay. Tradition vaits for years to
+ripen vine and make it perfect. Science finds t'e bacillus of t'e perfect
+vine and puts it in t'e cask of fresh grape juice, and soon t'e vine
+drinkers of t'e vorld svear it is t'e rare old vintage. T'e bacillus,
+inconceivably tiny, svarming vit' life, reproducing itself a billion from
+one, t'at is Nature's tool. And t'e physiologist helps Nature.
+
+"See now," continued Prof. Darmstetter. "I haf a vonderful discofery made.
+I must experiment vit' it--_experimentum in corpore vili!_
+Impossible, for the subject is mankind. I must haf a voman--a voman like
+you, healt'y, strong, young--all t'e conditions most favourable. She must
+haf intelligence--t'at is you. She should know somet'ing of biology, and
+be fery brave, so t'at she may not be frightened, but may understand how
+t'e vonderful gift is to come to her; and t'at is you. She should not be
+already beautiful, lest t'e change be less convincing. Yes, you are t'e
+voman for t'e test. You may become more famous in history fan Cleopatra or
+Ninon, and outshine t'em and all t'e ot'er beauties t'at efer lifed. Do
+you vant triumphs? Here t'ey are. Riches? You shall command t'em. Fame?
+Power? I haf t'em for you. You shall be t'e first. Aftervard, v'en beauty
+is common as ugliness is now--ah, I do not know. Efen t'en it vill be a
+blessing. But to be t'e first is fame and all t'e ot'er t'ings I promise
+you. Now do you trust me? Now do you beliefe me? Vill you make t'e
+experiment? I haf--let me tell you!--I haf discofered--"
+
+Cautiously Prof. Darmstetter looked about the room. Then he leaned toward
+me again and added in a hoarse whisper:--
+
+"I haf discofered t'e Bacillus of Beauty."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+THE GREAT CHANGE.
+
+The Bacillus of Beauty! Was the poor man insane? Had much study made of
+him a monomaniac babbling in a dream of absurdities? Do you wonder that I
+doubted?
+
+And yet--the thought flashed through my mind that things almost as strange
+have become the commonplace. I had seen the bones of my own hand through
+the veiling flesh. I had listened to a voice a thousand miles away. I had
+seen insects cut in two, grafted together, head of one and tail of
+another, and living. I had seen many, many marvels which science has
+wrought along the lines of evolution. And yet--
+
+My dream; my desire always! If it could be!
+
+As I stared open-mouthed at the Professor, he began once more:--
+
+"T'e danger, t'e risk--t'ere is none. You shall see. It is as harmless
+as--"
+
+"Never mind about that!" I interrupted. "How would I look? Would it change
+me totally? Would I really be the most beautiful?--"
+
+I stopped, blushing at my own eagerness.
+
+"Absolutely; I svear it. T'e most perfectly beautiful voman in t'e vorld.
+Mein Gott, yes. How not? Never vas t'ere yet a perfectly beautiful voman.
+Not von. All have defects; none fulfills t'e ideal. You? You vill look
+like yourself. I do not miracles. T'e same soul vill look out of your
+eyes. You vill be perfect, but of your type. T'e same eyes, more bright;
+t'e same hair, more lustrous and abundant; t'e same complexion clear and
+pure; t'e same voman as she might have been if t'e race had gone on
+defeloping a hundred t'ousand years. Look you. Some admire blondes; some
+brunettes. You are not a Svede to be white, an Italian to be black. You
+are a brown American. You shall be t'e most beautiful brown American t'at
+efer lifed. And you shall be first. Vit' you as an example we shall
+convince t'e vorld. Ve shall accomplish in t'ree generations t'e vork of a
+hundred t'ousand years of defelopment. How vill humanity bless us if we
+can raise, out of t'e slums and squalor, out of t'e crooked and blind and
+degraded, out of t'e hospitals and prisons, t'e spawning dregs of humanity
+and make t'em perfect! T'ey shall valk t'e eart' like gods, rejoicing in
+t'eir strengt'. No more failures, no more abnormalities. Nature's vork
+hastened by science, aeons of veary vaiting and slow efolution forestalled
+by--by me!"
+
+The little Professor stood erect, his eye fixed on mine, his mien
+commanding. I had never looked on man so transfigured.
+
+The thought was intoxicating me, driving me wild. I tried to think, to
+struggle against the tide that was sweeping me away. He seemed to be
+hypnotizing me with his grave, uncanny eye. I could not move, I could not
+speak.
+
+"You may ask," Darmstetter went on--though I had not thought of asking--
+"if t'e beauty vould be hereditable; if as an acquired characteristic, it
+vould pass to descendants, or, if each child vill not haf to be treated
+anew. I believe no. It is true t'at acquired traits are not hereditable.
+T'ere Weissmann is right, v'atefer doubters may say. You know t'e t'eory.
+T'e blacksmit's muscles are not transmitted to his son t'e clerk; but t'e
+black hair t'at he got from his fat'er. Only after fery many generations
+of blacksmit's could a boy be born who vould grow up as a clerk vit'
+blacksmit' muscles. Efolution shapes t'e vorld, yes; but t'e process is so
+slow, so slow! So education, modification, must begin afresh vit' each
+generation and continue forefer. But t'is bacillus does not add ornament
+to t'e outside. It is not like t'e masseuse, vit' her unguents and
+kneading. It changes all t'e nature. It is like compressing a million
+years of education by natural selection into von lifetime. T'at is my
+t'eory. I do not know--it is not yet tried--but how ot'ervise? Ve but
+hasten t'e process, as t'e chemist hastens fermentation; Nature
+constructs, she does not adapt or alter or modify. Ve produce beauty by
+Nature's own met'od. V'y not hereditary?"
+
+I had made up my mind.
+
+"I'll do it," I cried, no longer able to resist, for the fever of it was
+in my blood. "You shall make your attempt on me! It can do no harm. I do
+not see how it can accomplish all you claim, but if you think--it's an
+experiment full of possibilities--in the interests of science--"
+
+"Interest of humbug!" snapped Prof. Darmstetter, his own sarcastic self
+again. "You consent because you vant to be beautiful. You care not'ing for
+science. I can trust you vit' my secret. You need svear no oat's not to
+reveal it. You vant to be t'e only perfect voman in t'e vorld, and so you
+shall be, for some time. T'at is right. T'at is your revard."
+
+My cheeks flushed at his injustice. I do care for others. I am not
+selfish--not more than everybody. And yet--at that moment I feared him and
+his knowledge; I shuddered at nameless terrors.
+
+Really, I often wonder that I ever had the courage to try. And oh, I am so
+glad!
+
+Now there is no more fear. Darmstetter is my servant, if I will it. As for
+his marvellous power, I shall bless it and reverence it all my life. I
+thank God for letting me know this man. It is too wonderful--too wonderful
+for words!
+
+The transformation was slow at first. The beginning--such an anxious time.
+Every day I studied myself and watched and waited for the first sign of
+growing grace, for the dawning glory. Sometimes I thought I could see the
+change already under way, and then again the same plain Nelly Winship
+looked at me from the uncomplimentary glass, and away flew all my hopes.
+
+It was the fading of a little scar on my thumb that first let me know the
+blessed truth. Now I can scarcely see the place where it was, and I'm sure
+no one else would notice it. It will never go away entirely. Prof.
+Darmstetter says I am not proof against wounds and old age, because these
+are a part of Nature's great plan. But it faded, faded!
+
+And my ears! How I used to hate their prominence! But soon they snuggled
+closer to my beautiful, beautiful face--and I'm in sure I don't blame
+them. Every morning when I woke, my shining eyes and the bloom of my
+cheeks told me I was growing perfect, just as he said I must do. Though
+I'm not yet quite perfect.
+
+I could sit at my glass and look for hours at my reflected image--if it
+weren't for Kitty--and--
+
+Why, it seems like another girl, and such a girl as never the world saw
+before--not me, but Her. Sometimes times I fear Her; but oftener and
+oftener, as I get used to the lovely vision, I want to hug Her right out
+of the cold mirror and kiss Her and pat Her smooth cheek like a child's,
+and put pretty clothes upon Her, as if she were a doll.
+
+And then I try to realise that Her is Me, my own self, and I just cannot
+believe it! I look from the reflected image to a little photograph of the
+Helen Winship I once knew, and back again to the glass, and wonder, and
+thank God, and shudder with awe of my own loveliness. I luxuriate in it, I
+joy in it, I feel it in every fibre of my being. I am as happy as a queen.
+I am a queen--or She is.
+
+I am but slightly taller. My form is more rounded and of better mould, but
+I am still slender. My face is the same face but--how can I express it? A
+Venus with the--the expression of a Western schoolgirl pursuing special
+studies in New York, looks at me with Her eyes. They are the eyes of Helen
+Winship, but larger and fuller orbed and more lustrous, with an appeal
+that makes me fall in love with myself, as I look. The nose is longer and
+straighter, the cheeks fuller and fairer, the chin daintier, the neck--ah,
+well, why shouldn't I be frank? I am beautiful!
+
+And the complexion--still so strange I do not say "my complexion"--clear,
+fair, rosy all in one, with the fineness and purity of a baby's; it is the
+most indescribable of all the marvels that glow in my glass. Before, I had
+the rather sallow, powder-excusing skin of so many Western girls. Now it
+is perfect. I love to gaze by the hour at my own beauty. I should be
+renamed Narcissa.
+
+My voice, too, is glorious. I have to school myself not to start at the
+sound of it when I speak. And most of all, what most impresses me when I
+try to consider myself fairly--candidly--critically--is the appearance of
+strength, of health, of unbounded power and deathless youth--as if the
+blood of generations of athletic girls and free, Viking men ran in my
+veins. I am, I believe, the only perfectly healthy woman on earth.
+
+Will the gods smite me for my happiness? Are they jealous? Ah, well, I
+have never lived until now, and if I can stay a little while like this, I
+shall be satisfied; I shall be ready to die. If only beauty does not
+vanish as suddenly as it came! If it did, I should kill myself.
+
+There are disadvantages. Such a time as I'm having with my clothes! Money
+to buy new is not so plenty as I could wish, though the $75 a month that
+Father sends was more than enough until the change. I'm saving to buy a
+microscope--a better one than those loaned to students at the laboratory;
+so I have to let out and contrive--I who so hate a needle!
+
+And the staring admiration that is lavished on me everywhere! I suppose
+I'll get used to it; but it's a new experience. I like to be looked at,
+too, much as it embarrasses me. My loveliness is like a beautiful new
+dress; one is delighted to have it, but terribly shy about wearing it, at
+first.
+
+Admiration! Why, the mystified music master is ready to go down on his
+knees to me, the janitor and the page boys are puzzled. I wonder--I wonder
+what John will say, I almost dread to think of his seeing me so; yet it
+will be the greatest test. Test! I need none!
+
+The girls in the laboratory are divided between awe and envy, and Kitty
+Reid--poor Kitty! She began by being puzzled, then grew panic stricken.
+
+The first time she noticed--I shall always remember it--was when I came in
+from the college one day, still skeptical of change, yet hoping it might
+be so.
+
+"Why, you've a new way of doing your hair--no; same old pug--but somehow--
+you're looking uncommon fit to-day," she said glancing up from her
+drawings.
+
+My heart leaped for joy. It was true then! It was true! But remembering
+Miss Coleman, I forced myself to reply as quietly as I could:--
+
+"My genius must be beginning to sprout."
+
+A little later Kitty was in constant mystification.
+
+"How do you do it?" she would demand. "What have you got? Can't you let me
+into the secret? I just think you might introduce me to the fairy
+godmother."
+
+If I were to tell any one, it would be Kitty, of course. Such a dear
+little red-headed angel she would make! But it would not be fair to Prof.
+Darmstetter. He is not ready yet. So I can only sham ignorance and joke
+with her about milk baths and cold cream and rain water. Now that she has
+reached the stage of fright, I have great fun with her.
+
+"The age of miracles has come again," she says a hundred times a day. "I
+can't believe my eyes! How is it that you are growing so beautiful? Is it
+witchcraft?"
+
+"Am I better looking?" I inquire languidly. "Well, I'm glad of it. I had
+an aunt who was well-favoured when she was young; it's high time I took
+after her, if I'm ever going to."
+
+"No living aunt ever looked as you do now," Kitty will mutter, shaking her
+head. "I don't know what to think. I'm half afraid of you."
+
+To tell the truth, she's more than half afraid of me, and I delight in
+mystifying her all I can.
+
+But the strangest thing of all, the most ridiculous thing, considering his
+age, the oddest thing when one remembers that he himself is its creator--
+Professor Darmstetter is half in love with the beauty he has made; he
+would be, if he might, the gray and withered Pygmalion of my Galatea!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE LOVER.
+
+December 15.
+
+Really, I don't know which is the more aggravating, John Burke or Kitty.
+Such a battle as I've had with them to-day!
+
+I had quite stopped fretting over John's absence. Indeed, though of course
+I wished to see him, I dreaded it; I was so happy, just as I was, and I
+had so many things to think about, so many dreams to dream and plans to
+make.
+
+I liked John when he taught the little prairie school and praised me to my
+wondering relatives. All through my college course I was proud of his
+regard, because every one respected him; and last June I promised to marry
+him.
+
+We said then that our love wasn't just a "co-ed. flirtation," because he
+was a grown man and not a student any more. But--but--but last June I
+wasn't--
+
+Why, I've but just come to possess the gift that I wouldn't exchange for
+the proudest throne on earth, and I mean to make it my throne in the great
+world. I haven't yet had time to think things out or realise my fairy
+fortune; but John and I mustn't do anything foolish. Wise love can wait.
+
+He came while I was at school.
+
+When I found him here, he actually didn't know me.
+
+He stared as if I were a stranger whose face drew, yet puzzled him. Then
+he was attracted by my beauty, then for a moment dismayed, and then--why,
+he was really so much in love that I--I--he gazed at me as if I were not
+quite real; with reverence. His eyes mirrored my power; the wonder of the
+new Me, the glory and the radiance of me shone in them. He worships me
+and--well, of course nobody could help liking that.
+
+He was just as he has always been, but somehow, here in the city, I
+couldn't help finding him bigger, stronger, more bucolic. His clothes
+looked coarse. His collar was low for the mode, his gloveless hands were
+red. There was something almost clerical in his schoolmasterly garb, but
+his bold dark eyes and short hair aggressively brushed to a standstill, as
+he used to say, looked anything but ministerial. It was plain that he was
+a man of sense and spirit, one to be proud of; plain that he was a
+countryman, too.
+
+I couldn't help seeing his thick shoes any more than I could his hurt face
+when I was distant and his ardour the moment I grew kind; and I was so
+ashamed--thinking of his looks and picking flaws, when three months ago I
+was a country girl myself--that I know--I don't know what I should have
+done, if Kitty hadn't returned.
+
+I was so relieved to see her, for John has been writing of marriage soon
+and of a home, in one room if need be; and we have too much to accomplish,
+with beauty and woman's wit and brain and strength, for that. It is my
+duty to think for both, if he's too much in love--the dear, absurd fellow!
+And yet--
+
+As soon as he was gone, Kitty jumped up from the drawing table. She was on
+pins and needles for anxiety, her eyes dancing.
+
+"Well, when's the wedding?" she cried.
+
+"What wedding?"
+
+I was vexed and puzzled, and distressed, too, after sending John away as I
+had done. I wanted to be alone and have a chance to think quietly.
+
+"Oh, any old wedding; will it be here, in the den? You going to invite us
+all?" asked Kitty.
+
+"Isn't going to be any wedding."
+
+"I'm sorry; I always did lot on weddings."
+
+"You'll have to be the bride, then. Honest, Kitty, I don't like jokes on
+such subjects. Mr. Burke and I haven't an idea of being married, not for
+centuries."
+
+Kitty went white all in a minute. She is so quick tempered.
+
+"Oh," said she, "you're going to throw him over. I thought as much! You
+were always writing to him when you first came to the city, and talking
+about him, at night when we brushed our hair; but lately you haven't
+spoken of him at all. You used to look happier when the postman brought
+you something from him. And you had his picture--"
+
+"The postman's?" I interrupted, but Kitty kept on as if she were wound
+up:--
+
+"--on the mantel-piece, in a white-and-gold frame with your own. You hid
+'em both when you began to grow beautiful. I suppose you think you're too
+good for him. But don't go and break his heart; please don't, Princess;
+there's a dear."
+
+"Goose! I haven't the least notion of breaking his heart. I--why can't you
+let me alone? I'm--I'm very fond of him--if you will insist on talking
+about it."
+
+"Oh, I can see! If you'd noticed the poor fellow's face--"
+
+"'Poor fellow!' If you'd seen him before you came! He doesn't need your
+pity. Why, it seems to have been with you a case of love at first sight,"
+I said mockingly. "He was rude to you, too; he never even noticed that you
+were in the room, after I came."
+
+"I don't care. I don't expect a man to notice me when he meets his
+sweetheart for the first time in ever so long; and such a sweetheart! But
+you--you--oh, I'm afraid of you! I'm afraid of you! What is this mystery?
+What is it? Why have you grown so grand and terrible? What has become of
+my chum?"
+
+She sat down flat on the floor and burst into passionate weeping.
+
+"Get up!" I cried.
+
+"I won't!"
+
+A sense of great loneliness came over me and I threw myself down beside
+her.
+
+"Oh, Kitty," I said, "why aren't you old and wise and sensible instead of
+being just a silly girl like myself? Then you wouldn't sit here howling,
+but you'd kiss me and cuddle me and comfort me and tell me what to do."
+
+"I'm afraid of you! I'm afraid of you! It's--it's no' canny."
+
+"Kitty, Kitty! Why aren't you my fairy godmother, so that you could show
+me in a magic glass what to do, instead of scolding me, when I'm wretched
+enough already?"
+
+"Wretched! You!" Her eyes fairly blazed. "I wouldn't ever--_ever_ be
+wretched if I looked like you--not ever in this world!"
+
+"Yes, you would. You'd be so puzzled about things; and bad girls would
+scold you, and there wouldn't be a single soul within two thousand miles
+to rely upon. And you'd be awkward and shy when folks looked at you. And
+then you'd--you'd--you'd cry."
+
+Afterwards we both wiped our eyes and made it all up; and I told her again
+that I really was fond of John.
+
+Well, folks must eat. I went out to get some chops, a half dozen oranges
+and the other things for supper--we have lunch and supper, no dinner--and
+though I started so blue and wretched, I simply couldn't stay melancholy
+long, people stared at me and admired me so much. They crowded after me
+into the little corner grocery, and the room was so full that some one
+upset a tub of pickles and there they stood around in the vinegar to look
+at me.
+
+It was frightful! But it was nice too; though I was so embarrassed that I
+wanted to run away. I'll get used to it; but--why, my own mother wouldn't
+know me! It's no wonder Kitty is frightened.
+
+I wish I could see Ma. But she couldn't advise me. I ought to have a home,
+though, and some one older than Kitty to look after me. I must leave the
+den; but where to go? Suppose I burned myself broiling chops or beefsteak,
+or blistered my face with steam from the kettle! That would be frightful,
+now. It's the least I can do for Prof. Darmstetter to keep free from harm
+the beauty he gives me. And besides,--I never before was afraid, but now I
+go scurrying through the halls and up and down the stairs like a wild
+thing; the place is so public, so many people notice me.
+
+I wonder if I couldn't talk to Mrs. Baker. She's at home now. Or there's
+the Judge's sister, Miss Marcia, the dearest old maid. I've only seen her
+once or twice, but I believe she'd be good to know.
+
+I have too many problems to stay here. I must make some settled plan, now
+that my life means so much to all the women in the world. And--how to deal
+with a headstrong young man who won't take "no" for an answer or "wait"
+for wisdom I simply don't know. If he would only give me time to make my
+own acquaintance! There are so many things to think of. A great world is
+open to me. I have the key and I am going to live the most beautiful life.
+
+I must think and plan and learn how not to be frightened at my own face in
+the mirror; I must--I simply _must_ have time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dec. 17.
+
+I have just seen John again; he came up to Barnard, which won't do at all.
+And he came home with me, and--how he loves me!
+
+But I can manage him. Indeed, he was more reasonable to-day.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+THE JOY OF THE SUNSHINE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHRISTMAS.
+
+No. -- East 72d Street, Dec. 28.
+
+Milly and I have just come from a run in the Park, and here I am this
+shining white morning scribbling away in my own cosey room.
+
+My very own room--for the most delightful thing has happened; I'm visiting
+Mrs. Baker--Aunt Frank I am to call her, though she is really Ma's
+cousin--and she has asked me to spend the rest of the winter here.
+
+So I've really left the den. And I didn't deserve it. Why, when Mrs. Baker
+invited me to dinner on Christmas day, I dreaded the visit. I hadn't seen
+her since I came from the West, and I wondered what she'd think of me, and
+what she'd write to Mother. If Pa and Ma could see me now, would they say
+their little Nelly'd "filled out well-favoured?"
+
+What _would_ they say to me?
+
+Why, Christmas morning, when I read the home letters, I felt as if I had
+betrayed my parents' confidence, as if I'd robbed them of their child by
+changing into such a lovely creature. Then I laughed; they won't mind my
+getting rid of freckles and a pug nose. And then I cried, almost, and felt
+so lonely, for even Kitty had gone off with Pros.; and so far away and so
+happy, and a good deal troubled with it all; for John had sent me some
+roses and a ring, and I knew I should find him at my Aunt's, eager to see
+whether I wore them.
+
+John's such a problem. All that day I sat alone in the den, trying to
+think, and trying to let down the hem of my waterproof, for it was snowing
+and I have only one good dress; and every few minutes I would slip on the
+ring and pull it off, watching the rainbow lights that flashed and paled
+in the heart of the stone, and smiling because John had chosen an opal; I
+wonder if he knows it's the gem of the beautiful woman.
+
+In the end I let it stay on my hand, of course, for, after all, I suppose
+I am betrothed to him.
+
+So it happened that I was almost late for dinner at the Bakers', and quite
+late when I really got inside the house; for I walked past the door two or
+three times before I could muster up courage to ring the bell. When I
+finally ran up the steps, my umbrella was powdered white, and snow and
+water were dripping off my skirts. My heart was beating fast with dread
+and expectation; I was sure no one would know me.
+
+"I--I'm too wet for the parlour," I said to the maid who came to let me
+in; and after a single startled, puzzled look, she went to tell some one
+of my arrival. There I stood in my shabby mackintosh, looking at a huge,
+gilt-framed picture of the Judge, until a plump little robin of a woman,
+in a black dress with a dash of red at the throat, came trotting out to
+meet me.
+
+That was Aunt; in spite of my fright and self-consciousness I wanted to
+laugh to see her bright eyes look at me in amazement that grew almost to
+panic. She didn't know me; the servant could not have caught my name.
+
+"Did you--wish to see me?" she finally managed to say.
+
+"I'm Helen Winship--" I faltered. I felt as if I had done something very
+wrong.
+
+"Nelly!" she cried, clutching my hands and almost lifting herself on
+tiptoe, as she blinked into my eyes in the uncertain light of the outer
+hall. "This isn't--can't be--not _our_ Helen Winship--oh, it's some
+message from her--some--"
+
+Her voice died away in incoherent mutterings. She drew me into a big hall
+like a sitting room behind the small parlour.
+
+"Come into the light, child, whoever you are. I want to look at you," she
+said.
+
+An open fire was burning in the grate, and in the room were Milly and
+Ethel and white-haired Miss Marcia and a tall, blonde young man.
+
+All rose to their feet, then stopped. There was an awkward pause, the
+answering thrill of tense amazement shot from mind to mind like lightning.
+They stood as if frozen, gazing. The room was for a moment so still that I
+could hear my own quick breathing and the hammering of my heart. I was
+grateful for some far shout upon the street that drowned the noise.
+
+"But--you--but--I thought--" Milly began in a half-hushed, awe-struck
+whisper; she never finished the sentence, but continued to gaze at me with
+big, round eyes, her lips parted, her breath quick and tremulous.
+
+I was transported with joy and fright; I almost wished I might sink into
+the floor, but just then down the stair came the Judge with John behind
+him, and little Joy perched on his shoulder. I think the others were as
+grateful as I for the interruption.
+
+"Put me down! Put me down!" screamed Joy as she saw me sprinkled with
+sleet. "Mamma, ith that Mithith Thanta Clauth?"
+
+At the welcome laugh that helped to break the ice she ran with a flirt of
+her short skirts to hide her head against her father's knee.
+
+"Helen!" repeated Mrs. Baker, only half recovering from her stupefaction,
+"this isn't--why, it can't be you!"
+
+"I--oh, I'm afraid I'm late," I stammered.
+
+Miss Marcia began to unbutton my raincoat, and her kindness somewhat
+relieved my embarrassment, though I don't know how I managed to respond to
+the hubbub of greetings, especially when Mr. Hynes, the stranger, was
+presented.
+
+He had been looking at me more intently than he knew, with dark blue
+brilliant eyes, and he flushed as he touched my hand, until I was glad to
+take refuge with Joy, who hovered about, eying me as if she still
+suspected some ruse on the part of Santa Claus.
+
+"Joy, you know Cousin Nelly?" I said; and at sound of my voice, they all
+looked again at each other and then at me.
+
+"Why, I can't believe my eyes, though Bake here said you'd altered.
+Altered!" twittered Aunt Frank. She turned indignantly upon the Judge, who
+wisely attempted no defense. "I didn't dream--Bake, here, never can tell a
+story straight. Have you--what is it? Nelly, dear, it's two years since
+I've seen you; of course you've--grown!"
+
+But no amazement could long curb her hospitable instincts. Her incoherence
+vanished as she grasped at a practical consideration.
+
+"But let Milly take you up stairs and get your things off," she said with
+an air as of one who solves problems.
+
+"Are you truly Cothin Nelly?" Joy lisped. "All wight; come thee my twee."
+
+Though she couldn't recognise me as the cousin of a few weeks earlier, the
+child was eager to claim me as a new friend. So I escaped with her and
+Milly to the nursery, where I stayed as long as I dared, letting my cheeks
+cool.
+
+"The twee ith mine and Mamma'th," said Joy; "we're the only oneth young
+enough to have Christhmath twees, Papa thayth."
+
+"Hoh, guess I'm younger'n Mamma, ain't I?" scoffed my other little cousin
+who had been sent to inquire into our delay. He is perhaps a dozen years
+old, is called "Boy" officially, and Timothy, Jr., in the family records,
+and--like Joy--wasn't in the least afraid of me, after five minutes'
+acquaintance.
+
+Boy led me down to the others, but dinner was nearly over before I felt at
+ease. I'm not used to having at my back a statuesque servant--though this
+one was not too statuesque to be surprised by my appearance almost out of
+decorum. And I couldn't help knowing that every one wanted to look at me
+all the time, which was delicious, but embarrassing. I blushed and gave
+stupid answers when addressed, and even feared that I might show myself at
+fault in the etiquette of a city table. It was strange to have forks in so
+many cases where I've always used spoons. And, though of course I knew
+what the finger bowls were, I wasn't quite sure how to use them.
+
+No one was more puzzled by my appearance than Uncle Timothy himself. As he
+looked at me--and this he did through most of the meal--certain long gray
+hairs in his eyebrows seemed to wave up and down, as I had often noticed
+with the frightened curiosity of a child, like the questioning antennae of
+an insect.
+
+"And what is the school work now?" he asked when the dessert came. "The
+last time I had the very real pleasure of seeing you, it was--perhaps
+animalculae?"
+
+"The cell," I replied, relieved at the introduction of a topic that I
+could talk about, "and the cell wall. Protoplasmic movements, you know,
+and unicellular plants and animals. I'd been making sketches that day of
+the common amoeba of standing water."
+
+"I am not familiar with the--ah--with the amoeba; but doubtless its habits
+are interesting. And when do the school days end? A young lady looks
+forward with pleasure, I fancy, to release from--"
+
+"Is the amoeba a--some horrid bug, I suppose?" interrupted Aunt Frank;
+"and you--er--do things to it in that laboratory? How can you? The very
+thought of such a place! It makes me shiver!"
+
+"Oh, but you should see it, so clean and bright; the laboratory's simply
+beautiful!"
+
+"But this is your first winter in the city, and you ought to be enjoying
+concerts and theatres, meeting people, seeing things."
+
+"Oh, I only keep such hours as I elect, being a post graduate; and I've
+been to several theatres," I said; "Kitty and I get seats in the top
+gallery."
+
+"The--the top gallery?"
+
+"At matinees," I hastily explained, "and not--not lately."
+
+And then I felt more confused than ever, for Mr. Hynes was watching me.
+John was looking at me, too, with that great light in his face that had
+been there ever since my arrival, when he first saw the opal gleaming on
+my finger; and I--oh, how could I have hinted that I don't dare go where
+so many people might look at me? But it's the truth. And though the truth
+may be inconvenient, it's wonderfully sweet!
+
+After dinner we passed into the big drawing room behind the hall. Joy did
+some clumsy little dances in her short white frock--she is really too
+chubby to caper nimbly--and Ethel and Milly played and sang neither well
+nor ill.
+
+I think they were more afraid of me than I had been of the servants at
+dinner. They are not very pretty, with their light, wavy hair and pale
+flower faces, though I'm afraid I set my standard too high now--now that I
+know what is possible.
+
+I went to the piano myself afterwards and played. Played! It was terrible!
+Never would I have believed that I could make such a mess of it. I didn't
+sing until they began trying carols. I didn't mean to do so then, but I
+chimed in before I thought, when they sang:--
+
+He set a star up in the sky
+Full broad and bright and fair.
+
+"That song was taken from the Ormulum," said the Judge; "a poem of the
+thirteenth century--"
+
+"Nelly! Was that you?" cried Aunt Frank, interrupting.
+
+The music of the new, fresh, vibrant voice had thrilled them all--all
+except the unconscious Judge--and there they sat, spellbound. But as they
+shook off the witchery, there was all at once a babble of voices, and
+before I quite knew what had happened, I was at the piano again, singing
+"The King in Thule:"
+
+There was a king in Thule
+True even to the grave
+To whom his mistress, dying,
+A golden goblet gave.
+
+Perhaps it wasn't very appropriate to Christmas, but Cadge had drilled me
+upon it. In the middle of the first stanza I happened to glance up, and
+noticed that Mr. Hynes was again looking at me with an absorbed, indrawing
+gaze, colouring with amazed pleasure. It woke in me a flutter of
+consternation and delight, for he has the sensitive face of a musician;
+but my presence of mind was gone, and for one horrible instant I thought I
+was going to break down, and just sat there, gasping and blushing. My
+heart sank and my voice dwindled to a quavering, unfamiliar whisper. I
+couldn't remember the words; but then I seized hold of my courage and sang
+and sang and sang, better than I had ever done before.
+
+I didn't look up again until I had finished; then somehow I got away from
+the piano, and shyly slipped into a chair near Miss Baker. Of course there
+was a clamour that I should sing again, but I couldn't. The flaming of my
+cheeks made me ashamed.
+
+Perhaps some time I shall learn the city way of not seeming to care very
+much about anything.
+
+Aunt must have had it at her tongue's end all the evening to invite me to
+come to her; and when she was bidding me good-night she could wait no
+longer.
+
+"You're living right on Union Square?" she said; "in the same building
+with--with--"
+
+"A milliner, a dentist, a school for theatrical dancing," I enumerated,
+laughing happily. I knew that it was I myself, and not my mode of life,
+that bewildered her.
+
+"But--is it--_nice_?"
+
+"Better than a boarding-house. Two or three other girls lodge there, the
+housekeeper is obliging, and the experience--well, at least it's
+enlightening."
+
+"I wish you'd come here. Why don't you?"
+
+"Oh, could I?" I cried with sudden frankness. "You can't think how glad
+I'd be! The studio was awfully nice at first, and I've made the best of
+it, but I know Ma--Mother and Father would be pleased. If it wouldn't be
+too much trouble--"
+
+And so easily it was all arranged. Of course after she had seen me, heard
+me, felt the charm of me--of Her--Aunt Frank couldn't leave Her in the
+studio!
+
+I'd have been glad to avoid the journey back to Union Square with John;
+for the evening, with all its perplexities, had been paradise, and I
+dreaded to have him bring me back to earth with words of love. I ought to
+be more than usually tender towards John now, when he has just lost his
+mother; but when the Bakers' door had closed behind us, and we stood
+together under the crispy starlight--for it had cleared and turned cold
+during the evening--I talked feverishly of things that neither of us cared
+about, and kept it up all the way home.
+
+John scarcely seemed to listen to my chatter. He was as if under a spell,
+and his dark, strong face glowed with the magic of it. As we approached
+the Square, he looked down at me, and slipped my hand from his arm into
+the clasp of his warm fingers. Through my glove he felt the ring, and gave
+the hand a little, almost timid pressure.
+
+"Am I doing right? Ought I to wear it?" I cried. "Won't you help me think,
+just as if you didn't--didn't care? This isn't like last summer. We are
+different; I am very different. You must have seen to-night, that I am not
+at all the same girl. I've told you that I can't be certain; I am dazed."
+
+"I shall remember everything--all you told me when I came, and now," he
+said. "But you are doing right--darling!"
+
+He held my hands when we parted and looked into my eyes, and I saw that
+his own were shining. His love seemed too deep for any outburst of
+passion, or else he feared to alarm me; and yet he seemed so sure.
+
+I wish--I wish--oh, I don't know what I wish; I ought not to be bound to
+any one; but I suppose I love John.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A LOOKING OVER BY THE PACK.
+
+Jan. 2.
+
+If women are not meant to study, Prof. Darmstetter should be pleased with
+me. Instead of working up my laboratory notebooks, I have sat until
+midnight, dreaming.
+
+"Go to bed early and get your beauty sleep," says Aunt, but I push open
+the window and lean upon the sash and let the cold air blow over me. I'd
+like to dance a thousand miles in the moonlight; I'm so young, and so
+strong, and such glorious things are coming!
+
+To-morrow I shall have a foretaste of the future; I shall know what other
+people--not John and my relatives--think of me. Ah, there's only one thing
+they can think! To-morrow'll be the beginning of the world to me.
+
+To-morrow! To-morrow! Aunt Frank has sent out cards for an "At Home." And
+it's to-morrow!
+
+Oh, I'm glad I came here! I revel in the new home.
+
+I like the house; it looks so big and solid. I like my cousins--quiet
+little creatures. They wait upon me, anticipate my smallest wish, and
+defer to my opinions as if I were a white star queen dropped from the
+ether; all but Boy, and even he respects me because I can construe Caesar.
+
+I like my Aunt--devoted to clubs and committees, though she's forgotten
+them now in her eagerness to introduce me. Ah, to-morrow! Blessed to-
+morrow! And I like Aunt Marcia Baker. I wonder if, when I am older, I too
+shall be serene and stately, with a face that seems to have outlived
+sorrow; I can hardly believe now that I shall care to live at all when
+people's eyes have ceased to follow my beauty. When for me there are no
+more to-morrows.
+
+I think I shall like Mr. Hynes; he's almost one of the family, for he is
+betrothed to Milly, and I'm glad--ah, so glad I'm not she! What a life she
+looks forward to--each day exactly like its fellows; a droning, monotonous
+existence, keeping house, overseeing the cooking--perhaps doing it
+herself; for he's only a young lawyer, just starting in life!
+
+But I like his face, so full of impulse and imagination. I believe he's a
+man who might go far and achieve much. Why should he handicap himself with
+an early marriage?
+
+It's well enough for Milly; she doesn't understand her limitations. Why,
+she's almost as eager over to-morrow as if it could mean to her what it
+does to me; and that is an outlook into a life so glad, so wonderful!
+
+Dear, good Aunt Frank proposed the tea before my trunks were fairly
+unpacked.
+
+"Won't your Professor give you a holiday from--is it microbes you study?"
+she inquired. "Sure they're not dangerous?"
+
+"The afternoon tea bacillus is not wholly innocuous," suggested Uncle,
+pinching her cheek.
+
+It was good to see the loving look that reproved and repaid him.
+
+"Why, Bake," she protested, "tea never hurt anybody."
+
+"Oh, I've time enough," I said; "I have no regular days for going to Prof.
+Darmstetter, and the other studies--"
+
+It was on my tongue to add: "and the other studies don't matter," but I
+checked the words.
+
+"Well, you'll find it takes time," Aunt reminded me. "How about clothes,
+now? Suppose you show me what you brought."
+
+And in a few minutes we were all chattering at once in discussion of my
+modest little wardrobe. I could feel, as each new dress was shaken from
+its folds, that Aunt was more dissatisfied than she would confess.
+
+"Everything's pretty and tasteful," she conceded at last; "but--for a
+tea--if you could--"
+
+If she had dared, she'd have offered to get me a dress herself.
+
+"Oh, of course I'll need something new," I said hurriedly; "I meant to ask
+your advice. Nothing very costly," I was reluctantly adding. But at that
+moment an inspiration came to lighten the gloom.
+
+The very thing! I'd use the money I'd saved for the microscope! I don't
+need one the least bit.
+
+So I was able to add with some philosophy:--
+
+"I never did have a nice dress, and I'd like something pretty good this
+time. Why, I haven't nearly spent all my allowance," I cried with kindling
+enthusiasm, jumping up to pace the floor. "Tell me what I ought to have--
+just exactly what is most suitable. I don't know much about teas, but I'd
+like something--fine!"
+
+Aunt's face glowed with excitement. I think she saw in imagination fifty
+Helens dancing before he eyes in a kaleidoscopic assortment of dresses.
+
+"You're right. We'll get--oh, what shall we--what shall we get that'll be
+good enough for you?" she cried in a flutter. "Something simple of course,
+you're so young; but--I'll tell you: We'll go right to Mrs. Edgar!"
+
+Perhaps my own face burned, too.
+
+"Who's she? Some one on the Avenue?"
+
+"No; no one knows her, but--she's a marvel! It'd mean the world and all to
+her to please some one sure to be noticed, like you. She's a widow; has
+two children."
+
+So to Mrs. Edgar we went. Her eyes devoured me. She is a mite of a woman,
+young, white-faced, vivacious.
+
+"For a tea?" she asked. "A--a large one?"
+
+She spoke with forced calmness, but her hands had the artist's flutter,
+the enthusiast's eagerness to be doing.
+
+"I'll get samples," she went on; "there's not a minute to be lost; not--
+one--moment! I'll work all night rather than fail her. You will not
+wish"--she dismissed us abruptly--"to go with me to the shops?"
+
+"No; Miss Winship attracts too much attention."
+
+Alas, it's true! It has become an ordeal for me to venture into a shop.
+But what a blessed thing if my beauty should bring success and ease to
+this poor, struggling little widow--just by my wearing a dress she has
+made! Oh, she'll not be the only one! What if Kitty sometime wins fame by
+painting my picture, or Cadge by writing of me in her "Recollections?" Why
+shouldn't I inspire great poems and noble deeds and fine songs, like the
+famous beauties Miss Coleman told about? Yes, even more than they; there
+was not one of them all like me!
+
+Next evening when Aunt brought the samples upstairs, I was reading to the
+Judge in the library, and the others were listening as if stocks and bonds
+were more fascinating than romances.
+
+"Shall we pray for a second Joshua, arresting the sun, pending
+deliberation?" asked Uncle, displeased at the interruption.
+
+"Why, Bake, there's scarcely ten days, and how we'd feel if Nelly didn't
+look well!" cried Aunt Frank; and we all broke out laughing at the bare
+idea of my looking ill!
+
+"I never saw any one to whom dress mattered so little," Aunt Marcia said,
+as she folded up her silk knitting. "But Mrs. Edgar insists upon her four
+fittings like any Shylock haggling for his pound of flesh; it is written
+in the bond."
+
+When she had trotted away home with her prim elderly maid, like a pair out
+of "Cranford," Ethel made an impressive announcement:--
+
+"The General will pour."
+
+"Returned hero from the Philippines?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no. Meg Van Dam could face Mausers, but a Red Cross bazaar was
+as near as she got to the war. We call her the General because--oh, you'll
+find out. Meg is Mrs. Robert Van Dam."
+
+"Oh, I think I've seen that name in the papers. Aren't they grand people?"
+
+"Why, yes; rather; we don't know the Van Dams; Meg's only just married.
+You might have read about her mother-in-law, Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam, or
+her aunt-in-law, Mrs. Henry Van Dam, or Mrs. Henry's daughters; the
+family's a tribe. But Meg, why, we went to school with Meg; she's just the
+General."
+
+My dress came home to-night--white and dainty. Ah, at last I've something
+to wear that's not "good" and "plain" and "durable"! But there was an
+outcry, as there has been at every fitting, because I won't wear stays.
+Eccentric, they call me; as if Nature and beauty were abnormal!
+
+When I was arrayed in it, Aunt and Ethel led me to the library for Uncle's
+inspection.
+
+"Is to-morrow the day set to exhibit to Helen other aspects of New York
+than the scholastic?" he asked, looking up from his paper. "The first
+appearances of a young girl in modern society are said to be comparable
+with a 'Looking Over by the Pack,' as described by Mr. Kipling. May Mrs.
+Baloo and Mrs. Bagheera and Mrs. Shere Khan have good hunting to-night,
+and be kind to-morrow to our womanling."
+
+"Why, Bake, you know just as well as I do there aren't any such people
+coming. I believe it's just one of your jokes," sputtered Aunt. "Nelly,
+dear, turn slowly round."
+
+She had dropped on her knees beside me, busy with pins and folds, and Joy
+was lisping the caution, born perhaps of experience, "Don't you thoil it,
+Cothin Nelly, or Nurthey'll vip you," when Milly came into the library;
+and with her was Mr. Hynes.
+
+"Lovely! Isn't it, Ned?" cried Milly. "It's for to-morrow."
+
+Mr. Hynes scarcely glanced at the dress, then looked away again, with
+indifference that somehow hurt me.
+
+"Very pretty," he said languidly. "Classic, isn't it? By the way, Judge, I
+think you'd be interested--"
+
+And then he began to tell Judge Baker about some horrid auction sale of
+old books!
+
+I was surprised. I couldn't account for it. To hide my disappointment--for
+I do want to look my best to-morrow, and then everybody has taken so much
+pains---I bent over Joy, tying and untying the ribbons that held the rings
+of soft hair in front of her ears.
+
+"Thop, Cothin Nelly; you hurt!" she screamed.
+
+As soon as I could, I ran to take off the dress. How could Aunt so parade
+me? Of course the women Mr. Hynes knows must have all their dresses from
+city dressmakers.
+
+But I believe, after all, he did notice, for I saw him colour before he
+turned sharply away. To please Milly, he might at least--
+
+He called the dress classic; it's just long, soft folds without messy
+trimmings; and, oh, it's not vanity to peep at myself again and again and
+to dream of to-morrow. I'm gloriously, gloriously beautiful! If John
+comes to-morrow, I do hope he'll wear gloves. He has good hands, too;
+well-shaped--
+
+Why, of course; Mr. Hynes must admire me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+SNARLING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK.
+
+Jan. 10.
+
+To-day has been heaven!
+
+There was a famous lawyer among Aunt's guests and a United States Senator
+and a real author, a woman who has written books; but people brushed past
+them all for a word with me!
+
+And I'm going to the Opera! I shall sit in a box. Mrs. Van Dam says I'll
+make the sensation of the season! I'm going to the Opera!
+
+When men came this morning with palms and flowers to decorate the house, I
+ran off to the Park. I did almost run, really. There was a song at my
+lips: "Gladdest, oh, gladdest, most beautiful in the world; blessed, most
+blessed, most beautiful in the world!" and the "tap-tap" of horses' feet
+on the asphalt, the "b-r-r-r-rp" of the cable cars and the rattle of
+elevated trains kept time, until all the city seemed ringing with my joy.
+
+I know it's foolish; if I had been beautiful from my childhood; if I could
+have grown up to think of it as a matter of course; if I had been used to
+the awe of men and women's envy, I might think less about it, might even
+fancy that I would have preferred learning or wealth--for we all love what
+we have not. But now--it is so new, so marvellous!
+
+I had plenty of things to think about when I could calm myself. Only
+yesterday I'd had a long talk with Prof. Darmstetter.
+
+"The experiment is not yet complete," he declared. He had asked me to stay
+for--but that is a part of the secret which is to pass with this record
+from me to all women.
+
+"You are beautiful," he said; "mein Gott, yes! More beautiful t'an any
+ot'er voman since t'e appearance of man on eart'. But perfectly beautiful?
+I do not know; I t'ink not yet. Who can tell for v'at ultimate perfection
+Nature destined t'e human body? But we shall see. T'at perfection you
+shall reach. In a veek, a mont', t'ree mont's--I cannot tell. Ve must vait
+and experiment and still vait, but success is assured--absolute success. I
+shall gif it. I do not know if t'e human type is t'e highest t'at eart' is
+capable of supporting, but it is t'e highest present type, and it shall be
+my vork to gif it t'at for v'ich it has hungered and t'irsted, and towards
+v'ich slowly it has groped its vay; it shall be my vork to gif humanity
+beauty and perfection."
+
+The light that illumined his yellow, wrinkled face made me cry out:--
+
+"All the world will bless you! All women will be grateful as I am
+grateful--"
+
+"Ach!" he snapped with a sudden change of countenance. "I shall be von
+more name and date to make harter t'e student's lessons and longer t'e
+tables--t'at is gratitude! Vit' t'e vorld we haf at present no concern.
+For t'is, indeed, you bless me--t'at I am not a quack to make public an
+incomplete discofery, for ot'er quacks to do mischief. You are glad t'at
+it is vit' you alone I concern myself. But you are not grateful; you are
+happy because I say t'at you shall be yet more beautiful; t'at is not
+gratitude. You might--"
+
+At the eager shrillness of his voice I drew a step away.
+
+"Indeed I'm grateful, whether you believe it or not!" I cried. "You think
+all women so selfish! Of course I'm glad that I alone am in the secret,
+but you proposed it yourself, and I rejoice as much as you do that some
+day--by and by--other women will be happy as I am happy--"
+
+"Yes--by and by! You emphasize t'at," he snapped mockingly, but then he
+recovered himself and his queer new deference. "And you haf t'e right; I
+vish you to rechoice in your own lofeliness. Ve haf engaged toget'er in
+t'is great vork, and it is vell t'at we bot' haf our revards--I t'at I
+aggomblish somet'ing for t'e benefit of my kind, and you--since vomen
+cannot lofe t'eir kind, but only intifiduals--you haf t'e happy lofe t'at
+is necessary to a voman."
+
+His eyes rested on my ring.
+
+I couldn't tell him--proud as I am of it--that John had loved me before I
+ever heard of the Bacillus. But I could punish his gibes.
+
+"Oh, by the way--I'm not coming to-morrow," I said. "My Aunt is to give a
+tea."
+
+Strange to see him struggle with his disappointment like a grieving child!
+But he bravely rallied.
+
+"T'at is goot," he said, "you shall tell me v'at people t'ink of you. You
+vish to go about--to be admired; you vish to gif up science; not so?"
+
+"Oh, no! I couldn't be a doll, for men to look at and then tire of me. I
+must study the harder--to be worthy--"
+
+The look of his face, of the thin, straight-lipped mouth, the keen old
+eyes, stopped me.
+
+"You vill not gif up study now, at least," he sneered; "not until you haf
+t'e perfect beauty. You haf need of me."
+
+Prof. Darmstetter is so irritating! Why, he has just as much need of me!
+He himself said I was the best subject he could find for the experiment.
+But even if he had finished his work with the Bacillus, he'd rather teach
+me, a despised woman, all the science I could master than develop the
+budding talent of the brightest Columbia boy. The sight of my beauty is a
+joy to him. Really, I pity the poor man. He makes the great discovery when
+he's himself too old to profit by it; the Bacillus will not work against
+Nature. It has brought him only a hopeless longing--
+
+But I shall study. He shall see! Not in the laboratory, of course; that is
+hardly fitting now. I wouldn't go there again except for the lure of
+promised beauty--can more loveliness be possible? But I do feel the
+responsibility of beauty. The wisest and best will crowd about me, and
+they must find my words worthy the lips that shape them and the voice that
+utters. And I shall learn from their wisdom.
+
+"There was Hypatia; she was both beautiful and learned," I found myself
+confiding to a gray squirrel in the Park, and then I laughed and ran home
+to make my last preparations.
+
+Ethel arranged my hair to-day, though I could hardly yield her the delight
+of its shining, long undulations. Then she did Milly's as nearly like mine
+as possible, and Milly did hers. The girls wore white like me, and my aunt
+was in black. The house was full of flowers; as if it had plunged into
+seas of them, it dripped with an odourous rosy foam. John sent a box--the
+extravagant boy!--and there were big American Beauty roses, with stems as
+long as walking sticks from Pros. and Cadge. Milly had flowers, too, from
+Mr. Hynes.
+
+At first I wasn't a bit afraid, while acquaintances were dropping in one
+by one--Mrs. Magoun, Mrs. Crosby, the wife of the managing clerk in
+Uncle's office, Aunt Marcia--all allies.
+
+Then there came a stir at the door, the magnetic thrill that foreruns a
+Somebody. And there upon the threshold stood a tall, dashing girl,
+superbly turned out; not handsome, but fine-looking, dark, decisive,
+vital--a creature born to command.
+
+I knew her at the first glance. She was the General!
+
+I was for a moment surprised to see her so young and girlish, though I
+might have known; for she was Milly's schoolmate. I doubt if she's two
+years my senior, but in social arts and finesse--ah, the difference!
+
+The house seemed to belong to her from the moment she entered. She moved
+like a whirlwind--a well-mannered and exquisitely dressed whirlwind, of
+course--with an air of abounding vigour and vitality, up to where we
+stood, and there stopped short.
+
+"How d'y'do?" she said, in the clipped New York fashion, looking at me
+with the confidence of one who is never at a loss--and then--
+
+Oh, the joy! For all her _savoir faire_, it was her turn to be
+confused. For a moment she peered at me with a short-sighted squint; then
+after a little hesitation, she put up her lorgnette, making an impatient
+gesture, as if to say: "I can't help it; I _must_"--and stared.
+
+Her eyes grew big as she gazed; but at last she drew a long breath, and
+put down the quizzing-glass with an effect of self-denial. When she spoke
+there was little to remind me of her momentary loss of self-command.
+
+"Are you enjoying New York?" she demanded.
+
+"Milly tells me you've never been in the city before; that you are
+studying at Barnard."
+
+"Yes."
+
+I knew that I had impressed this strong, splendid woman, but I was a
+little afraid of her.
+
+Quite herself again, she began asking questions about myself, my home, my
+studies; quick, probing, confusing questions, while in my cheeks the
+awkward colour came and went. But it would never have occurred to me to
+parry her queries. I could not help liking her, though when at last she
+left me and began a progress through the rooms, I drew a breath of relief,
+like one who has passed with credit a stiff examination.
+
+At the door of the dining-room she paused again, judging through her glass
+the table and its dainty decorations.
+
+"Those flowers are rather high," she declared, and calling upon Milly for
+help, she began rearranging the roses, and laying the twigs of holly upon
+the cloth in bolder patterns. She seemed to take charge, to adopt me with
+the house, to accept and audit and vouch for us.
+
+Then people began coming all at once, all together, and I had to take my
+place beside Mrs. Baker and Aunt Marcia in the reception room.
+
+I can't tell anything about the next hour; it's a blur. But I wouldn't
+have missed a minute. I had never before seen a reception, except at the
+University where sometimes I used to serve as an usher, pouncing upon
+people as they entered and leading them up to the row of Professors and
+Professors' wives backed against the wall. But now I had to stand up
+myself and meet people. And oh, that was different!
+
+At first two or three women would approach, putting out their hands at an
+absurd height, and start to say: "How d' you--" or "I'm so--"
+
+And Aunt would make some excited, half-coherent remark and look at me,
+anxiously but proudly, and say my name.
+
+But they never heard her! As they really saw me, each in turn would start,
+and, wide-eyed, look again. And as the awe and wonder grew in their
+faces--as there came the little stop, the gasp, that told how their
+reserve was for once overthrown, then, to the utmost, I tasted the sweet
+of power and felt the thrill of ecstasy.
+
+Red spots burned in Aunt's cheeks; she talked fast in her company voice,
+and somehow the lace at her throat got awry. Aunt Marcia was as calm and
+stately in her soft black velvet as if nothing were happening. And really
+there was little to disturb one's composure. New Yorkers aren't like our
+whole-souled, emotional Western folks. Not one of these women but would
+have suffered torture rather than betray her surprise beyond that first
+irrepressible gasp of amazement. After that one victory of human nature,
+they would make talk about the weather, or the newest book, and then get
+away to discuss me in undertones in the hall or drawing room.
+
+Quickly the sixth sense of a strange agitation went through the house. I
+knew what they were all talking about, thinking about. Subtle waves of
+thought seemed to catch up each new comer so that she felt, without being
+told, that something extraordinary was happening. Women now approached not
+unprepared; but for all their bracing against the shock, not one could be
+quite nonchalant at the first sight of my superb, compelling beauty.
+
+My eyes flashed, my pulse rioted as I felt the vibrant excitement of the
+gathering, the tiptoe eagerness to reach our neighbourhood, the hush that
+fell upon the circle immediately around me, the reaction of overgay laugh
+and chatter in the far corners.
+
+Oh, it was lovely, lovely! No girl could have been quite unmoved to feel
+that all those soft lights were glowing in her honour, those masses of
+flowers blooming, all that warmth and perfume of elegance and luxury
+wafted as incense to her nostrils. And the undercurrent of suppressed
+excitement, the sensation of Her!
+
+At times I grew impatient of conventionality. How was it possible for
+these people to look so quietly, eye to eye, upon the most vitally perfect
+of living beings? How could they turn from me to orange frappé or salted
+almonds?
+
+Once or twice I caught some faint echo of the talk about us.
+
+"Where is she?" asked one voice, made by curiosity more penetrating than
+its owner realised.
+
+"Julia's seen her; she's talked and talked till I had to come."
+
+"And she's still studying?"--Another voice--"How can she? Great beauty and
+great scientist--bizarre combination!"
+
+How that would amuse Prof. Darmstetter!
+
+By and by I saw John towering above the others while he bobbed about
+helplessly in the sea of women's heads that filled the rooms and even rose
+upon the "bleachers," as he calls the stairs. There were not really so
+very many people, but he didn't know how to reach us, he is so awkward.
+When he had steered his course among the women and had spoken to my Aunt,
+his face was radiant as he turned to me.
+
+"I knew _you_ wouldn't fail us, Mr. Burke," Aunt said hurriedly.
+"Mrs. Marshall--so glad--this is--Nelly, dear--"
+
+Behind John was a lady waiting to meet me.
+
+"--So glad you've come," I said to him; and the words sounded curiously to
+me because in my excitement I also had spoken in my "company voice."
+
+But I had no time to say another word to him, as I turned to greet Mrs.
+Marshall.
+
+He mumbled something, flushing, while his eyes devoured my beauty in one
+dumb, worshipping look. Then he dropped quickly out of our group. I was
+sorry, but he'll understand that I was flurried. He ought to learn self-
+control, though; he shouldn't look at me before so many people with all
+his heart in his eyes.
+
+And I was so vexed about his clothes, too! His old, long, black coat, such
+as lawyers wear in the West, would have been pretty nearly right--
+something like what the other men wore--but he seemed to think it was not
+good enough, and had put on a brand new business suit. Of course there
+wasn't another man there so clad, but he never seemed to notice how absurd
+he was.
+
+The Viewing of the Pack didn't last long. Before my cheeks had ceased
+flaming, before I had grown used to standing there to be looked at, people
+seemed to go, all at once, as suddenly as they had arrived.
+
+Just as the last ones were leaving, some instinct told me that Mr. Hynes
+had come. Before I saw him, I felt his gaze upon me, a wondering, glad
+look, as if I were Eve, the first and only woman.
+
+Milly brought him to me and left us together, but at first he was almost
+curt in his effort to hide his sensibility to my beauty--as if that were a
+weakness!--and I was furiously shy, and felt somehow that I must hold him
+at still greater distance.
+
+"Am I never again to hear you sing?" he asked. "Sweet sounds that have
+given a new definition to music are still vibrating in my memory."
+
+I knew he was thinking of Christmas!
+
+"I don't often sing, except for Joy," I mumbled; "I've had so few
+lessons."
+
+"Joy doesn't know her joys; but--wouldn't she share them?"
+
+"Sometime--perhaps--"
+
+I couldn't answer him, for hot and cold waves of shyness and pleasure were
+running over me. Oh, I hope, for Milly's sake, he doesn't dislike me. He
+seems to feel so intensely, to be so alive!
+
+When he had gone, I went to the dining-room with Aunt Marcia, and found
+there Ethel and the General and Peggy Van Dam, the General's cousin, a
+pale girl, all eyes and teeth. Kitty was with them, and she darted towards
+me, but Mrs. Van Dam was before her.
+
+"Sit down, both of you," she commanded.
+
+She fairly put us into chairs, and brought us cups of something--I don't
+know what.
+
+Aunt Marcia breathed a little sigh of relief.
+
+"Helen," she said, "you haven't been standing too long?"
+
+"It wasn't an instant! I could stand all day!"
+
+Mrs. Van Dam smiled, and I felt _gauche_, like a schoolgirl. I am so
+impulsive!
+
+"It was all delightful!" cried Kitty; "and yet--while you were my chum,
+Helen, I _did_ think you rather good-looking!"
+
+"You find yourself mistaken?" the General inquired.
+
+"Oh, no-o-o; not exactly; a beautiful girl, certainly; but--oh, I could
+have made pincushions of some of those pudgy women, nibbling wafers, and
+delivering themselves of lukewarm appreciations! 'Too tall'--'too short'--
+'too dark'--'too light'; 'I like your height bettah, my deah.' Helen, you
+dairymaid, powder! Plaster over that 'essentially improbable' colour."
+
+Mrs. Van Dam broke out laughing at Kitty's mimicry. I wish the child
+wouldn't let her hair straggle in front of her ears and look so harum-
+scarum.
+
+"I doubt if we have had many harsh critics," said Miss Baker.
+
+"Not a thing to criticise," cried Aunt Frank, entering just then and
+catching the last word. "Everybody so interested in Nelly! Bake, if you'd
+only come earlier, I'd have been perfectly satisfied."
+
+They say that Uncle Timothy can never be coaxed home to one of his wife's
+receptions, but he answered with great solemnity, as he loomed up behind
+the little woman:--
+
+"I am privileged to be here, even at the eleventh hour. I could not wholly
+deny myself the sight of so much youth and bloom."
+
+"Don't be hypocritical, Judge," said the General reprovingly. "You're too
+big and honest to achieve graceful deceit. But before I go--I've seats for
+the Opera Monday night in Mother's box. Miss Winship must come, and--" her
+glance deliberated briefly--"and Milly."
+
+Milly cried, "How delightful, Meg!" But my tongue tripped and my cheeks
+flamed as I tried to say that I had never seen an opera and to thank my
+new friend.
+
+Little she heeded my lack of words. Gazing at me once again as she had
+upon first seeing me, she exclaimed:--
+
+"You great, glorious creature! They sha'n't hive you in a schoolroom; you
+must come out and show yourself; why, you'll set New York in a furore!"
+
+I think she's splendid.
+
+No sooner was she gone than I was summoned to the reception-room, and
+Cadge rushed to meet me. She looked much smarter than Kitty, with her
+black hair curled and her keen eyes shining with excitement.
+
+"All over but the shouting?" she asked. "Meant to get here in season to
+see you knock 'em in the Old Kent Road, but woman proposes, Big Tom
+disposes. Shall I turn in a paragraph? Just--did you have music? What's
+your dress--in the Sunday society slush, of course, not the daily; 'fraid
+the _Star_ won't take over a stick--. Greek a little bit? M-m-m--not
+modistic exactly, but--but--."
+
+Her abrupt sentences grew slower, paused, dropped to an awestruck whisper,
+as she looked upon me. She added in her gravest manner: "Say, you're the
+loveliest ever happened! The--very--limit!"
+
+But awe and Cadge could not long live together. In a moment her mouth took
+a comically benevolent quirk.
+
+"And 'among those present'--" she asked; "who was that leaving just as I
+got here?"
+
+"Mrs. Robert Van Dam, schoolmate of my cousins. But you're not writing me
+up, Cadge?"
+
+Cadge whistled.
+
+"Van Dam! How calmly the giddy child says it! Does your youngest cousin
+make mud pies with duchesses? Say, she comes pretty near being one of the
+'400.' But I'm off; a grist of copy to grind--talk of raving beauties,
+you'll be the only one that won't rave!"
+
+Of course Cadge wouldn't have talked just like that before the others, if
+she had come earlier.
+
+At bedtime Milly and Ethel ran to my room to talk things over, and my Aunt
+came to shoo them off to bed, but she stayed and talked, too; and I've no
+business to be writing at this shocking time of night, except, of course I
+couldn't sleep and so I might as well.
+
+"Everybody thinks you resemble your cousins," Aunt said; "and really there
+_is_ a family likeness."
+
+Poor Aunt! Ethel and Milly are washed out copies of me, in dress and hair,
+if that constitutes resemblance; and they imitate even my mannerisms.
+
+I should think Mr. Hynes would be too critical to admire Milly.
+
+I had a partial engagement for Monday with John; but he'll let me off, to
+go to the Opera.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+IN THE INTERESTS OF MUSIC.
+
+Tuesday morning, Jan. 14.
+
+I am writing before breakfast. They told me to lie quietly in bed this
+morning, but I'm not tired, not excited. Nothing more happened than I
+might have expected. I couldn't have supposed that in my presence people
+would be stocks and stones!
+
+But oh, it was beautiful, terrible! How can I write it? If I could only
+flash last night--every glorious minute of it--upon paper!
+
+And I might have lost it--they didn't want to let me go! There was a full
+family council beforehand. John had taken quietly enough the cancelling of
+our half engagement for the evening, but he had strong objections to my
+going to the Opera.
+
+"If you prefer that--" he said; "but do you think it wise to appear in
+such a public place with strangers?"
+
+"But why not?"
+
+I was impatient at so much discussion and discretion. My mind was made up.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't, I suppose." John drew a great sigh.
+"But I shall feel easier if--I think I'll go too."
+
+"We'll all go," cried Aunt Frank--it was so funny to have them sit there
+debating in that way the problem of Her--"we'll enjoy it of all things--
+the Judge and I, and especially Ethel."
+
+And so, when the great night came, Milly and I left the others in the
+midst of their preparations, and went off to dine with Mrs. Van Dam; we
+were to go with her afterwards to see Mascagni's "Christofero Colombo."
+
+It seems impossible now, but I was excited even about the dinner. I
+thought it the beginning of recognition--and it was!--to be seized upon by
+this splendid, masterful young General.
+
+She lives not far from us--on Sixty-seventh Street near Fifth Avenue,
+while we are on Seventy-second Street near Madison. The wall of her house
+near the ground looks like that of a fortress; there are no high steps in
+front, but Milly and I were shown into a hall, oak finished and English,
+right on the street level; and then into a room off the hall that was
+English, too--oak and red leather, with branching horns above the mantel
+and on the floor a big fur rug; and, presently, into a little brocade-
+lined elevator that took us to Mrs. Van Dam's sitting-room on the third
+floor.
+
+"You ought to see the whole house," Milly whispered, as we were slowly
+ascending.
+
+I had eyes just then for nothing but the General herself, who met us, a
+figure that abashed me, swishing a gleaming evening dress, her neck and
+hair a-glitter with jewels, more dominant and possessive and---yes, even
+more interested in me than when I had first seen her.
+
+When we went down to dinner, I did see the house; for at a word from
+Milly, partly in good nature and partly in pride, Mrs. Van Dam led the way
+through stately rooms that kept me alternating between confusion and
+delight, until she paused in a gilded salon, with stuccoed ceiling and
+softest of soft rose hangings, where I scarcely dared set foot upon the
+shining floor.
+
+Less in jest than wonder, I asked if Marie Antoinette didn't walk there o'
+nights.
+
+"It's _Diane_, isn't it, who walks here this night?" she said,
+linking her arm in mine and leading me to a tall mirror. Then she changed
+colour a little, took her arm away hastily and walked from the great
+glass. Kind and friendly as she was, she couldn't quite like to see her
+own image reflected there--beside mine!
+
+"_Diane_ and the Queen of Sheba!" exclaimed Milly, for beside our
+simple frocks the General was indeed magnificent.
+
+Her brow cleared at this, and she laughed with satisfaction. When I
+blurted out something about having once run off to a shop parlour, before
+I came to Aunt, for a peep at a full-length glass, she laughed again at
+the confession and called me "a buttercup, a perfect _Diane_."
+
+At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam--a small man who doesn't talk much; and it
+seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste
+it, or coffee.
+
+And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the
+Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under
+our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful
+hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her
+elbows with silk loops that passed over silver balls.
+
+I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until
+eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I
+needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we
+arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew
+closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had passed
+through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and
+until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the
+least conspicuous chair. Muffled as I was, I trembled at the first glance
+at the great, brilliantly lighted house, from which rose the stir of a
+gathering audience and a rustle of low voices.
+
+"Why, you're not nervous, are you?" the General asked. "I've brought you
+here early on purpose; you'll be comfortably settled before anybody
+notices."
+
+And she good-naturedly pushed me into a front place. The music was all the
+while going on, but no one seemed to pay much attention.
+
+"Who'll notice me in this big building?" I asked with a shaky little
+laugh.
+
+But just at first, as I looked out over the house, I clutched the lace
+that was still around my throat. It was warm after the chill air without,
+and my head swam. There was mystery in the swarming figures and the
+murmur. The breath of the roses that lay over the box rails, the gleaming
+of bared shoulders, the flash of jewels seemed to belong to some other
+world--a world where I was native, and from which I had too long been
+exiled. Surely in some other life I must have had my place among gaily-
+dressed ladies who smiled and nodded, bending tiara-crowned heads above
+gently waving fans. I felt kinship with them; I passionately longed to be
+noticed by them, and feared it even more intensely.
+
+Almost immediately after our arrival the curtain fell upon the first
+scene. We had missed every word of it! Mrs. Van Dam left me for a few
+minutes to myself, and as I became more composed, I put back my scarf and
+looked about a little more boldly. The house was yet far from full, but
+every moment people were coming in.
+
+The boxes at each side of us were untenanted, but at no great distance I
+saw Peggy Van Dam, seated beside a large woman--her mother, Mrs. Henry--
+and chatting busily with a stout, good-natured-looking young man. Even
+Peggy had not noticed our entrance and, quite reassured, I lifted my opera
+glass and began studying the audience.
+
+We were near the front of the house in the first tier on the left, and I
+had in view almost the whole sweep of the great gold and crimson
+horseshoe. Down in the orchestra some of the women were as gorgeous in
+satins and brocades as those in the boxes, while others wore street
+attire. Nearly all the men had donned evening dress, and I thought at
+first--but soon saw how absurd that was--that I could pick out John by his
+office suit. I could not repress a little glow of pride, as I looked down
+upon those rows and rows of heads, to think that somewhere among them, or
+above them, John was watching, rejoicing with me, fearing for me where for
+himself he would never fear. He'd lift, if he could, every stone from my
+path. Mr. Hynes, now, would carry you forward so fast that you'd never see
+the stones.
+
+I had no thought that Mr. Hynes was in the house, but, amusing myself with
+the idea, I lifted my glass--dear little pearl trinket with which the
+General had provided me--and looked for him, wondering how often a poor
+young lawyer attends the Opera. Of course I couldn't see anybody I knew,
+nor could I read my libretto, for the words danced before my eyes; and
+Mrs. Van Dam, smiling at my interest, began chattering about the people
+around us, speaking as if I would soon be as familiar with the brilliant
+world of fashion and society as herself.
+
+"I wonder," she said in her energetic way, "what it feels like to be at
+one's first opera."
+
+Excitement was flashing from my eyes and burning on my cheeks as I
+answered:--
+
+"It's--it's--oh, I can't tell you! But in the West," I added hastily, "we
+had oratorio."
+
+"What a buttercup you are!" she said again.
+
+Soon the curtain rose upon the second act--or scene. Whichever it was,
+that was all that I was fated to see or hear of the Opera. And for the
+little while I could consider it, I must say I was disappointed. The
+scenery was superb, but the voices--
+
+"You've spoiled us, Nelly," Milly whispered.
+
+"Colombo's not bad."
+
+I squeezed her hand ecstatically.
+
+I find that I don't criticise men so shrewdly; but oh, the thin, shrill
+pipe of Isabella, compared with what a woman's voice may be! Yet I admired
+her skill, and did not wonder that the house applauded.
+
+The second scene was just closing, and I was lost in dreams of the fine
+things that I shall do for art and music when I'm a great society leader,
+when the box door opened, and there entered an elderly couple, much
+alike--tall, thin, rather stately and withered. I knew that they must be
+Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam, the General's mother-in-law, and her husband.
+Impulsively I sprang up to allow them to come to the front places.
+
+And then--the catastrophe!
+
+I was conscious at first only of an instant's confusion, of a hurried
+introduction in undertones. Then I found myself again sitting, my arm
+tingling to the clutch of Milly's fingers. In her pale, pretty face her
+light eyes glowed with a fright that was not all painful.
+
+The blood seemed to flow back to my heart as I realised what I had done.
+The sudden stir in our box had called attention, and I had been standing
+in the glare of electric lights overhead and at my feet, my white dress
+outlined against the blood-red curtains.
+
+"Take this fan," Milly whispered from behind me. "Will you have my seat?"
+
+Shame dyed my face. After such a heedless act I couldn't look at the
+General. I knew that, in his surprise at my appearance, Mr. Marmaduke Van
+Dam had fumbled noisily with his chair, and that Mrs. Marmaduke had
+dropped her shoulder wrap--she was in evening dress; how can elderly women
+do it?--I knew that in spite of their rigid politeness they found it hard
+to keep their eyes from me. I hoped the General had been too busy to
+appreciate my folly, and I drew a quivering breath of relief that it had
+had no more serious consequences.
+
+Yet I was queerly dissatisfied. The Metropolitan Opera House is a big
+building, and the part of the audience to which I could have been
+conspicuous was small. Yet some people must have seen; had they taken no
+notice?
+
+For some space--minutes or seconds--it seemed so.
+
+Then a confused murmur, a shifting, restless movement, began near us in
+the orchestra. A good many people down there, as well as in the boxes at
+each side, had noticed me earlier. Now they began whispering to their
+neighbours. Heads were turned our way; people were asking, answering,
+almost pointing. I could see the knowledge of me spread from seat to seat,
+from row to row, as ripples spread from a stone thrown into still water.
+Opera glasses were levelled. Comment grew, swelled to a stir of surprise.
+The curtain had dropped for the interval between scenes; our box became
+for the moment the centre of interest, and the lights were high. Even the
+orchestra was resting.
+
+Then it was given me to see how in a great audience Panic may leap without
+cause from Opportunity.
+
+The stir grew, spread. Fascinated, I gazed down at the disturbance. I knew
+that a frightened smile still curved my lips. I felt my eyes glow,
+luminous and dilated. My heart almost stopped beating, gripped by triumph
+and horror. Afterwards I realised that I had not availed myself of the
+screen Milly offered; I hadn't lifted the fan to shield my face; I had not
+stirred to hide myself.
+
+"Bob!" whispered the General. "Quick! Don't you see?"
+
+Robert Van Dam sprang to his feet, offering, as I thought, to exchange
+places with me. Once more I started up, and chairs were moved to give me
+passage.
+
+While again I stood under the glare of the lights, and while for the
+second time the movement in the box drew attention thither, somebody below
+half rose to look at me. Two or three--a dozen--followed. As I dropped
+into my seat at the back of the box, and cast the scarf again about my
+head, twenty, thirty people were struggling out of their chairs.
+
+From my shelter I watched as, farther and farther away, the heads began to
+turn. From places where I had not been visible I heard the murmur
+swelling, the scuffle of people rising. I had disappeared from sight, the
+first to rise had dropped back into their seats as if ashamed, but others
+increased the uneasy tumult of low, tense sounds.
+
+My brain worked quickly. I understood the shuddering thrill that passed
+over the audience. It was as if all my life I had seen such vast
+assemblies, and knew the laws that rule their souls. Even before it came I
+guessed it was coming; a voice--it was a man's--crying out:--
+
+"What is it? Is it--fire?"
+
+And from away across the house came the answering call--not a question
+this time, not hesitant, but quick and sharp:--"Fire!"
+
+What should I do? Why was not John or Mr. Hynes there to tell me? Wild
+thoughts darted through my mind. Should I stand once more? Show myself?
+Should I cry: "It was I, only I! They were looking at me. There is no
+fire!"
+
+Crazy, crazy thought! For the thing was over as soon as it began.
+
+Those who had started the confusion and who understood its cause, began
+shouting:--
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!"
+
+From the topmost gallery a tremendous great voice came bellowing down:--
+
+"What--_fool_--said--that?"
+
+There was a little laugh, a hiss or two rebuked the disorder; then the
+baton signalled the orchestra, and the music recommenced, smoothly and in
+perfect time; the conductor had never turned his head. The curtain went
+up; the incident was closed.
+
+I drew a long, sighing breath of relief as one, then another, then all
+together, as if by a single impulse, the people sat down in their places.
+It had been but an instant. The painted stage, the glittering court
+ladies, Isabella on her throne, the suppliant Colombo, were as if nothing
+had happened.
+
+"First-rate orchestra," muttered Robert Van Dam.
+
+The General turned in her chair and looked at me. She did not speak, but I
+could see that she was excited; it seems to me now that her eyes were very
+bright, and that her strong, square-chinned face looked curiously
+satisfied.
+
+"Let's go," I gasped; "I want to go home."
+
+Choking with sobs, though not unhappy, I felt as if I wished to run, to
+fly; but, as I tottered out of the box, I could scarcely stand. Mr. Van
+Dam helped me, the General and Milly following. In the corridor we were
+joined by Peggy and the florid young man whom I had seen with her.
+
+"Why--why, you're not going? You are not going?" Peggy cried. She breathed
+quickly, and her teeth and eyes alike seemed to twinkle. "Can--can't Mr.
+Bellmer or I--do something?"
+
+"Nothing at all," said the General in brisk staccato, fastening my wraps
+with an air of proprietorship; "nobody's in voice to-night, do you think?
+Miss Winship doesn't care to stay."
+
+Before we reached the lobby, John came from somewhere, hurrying towards
+us. I was walking between Mr. Bellmer and Robert Van Dam, but with
+scarcely a look at them he tucked my hand under his arm, just as he would
+have done in the old days at the State University. At the door Mr. Van Dam
+looked for a cab.
+
+"I'll take her home," said John grimly.
+
+"I'll go with you; I must see her safe with Mrs. Baker," the General
+replied, understanding at once. "Mr. Bellmer, tell Mother, please, that
+Bob and I have gone with Miss Winship. Or--Bob, you won't be needed; you
+explain to Mother."
+
+The two men hurried away upon their errand, though I fancied they went
+reluctantly. Peggy had not come down.
+
+All the way home John's brows were black, and he looked straight ahead of
+him. As we passed under the glow of electric lamps, Milly smiled bravely
+at me across the carriage, respect and awe mingling with her sympathy. The
+General sat at my side erect; her eyes glittered, and she looked oddly
+pleased--not like a woman who had been at the focus of a scene, and had
+been dragged away from the Opera before it was over, but like a General
+indeed, planning great campaigns.
+
+As for me, I felt that I must laugh--cry. Did ever such a ridiculous
+thing, such a wonderful, glorious thing, such a perfectly awful thing,
+happen to any other girl that ever lived?
+
+I was living the scene again--seeing the mass of heads, the sea of
+upturned faces. Again I was gazing into the one face that had been
+distinct, the eyes that had drawn mine in all that blur and confusion,
+that had looked back at me, as if in answer to my voiceless call for help,
+with strength and good cheer. Even in the moment of my utmost terror, I
+had been sustained by that message from Ned Hynes. How did I chance to see
+him just at that crisis, when I didn't know of his presence? And why
+didn't he come to us afterwards, as John did?
+
+Mrs. Baker and Ethel saw us leave the box, and were at home with Uncle
+almost as soon as we.
+
+"Are you safe, Nelly?" Aunt cried, rushing at me; then, with the sharpness
+of tense nerves, she rebuked the Judge: "Ba-ake, you hissed her!"
+
+"Nay, my dear; in the interests of music, I frowned upon disorder." He
+added, with waving of his antennae eyebrows: "It was Helen's first opera."
+
+We all laughed hysterically, and then Mrs. Van Dam and John went away.
+
+Could--_could_ Mr. Hynes have gone to the Opera just because he had
+heard that I would be there?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+A PLAGUE OF REPORTERS.
+
+Saturday evening, Jan. 18.
+
+Since Monday I have left the house but once. The Judge has given me a
+microscope so that I may study at home instead of going to Barnard; and to
+please him I make a pretence of cutting sections from the plants in Aunt's
+conservatory; but oh, it's so dull, so dull! Or would be but for my happy
+thoughts. It isn't interest in apical cell or primary meristem that makes
+me fret to return to Prof. Darmstetter!
+
+It's all on account of reporters that I am shut up like a state secret or
+a crown jewel. From daylight until dark, men with pencils and notebooks,
+cardboard-bearing artists and people with hand cameras have watched the
+house; and it's so tiresome.
+
+The siege had already begun when Mrs. Baker came to my room the morning
+after the Opera, but I knew nothing about it. I couldn't understand why
+she scolded with such vehemence upon finding me writing in this little
+book instead of lying in bed; why she exclaimed so nervously over my
+escape and the horrors of jumping from windows, or sliding down ropes, or
+of being hurried along in fire panics until I was crushed to death.
+
+"Why, you talk as if there had _been_ a fire," I cried, kissing her.
+
+Millions of fires have flamed and roared and sunk and died again; but
+never before has there been a Me!
+
+The dear fussy little woman said that John had been telephoning inquiries.
+I could see that she wished to keep me in my room, and finally, at some
+laboured excuse for withholding the morning papers, I understood that she
+and John were hiding something; she is so transparent!
+
+"You must be calm, Nelly, dear; you mustn't excite yourself," she chirped
+anxiously.
+
+"Unless I see the papers, I shall have a fever, a high fever," I
+threatened; "I must--oh, I must see every word about last evening!"
+
+At last the _Record_ and the _Messenger_ came upstairs already
+opened to the critiques of the new opera. Mrs. Baker wished to read aloud,
+but I almost snatched the papers from her; my eyes couldn't go fast enough
+down the columns. But in neither sheet did I find more than a reference to
+a "senseless alarm" that marred the rendition of "Christofero."
+
+My cheeks flamed with annoyance. It was the reporters who were senseless;
+they had seen men adoring the wonder of this century, and had not flashed
+news of it--of me--to all the world!
+
+Aunt couldn't understand. She thought to comfort me by saying that my
+share in the disturbance would never be suspected; she unblushingly
+averred that no one had seen me; she begged me to rest, to forget my
+fright, not to be distressed by the newspapers.
+
+Distressed? Not I! Events had been too startling for me to heed the
+stupidity that whined over missing a few bars of a silly overture when
+_I_ was in sight. Indeed I had been frightened; yet why should not
+the world demand to look upon me? I thought only of hurrying to Prof.
+Darmstetter that he might share my triumph. But Aunt wouldn't hear of my
+leaving the house; scarcely of my coming down stairs. Fluttering into my
+room she would bring me some fruit, a novel; then she would trot away
+again with an air of preoccupation.
+
+I was getting out of patience at all this mystery, when, during one of her
+brief absences, Ethel tapped at my door, and a minute later Kitty Reid
+dashed at me, while in the doorway appeared Cadge, scratching with one
+hand in a black bag.
+
+"Oh, Helen, Helen," cried Kitty, laughing and half crying, "_have_
+you seen Cadge's exclusive?"
+
+"Cadge! You were there? Cadge!"
+
+"Sure," said that strange creature, her keen eyes glancing about my room;
+"you don't deserve half I've done for you--not letting me know
+beforehand--."
+
+"Or me!" Kitty broke in. "Oh, I've have given a--a tube of chrome yellow
+to see you!"
+
+"--but we've made the Row look like nineteen cents in a country where they
+don't use money. See you've got the fossils." Cadge nodded towards the
+papers I had been reading. "But the _Star's_ worth the whole--now
+where the mischief--"
+
+"Cadge! Show me!"
+
+From the black bag she drew several sheets of paper, upon each of which
+was pasted a cutting from a newspaper, with pencilled notes in the margin;
+a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, six pointed pencils, a pen-knife, a
+purse, rather lean, a photograph of two kittens.
+
+"There," she said, relieved at sight of these, "knew I couldn't have lost
+'em. Brooklyn woman left 'em $5,000 in her will. They'll stand me in a
+good little old half column. Now--where--ah, here you are!"
+
+She unfolded a _Star_ clipping and proudly spread it upon my knee.
+
+"There, Princess! That's the real thing!"
+
+I caught my breath at the staring headlines.
+
+BEAUTY OF A WOMAN THREATENS A PANIC AT THE OPERA HOUSE.
+
+PRESENCE OF MISS HELEN WINSHIP CREATES SENSATION THAT MIGHT HAVE RESULTED
+IN A PERILOUS STAMPEDE.
+
+_Alarm of Fire During the Third Scene of "Christofero Colombo"_
+
+GREAT AUDIENCE AT THE METROPOLITAN ENDANGERED BY FRENZY OVER REMARKABLY
+LOVELY GIRL.
+
+"Hot stuff, ain't it?" said Cadge, beaming with satisfaction. "I never
+like that Opera assignment--dresses and society, second fiddle to the
+music man--but I wouldn't have missed last night! Minute I saw you in the
+Van Dam box I knew there'd be the biggest circus I ever--why--why,
+Helen--"
+
+The horror of it--the pitiful vulgarity! My father, the University folks--
+all the world would know that I had been made notorious by a--that I--oh,
+the tingling joy, the rapture--that I was the loveliest of women!
+
+"Cadge! Oh, Cadge!"
+
+I threw myself into her arms.
+
+"Why, Helen, what's this? Can't stand for the headlines? Built in the
+office and I know they're rather--"
+
+"They're _quite_" interrupted Kitty. "Of course the Princess wouldn't
+expect a first page scare. But cheer up, child; there's worse to come."
+
+The girls were soothing me and fussing over me when Aunt Frank opened the
+door. At her surprised look I brushed away my tears of joy. I understood
+everything now--her uneasiness, the long telephonic conferences, my
+confinement to the house.
+
+"Aunt," I managed to say, "here is Kitty come to condole with me and
+congratulate me; and this is my friend, Miss Bryant of the _Star_.
+You remember? She was here at the tea."
+
+"A reporter!"
+
+"Oh, I had to know! Don't worry. Cadge, dear, did nobody but you see me?"
+
+"The fossils never have anything they can't clip," said Cadge in the tone
+of absorption that her work always commands. "I'm surprised myself at the
+_Echo_, though it did notice that a 'Miss Winslow' fainted in the Van
+Dam box. But haven't you had reporters here--regiments? Expected to find
+you ordering Gatlings for the siege."
+
+"We're bombarded!" said Aunt. "With--er--"
+
+"Rapid fire questions," suggested Ethel.
+
+"--but the servants have their orders. Of course," Aunt added uneasily,
+"we're glad to see any friend of Nelly's."
+
+"Oh, by the way, I'm interviewing you," Cadge announced; _Star_ wants
+to follow up its beat. You haven't talked?"
+
+"Why, no; but--do I have to be interviewed?"
+
+Just at first the idea was a shock, I must confess.
+
+"Do you _have_ to be interviewed? Wish all interviewees were as meek.
+Why, of course, Helen, you'll want to make a statement. I 'phoned the
+_Star_ photographer to meet me here, but he's failed to connect.
+However, Kitty can sketch--"
+
+"Oh, Miss Bryant!" wailed Aunt. "An interview! How frightful! Can't you
+let her off?"
+
+"Why, I don't exactly see how--though I might--" Cadge deliberated,
+studying Aunt's face rather than mine, "--might wait and see the red
+extras. I know how she feels, Mrs. Baker--they're always that way, at
+first--and I'm anxious to spare her, but--I can't let the _Star_ be
+beaten. If I were you--"
+
+She turned to me, hesitated a moment, then burst out impulsively:--
+
+"If I were you, I wouldn't say a word! Not--one--blessed--word! I'd pique
+curiosity. There! That _is_ treason! Why, I'd give my eye teeth,
+'most, for a nice signed statement. But I'll wait--that is, if you really,
+honest-Injun, prefer."
+
+"You're very kind," said Aunt Frank, with a sigh of bewildered relief.
+"We'd give anything, of course--_anything_!--to avoid--"
+
+"Mind," Cadge admonished me as she rose to go. "I'm running big risks,
+letting you off; the office relied on me. If you do talk to anybody else,
+or even see anybody, you'll let me know, quick? And if you don't want to
+give up, look out for a little fat girl with blue eyes and a baby stare;
+she'll be here sure, crying for pictures; generally gets 'em, first time,
+too. Snuffles and dabs her eyes and says: 'If I go back without any
+photograph, I'll lose my j-o-o-o-b! Wa-a-a-h! Wa-a-a-h! until you do
+anything to get rid of her. Ought to be on the stage; tears in her voice.
+I wouldn't do stunts like that, if I never--you will look out, won't you?"
+
+Aunt is so funny, not to have guessed who wrote the _Star_ article.
+But she never saw it. Her precautions had all been taken at John's
+officious suggestion over the telephone. Busybody! An interview is nothing
+so terrible. The world has a right to know about me; and I don't suppose
+Aunt had an idea how grievously Cadge was disappointed.
+
+No sooner had Cadge left us than Mr. Bellmer, pink and stammering in my
+presence, and after him the General, called to inquire for me.
+
+It was wonderful to see the change in the strong, self-confident girl's
+manner. She beamed at my appearance, and her every word was caressing and
+deferential. The night before had had a magical effect. I was no longer
+"Diane," the ingenue whom she patronized as well as admired. I was a
+powerful woman, a great lady.
+
+"Did our Princess enjoy waking this morning to find herself famous?" she
+asked, echoing Milly's word for me; and then, to Mrs. Baker's horror, she,
+too, had a tale to tell about reporters; they had been besetting her for
+information about her companion of the Opera.
+
+"But I never see people of that sort, you know," she said, with an accent
+that piqued me, though I couldn't help feeling glad that Cadge had gone.
+
+She showered me with messages from Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam and from Peggy
+and Mrs. Henry. She had a dozen plans for my entertainment, but Mrs. Baker
+opposed a flurried negative:--
+
+"We'll run no more risks like last night's; Nelly must stay at home--till
+folks get used to her."
+
+"Then I can never go anywhere; never!" I cried in despair, yet laughing.
+It's impossible sometimes not to laugh at Aunt. But Mrs. Van Dam gave me a
+look that promised many things.
+
+"You won't be left in hiding after such a début; you'll electrify
+society!" she said; and when she had gone, I wore away the day wondering
+what she meant, until I could send for the afternoon papers.
+
+I laughed until I cried when they came, and cried until I laughed. The red
+extras reviewed the occurrence at the Opera from Alpha to Omega,
+publishing "statements" from ushers who had shown us to our box; from
+people in the audience and from the cab man who drove us home. And they
+supplemented their accounts with pen and ink sketches of "Miss Helen
+Winship at the Opera," evolved from the fallible inner consciousness of
+"hurry-up artists."
+
+When Uncle came home, he found me reading an interview with him which
+contained the momentous information that he would say nothing.
+
+"We shall not again forget," he said with a deep sigh of relief, "that
+
+--the face that launched a thousand ships
+And burned the topless towers of Ilion
+
+--was Helen's. But the Metropolitan still stands. An argument not used on
+heart-hardened Pharaoh was a plague of press representatives."
+
+I'm afraid he'd had a trying day.
+
+The worst of my day was still to come.
+
+After dinner, when I happened to be alone a minute in the library, Mr.
+Hynes came in. Oddly enough I'd been thinking about him. I had determined
+that the next time he called I would for once be self-possessed; I would
+act as if I had not seen how oddly he conducts himself--now gazing at me
+as if he would travel round the earth to feast his eyes upon my beauty and
+now actually shunning Milly's cousin. I was quite resolved to begin afresh
+and treat him just as cordially as I would any other man:
+
+But the moment he appeared away flew all my wits.
+
+"I think Milly'll be here in a minute," I stammered, and then I stopped,
+tongue-tied and blushing.
+
+He came towards me, saying abruptly: "May I tell you what I thought when I
+saw you above us--" I didn't need to ask when or where. "--I thought: The
+Queen has come to her coronation."
+
+One's own stupid self is so perverse! Of course I meant to thank him for
+his silent help the night before, but I asked with a rush of nervous
+confusion:--
+
+"You--were you there?"
+
+I could have suffered torture sooner than own that I had seen him.
+
+"Were you there, Ned?" repeated Milly, blundering into the room. "Why, we
+didn't see you."
+
+Of all vexatious interruptions! Behind her came John and most of the
+family.
+
+"The servant of The Presence would fain know if The Presence is well,"
+John said, coming quickly to my side and peering down at me with a dark,
+worn look upon his face, as if he hadn't slept, and a catch in his voice
+that irritated me, in spite of his playful words. I knew well enough that
+his anxiety had been on my account, but it was so unnecessary!
+
+"The child bears up wonderfully," cried my Aunt, before I could answer;
+"but to-morrow'll tell the story; to-morrow she'll feel the strain."
+
+Then they all broke out talking at once. John drew a big chair for me to
+the fire, and there was such an ado, adjusting lights and fending me with
+screens.
+
+"You _are_ well?" John asked, obstinately planting himself between me
+and the others.
+
+"Perfectly. How absurd you are!"
+
+It was so ridiculous that I should be coddled after the triumph of my
+life, as if something awful had happened to me.
+
+I had felt annoyed all day, so far as anything can now annoy me, by John's
+too solicitous guardianship, and it vexed me anew when he began to pile up
+cautions against this and against that--to warn me against going out alone
+upon the street, and to urge care even in my intercourse with Cadge. He is
+quicker than my Aunt; he divined the source of the _Star_ article,
+and he almost forbade me to cleave to such an indiscreet friend.
+
+"Oh, last night won't happen again," I said carelessly; "and you don't
+know Cadge; she's as good as the wheat."
+
+I wasn't listening to him. I was twisting his ring impatiently on my
+finger and watching in the play of the fire a vision of the great Opera
+House, the lights, the jewels, the perfumes, the white, wondering faces.
+
+"Can't you see, Nelly," replied John, with irritation, "that this Bryant
+woman's article practically accuses you of risking lives to gratify a whim
+of vanity?"
+
+"Why, John Burke, how can you say such a thing?" exclaimed Aunt Frank,
+overhearing his words and as usual answering only the last half dozen.
+"Risking lives! Poor Nelly!"
+
+"I didn't say it," John patiently explained; "but other people--"
+
+"Nobody else will talk about Nelly's vanity. Why, she hasn't a particle.
+As for the papers, I won't have one in the house--"
+
+"Except the _Evening Post_?" suggested Aunt Marcia.
+
+"Which Cadge says isn't a newspaper," I contributed.
+
+"--so we needn't care what they say."
+
+I was ready to laugh at John's discomfiture, but the possible truth of his
+words struck me, and I cried out:
+
+"People won't really believe I did it on purpose, whatever the papers
+say--that I went there just to be looked at! Oh, that would be horrible!
+Horrible!"
+
+"Of course not," John said with curt inconsistency to bring me comfort;
+but I had a reply more sincere--a fleeting glance only, but it said: "The
+Queen can do no wrong."
+
+"Oh, I hope you are right; I hope no one thought that," I said confusedly
+in answer to the glance. And then I bent over the Caesar that Boy laid
+upon my lap, while Uncle asked:--
+
+"Well, my son, is there mutiny again in the camp of our Great and Good
+Friend, Divitiacus the Aeduan?"
+
+A few minutes later John said good-night with a ludicrous expression of
+pained, absent-minded patience. I didn't go to the door with him; I
+scarcely looked up from Boy's ablative absolutes.
+
+Oh I treated him shabbily. And yet--why did he use every effort that day
+to keep me ignorant of my own rightful affairs, only to come at me himself
+with a club, gibbering of newspapers?
+
+Why, John's absurd! He would have liked to find me--not ill, of course,
+but overcome by the Opera experience, dependent on him, ready to be
+shielded, hidden, petted, comforted. He can not see me as I am--a strong,
+splendid woman, ready to accept the responsibilities of my beauty.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+LOVE IS NOTHING!
+
+Monday, Jan. 20.
+
+Dear me! Beauty is a responsibility! Such troubles, such trials about
+nothing! It's photographs this time!
+
+Last Wednesday--the day after the papers published so much about me--a
+strange man called in Mrs. Baker's absence and begged me to let him take
+my photograph--as a service to Art. If Aunt had been at home I wouldn't
+have been permitted to see him. But the man was pleasant and gentlemanly,
+and so sincere in his admiration that he won the way to my heart. I'm
+afraid devotion is still so new to me that it's the surest road to my good
+graces. He hesitated and stammered, blinking before my shining loveliness
+as if blinded, as he offered to take the pictures for nothing, if he might
+exhibit them afterwards; and at last I went to his studio, though I said
+that his work must be for me only, and that I must pay for it.
+
+I wonder at myself for yielding, for I didn't mean to have any photographs
+until the experiment was quite finished--to mortify me in future with
+their record of imperfection; but I'm so nearly perfect now that, really,
+it's time I had something to tell me how I do look. Of course, as fast as
+I can lay hands on them, I'm destroying every likeness of the old Nelly.
+At the studio it was such a revelation--the care and intelligence the man
+displayed, the skill of the posing--that when I got home full of the
+subject and found Cadge waiting, I had to tell her all about it.
+
+"H'm!" she said after I had finished; "what sort of looking chap?"
+
+When I had described him, she sat silent at least a third of a minute,
+establishing for herself a new record. Then she said:--
+
+"Princess, I'll have to take back every word I said yesterday about
+letting you off from being interviewed. I agreed to wait, but it's up to
+you. Every rag in town'll have some kind of feature about you next Sunday,
+and you wouldn't ask me to see the _Star_ beaten? You'd better come
+right now to the _Star_ photographer, or--see last night's papers?--
+you'll wish you'd never been born. I tell you the situation's out of my
+control."
+
+"Well, come on then, before Aunt Frank gets back."
+
+So we started out again. The sun and air made me so drunken with pure joy
+of living that I didn't mind the scolding sure to follow--though it
+certainly has proved an annoyance ever since to have Aunt's fidgetty
+oversight of me redoubled, and to be shut up, as I have been, closer than
+ever, like a Princess in a fairy book, just as my splendid triumphs were
+beginning.
+
+Worst of all, almost, Mrs. Baker told the tale of my misdeeds to John.
+
+"Why, Helen," he said at once, "no photographer of standing goes about
+soliciting patronage; the man who came here wants pictures of you to
+sell."
+
+"Like the great ladies' photographs in England?" I asked flippantly,
+though I was really a little disturbed.
+
+"Just what I told her!" groaned Aunt Frank. "Bake must see the man; or--
+Mr. Burke, why can't you find out about him? Perhaps it's all right," she
+added weakly; "from her accounts he didn't flatter Nelly one bit; simply
+raved over her."
+
+"Yes, I'll run in and converse with the art lover," John grimly agreed;
+but just then in came Milly with the General, and the subject was changed.
+
+Indeed, though I don't know just how she managed it, from the moment the
+brilliant woman of the world entered the room, poor clumsy John was made
+to seem clumsier than ever, and before long, without quite knowing why, he
+went away. I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Van Dam dislikes to see us together.
+
+John was wrong and yet not wrong about the photographer; his threatened
+interposition came to nothing, for the very next morning--only yesterday,
+long ago as it seems--I was enlightened as to the cheap and silly trick
+that had been played upon me.
+
+"Thee, Cothin Nelly; pwetty, pwetty!" cried Joy, running towards me and
+holding up a huge poster picture from the Sunday _Echo_.
+
+"Isn't it--why--give it to me!" I almost snatched the sheet from her baby
+hands.
+
+My portrait! I knew it in spite of crude colour and cheap paper. It was my
+portrait, and it was labelled: "HELEN WINSHIP, MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE
+WORLD. POSED BY MISS WINSHIP ESPECIALLY FOR--"
+
+And then--the insolence of the man!--there followed the name of the
+bashful stranger whose devotion to Art had drawn him to my door! The
+fellow had practised upon my credulity to obtain my likeness for
+publication.
+
+I threw down the sheet, quivering with anger. I felt that I should never
+again dare look at a paper; but half an hour later I sent Boy out to buy
+them all, and, locked into my room, I shook all about me a snowstorm of
+bulky supplements and magazines.
+
+Having posed for Cadge, I knew, of course, that the _Star_ would
+print my picture, perhaps several of them. But at any other time I should
+have been overcome to find a "special section" of four pages filled with
+half-tone likenesses of me, cemented together by an essay on "Beauty,"
+signed by a novelist of repute, and by articles from painters, sculptors,
+dressmakers and gymnasts, all from their respective standpoints extolling
+my perfections. Cadge had written an interview headed "How It Feels to be
+Beautiful."
+
+But the _Echo!_ Besides the poster which Joy had shown me, it
+published two pages of portraits framed in medallion miniatures of
+celebrated beauties with whom it compared me, making me surpass the
+loveliest women of history and legend, from Helen of Troy to the reigning
+music hall performer. And, with a shock of surprise, I not only saw in the
+pictures the dress I had worn and the theatrical things the deferential
+artist had loaned me to pose in, but in the article appeared every word I
+had said to him; and the skill with which fact, fiction, clever conjecture
+and picturesque description had been stirred into the sweetened batter
+that Cadge calls a "first-rate delirious yellow style" was maddening.
+
+This is the beginning of the stuff:--
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A PRAIRIE BUD.
+
+So fair that, had you Beauty's picture took,
+It must like her or not like Beauty look.
+--ALEYN'S HENRY VII.
+
+A Western Wild Rose!
+
+As sweet! As perfect!
+
+By all who have seen her, Helen Winship is pronounced the most beautiful
+of women.
+
+Last Monday night, at the Opera House, a great audience paid her such
+spontaneous tribute as never before was offered human being.
+
+At the sight of a young girl, trembling and blushing, staid citizens were
+lifted to their feet by an irresistible wave of enthusiasm.
+
+Not for anything this girl has done, though Science will hear from her;
+not for her voice, though no nightingale sings so melodiously; but for a
+face more glorious than that other Helen's, "Whose beauty summoned Greece
+to arms and drew a thousand ships to Tenedos."
+
+This modern Helen is a niece of Judge Timothy Baker, at whose residence,
+No. -- East Seventy-second Street, she is staying.
+
+The Judge and his family are reticent concerning their lovely guest, of
+whom the _Echo_ presents the first authentic picture.
+
+Miss Winship cannot be described.
+
+Artists say that by their stern canons she is a perfect woman. Her beauty
+is that of flawless health and a hitherto unknown physical perfection.
+
+She is cast in Goddess mould. The loose, flowing robe of her daily wear is
+of classic grace and dignity.
+
+Tall as the Venus of Milo, she incarnates that noble figure with a
+lightness and a purity virginal and modern.
+
+She is neither blonde nor brunette; of a type essentially American, she
+has glorious eyes and for her smile a man would lose his head.
+
+It is a fact for students of heredity and environment to consider that
+Miss Winship is not a product of the cities. Jasper M. Winship, her
+father, is a bonanza farmer. Mrs. Winship was in her youth the belle of
+prairie dances, and still has remarkable beauty.
+
+Born of pioneer stock, baby Helen was reared to a life of freedom;
+learning what she knew of grandeur from the sky and of luxury from the lap
+of Mother Earth. Child of the sunshine and sweet air, she danced with the
+butterflies, as innocent as they of cramping clothing that would distort
+her body, or of city conventionalities that might warp her mind.
+
+Year by year she grew, a brown-faced cherub, strong-limbed and supple.
+Springtime after springtime her marvellous beauty budded, unnoted save by
+the passing traveller, who put aside the bright, wind-blown hair to gaze
+long into her fathomless eyes.
+
+Roystering farm-hands checked their drunken songs at the little maid's
+approach, but no wild thing feared her. Birds and squirrels came at her
+call and fed from her hand.
+
+And so it went. Chapters II and III described with brilliant inaccuracy my
+University life and made me a piquant mixture of devotee of science and
+favourite of fashion. Ah, well, it was all as accurate as Pa's name or
+Mother's beauty or her love of dancing--she thinks it's as wicked as
+playing cards.
+
+Before I had read half the papers, between dread of Father and John and
+the absurdity of it all, I was in a gale of tears and laughter. More than
+once Milly crept to the door, or I heard in the hall the uneven step of
+lame little Ethel. But I wouldn't open. I was swept by a passion of----
+
+Not grief, not anger, not concern, not fear of anything on earth; but--
+Joy!
+
+Joy in my beauty, about which a million men and women had that morning
+read for the first time! Joy in the fame of my beauty which should last
+forever! Joy in my full and rapturous life!
+
+What did I care for the spelling of a name or the bald prose about my
+college course? What concern was it of mine how my photographs had been
+obtained? Trifles; trifles all! Here were the essential facts set broadly
+forth, speeding to every part of the country--why, to every part of the
+world! Cadge or Pros. Reid now--any one who knows how such things are
+done--might note the hours as they passed, and say: "Now two millions have
+seen her beauty, have read of her; now three; now five; now ten millions."
+
+And the story would spread! In ever widening circles, men warned by
+telegraph of the new wonder would tear open the damp sheets; and pen and
+pencil and printing press would hurry to reproduce those marvellous
+lines--to-morrow in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Montreal; next day
+in Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta; and so on to Denver, Galveston and the
+Golden Gate.
+
+The picture--_mine_;--_my picture_!--would be spread on tables
+in the low cabins of pilot boats and fishing smacks; it would be nailed to
+the log walls of Klondike mining huts; soldiers in the steaming trenches
+around Manila would pass the torn sheets from hand to hand, and for a
+moment forget their sweethearts while they read of me.
+
+And the ships! The swiftest of them all would carry these pages to London,
+Paris, Vienna, there to be multiplied a thousand fold and sent out again
+in many tongues. Blue-eyed Gretchen, Giuseppina, with her bare locks and
+rainbow-barred apron, slant-eyed O Mimosa San, all in good time would
+dream over the fair face on the heralding page; women shut in the zenanas
+of the unchanging East would gossip from housetop to housetop of the
+wonderful Feringhe beauty; whipped slaves in midmost Africa would carry my
+picture in their packs into regions where white men have never trod, and
+dying whalers in the far North would look at my face and forget for a
+little while their dooming ice floes.
+
+The wealth of all the earth was at my command. Railroad train and ocean
+grayhound, stage and pony cart, spurring horseman and naked brown runner
+sweating through jungle paths under his mail bags, would bear the news of
+me East and West, until they met in the antipodes and put a girdle of my
+loveliness right round the world!
+
+Never before had I realised what a great thing a newspaper is!
+
+My heart was beating with a terrible joy. And so--prosaic detail--I threw
+the papers down in a heap on the floor, combed my hair in a great loose
+knot, put a rose at my belt, and went down to smile at my Aunt's
+anxieties. I even went with my cousins to supper with Aunt Marcia. And in
+the early evening Mr. Hynes came to walk with us home. I knew his step,
+and my heart jumped with fright. What would he, so fastidious as he was,
+think of that poster?
+
+But his look leaped to mine as he entered, and I--oh, it seemed as if
+there had never been such a night; never the snow, the delight of the cold
+and dark and the far, wise stars! I couldn't tell what joy elf possessed
+me as we walked homeward. I wanted to run like a child. Yet I couldn't
+bear to reach the house.
+
+"Why, Helen," said Ethel; "you're not wearing your veil."
+
+"Will the reporters git me ef I don't--watch--out?" I laughed. How could I
+muffle myself like a grandmother?
+
+"We'll keep away the goblins," he said; and--it's a little thing to write
+down--he walked beside me instead of Milly. We would pass through the
+shadows of the trees, and then under the glare of an electric lamp, and
+then again into blackness; and I felt in his quickened breath an instant
+response to my mood; as if newspapers had never existed, and we were
+playing at goblins.
+
+I hope he didn't think me childish.
+
+Of course John had come before we reached home, and of course he had been
+all day fuming over the papers, as if that would do any good; but I had
+drunk too deep of the intoxicating air to be disturbed by his surprised
+look when Mr. Hynes and I entered the library; can't I go without his
+guarding even to Aunt Marcia's?
+
+I like the library--bookshelves, not too high, all about it, and the glow
+of the open fire and the smiling faces. Sometimes I grow impatient of
+Aunt's fussy kindness, and of the slavish worship of limp and
+characterless Milly and Ethel; but last night I was glad to be walled
+about with cousins, barricaded from the big, curious world. I could have
+hugged Boy, who lay curled on the hearth, deep in the adventures of Mowgli
+and the Wolf Brethren. I did hug little Joy, who climbed into my lap,
+lisping, as she does every night: "Thing, Cothin Nelly."
+
+I looked shyly at Mr. Hynes, who had stooped to pat the cat that purred
+against his leg, muttering something about a "fine animal." I knew--I
+begin to understand him so well--just how he felt the charm of everything.
+
+"Thing," Joy insisted, putting up a baby hand until it touched my cheek
+and twined itself in my hair, "Thing, Cothin Nelly." And I crooned while
+breathlessly all in the room listened:--
+
+"Sweet and low, sweet and low,
+Wind of the Western sea--
+
+"He'll be a bad man, won't he, Joy," I broke off, as John came to my
+corner, "if he scolds a poor girl who has had to stand on the floor all
+day for the scholars to look at, and get no good mark on her deportment
+card?"
+
+"I am no longer a schoolmaster, Nelly," said John so icily that Aunt
+looked up at him, surprised. "Come, Joy," she said, "Cousin Nelly can't
+be troubled with a great big girl. Why, Mr. Burke, she's cried herself
+ill, fairly, over those dreadful newspapers. I do so hope they'll leave
+her in peace now. But of course we tell her it's all meant as a tribute."
+
+"Over the rolling waters go,
+Come from the dying moon and blow--
+Blow him again to me,
+While my little Joy, while my pretty Joy sleeps."
+
+"Thing more about your little Joy! More about me."
+
+The sleepy child cuddled closer and, as I continued to sing, I knew that
+at least one person in the room understood that a creature so blessed as I
+could never cry herself ill.
+
+"Father will come to his babe in the nest,
+Silver sails all out of the West--"
+
+"Milly and I have tributes, too," laughed Ethel. "The _Trumpet_ says
+we're just as charming girls as our wonderful cousin. And the
+_Record_ prints snapshots at Joy and her nursemaid. Aren't newspapers
+funny?"
+
+"Some one of us should be running for office," said Uncle Timothy. "It
+seems gratuitous to subject an unambitious private family to the treatment
+expected by a candidate or a multi-millionaire. Yet I have seldom had
+occasion to complain of the press. In its own perhaps headlong manner, it
+pursues such matters as are of greatest public importance. A household, to
+avoid its attentions, should be provided with good, plain, durable
+countenances. The difficulty with this family is its excess of
+attraction."
+
+He patted Aunt's hand affectionately, while I sang:--
+
+"--Under the silver moon
+Sleep, my little Joy, sleep, my pretty Joy, sleep--"
+
+"--but, Uncle, what shall I do?"
+
+"Nothing. In a shorter time than now seems possible, another topic will
+supersede you. Then, as one of our Presidents has aptly said, you will
+sink into 'innocuous desuetude.'"
+
+But of course I sha'n't!
+
+As I rose to carry Joy to her bed, I felt from all in the room a look that
+said I was like a great, glorious Madonna, and I bent lower over the
+sleeping child's still face; it is good to have everybody admire me.
+
+Oh, I do wish John were more reasonable. Not satisfied with seeing me
+Saturday and yesterday, he came again to-day and asked me to marry him at
+once. He's so ridiculous!
+
+"Perhaps I'm selfish to wish to mould your brilliant life to my plodding
+one," he said wistfully, as if he were reading my thoughts. "But I don't
+mean to be selfish. I love you--and--you're drifting away from me."
+
+"What a goose you are, John!" I said, laughing impatiently. "I'm just the
+same that I always was; the trouble is, I'm not a bit sentimental."
+
+John _is_ selfish. He'd hide me somewhere outside the city, he'd bury
+alive the most lovely of women. He prosed to me about a "home"; as if I
+could now endure a Darby and Joan existence!
+
+To-night his ring distracts--torments me. I pull it off and put it back
+and it galls my finger, as if it rubbed a wound. I used to go to sleep
+with it against my lips--I love the opal, gem of the beautiful women. I
+wonder if it's really unlucky.
+
+I suppose John's talk to-day annoyed me because I'm in such a restless
+mood--waiting for the barriers to fall, for the glorious life ahead of me
+to open. How could he expect me to feel as in the days when we were boy
+and girl, when we dreamed foolish dreams about each other, and were
+romantic, and young? I have changed since then, I have a thousand things
+to think about in which he doesn't sympathize; if I answered his words at
+random it was because I couldn't fix my mind upon them. I drew a long
+breath when he left me--when I escaped the tender, perplexed question of
+his eyes.
+
+It's true; I'm not a bit sentimental. I used to think I was, but now I
+feel sure that I could never love any one as John loves me.
+
+But I mustn't drift away from him. I remember so many things that tie us
+together, here in this strange, stormy city. What happy times we used to
+have! He'll understand better by and by, and be less exacting.
+
+But I can't marry; I must be free to enjoy the victories of my beauty; I
+told him at Christmas that I can't marry for a long, long time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+LOVE is ALL!
+
+Thursday, Jan. 30.
+
+I've been trying to read, but I can't. Pale heroines in books are so dull!
+
+Last night came the Van Dams' dance and my triumph--and a greater triumph
+still; for to-day I have a wonderful, beautiful chapter to add to my own
+book, to the story of the only woman whose life is worth while.
+
+I see the vista of my future, and--ah, little book, my eyes are dazzled! A
+rich woman would be a beggar, a clever woman a fool, an empress would
+leave her throne to exchange with me. Nothing, nothing is impossible to
+the most beautiful woman that ever lived, whose life is crowned by love.
+Love is all; all! In a palace without Ned I'd weep myself blind; with him
+a desert would be Eden. Love is all!
+
+That blessed dance!
+
+The General invited me ten days ago, the afternoon when--when John Burke--
+poor John!---scolded me about the photographs.
+
+"Just a 'small and early,'" she said, broaching her errand as soon as she
+had fairly driven John off the field--there was just the faintest
+suggestion of relief in her tone--"Peggy's mother's giving it--Mrs. Henry
+Van Dam."
+
+She looked at Aunt with an assurance as calm as if there were no interdict
+upon social experiments.
+
+"Impossible!" gasped Aunt, glancing despairingly in the direction in which
+her ally had disappeared. "Why, Nelly doesn't leave the house; I've
+stopped her attendance even at Barnard."
+
+"And quite right; but a private house isn't a big school, nor yet the
+Opera. Of course you say yes, don't you, Helen?"
+
+"Yes, yes! A dance! Oh, I'm going to a dance! Play for me, Milly; play for
+me!"
+
+Humming a bar of a waltz, I caught Aunt Frank in my arms, and whirled her
+about the room until she begged for mercy.
+
+"Oh, you dear people, I'm so happy!" I cried as I stopped, my cheeks
+glowing, and, falling all about me, a flood of glistening hair; while the
+General, whose creed is to wonder at nothing, gazed at me in delighted
+amazement.
+
+"You splen--did creature!" she cried.
+
+"I--I would like to go; Aunt Frank, you will let me?" I said meekly, as
+too late I realised how differently a New York girl _bien élevée_
+would have received the invitation. But, indeed, my heart jumped with
+rapture.
+
+Without John, Mrs. Baker really didn't know how to refuse me.
+
+"But--but--but--" she stammered.
+
+"Surround her with a bodyguard, if you like," said the General. "You'll
+have Judge Baker and Hynes, of course; and that--what's the name of that
+shy young man who's just gone? He looks presentable."
+
+"But--but--" protested Aunt; "Bake'd never go; and--Nelly--has--do you
+suppose Mr. Burke has evening clothes?"
+
+"Naturally," I said with nonchalance, though my quick temper was fired. I
+was as sure he hadn't as I was that Mrs. Van Dam knew his name, and that
+he would oppose the dance even more strongly than did Aunt; and I wished
+that I could go without him. But it was useless to think of this, with
+even the General suggesting a bodyguard. I resolved that he should at
+least consult a decent tailor.
+
+"Why not have detectives as guards--as if I wore a fortune in diamonds?" I
+grumbled.
+
+"Let us at least have Mr. Burke. Now, Helen, what do _you_ propose to
+wear?" concluded the General.
+
+Mrs. Van Dam took an extraordinary interest in my toilette. She even came
+to see my new evening dress fitted, and put little Mrs. Edgar into such a
+flutter that she prodded me with pins. I'll simply have to ask Father to
+increase my allowance; cheap white silk, clouded with tulle, was the best
+I could manage.
+
+"H'm--Empire; simple and graceful," pronounced Oracle. "Square neck,
+Helen, or round?"
+
+"Why--I've never worn a low dress--not really low," I said, longing but
+dubious. "Pa says--"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"A shame!" chimed Mrs. Edgar.
+
+And it would have been a shame to hide my neck and arms. I laughed when
+they cut away their interfering linings from the white column of my
+throat, and left across my shoulders only wisps of tulle. And last night,
+when I came to dress, I laughed again, and kissed the entrancing flesh, so
+firm and soft and gleaming faintly pink, and then I blushed because Aunt
+Marcia saw me do it. I worship the miracle of my own fairness. I could
+scarcely bear to put gloves on, even.
+
+Miss Baker gathered all my shining hair into the loose knot that suits me,
+and put roses at my girdle and into the misty tulle about my shoulders.
+Ethel fitted on my slippers, and brought her fan and her lace
+handkerchief, and when I had smiled for one last time at the parted
+scarlet lips and the brilliant eyes that smiled back at me from the
+mirror, and had turned reluctantly from my dressing table, I was still
+joyous at remembrance of the light, the grace, the marvel of the vision I
+had seen reflected, that had seemed fairly to float in the dancing rose
+light of its own happiness.
+
+Down in the hall the family were waiting, with John and Mr. Hynes; and, as
+I glided into sight on the stairway, Milly behind me, the Judge looked up
+at us, quoting with heavy playfulness:--
+
+"She seizes hearts, not waiting for consent,
+Like sudden death that snatches unprepared.
+
+"How many conquests will satisfy you to-night, fair Princesses? Milly,
+will two young men answer instead of one old one?" He had been exempted
+from serving on my bodyguard.
+
+"Bake! Death! How can you," sputtered Aunt. "Come, girls, the carriage is
+waiting.
+
+"Wish I could dance," whispered Ethel, reaching up to touch my flowers--a
+pathetic little figure poised on her best foot.
+
+"Oh, I wish you could! I wish you were going," I replied hastily, bending
+to kiss the little creature, the better to hide my sudden consciousness of
+my bared shoulders.
+
+All in the room were looking at me as if never before had they beheld my
+beauty. John's strained eyes seemed to plead with me for an answering
+glance of affection, and I knew that Ned--though I wasn't conscious of
+looking at him at all--was alternately white and red as I was myself. I
+felt his glance so confused and passionate and withal so impetuous that,
+as Aunt Marcia lifted my wrap and I went down to the carriage, my heart
+beat violently, and I sank back into my corner in a frightful, blissful
+maze of fear and ecstasy.
+
+But even then I didn't know what had happened to me.
+
+We had but a few blocks to go, and before I had recovered, a man in livery
+was opening the carriage door at the mouth of a canvas tunnel which seemed
+to dive under a great house that towered so far above the street as to
+look almost narrow. We passed through the tunnel, another man opened a
+door almost at the street level, and we advanced into a hall extending the
+entire width of the house, so brilliantly lighted and so spacious that I
+caught my breath at thought of our errand, seeing that the size of the
+place and its splendour so far exceeded what I had supposed.
+
+I clutched at Aunt's hand as if to stop her in front of the huge
+fireplace, where logs, crackling on tall "firedogs" of twisted iron, gave
+out a yellow blaze; but then quickly such a different terror and wonder
+and joy came again upon me that I lost consciousness of everything but
+Ned; and the masses of ferns and palms through which we were moving--the
+doll-like servants in silk stockings and knee breeches, their scarlet
+coats emblazoned with the monogram of the Van Dams--faded out of sight.
+Yet I never once glanced in his direction.
+
+We had to go to the third floor for the dressing rooms; but in spite of
+those minutes of grace, when a maid had removed my wraps--she started with
+amazement as she did so--my cheeks were still aflame.
+
+Mrs. Baker and Milly fussed with my dress, and Aunt became incoherent in
+her efforts to soothe and encourage me; for she feared the ordeal before
+us, and thought that I feared it also. And I was afraid, but not of
+meeting any person in that house, save one. I quivered at the thought that
+outside the door Ned was waiting, that we must go out to him, that I might
+even be obliged to speak to him. And yet I longed to see him again, to be
+with him--somewhere, away from them all.
+
+Perhaps at last I was beginning to understand.
+
+The General had been sent for, and I kept close to her and to Peggy, when
+they went down with our party to the parlours on the second floor. There,
+at our entrance, groups of people seemed to divide with an eager buzz that
+at any other time would have been ravishing music. Last night I didn't
+know that I heard it, though now I remember how splendidly apparelled
+women and sombre-coated men turned their heads as we passed. Of course
+word had spread that the beautiful Miss Winship was expected.
+
+It was almost in a dream that I stood before Mrs. Henry Van Dam--a short,
+heavy woman, in purple velvet, flashing with diamonds. Without a vestige
+of awkwardness or timidity I answered her effusive welcome, and the
+greetings of her grayish wisp of a husband, and of Mr. and Mrs. Marmaduke
+Van Dam--both thin and grave; her neck cords standing out under her
+diamond collar. And of little Mr. Robert Van Dam. And of Mr. Bellmer--a
+pink, young, plump thing, all white waistcoat and bald head, just as I
+remembered him at the Opera.
+
+I held a reception of my own. I did it easily. After the first moments
+Ned's presence excited me. I was always conscious of his nearness; I felt
+that whether I talked or was silent--though I was never allowed to be
+that--to whatever part of the room he went, his glowing eyes never left
+me. And there came to me a thrilling confidence that he understood. He
+knew that to me all these people were so much lace, so many blotches of
+white complexion, so many pincushions of silk or lustrous satin stuck
+through with jewels. He knew that I cared for no one of them; for nothing;
+not even for my beauty, except that--thank God!--it pleasured him.
+
+I knew that perfect beauty had come to me last night--had come because I
+loved and was loved; and because Love was not the pale shadow I had called
+by its name, but a rapture that was in my heart and in my face and in the
+faces 'round me and in the music that swelled from the great ballroom!
+
+I had no idea of time, but perhaps it wasn't long before the General
+manoeuvred me from the sitting-out rooms and across the hall to join the
+dancers. Mrs. Baker and John were with us; Ned was not, but I knew that he
+would follow.
+
+It was a big apartment that we entered, occupying the entire end of the
+second floor towards the street, perhaps thirty feet by forty and twenty
+high; for an instant I was dazzled by the gleam of white and gold, the
+rise of pilasters at door and window, the shimmer of soft, bright hangings
+and everywhere the cheat of mirrors. I breathed delight at sight of the
+lovely ceiling all luminous--no lights showed anywhere, yet the air was
+transfused by a rosy glow. The next minute I had forgotten this in the
+pulse of the music and the blur of moving figures; my favourite waltz was
+sounding, and the scene was one of fairyland.
+
+"Shall we dance?" asked John, and I came to myself in a panic. Dance with
+John--there? I hadn't thought of that. Of course I must, but--why, his
+step is abominable! It always was!
+
+"As you please," I said with the best grace I could muster, glancing
+nervously up at him. He looked well in his new evening clothes, but his
+face was set in grim lines of endurance, and I went on with guilty haste
+to forestall question or reproach:--
+
+"I hope you waltz better than you used."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't," said he dryly.
+
+And he didn't. I simply couldn't dance with him. He never thought about
+what he was doing or where he was going. I looked back despairingly at the
+General, grimacing involuntarily as I gathered my skirts from under his
+feet; and I had an odd notion that she smiled with malicious satisfaction.
+Could she have reckoned upon weaning me from him by a display of his
+awkwardness? I felt nettled at both of them.
+
+"Helen," he said abruptly, as we laboured along the crowded floor, "do you
+remember our last dance--at the Commencement ball?"
+
+The night of our betrothal! What a time to remind me of it! I had just
+seen Ned and Milly join the group we had left; and as they, too, began to
+dance, I felt a stab of pain that made me answer angrily--we were barely
+escaping collision with another couple:--
+
+"If it's only at Commencement that you care to dance--"
+
+He tightened his grip upon me almost roughly, then took me back to my Aunt
+without a word.
+
+I tried to reason myself out of my pettishness, to atone to John, poor
+fellow! But my eyes followed Ned and Milly among the graceful, flying
+figures, and my feet tapped the floor impatiently until, presently, the
+music stopped and they came to us. Then Ned's parted lips said something,
+and then--as the music recommenced, I was in his arms and, almost without
+my own knowledge or volition, was moving around the room.
+
+Moving, not dancing--floating in a rosy light, away and away from them
+all, into endless space, my hand in his, his breath on my cheek; always to
+go on, I felt; on and on, to the dim borderland between this earth and
+Heaven.
+
+Presently his eyes told me that something was happening. The dancers had
+been too busily engaged to pay much heed to my first brief adventure, but
+in the intermission of the music I had been noticed, and now I saw that
+there was an open space about us. Here and there a couple stood as they
+had risen from their seats, while others, who had begun to dance, had come
+to a pause. Slender girls in clouds of gauze and fat matrons panting in
+satins were gazing in our direction. In the doorway were gathered people
+from the parlours.
+
+"Are they looking at us? We must stop," I whispered.
+
+"Looking at you, not us. But don't stop; not yet--Helen!"
+
+"Helen!" He had called my name! My eyes must have shown with bliss and
+terror. I had an almost overmastering desire to whisper his name also, to
+answer the entreaty of his voice, the clasp of his fingers. But I forced
+myself to remember how many eyes were watching.
+
+"I--we must stop," I said.
+
+"Not yet; unless--we shall dance together again?"
+
+I scarcely heard the "yes" I breathed. I shouldn't have known what I had
+said but for the sudden light in his eyes, the firmer pressure of his arm.
+
+My feet didn't seem to touch the floor, as he gently constrained me when I
+would have ceased to dance, and kept me circling round with him until we
+came opposite my seat; then he put me into it as naturally as if I had
+been tired.
+
+Tired! Our faces told--they must have told our story. But the others were
+blind--blind! John had risen as if to meet us, but if he took note at all
+of my flushed face, he doubtless thought me frightened.
+
+It was exultation, not fright. I did not heed the following eyes, when, as
+gliding figures began to cover the floor again, John took me back to the
+parlours. I went with him submissively; I thought of nothing but the joy
+of my life, the love of my lover. I shall think of nothing else to the end
+of my days.
+
+Ned went with me, confused and impulsive and ardent as John was attentive
+and curiously formal. But I wasn't allowed to remain with either of them.
+I didn't wish to do so. I was glad that people crowded about me--men in
+black coats all alike, whose talk was as monotonous as their broad
+expanses of shirt front or their cat's eye finger rings. But I tried to
+listen and answer that I might hide from John my tumult.
+
+Before long I danced again--this time with some black coat; then with
+another and another and another; and, at last, once more with Ned.
+
+We scarcely spoke, but he did not hide from me the fervour of his look,
+nor I from him the wild joy of mine. There was no need of words when all
+was understood, but as he put his arm around me, the tinkling music
+receded until I could hardly hear it, the figures about us grew
+indistinct--and in all the world there were left only he and I.
+
+"Once there was another Helen," he said. His voice caressed my name.
+
+"There have been many; which Helen?"
+
+I so loved the word as he had spoken it that I must repeat it after him.
+
+"_The_ Helen; there was never another--until you. She was terrible as
+an army with banners; fair as the sea or the sunset. Men fought for her;
+died for her. She had hair that meshed hearts and eyes that smote.
+Sometimes I think--do you believe in soul transmigration?"
+
+My heart beat until it choked me. Some voice far in the depths of my soul
+warned me that I must check him--we must wait until I--he--Milly--
+
+"Sometimes; who does not? But Prof. Darmstetter would say that it was
+nonsense," I whispered, and waited without power to say another word.
+
+"It is true; Helen is alive again, and all men worship her."
+
+His eyes were so tenderly regardful that--I could not help it. Once more I
+raised mine and we read each other's souls. And the music seized us and
+swept us away with its rapture and its mystery.
+
+The rest of the evening comes to me like a dream, through which I floated
+in the breath of flowers and the far murmur of unheeded talk. I saw
+little, heard little, yet was faintly conscious that I was the lodestar of
+all glances and exulting in my triumph. It was marvellous!
+
+I didn't dance much. People don't at New York balls. But whether I danced
+or talked with tiresome men, my heart beat violently because he would see
+the admiration I won--he would know that I, who was Helen, a Queen to
+these others, lived only for him, was his slave.
+
+There was supper, served at an endless number of little tables; there was
+a cotillon which I danced with Mr. Bellmer. John stayed in the parlours
+with Aunt, and Ned danced with Milly, but I was not jealous.
+
+Jealous of Milly, with her thin shoulders rising out of her white dress,
+her colourless eyes and her dull hair dressed like mine with roses?
+Jealous, when his glance ever sought me; when, as often as we approached
+in a figure, if I spoke, his eyes answered; if I turned away my face, his
+grew heavy with pain?
+
+Once in the dance I gave a hand to each of them. His burned like my own;
+hers was cold.
+
+"Tired, Milly?" I asked, and indeed I meant kindly.
+
+"No," she said sulkily, turning to the next dancer.
+
+I couldn't even pity her, I was so happy.
+
+I couldn't bear to have the beautiful evening end, and yet I was glad to
+go home--to be alone.
+
+When John lifted me from the carriage, his clasp almost crushed my hand;
+poor John, how he will feel the blow! I didn't wait to say good-night to
+Aunt; I didn't look at Milly, but ran away to my room.
+
+Oh, indeed, the child doesn't love him! Milly knows no more about Love
+than I did two months ago. She's bloodless, cold; I do not wrong her. Some
+day she will learn what Love is, as I have learned, and will thank me for
+saving her from a great mistake. I hope she will!
+
+I have saved myself from the error of my life. I'm not the same woman I
+was yesterday. It makes me blush to think how I looked forward to the
+adulation of the nobodies at that dance. I care for no praise but his.
+Why, I'll go in rags, I'll work, slave--I'll hide myself from every eye
+but his, if that will make him love me better. Or I will be Empress of
+beautiful women, if that is his pleasure, and give him all an Empress's
+love.
+
+I couldn't sleep last night. I know that he could not. I know that he has
+been watching, waiting, as I have, for to-day, when he must come to me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A LITTLE BELTED EARL.
+
+Feb. 4.
+
+Five wasted days; and nothing more to tell, though some women mightn't
+think so; nothing but--another triumph!
+
+I've been to the Charity Ball. I've danced with a Lord--such a little
+fellow to be a belted Earl! I have scored over brilliant women of Society.
+
+It isn't the simple country girl of a few weeks ago whom Ned loves, but a
+wonderful woman--a Personage; and I am glad, glad, glad! Though no woman
+could be good enough for him. I'm not; I am only beautiful enough. And oh,
+so feverishly happy, except that waiting is hard, so hard. I'm so restless
+that I scarcely know myself.
+
+If I might tell him that I love him--as other Queens do! I am afraid of
+his glance when he is here, because he knows. But when he's not here, I
+imagine that he does not know, that he will never come again unless he
+learns the truth, and I say it over and over: "I love him! I love him!"
+and am glad and panic-stricken as if he had heard.
+
+I have never had any other secret, but the Bacillus, I would sooner die
+than tell that, to Ned. My love I would cry aloud, but I cannot until he
+speaks, and he cannot speak until--has Milly no pride?
+
+I thought--I thought that the very day after the dance--why, I could have
+rubbed my eyes, when I went down to a late breakfast, to find Mrs. Baker
+chirping with sleepy amiability, and Milly doling out complacent gossip to
+Ethel. The very sky had fallen for me to gather rainbow gold--and here we
+were living prose again, just as before.
+
+I had struggled with my joy through all the short night, for I had
+imagined them suffering and angry; but I do believe that on the whole
+Milly had enjoyed the dance, and liked to shine even by her reflected
+importance as the beautiful Miss Winship's cousin. She had been vexed by
+Ned's admiration for me; and yet--and yet she didn't understand. The
+stupid! Didn't see that his love is mine.
+
+There may have been a pause as I came, dazzling them like a great rosy
+light; but then my aunt stifled a yawn as she said, "Here's Nelly," and
+the chatter went on as before.
+
+But I didn't hear it. Gliding confusedly into a seat, I had opened a note
+from John. "--Called West on business; start to-day," it said; and then
+indeed I began to feel the tangle, the terrible tangle--my cousins blind,
+John gone, when I was counting the minutes until I could see him. Oh, I
+must be free! It is his right to know the truth, and--what can Ned say
+while I'm affianced? I am Milly's cousin, and he John's friend.
+
+I hurried to escape. I longed to be by myself that I might recall Ned's
+every look and word. Without reason--against reason--I felt that at any
+minute Ned might come, and waves of happiness and dread and impatience
+swept over me, and kept me smiling and singing and running anxiously to my
+glass.
+
+Ned loves my beauty; I pulled down my hair and reknotted it and pulled it
+down again, fearful--so foolish have I grown--lest I might fail to please
+him; and frowned over my dresses and rummaged bureau drawers for ribbons,
+until Milly, who had tapped at my door and entered almost without my
+notice, asked abruptly:--
+
+"Who's coming?"
+
+"No one; John--no, he's out of town."
+
+I flushed to see her regard the litter about me with calm deliberateness.
+
+"Oh, you don't have to take pains for John," she said with a short laugh.
+"But come; Meg's down stairs."
+
+The General had followed Milly up; she whisked into the room, showering me
+with congratulations on my success at the dance, she claimed me for a
+dinner, a concert--half a dozen engagements.
+
+"Oh, by the way," she said, checking her flood of gossip. "Who d'you
+suppose is to be at the Charity Ball? Lord Strathay. You'll talk with a
+real Earl, Nelly--for of course he'll ask to be introduced."
+
+"Another dance!" groaned my aunt, who had trotted panting in the General's
+wake; "I'm sure I wish I'd never said she might go; I'm as nervous as a
+witch after last evening."
+
+Poor Aunt; she looked tired. She's really becoming the great objector.
+
+Such a day as it was! I started at every footstep; my heart gave an absurd
+jump at every movement of the door hangings. Of course I knew that Ned
+couldn't--that we mustn't see each other until--but Ned is mine; it's so
+wonderful that he loves me. If I were Milly, I wouldn't remain an hour--
+not a minute!--in such a false position.
+
+Yet the next day passed just like that day, and the next and the next and
+the next; every morning a note from John, scrawled on a railway train, and
+begging for a line from me. I wrote, poor fellow; so that's settled, and
+I'm very sorry for him.
+
+I got rid of one morning by calling on Prof. Darmstetter. It was three
+weeks since I had seen him, and he was testy.
+
+"I see much in t'e newspapers about t'e beautiful Mees Veensheep, but v'y
+does she neglect our experiment?" he demanded, following me across the
+laboratory to my old table. "V'ere are my records, my opportunities for
+observation? Has t'e beautiful Mees Veensheep no regard for science?"
+
+"You've always said she hadn't, and pretended to be glad of it; I won't
+contradict," I returned. "But hurry up with your records; it doesn't need
+science or the newspapers, does it, to tell you that the beautiful Miss
+Winship cannot go about very freely?"
+
+"Ach, no," said he humbly; for he could not look upon my face and hold his
+anger. "If I haf not alreaty gifen to Mees Veensheep t'e perfect beauty
+t'at I promised, I cannot conceive greater perfection. You are satisfied
+vit' our vork--vit' me?"
+
+"Yes, I'm satisfied," I said coolly.
+
+Just as soon as I could, I left him. Oh, I ought to be grateful, more than
+ever grateful now that the Bacillus has won for me the most blessed of
+earth's gifts--the gift of love. But I'm not; I wish I might never again
+see Prof. Darmstetter; he reminds me--he makes me feel unreal. As for his
+records, the experiment is finished. We have succeeded, and I want to
+enjoy our success and forget its processes. And why not? He knows in his
+heart that we have no further need of each other.
+
+My real records now are public; the Charity Ball last night added a
+brilliant chapter.
+
+The Charity Ball! How calmly I write that! I hope it may be the last
+triumph I need to win in public without Ned; but I enjoyed it. There was
+no awkward John to spoil my dancing, no jealous Milly, no over-anxious
+Aunt. I had Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam for my chaperon--more the great lady,
+with all her thin rigidity, than Mrs. Henry; and for companion the
+General, almost as young and light-hearted as I.
+
+And I was mistress of myself, strong and self-contained. Instead of being
+confused when all eyes were bent upon me, I had a new feeling of glad
+self-command. I felt the rhythm of my flawless beauty, my pure harmonies
+of face and form, and found it natural that fine toilets should be foils
+to my cheap white dress, and that I should be the centre around which the
+great assembly revolved. I'm really getting used to myself.
+
+I danced constantly, danced myself tired, holding warm at my heart this
+one thought: that in the morning Ned would read of my triumphs and be
+proud of them, and rejoice because she about whom the whole city is
+talking thinks only of him.
+
+My partner in the march was "Hughy" Bellmer, as the General calls him; I
+begin to know him well. He's harmless, with his drawl and his round pink
+face that shines with admiration. Deliciously he patronized the ball.
+
+"Aw, Miss Winship," he said, "too large, too public. People prefer to
+dawnce in their own houses."--The ball was at the Waldorf-Astoria.--"The
+smaller a dawnce is, the greater it is, don't ye see."
+
+"But aren't any great people here?" I asked demurely. "I am just a country
+mouse, and I've really counted on seeing one or two great people, Mr.
+Bellmer--besides you, of course."
+
+"The Charity Ball is--aw, y'know, Miss Winship, an institution," he
+explained, fairly strutting in his complacency at my deference; "and as an
+institution, not as a Society event, ye understand, it is patronized by
+the most prominent ladies in the city."
+
+"How good of them!" I cried, laughing.
+
+He was so funny! But he was useful, too; he knew about everybody.
+
+Some of the women I shall remember--Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, leader of the
+smallest and most exclusive of Society's many sets--a handsome woman with
+well-arched eyebrows; and Mrs. Fredericks, of the same group; sallow, with
+great black eyes, talking with tremendous animation; and Mrs. Terry--of
+the newly rich; Mr. Bellmer's aunt; dumpy, diamonded and disagreeable-
+looking.
+
+"But where are the famous beauties?" I asked eagerly. "Won't they dance,
+even for charity, except in their own houses?"
+
+Some of them were there; tall, pale, stylish girls, or women whose
+darkened eyes and faces mealy with powder told of a bitter fight with
+time. Why, I haven't seen a woman whom I thought beautiful since--since I
+became so.
+
+"Aw, Miss Winship, really, y'know, you have no rivals," said my partner.
+
+I hadn't supposed him clever enough to guess what I was thinking.
+
+"Oh, yes I have--one," I said; "isn't there somewhere here a real live
+Lord?"
+
+But just then we joined Meg, and it was she who pointed out to me "The
+Earl of Strathay--the Twelfth Earl of Strathay," in a whisper of comical
+respect and deference.
+
+He wasn't very impressive--just a thin, pale young fellow with a bulbous
+head, big above and small below; but I was glad to do Meg a service; for
+of course she wished to meet him, and of course Lord Strathay was
+presented to the beautiful Miss Winship and her chaperons.
+
+Then I danced with him. I felt as if I were amusing a nice boy; he hardly
+came to my shoulder. I asked him if he liked America.
+
+He wasn't too much of a boy to reply:--
+
+"Like is a feeble word to voice one's impressions of the land of lovely
+women."
+
+And then he looked at me. Oh, he did admire me immensely, and I took quite
+a fancy to him in turn, though it seemed pathetic that such a poor little
+fellow--I don't believe he's twenty-one--should carry the weight of his
+title. I danced with his cousin, too, a Mr. Poultney; and wherever I went
+Strathay's eyes followed me wistfully.
+
+Meg danced with Strathay and amused me by her elation. She hadn't really
+recovered from it to-day.
+
+To-day! Blessed to-day! Lord Strathay's only an Earl; to-day there came to
+me--Ned! Oh, this has been the gladdest, most provoking day of my life,
+for I had only a moment with him.
+
+It was Mrs. Baker's "afternoon," and we had a good many callers; the fame
+of my beauty has spread. They gazed furtively at me as they talked and
+sipped their tea, and it was all very stupid until--oh, I didn't know how
+perturbed, how unhappy I'd been, until--I glanced up for a word with the
+General, who came late, and behind her I saw--Him. He came to me as if
+there were no one else in the room.
+
+Ah, I have been unhappy! I have known that he would try to keep away from
+me. Useless! Useless to fight with love! It's too strong for us. At sight
+of him joy like a fire flashed through my veins.
+
+But there were my cousins; there was Meg--she looked at him impatiently, I
+fancied, as she has sometimes looked at John. Poor John, it didn't need
+her surveillance to break his feeble hold upon my heart. And there they
+stayed. They wouldn't go. They stayed, and talked, while I shivered and
+grew hot with fear and gladness and the excitement of his presence; they
+talked--of all senseless topics--about the ball.
+
+"Why, Mr. Hynes, we've missed you," said Ethel carelessly, at sight of
+him. "Oh, Meg, tell us about last night, won't you? Helen's said nothing;
+almost nothing at all."
+
+"Oh, what is there to tell?"
+
+It made me impatient. How could I chatter nothings when Ned was by my
+side, smiling down at me so confusedly?
+
+"Most girls would find enough! You should have heard the dowagers cluck,
+Ethel!" exclaimed the General, her face losing its vexed look at the
+thought. "It was bad weather for their broods. You never saw such a
+scurrying, pin feathers sticking every which way. The proudest hour of
+Hughy Bellmer's life was when the march started, and he walked beside
+Helen--same parade as always--through that wide hall between the Astor
+gallery and the big ball room; committeemen and patronesses at the head
+and the line tailing. You may believe the plumes drooped and the war paint
+trickled. Nelly was the only girl looked at. Milly, you should have been
+there? Headache? You look pale beside Helen."
+
+"Oh, I don't hope to rival Nelly's colour; she looks like--like somebody's
+'_Femme Peinte par Elle-même_.'" said Milly with a laugh that might
+have been innocent. Since Ned's entrance she had grown white and my cheeks
+had burned, until there was reason for her jest.
+
+"Is Mr. Bellmer handsome--handsome enough to be Nelly's partner?"
+persisted Ethel, impatient for her gossip--to her it's all there is of
+gayety. "And is Lord Strathay--nice?"
+
+"Mr. Bellmer's an overgrown cherub with a monocle," I laughed. Ned shall
+not think me one of those odious, fortune-hunting girls.
+
+"Hughy's pretty good-looking, Ethie," said Meg, amiably; "and the best
+fellow in the world; but probably not of a calibre to interest a college
+girl. And Lord Strathay"--the name rolled slowly from her tongue, as if
+she were loth to let it go--"is a charming fellow. Just succeeded to the
+title. He's travelling with his cousin, the Hon. Stephen Allardyce
+Poultney. Nelly danced with him. And did she tell you that Mrs. Sloane
+Schuyler begged to have her presented? Sister to a Duchess, you know.
+We'll have Helen in London next. Nobody there to compare with her. Just
+what Strathay said, I do assure you."
+
+London! Men of title, and great ladies and the glitter of a court! Once I
+may have dreamed of power and place and the rustle of trailing robes, and
+being admired of all men and hated of all women, but now in my annoyance I
+longed to cry out: "Why can't you talk sense? Why babble of such silly
+things?"
+
+To make matters worse, Uncle came just in time to hear the General's last
+remark.
+
+"I do not think our Princess would leave us," he said, "even if--
+
+'at her feet were laid
+The sceptres of the earth exposed on heaps
+To choose where she would reign.'"
+
+It was scarcely to be borne. I knew he was thinking of John, and I caught
+myself looking down at my hand, praying that Ned might see that I no
+longer wore the opal ring.
+
+Then came Aunt Frank with a headache, looking ill enough, indeed; and I
+was glad to jump up and serve her some tea.
+
+"Milly has a headache, too," I said; and she looked from Milly's vexed,
+cold face to mine, almost peevishly replying:--
+
+"Nothing ever seems to ail you, child."
+
+After all the weary waiting, Ned and I exchanged only a word. But the word
+was a delight and a comfort.
+
+More than once the Judge has suggested for me a short absence from the
+city to win a respite from the newspapers; and this morning, when he saw
+that the _Echo_ had smuggled an East Side girl into the ballroom last
+night to tell the Bowery, in Boweryese, how the other half lives, her
+descriptions of me so incensed him that he almost insisted upon Aunt's
+packing for Bermuda at once. Ned must have heard of that.
+
+"You will not go away?" he said when he took leave of me.
+
+"You know that Uncle--"
+
+"You will not?"
+
+"No."
+
+I couldn't speak steadily. The low, passionate entreaty told me that he
+had come to receive that pledge, and I gave it.
+
+Oh, now, now, I cannot be unhappy! I know that he has tried to stay away
+from me, and why he has not succeeded. Love has been too mighty for us
+both. Love has conquered us, and I--I shall never again be unhappy!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+THE BRUISING OF THE WINGS.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE KISS THAT LIED.
+
+East Sixty-seventh Street, Feb. 25.
+
+He said he did not love me.
+
+It is not true. I saw love when he spoke, when he kissed my hands. He does
+love me, but he guards a man's honour.
+
+I have broken John's heart, given up my home, estranged my friends; I have
+given up even Ned for love of him. But I'd have gone to the ends of the
+earth in gladness, I'd have given up for him all else in life--even my
+beauty; which is dearer than life.
+
+He'll come to me yet. Milly won't forgive, won't trust. She will not try
+to understand. Her only thought will be to hurt, to punish. She'll drive
+him to me again; but oh, the shame of taking him so, given to me by her
+severity!
+
+I won't believe he doesn't love me.
+
+What have I done to be so tortured? I didn't know it was cruelty not to
+break the bond with John earlier; I didn't know I gave him only a girl's
+passing fancy.
+
+It was when I met Ned that my heart awoke.
+
+I knew that he was Milly's betrothed and I had not thought of thus
+repaying Aunt's kindness. Her kindness! Kind as a stone.
+
+But it wasn't Ned's fault. He couldn't help himself. If he could have left
+me alone! If he could only have gone away!
+
+I suppose he tried to control himself, but his eyes glowed when he looked
+on me; and I, thinking I knew what love was, because I was affianced, did
+not see--did not know what the wild joy meant that his look woke in my
+heart.
+
+To keep faith with John and Milly, should I have shunned him? But there
+was nothing to warn me; he never spoke of love; I never thought of it. If
+he had spoken earlier, I might have known what to do. It might have been
+the danger signal. Why could he not have kept away? Why did he not speak a
+word of love until it was too late--until--ah, I was so happy!
+
+But he does love me. There's truer speech than that of words, and his
+lips--that kissed me, but said he did not love--have told two stories. I
+know which to believe!
+
+And Milly knows. She is too wise to contend with Me.
+
+I shall never know what brought Ned to the house--three weeks ago, but I
+haven't dared to write of it--I shall never know what happened before I
+saw him.
+
+I ran into the library with a song bubbling to my lips--for I was thinking
+of him--and the gladness of it was in my eyes when I found him there. He
+started and turned to me a face of confusion--yes, and of worship. He
+fumbled with a book on the table, and glanced toward the door as if he
+would have left me. I saw that, but I didn't think--there was no time to
+think, but I must have felt that a crisis had come that would decide our
+lives. All the fear, all the sweet shame that I had felt before him
+vanished. My heart beat wildly for happiness, but I was calm.
+
+At last we were alone together!
+
+I waited for him to speak. Slowly he turned as my questioning eyes had
+willed. His were black with passion and grief. A look of pain contracted
+his face, and he said, jerking the words out hoarsely:--
+
+"I'm going away."
+
+The suddenness of it almost took my breath. I had expected different
+words. Indeed his eyes had shot another message; _they_ said that he
+would never leave me!
+
+Confused by lips that lied and eyes that confessed, I stammered:--
+
+"Going--not going away? Why? Why should you go?"
+
+I couldn't keep appeal out of my tone, and I could see him brace himself
+to resist. I think I knew that, if he could, he meant to sacrifice our
+love to John and Milly. I think I had seen this earlier; but I had thought
+the struggle past when he came to me and begged me not to leave the city.
+But perhaps, this time, I didn't understand him; perhaps I was simply
+confused by his distress.
+
+I thought he tried in vain to look away from me. Then he moved a step
+nearer, slowly, as if reluctant. His face was haggard.
+
+"Tell me why you are going."
+
+I scarcely knew I spoke. It was as if some will independent of my own had
+dictated the words. Yet I did not try to hide my heart's wish; it was too
+late. He was my life, and in all but words--yes, and in words even--I told
+him so. We had confessed our love. It was his right.
+
+"Listen," I said. "If anything is--is wrong, I must know it. I--I
+_must_ know it. Tell me. I must know everything. Ned, you must tell
+me."
+
+A vein stood out upon his forehead, but still he gazed silently at me.
+After a time he said hoarsely:--
+
+"I'm going because for your beauty I have thrown away the love of the
+woman I was to marry. For you I have lost her, and yet--I loved Milly. My
+God, I love her!"
+
+Once he had begun, the words came with fierce swiftness. He seemed to mean
+them to sting, to cut, to stab. It was hard not to cry out with the pain
+of hearing them. All that I understood was that he meant to wrench himself
+from me with a force that should make the breach impassable. This I felt,
+though still his eyes gave the lie to his words; his eyes that said I was
+dear as life to him.
+
+"Don't think I blame you for the inevitable," he went on. "You do not
+know, and I pray God you may never understand, how contemptible I have
+been. And don't think me a fool; I'm not crying for the moon, nor dreaming
+that a glorious creature like you--ah, you're as far above me as the stars
+above the sea--to you I have been only--"
+
+"Don't speak like that!" I cried. White-faced, I stared at him,
+tremblingly, pleadingly. There was a cloud in my brain that seemed to be
+coming down; it threatened to smother me--but I held fast to my courage.
+It was life itself for which I was fighting.
+
+"You have--you are--"
+
+The truth was at my lips, but he interrupted:--
+
+"I know you have reason to hate me, for I have done you wrong. Because of
+my folly, your place here is not what it was; and you love Burke, whom I
+have wronged, as I love Milly, whom I have estranged. I must keep away
+from you. You can see that. For the sake of all, I must keep away from
+you."
+
+The cloud was choking me, but I put forth my strength.
+
+"You have done nothing wrong; I do not--"
+
+Words failed me. I hadn't the temerity to speak John's name. And Ned--
+could he not see?--only stood there saying:--
+
+"Why I've wrecked Milly's life and mine and turned your friends against
+you, only God knows, who made men what they are; only God knows--I don't.
+Can you forgive me?"
+
+Didn't he love me? His despair was beating conviction into me. He was
+pale, his lip quivered. Why was he humbled and ashamed? I was palsied with
+doubt, and the golden moments were fleeting, were fleeting. I must act!
+But I felt as if I were dead and could not, though that strangling cloud
+still hurt me.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," I faltered at last. "Or--you must forgive
+me. Perhaps I should understand, but--oh, I'm not wise. Indeed I have not
+meant to--to--Shall I speak to Milly for you? But that would only make
+matters worse. They may take me--to Bermuda--anywhere; or--I will leave
+this house; she'll forget if I go away."
+
+At the last words my tremulous voice broke almost into a scream. Must I go
+away--go away that he may make Milly happy?
+
+"You will stay here," he said, his lips quivering more and more. "Why
+should I drive you from home? I have lost Milly. She understands no more
+than you, and I hope she never may! You need not fear that I shall trouble
+you. I shall not see you again. You are maddening--no, not that--but I am
+mad. Mad!"
+
+He turned abruptly to go, came back as hastily, caught my hand and pressed
+hot kisses on it. His burning eyes looked passionately into mine. He was
+indeed like one insane.
+
+Then with a great groan of contrition he put his hands before his face and
+rushed blindly from the room.
+
+"Ned! Ned!" I cried out, but it was too late; he didn't hear me.
+
+I don't know how I reached my chamber. I fell in a heap on the floor,
+shivering, laughing, sobbing, moaning for death.
+
+Going away! I was going away from Ned! My beauty had meshed him; I almost
+hated it. I saw his haggard face, I heard again his voice, solicitous for
+Milly's grief. I know now that pain cannot kill, or I should have died.
+
+Going away! He did not love me. He cared nothing for my hurt, only for
+Milly's. He loved that little white piece of putty that hadn't life enough
+to love any man!
+
+I heard rain against the windows and felt a sudden fierce longing to go
+out and fight the storm. Could not a strong woman compel love? No other
+woman since the world began had been so fit for love, had yearned for it
+so hungrily.
+
+Going away! Yet I felt his kisses upon my hand. Are men so different? What
+is a man, that he should love and not love?
+
+How cold the old Nelly was! Since coming to the city, I had never let John
+kiss me; yet I thought I loved him. I thought love was a brook to make
+little tinkling music, and it had become a mighty ocean sweeping over me,
+sweeping over me!
+
+But I must act at once, I thought; I must go away. I must find my aunt,
+must tell her--what? Where could I go? Not back to Kitty; she had left the
+den. Not to Miss Baker, who would share Aunt's wrath. Where could one such
+as I find refuge? A woman whom all women must hate for her loveliness?
+
+"Ned! Ned! I am alone!" I cried in my agony of soul. "You must--you
+will!--come back to me, come back to me."
+
+I bathed my eyes and hurried from the house to forget the thought, but it
+followed everywhere. The rain had not stopped, but it suited me to be
+drenched, to hold my face to the whiplash of the water snapped by the
+wind. I went to Meg Van Dam, who had long urged me to pay her a visit.
+This time I was ready to consent, for she at least was glad to have me;
+and before I left her I had agreed to go to her.
+
+It was dinner time when I reached home, glad that it was to be home to me
+no longer; the house made me shudder as a dungeon might. It was so changed
+since morning, seen now with different eyes. The dining room was so
+heavily respectable, with its fussily formal arrangements--like Uncle, for
+it's big; like Aunt, for it's crotchety.
+
+I suppose there must have been a scene with Ned. Aunt Frank was depressed,
+fitfully talkative. Milly scarcely spoke, but in the curtness with which
+she turned her sullen head when poor Ethel asked some question, I wasn't
+slow in finding a meaning.
+
+Joy begged in vain for her nightly lullaby. I couldn't respond to her
+"Thing, Cothin Nelly!" I'd never before noticed how like she is to her
+sisters. With her snubby nose and her yellow braids, she'll grow into just
+another white-faced doll as Milly.
+
+Miss Baker talked persistently about Bermuda; as if my exile had ever been
+a possibility! In all my blind whirlwind of pain, I was glad that this was
+the last night I should have to writhe under the click of her knitting
+needles, and sit opposite her large, solemn features.
+
+"A change will do you good, Frances," she purred. "By either the
+_Orinoco_ or the _Trinidad_ you'll have only a two days' voyage.
+Helen will be in her element among the coral, and Milly must come home
+with a coat of tan."
+
+Milly bent lower over her magazine; in an hour she hadn't turned a page.
+Her thin hands, like claws, that held the book, disgusted me, fascinated
+me! They were the hands that Ned had kissed, as he had mine; clasped and
+pressed, as he had--how could he!
+
+I called Aunt to me at bedtime, and told her I'd trespassed upon her
+kindness too long, and that Mrs. Van Dam was pressing.
+
+"But we can't let you go," she said, even while the wonder whether she
+might not shone through her face. "You and Meg have become friends, I
+know, but Bake and I feel responsible to your mother."
+
+Of course we understood each other, but neither cared to speak the truth.
+She had no pity, in her feeling for her own child, for the hurt I might
+conceal. And I don't want her pity!
+
+At least I shall no longer have to tear my heart out, meeting Ned in her
+house.
+
+The parting was easier than might have been expected, for we all rose to
+the occasion. Uncle had been drilled over night, and his perplexity and
+Aunt's preparations for leaving home amused me. The trip to Bermuda had
+been proposed for my sake, Aunt had only half desired it; but now she
+forgot her fears of winter storms, seasickness and shipwreck, and clutched
+at the excuse to whisk Milly out of reach of Ned Hynes and out of sight of
+me.
+
+Her tone was dulcet sweet.
+
+"We can't blame you for preferring New York, when the Van Dams are so
+lovely to you," she said complacently. "But Ethel is delicate. Bermuda'll
+do her a world of good; though of course it's not fashionable.'"
+
+"I'm sure you'll have a lovely trip," I said. "You must let me help you
+pack."
+
+She was turning the house topsy-turvy in her zeal to sail by the next
+boat, the very next day. She succeeded; and when she left the house I
+left it, too; to come here; to the General; to a house that would two
+months ago have seemed a palace such as I could never dream of living in.
+It would suit me better to be independent, to be sometimes alone, to feel
+that I shouldn't have a shrewd woman's eyes so much upon me. But for the
+present--it is my refuge!
+
+At Christmas I should have broken down and sobbed when I saw the last of
+the Bakers, instead of dropping honeyed sentences and undulating out of
+the room--like--like--. He called me once the Goddess glowing in her walk.
+I have changed this winter, mentally as well as physically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE IRONY OF LIFE.
+
+I've been feverishly gay since I came to Meg. I have walked between
+stormwinds--grief behind and grief that I must enter. I've dined and
+danced, and I've clenched my hands lest I might shriek, and I've longed to
+hide away and die.
+
+But I won't die. I'm not like other women--a silly, whining pack, their
+hearts the same fluttering page blotted with the same tears wept in Hell
+or Heaven. Love is a draught for two--or one; wretched one!--to drink. My
+life is for the world.
+
+Oh, I've been a child, caring only for the lights and the pretty things
+and the music; but I'm not blind now. I understand many things that were
+hidden from the plain girl from the West. I have lived a year in every
+day. I see as they are these people I have thought so kind. So rich I call
+them now; so smug, so socially jealous.
+
+There's Meg Van Dam, now; surely she knows why I have come to her, and she
+was Milly's friend; yet she fawns upon me. I thought her a great person,
+but now I know she's eager to rise by hanging at my skirts, and I amuse
+myself with her joy that I've rejected Ned, as she thinks; with her talk
+of Strathay, her dismay at John Burke's wooing.
+
+John's so persistent. He called to see me the very day--almost in the hour
+I came here; the hour I was pacing the dainty little room Meg assigns me,
+picturing the scene on board the Bermuda boat, wondering if Ned had gone
+to the dock on the chance of a parting word with Milly, torturing myself
+with the vision of a lovers' reconciliation.
+
+When John's card was brought, I was tempted to refuse to see him. But at
+the thought that he would know too well how to interpret reserves, I went
+down, nerved to meet him with a smile.
+
+"Why, John," I said with my most pleased expression, "back from the West
+so soon? You've heard the news, I suppose--my cousins sailed this
+morning."
+
+He had turned from the window at the rustle of my dress, and the grimness
+of his square-set jaws, warning me of a coming struggle, relaxed into a
+look of perplexity. Men have so little insight; he could not see that, as
+I sank, still smiling, into a chair, my breath came in gasps that almost
+choked me. After a moment's silence he said sharply:--
+
+"Helen, we must be married."
+
+"Married! Didn't you get my letter? John--"
+
+"Listen!" he interrupted. "I must have the right to take care of you. You
+need me."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+My tone was purposed insolence; I met his look with bravado. I hated him
+because he--because I--because he dared to know--because he offered to
+come to my relief when my aunt--Ned--perhaps he thought me deserted--
+lovelorn. His awkward figure woke in me a sudden physical repulsion.
+
+"_I_ need _you_?" I repeated with a cool laugh. "And except the
+good deed of providing me with a husband, what services do you propose
+to--"
+
+"Nelly," he said, disregarding my taunts, "I have just come from the
+_Orinoco_. When I reached the office this morning and heard that the
+party was starting, I assumed that you would be with it and hurried to the
+pier. If I'd missed the boat, I might not have learned the truth until--
+when? Why have they gone without you? What does it all mean?"
+
+I pulled a flower nonchalantly from a vase beside me, but I felt my cheeks
+burn and grow white with deadly cold and fever.
+
+"Didn't Mrs. Baker tell you," I said, "that 'Nelly dear' thought Bermuda
+unfashionable? You got my letter?"
+
+"No; you did write, then? You so far recognised the claim of your promised
+husband--"
+
+"Not now; not one minute--"
+
+In a blind frenzy of rage I held out his ring; but he knew the master word
+to my heart. I stopped short as, ignoring what I said, he hurried on.
+
+"Why wasn't Hynes at the boat?" he demanded. "Did he know what I didn't--
+that it was not the place to seek you?"
+
+He grasped my wrists, he looked into my bloodless face--caught the
+defiant, exultant look that flashed upon it at the news he gave; then he
+dropped my hands but immediately seized them again.
+
+"If he dares come near you, he shall answer! Speak!" he said. "Is it for
+his sake that you've stayed here?"
+
+"If you will let me go--"
+
+He loosed his grasp and I ostentatiously chafed my wrists. I was in a
+fury. I was driven to madness by the thought that John might force a
+quarrel upon Ned--the man I had rejected and the man that had rejected me!
+
+"I'll never marry you nor any poor man!" I cried out. "What have you to
+offer me? What can you do? Oh, yes, you can come and insult me, and talk
+to me of love--Love! The love that would make me a poor man's drudge!"
+
+Again I thrust his ring at him, the opal spitting angry blue and orange
+fires. I thought he would have struck at it. Heaven knows what mad
+instinct was at the back of his brain. I believe every man's a brute when
+the woman he loves defies him. I think his fingers tingled for the Cave
+man's club. At any rate, I shrank in terror from his eyes.
+
+But quickly the red light sank in them, and a puzzled look grew there
+instead, turning them very soft and pitiful.
+
+"Nelly, I cannot think you serious," he said. "We have always talked of
+marriage, and--is it an insult to press you for the day? Heart of me, I've
+been so much worried about you! Are you very sure that you have chosen the
+wisest part? If you are, I can only leave you to think it over, perhaps
+to--"
+
+"Don't preach!"
+
+I flung out at him a torrent of abusive words, resolved that he should
+think about me what he chose, so long as it was not the truth.
+
+He had no plea for himself; he saw that it would be useless. I stabbed him
+the more viciously as the anger died out of his face and left it only
+grave and pained. He looked older than I had ever seen him before; and on
+his temple, where he turned toward the window, gleamed a little streak of
+gray.
+
+"But, Nelly, what will you do?" he said at last.
+
+His tone was as level as if he were discussing some trivial matter. He had
+given up the fight, and, paying no heed to my unkindness, had fallen back
+upon the old habit, the instinct of looking out for me, smoothing my way
+after his own fashion that is so irritating.
+
+"You can't stay among these--these strangers, can you?" he continued. "Are
+you going home?"
+
+"To the farm? Never, I hope. Mrs. Van Dam, my chaperon, has many plans for
+me--better form than talking things over with a man. In the spring we may
+go abroad."
+
+He tried--poor, foolish fellow--to read from my face the riddle of a
+woman's heart before he answered:--
+
+"I'm afraid I don't altogether understand you, Nelly."
+
+Presently he left me, wondering, even as I wonder now: Why don't I care
+for John? He's a strong man and he loves me. Just another of Nature's
+sorry jests, isn't it?
+
+It was all so hopeless, so tangled. I leaned against the mantel, relieved
+by his going, but unutterably lonely. Just for a moment I feared the
+brilliant future that stretched in vista--without love, it looked an
+endless level of tedium and weariness. My bitterness towards John melted
+and the years we had known each other unrolled themselves before me--
+happy, innocent years. I felt his strength and gentleness, and of a sudden
+something clutched at my throat. Sob followed sob; I shook in a tearless
+convulsion.
+
+Only for an instant. Then I, too, turned to leave the room, but fate or
+instinct had brought John back and I was startled by his voice:--
+
+"Nelly, tell me!"
+
+He did not come near me. There was no gust of passion in his tone, yet I
+felt as never before the depth of his tenderness. He had not come back to
+woo, but as the old friend, ambitious of helpfulness.
+
+"Helen," he said, "how can I leave you, who need protection more than any
+other woman, so terribly alone?"
+
+I didn't fear I might be tempted, but I quavered out:--
+
+"John, go away. I've wronged you enough. I never loved you; I've no faith
+in love. I never loved you at all, and--you must have seen, lately, that I
+have changed--that I've become a very--a very mercenary woman. I can't
+afford to marry a poor man."
+
+My lips quivered, for this was the cruelest lie of all; I have changed,
+but I'm not money loving. And I couldn't deceive him. He smiled queerly,
+but he must have thought time his ally, for he only said:--
+
+"Money can buy you nothing; you might leave gewgaws to other women. But
+you are less mercenary than you think yourself; and you will always know
+that I love you; let it rest with that, for now."
+
+So he went away the second time, leaving me with my hands clenched and my
+teeth set--so fierce had been my fight to seem composed. As I sank
+breathless into a chair, and my tense fingers relaxed, out from my right
+hand rolled the little opal ring. I hadn't returned it, after all; had
+been gripping it all the time, unknowing. At sight of it, I burst into
+hysterical laughter.
+
+And that madly merry laughter is the end. I should go crazy if I yielded
+to love that I can't return, and I should despise him if he accepted. A
+husband not too impassioned, a fair bargain--beauty bartered for position,
+power, for a name in history--that is all there is left to me, now that
+love has vanished.
+
+The farm! I couldn't go back, to isolation and dull routine! I told John I
+might go abroad. Why not? I might see the great capitals, and in the
+splendour of palaces find a fitting frame for my beauty. There may be
+salve for heartache in the smile of princes. At any rate, the seas would
+flow between me and Ned Hynes.
+
+I had forgotten my ambitions. I'd have said to Ned: "Whither thou goest I
+will go;" but if what he feels for me is not love--if in his heart he
+hates me for the witchery I've put upon him--
+
+I could go abroad with a title, if I chose. If love lies not my way, there
+is Strathay.
+
+How listless I am, turning from my sorrow to write of what to most girls
+would be a delight--of that pathetic little figure, toadied and flattered,
+but keeping a good heart through it all; of his marked attentions, which I
+permit because they keep other men away; of his efforts to see me--for the
+Van Dams' position isn't what I imagined it, and we are not invited to
+many houses where I could meet him; of Meg's rejoicings over a few of the
+cards we do receive.
+
+Oh, I win her triumphs, triumphs in plenty! Because the Earl admires me,
+hasn't she once sat at the same table with Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, who
+refuses to meet intimately more than a hundred New York women; and hasn't
+she twice or thrice talked "autos" with Mrs. Fredericks; and isn't she
+envied by all the women of her own set because the Earl and his cousin
+shine refulgent from her box at the Opera?
+
+Triumphs, certainly; doesn't Mrs. Henry wrangle with Meg over my poor
+body, demanding that I sit in her box, and that I join Peggy's Badminton
+club, and bring the Earl, who would bring the youths and maidens who would
+bring the prestige that would, some day, make a Newport cottage socially
+feasible?
+
+That's her dream, Meg's is Mayfair; she thinks of nothing but how to
+invest me in London and claim her profit when I am Strathay's Countess, or
+mistress of some other little great man's hall. Oh, I understand them;
+Mrs. Henry's the worst; oily!
+
+I wonder if London is less petty than New York; if I should be out of the
+tug and scramble there. But I mustn't judge New York, viewing it through
+the Van Dams' eyes. If I did, I should see a curious pyramid.
+
+At the top, a sole and unapproachable figure, the twelfth Earl of
+Strathay, just out of school;
+
+Next a society, two-thirds of whose daughters will marry abroad, and to
+all of whose members an Earl's lack of a wife is a burning issue;
+
+Hanging by their skirts a thousand others, like the General and Mrs.
+Henry, available for big functions, pushing to get into the little ones;
+
+Hanging by these in turn, ten thousand others outside the pale, but
+flinging money right and left in charity or prodigality to catch the eyes
+of those who catch the eyes of those who nod to Earls;
+
+And after them nobody!
+
+And the problem: "How high can we climb?"
+
+Why, there are twenty thousand families in New York rich enough to be
+Elect, if wealth were all. I could almost marry Strathay to save him from
+the ugly millioned girls! How they hate me!
+
+I know what love is like, now; Strathay means to speak. If Ned would
+only--but three weeks--three long, long weeks, and he doesn't--oh, I
+won't believe that, deep in his heart he does not love me. It's not time--
+not time, yet, to think about the little Earl!
+
+At any rate I won't be flung at his head; last night I taught Meg a lesson
+she'll remember. She meant to bring him home to supper after the Opera,
+where, in spite of my first experience, we're constant now in attendance;
+but, to her surprise, then dismay, then almost abject remonstrance, I
+prepared to go out before dinner to inspect the new studio Kitty and Cadge
+have taken.
+
+"Be back in good season?" she pleaded. "How _could_ you make an
+engagement for the night when Strathay.--Not wait for you! Why Helen, you
+can't--what would Strathay think if I allowed you to arrive alone at the
+Opera?"
+
+"Then can't you and Peggy entertain him?"
+
+"Peggy?" She looked at me with blank incredulity. "You wouldn't stay away
+when Strathay--why, Helen, you didn't mean that. Drive straight to the
+Metropolitan when you leave your--those people, if you don't wish to come
+back for me. Where do they live?" she groaned despairingly.
+
+"Top of a business block in West Fourteenth Street."
+
+I thought she would have refused me the carriage for such a trip, but she
+didn't venture quite so far as that; and the hour I spent with the girls
+was a blessed breathing spell.
+
+"What a barn!" I cried, when I had climbed more stairs than I could count
+to the big loft where I found them. "Girls, how came you here?"
+
+"Behold the prodigal daughter! Shall we kill the fatted rarebit?" And
+Kitty threw herself upon me; while Cadge, waving her arms proudly at the
+Navajo rugs, stuffed heads of animals and vast canvasses of Indian braves
+and ponies that made the weird place more weird, replied to my query:--
+
+"Borrowed it of an artist who's wintering in Mexico; cheap; just as it
+stands."
+
+Then they installed me under a queer tepee, and we had one of the old time
+picked-up suppers, and for an hour my troubles were pushed into the
+background. The girls are in such frightful taste that I really should
+drop them, but they're loyal and so proud of me!
+
+"Princess," said Cadge, "time you were letting contracts for the building
+of fresh worlds to shine in. You're the most famous person in this, with
+all the women thirsting for your gore; and you've a real live Lord for a
+'follower.'"
+
+"That's nothing."
+
+Cadge thinks me still betrothed to John, so she affected to misunderstand.
+
+"Nearly nothing, for a fact," she said; "it isn't ornamental, but we
+seldom see specimens and mustn't judge hastily. And it is a Lord.--See the
+hand-out he gave me for last Sunday--full-page interview: 'Earl of
+Strathay Discusses American Society?'
+
+"Some English won't stand for anything but a regular pie-faced story, but
+Strathay's a real good little man."
+
+"You said he had sixty-nine pairs of shoes," said Kitty reminiscently.
+
+"No; twenty-nine."
+
+"What's His Lordlets doing in New York?" inquired Pros., who was there as
+usual, a queer and quiet wooer.
+
+"Tinting the town a chaste and delicate pink, assisted and chaperoned by
+his cousin, the Hon. Stephen Allardyce Poultney. Ugh! Glad the _Star_
+doesn't want an interview with _His_ Geniality; don't like S.A.P.
+Esq.," said Cadge energetically. "But, Helen, now you've got people where
+you want 'em, you play your own hand. You don't want any Van Dam for a
+bear leader. That crowd's been working every fetch there is to get in with
+the top notchers, and they just couldn't. Knowing you is worth more to
+them than endowing a hospital. You're a social bonanza."
+
+Perhaps I shouldn't have let her talk so about Meg, but, after all, she
+told me nothing new.
+
+"Did I send you a marked paper with the paragraph I wrote about the
+important 'ological experiments you couldn't leave, even for the 'land of
+the lily and the rose?'" she proceeded. "Don't wonder you didn't want to
+go to Bermuda, everything coming so fast your way. I crammed your science
+into the story because it's good advertising. Don't really study at
+Barnard now, do you? I wouldn't; would you, Kitty?"
+
+Her white, mobile face gleaming with animation, Cadge declaimed upon one
+of her thousand hobbies:--
+
+"What's women's science good for but dribbling essays to women's clubs? If
+some 'Chairwoman of Progress' were to grab off the Princess, does it take
+science to give 'em 'Fresh Evidence that Woman was Evolved from a Higher
+Order of Quadrumanous Ape than Man?' We all know what the clubs want, and
+if they get it, they'd vote any one of us as bright a light as Haeckel.--
+Pros., you saved any clippings for the Princess?"
+
+Pros. gave me a quantity of articles about my beauty cut from out-of-town
+and foreign papers. I believe I'll subscribe to a clippings bureau. I
+hadn't thought of that.
+
+I stayed and stayed; it was so pleasant in the eyrie; but when at last I
+rose to go, Kitty sighed:--
+
+"Why, you've only been here a minute, and in that gorgeous dress, you're
+like a real Princess, not my chum. I shall suggest a court circular--'The
+Princess Helen drove out yesterday attended by Gen. Van Dam.'--'Her Serene
+Highness, Princess Helen, honoured the Misses Reid and Bryant last evening
+at a soiree.'--leaded brevier every morning on the editorial page. Oh,
+Nelly, can't I have your left-off looks? A homely girl starves on bread
+and water, while a pretty one wallows in jam."
+
+"Princess must be wallowing in wealth," said Cadge, inspecting my evening
+dress; "suspect she didn't dress for us; it's Opera night. Stockholders
+share receipts with you? Beauty show in that first tier box must sell
+tickets."
+
+"Wish they would divide; I'm as poor as a church mouse," I said, laughing.
+
+I didn't go to the Opera, though the girls had cheered me up until I
+hurried home prepared to do Meg's bidding; but she had gone--angry, I
+suppose--and I didn't follow.
+
+I gained nothing; the Opera gives me my best chance to see and be seen. I
+might as well have had my hour of triumph, the men in the box, the jealous
+glances of the women. I might as well have scanned with feverish
+expectation the big audience that turns to me more eagerly than to the
+singers, searching--oh, I'm mad to think that Ned might come there again
+to look upon me.
+
+I didn't even escape the Earl. Meg and her husband came home early,
+bringing him and Poultney; we had the supper, and, for my sins, I made
+myself so agreeable that Meg forgave me, almost.
+
+It was easy; I just let the poor boy talk to me about his mother and
+sisters, and watched his face light up as he spoke of them in a simple,
+hearty way that American boys don't often command. He is really very nice.
+One of his sisters is a beauty.
+
+"But not like you," he said.
+
+He's as boyishly honest as if he were sixteen; and as modest. To be
+Countess of Strathay would be a--
+
+Of course Mrs. Henry and Peggy were here, smiling on Mr. Poultney,
+Strathay's cousin. Oh, I'm useful! I believe Mrs. Marmaduke is the only
+Van Dam who's kind to me without a motive; they're not Knickerbockers at
+all, as I supposed.
+
+Cadge is right; I gain nothing socially by remaining with Meg; and her
+guesses come too close to my heart's sorrow. She watches and worries,
+forever concerned lest some "folly" on my part interfere with her
+ambitions. Why, I'm frantic at times with imagining that even the maid she
+lends me--an English "person"--reports upon my every change of mood.
+
+Oh, I ought to be independent, independent in all ways. With a little
+money I could manage it.
+
+There's a Mrs. Whitney, a widowed aunt of Meg's husband, who lives alone
+in an apartment where a paying guest, if that guest were I, might be
+received. Meg would raise an outcry, of course, but I can't keep on
+visiting her indefinitely; and I should still be partly in her hands.
+
+But I have no money. My allowance is the merest nothing, spent before it
+comes. Why, I owe Meg's dressmaker, for the dress Cadge admired and for
+others--Mrs. Edgar was cheaper; I must go back to her. And in the
+Nicaragua, where Mrs. Whitney lives, the cost of--but it wouldn't be for
+long.
+
+If Ned doesn't--
+
+I won't think about Strathay. I must wait. It's my fault that I haven't
+plenty of money. I've been so unhappy that I haven't explained to Father
+how my needs have increased, how my way of life has changed. But I'll
+write to-night; he refuses me nothing. He must send me a good sum at once;
+as much as he can raise.
+
+Mrs. Whitney's a harmless tabby--a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling
+to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the
+Nicaragua. I'll go at once.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE SUDDENNESS OF DEATH.
+
+The Nicaragua, March 29.
+
+How could I have known that he would die?
+
+I had never seen any one die. It was as if life were a precious wine
+rushing from an overturned glass that I could not put right again. I did
+not dream a man could be so fragile.
+
+For weeks I have not added a word to this record. But now I have looked
+upon death, and I must write. There is no one to confide in but this
+little book, stained by so many tears, confident of so many sorrows, so
+many disappointments.
+
+Prof. Darmstetter is dead.
+
+Dead, but not by my fault. I was not the thousandth part to blame. Yet I
+tremble like a leaf to think of it. I shall get no sleep to-night and to-
+morrow look like a fright to pay for it--no! I can never do that now,
+thank God! Thank God for that!
+
+Yes, I'm glad; when I try to be calm, I am glad he's dead--no, not that--
+sorry he's dead, of course, but glad that my rights are safe--when I am
+calm.
+
+But I can't be calm; it was too horrible!
+
+It happened yesterday in the laboratory; we were alone together. I have
+seldom been to the laboratory of late, but I had begun to suspect that the
+Professor was planning treachery, preparing to try the Bacillus upon other
+women. He had been so impatient because I had not gone often enough, that
+he might make his records, his comparisons, his tests--I don't know what
+flummery. All at once he ceased his importunities; some instinct taught me
+that he was about to seek a more tractable subject. I was resolved that if
+he did contemplate such injustice, I should put a stop to it. And I went
+to watch him.
+
+Was that wrong? Why, he had promised me that I should have pioneer's
+rights in the realm of beauty. Sole possession was to be my reward? I had
+the right to hold him to his promise. But I didn't think--
+
+Yesterday I spoke to Prof. Darmstetter. That was how it came about. He had
+looked disconcerted at my appearance in the laboratory, and my suspicions
+had suddenly grown to certainty. I said to him:--
+
+"I wish to see you alone."
+
+A guilty look came to his face. I was watching him as he had watched me
+before the great change, and when he started at my words I knew he was
+thinking of playing me false; his conscience must have warned him that I
+had read his thoughts. But he knew that my strength was greater than his
+and he bowed assent.
+
+When the other girls had gone--some of them with frightened looks at me,
+as if mine were the devil's beauty they tell about--and when Prof.
+Darmstetter was ready to begin his own work, I faced him with a
+challenge:--
+
+"Prof. Darmstetter, you are about to break your word."
+
+"You are mistaken," he said; but he could not face my look.
+
+"I am not mistaken; you are planning to try the Bacillus upon other women,
+and you promised that I should be first."
+
+"And so you are! I dit not promise t'at you should be t'e only beautiful
+voman all your life, or ten years, or von year. You haf t'e honour of
+being first. It is all, and it is enough. You shall be famous by t'at. I
+am an old man and must sometime brint my discofery for t'e goot of t'e
+vorld; but first I must make experiments; I must try the Bacillus vit' a
+blonde voman, vit' a brunette voman, vit' a negro voman--it vill be fine
+to share t'e secrets of Gott and see v'at He meant to make of t'e negro."
+
+If his enthusiasm had not run counter to my rights, I might have admired
+it.
+
+"I must try it vit' a cripple," he went on, "vit' an idiot, vit' a deaf
+and dumb voman. I must set it difficult tasks, learn its limitations. T'en
+I must publish."
+
+"You shall do nothing of the kind. You are not a very old man and I am
+young. I have your secret safe, and it shall not be lost to the world even
+if you die. I shall see that your name is coupled with the Bacillus as
+that of its discoverer. Do you think I care to rob you of your honours? I
+value them little, compared with the beauty you have given me. Think what
+you promised me! That I should be first! And I have had the perfect beauty
+only a few days and already you are planning to make it cheap and common.
+This injustice I will oppose with all my might, but I will be fair with
+you."
+
+"Fair vit' me!" he shouted. "Vat do you mean? T'at I shall die unknown,
+vit' t'e greatest discofery of all time in my hands? You call t'at fair?
+It is not fair to me, because I haf hungered for fame as you for beauty.
+But t'at is not'ing; t'at is for me only, and I am not'ing. It is not fair
+to t'e vorld to vit'hold t'is precious gift one hour longer t'an is
+necessary to experiment, to try, to make sure. To keep t'is possession all
+to yourself vould you deny it to millions of your sisters?"
+
+"Yes, I would; and so would they, in my place," I cried. "I care as much
+for my beauty as you for your fame. And I hold you to your promise. I was
+to be first, and I shall be first. I haven't yet begun to live. You have
+barely finished your experiments, and now you're planning my ruin. I will
+not be balked."
+
+"I vill not be balked by such selfishness," screamed Prof. Darmstetter,
+his parchment face livid with rage; "_I_ vill be master of my own
+vork."
+
+My beauty! My hold on life and power and success and love! My only hope of
+Ned, if he loves me--and God knows whether he does or no! See such beauty
+multiplied by the thousand, the million? Never!
+
+I forced myself to be calm. My anger left me in a moment. I knew how
+useless it was, and I remembered that he himself had armed me for my
+protection. I smiled and held out both my hands to him, and I could see
+him falter as he looked.
+
+"Look at me!" I said. My voice was a marvel even to myself, so rich and
+full and musical! "Look at me! Of what use was it to make me beautiful if
+you are now to make me unhappy? Ah, I beg of you, I implore you, don't be
+just, but be kind! Let me have my own way and see--oh, see how I shall
+thank you!"
+
+His face changed as I moved toward him with a coaxing smile, and dropped
+my hands on his shoulders. The tempest of his wrath subsided as suddenly
+as it had risen, and he stood short-sightedly, his head thrust forward,
+peering into my eyes, helpless, panting, disarmed.
+
+"You will not--ah, you will not!" I whispered.
+
+"Ach, Du!" he murmured. "Du bist mein Frankenstein! Ich kann nicht--ich--
+ich habe alles verloren, verloren! Ehre, Ruhm, Pflicht, Redlichkeit, den
+guten Namen! Verloren! Verloren!"
+
+A touch of colour that I had never seen there before grew slowly in his
+cheeks. It was the danger signal; but I did not know; indeed I did not
+know!
+
+"Come," I said, shaking him lightly, playfully; "promise me that you will
+not do it for a year."
+
+"Delilah!" he whispered from behind set lips, his breath coming quicker, a
+hoarse rattling in his throat.
+
+Then he snatched my hand and began pressing kisses upon it--greedily, like
+a man abandoning himself to a sudden impulse.
+
+But the next moment, before I could move, he threw back his head and
+tottered to a chair, where he sat for an instant, breathing heavily. Just
+as I sprang toward him his frame stiffened and straightened and he slipped
+from the chair and fell heavily to the floor, where he lay limp,
+unbreathing, sprawled upon the bare boards in all the pitiful ugliness of
+death.
+
+I was terribly frightened.
+
+For a moment wild thoughts raced through my brain--foolish impulses of
+flight lest I be found with the body and somehow be held responsible.
+Then, with scorn for my folly, I ran out into the hall, crying for help.
+
+The janitor rushed in, and seeing what had happened, went for the nearest
+physician, who came at once and knelt by the fallen man's side. But before
+he closed the staring eyes, rose from his examination of the prostrate
+figure and slowly shook his head, we both knew that Prof. Darmstetter was
+dead.
+
+"His heart--." he began, turning for the first time toward me, whom as yet
+he had not noticed; and then he started back and stood open-mouthed,
+transfixed, staring at me--at my beauty.
+
+In that sweet instant, call it wicked or not, I was glad that Darmstetter
+was dead! I could not help it. So long as he lived, I was not safe.
+
+I did not blame him for planning to experiment with others, any more than
+I would have blamed a cat that scratches or a snake that stings. I will be
+just. His love of learning overbore his honour. He could not have kept
+faith. I should never have been safe with him in the same world. Yet am I
+sorry for him. I owe him much.
+
+In the Doctor's wondering gaze at me over the body of my beauty's creator
+I felt anew the sense of power that has inspired me by night and day since
+my great awakening.
+
+I have had bitter experiences of late; this has been the worst, yet in a
+way the most fortunate. By no fault of mine I am relieved of the danger of
+seeing beauty like--like this too common.
+
+And I will be fair to the dead man, though he was not fair to me: if there
+is a God above, by Him I swear that I will write out the secret of the
+Bacillus this day, so that it shall not be lost if I too die suddenly, as
+he--
+
+I will devise it to humanity, and John Burke shall execute the will. Poor
+fellow! Poor John!
+
+I can't see that I was wrong. I did not know, Prof. Darmstetter himself
+probably did not know, that he was liable to such an attack. Even if I had
+known--I had the right to defend myself, hadn't I? It was not like the
+Nelly Winship I once knew to use such weapons against him; but that Nelly
+is as dead as he, and this glorious vision of white and rosy tint and
+undulant form shall be rival-less for years; marvel of every land, the
+theme of every tongue.
+
+I sit alone in this huge palace in which I have come to live--feeling that
+at last I have a home of my own, where no one can overlook my thoughts--I
+sit alone and think of the future; and it is rosy bright, if only I could
+forget--if only I could forget!
+
+In all the world I am the sole guardian of the Secret. I shall be the most
+beautiful woman for years and years and years; blessed with such beauty
+that men shall know the tale of it is a lie, until they, too, come from
+far countries to look upon it; and they shall go home and be known as
+liars in their turn, and always dream of me. When I am old and gray, I
+will tell the world how Darmstetter died, on the eve of publishing his
+discovery. Perhaps I shall cling to it until I, too--
+
+Ah, I can see that ghastly Thing, the dead, hideous eyes staring up at me!
+Shall I be like that some day? As ugly as that!
+
+It was not my fault, dead, staring eyes; not my fault!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+SOME REMARKS ABOUT CATS.
+
+The Nicaragua, April 27.
+
+I've been sitting for my portrait to Van Nostrand. It is an offering to
+the shades of Prof. Darmstetter. I must preserve some attempted record of
+my beauty for his sake; though the Bacillus couldn't have made, if he had
+lived, another woman as beautiful as I. It isn't conceivable.
+
+I believe I'm a little tired with that, and with rearranging Mrs.
+Whitney's flat, and a little worried, too, about bills, the money from
+Father comes so slowly. Not that I need mind owing a trifle at the shops;
+half the women run accounts; but it's embarrassing not to have ready
+money. Why, I have to buy things to ward off gifts; Meg simply won't see
+me go without.
+
+Perhaps I'm depressed too, because to-day has been a succession of petty
+squabbles, and I hate squabbling.
+
+This morning came Aunt Frank. I knew she had returned from Bermuda, so I
+wasn't surprised to see her dumpy figure appear in Mrs. Whitney's parlour,
+followed by Uncle Timothy's broad back and towering head. I did with zest
+the honours of the apartment. It was sweet revenge to see Mrs. Baker's
+nervous discomfort at meeting me, and to watch her stealing furtive
+glances at my beautiful home.
+
+"Well, Nelly, dear," she said, "you look very cosey, but we expected that,
+after your visit to Mrs. Van Dam, you would go to Marcia until our
+return."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't think of troubling either of you," I said sweetly; "I have
+friends to whom it is a real pleasure to advise me."
+
+That shot told.
+
+"You don't know what anxiety you've caused, leaving us for--for strangers,
+that way," she retorted, bridling; "but since you _would_ go, I'm
+glad everything's turned out so--been having your portrait painted? Why,
+it's a--it _is_ a Van Nostrand!"--She had spied the painting.--"It's
+like you, rather; but--doesn't he charge a fortune?"
+
+Then she rattled on, about the rooms, about Bermuda lilies and donkey
+carts, trying now and again to pry into my plans and urging me, not too
+warmly, to return to her, until she had reached the limits of a call of
+courtesy. I think it was with real relief that she rose as she received my
+final refusal. Uncle, who had sat silent in kind, or blind, perplexity,
+was unfeignedly glad to go.
+
+"Run in often, won't you?" she said, at parting. "I hear--but perhaps I
+shouldn't speak of that. Is--is Lord Strathay like his pictures?"
+
+Fussy! She'd gladly wash her hands of me, yet thinks she has a duty. But I
+was glad, for once, to see her. It's not for nothing that I have run
+society's gauntlet; I can aim confetti with the best of them; innocent-
+looking but they hurt.
+
+Scarcely had they gone when in rushed the General and my prim duenna, Mrs.
+Whitney; they'd been waiting until the coast was clear. It was with
+something like a scream that the two flew at me, crying in one voice:--
+
+"Have you _really_ refused to be one of Peggy's bridesmaids? Why
+didn't you consult _me_?"
+
+Peggy despairs of Mr. Poultney; she's going to marry some person in
+Standard Oil, and her wedding will be a function.
+
+"Yes," I said, ignoring the latter question.
+
+"But why--_why_--" Mrs. Whitney squeaked and panted, and her breath
+failed.
+
+"Because--was it because Ann Fredericks was asked too?" Meg demanded.
+
+"Yes, if you must know."
+
+"But what has Ann done?" said Meg. She planted herself in front of me, her
+hard, handsome eyes blazing with impatience. "She's as homely as the
+Sunset Cox statue and as uncivil to you as she dares; but she's only a
+cousin of _the_ Frederickses, you mustn't mind her. What has Ann
+done, Helen?"
+
+"She weighs two hundred and they call her 'Baby'! She's a fat slug on a
+currant bush! I won't talk about her."
+
+I dashed into my room but Meg's staccato reached me even there.
+
+"Just like Helen! Imagine Mrs. Henry's state of mind."
+
+"And Ann's," said Mrs. Whitney.
+
+"Oh, Ann's in mortal terror. But how can Helen expect pasty girls like Ann
+Fredericks--out last fall and already touching up--to forgive her beauty?
+Trouble is, every girl who comes near Helen knows she makes her look like
+a caricature."
+
+Meg paced the floor a minute, then slapped herself into a chair.
+
+"Oh, I've seen the women scowl at her," said Mrs. Whitney.
+
+"Scowl?" said Meg. "Why, I've seen a woman actually put out her foot for
+Helen to trip over. Old women are the worst, I do believe; some of the
+young ones admire her. What do you think old Mrs. Terry said--Hughy
+Bellmer's aunt--at the last of her frightful luncheon concerts, where you
+eat two hours in a jungle of palms and orchids, and groan to music two
+hours more in indigestion. 'A lovely girl, my dear Mrs. Van Dam,' she
+said; 'a privilege to know her. Pity that so many of our best people fight
+shy of a protégée of the newspapers.' _That_ from Mrs. Terry, with
+her hair and her hats--"
+
+"And her divorce record," added Mrs. Whitney.
+
+"She fears for her nephew; as if Helen would look at him! But the
+newspapers _have_ hurt Helen. I wish she'd announce her engagement;
+she has the cards in her hands, but she's got to play 'em; and poor
+Strathay's so devoted!--Why didn't you shade the lights Tuesday at your
+dinner? In that glare we were all worse frights beside her than usual."
+
+"I hate murky rooms!" I cried, breaking out upon them, for I couldn't
+stand it any longer. "It's your 'rose of yesterday' who insists on
+twilight and shaded candles. I enjoy electricity!"
+
+Meg gazed at me in despair.
+
+"Helen, are you really bent on making enemies?" she asked. "What
+_did_ Ann Fredericks do?"
+
+I couldn't have answered; it would have been no answer to say that she
+angers me with a supercilious stare; but the trouble of replying was
+spared me, for Mrs. Henry appeared that minute in the doorway, greeting me
+in her nervous puffy voice:--
+
+"How _well_ you look!" she said. "_Such_ a treat to get a peep
+at you! Peggy really must try your dressmaker--but she's _so_
+disappointed! You _must_ let me beg of you--_just_ like an own
+daughter and Peggy couldn't think more of a sister! You _will_
+reconsider--"
+
+Something in the way she thrust forward her head reminded me of how her
+tiara slipped and hitched about, on the night of her dance, and how Ned
+and I giggled when it had to be repinned.
+
+"I'm afraid Peggy should have consulted me earlier," I said with a spite
+born of the recollection.
+
+It would have been more than mortal not to take offense at that. Mrs.
+Henry's face grew red, and after a few perfunctory words she and Meg left,
+and Mrs. Whitney went out with them.
+
+As Mrs. Henry backed into the hall, she almost collided with Kitty, who
+had just come up.
+
+"Talking wedding?" that tease asked, following me back into the parlour
+and pirouetting before a mirror. "Chastening experience for once in a way
+to see mysel' as ithers see me. Big wedding, won't it be? Florist told
+Cadge he was forcing a churchful of peach and apple blossoms. You're a
+bridesmaid, ain't you? That _was_ Mrs. Henry? Know I've seen her
+here. Looks apoplectic; and there's too much musk in her violet."
+
+"That was Mrs. Henry, but I'm not on Peggy's list. How are the beastesses'
+noses and toeses?"
+
+"Ambulance rung for." Kitty darted to another looking glass. "Regular hall
+of mirrors, ain't it? Helen, why are photo-engravers--but say, I've seen a
+list of bridesmaids; Ann Fredericks was one, cousin of _the_
+Frederickses; great for Helen, we all said--Pros. and Cadge and--"
+
+"Has the list been printed?"
+
+Kitty looked puzzled.
+
+"What are you cross about?" she said finally. "I don't wonder you get
+tired of such doings, tugging a ton of bouquet down a church aisle, organ
+grinding Lohengrin. If ever I marry, I sha'n't ask you to stand up with
+me; I propose to be the central figure at my own wedding; Cadge can do as
+she chooses."
+
+"Why, Kitty! Cadge and--why, Pros., of course."
+
+"In June. Came to tell you."
+
+For a moment Kitty's eyes danced, then the mist followed the sunlight, and
+the poor little creature buried her head in my lap, sobbing.
+
+"Oh, what'll I do," she cried, "when Cadge takes away my brother and my
+brother takes away Cadge, and you--they say you're going off with that
+Englisher to be a Countess--not that I ever see anything of you now."
+
+"Oh, hush, child; don't you know you're talking nonsense?"
+
+Kitty took me at my word.
+
+"Earl's lady is a Countess, ain't she?" she asked, her voice still shaky.
+Then she sat suddenly upright and put back her red curls from her brow,
+winking vigourously. "Oh, if you do live in a castle, put in bathtubs and
+gas; and if you go to court, please, Princess, hide a kodak under your
+bouquet for me and--"
+
+Crying and laughing by turns and tossing back her flaming locks, she
+started for the door.
+
+"Helen," she said, turning as she reached it, "I have such bad symptoms!
+Am I really the only girl that's jealous of you?"
+
+"The only one that isn't jealous, you--you dear!" I exclaimed; and I
+believe it's almost true!
+
+Kitty paused in the hall, playing with the roses in a bowl upon the table.
+
+"We hear something of how the dowagers adore you. But let 'em wag their
+double chins; you'll scat the old cats from their cushions!" she said.
+
+At the impetuous outflinging of her hands, the floor was strewn with pink
+petals.
+
+"Cats?" repeated Mrs. Whitney, who just then made her appearance, "are
+they a hobby with Miss Reid?"
+
+"I'd drown 'em," cried Kitty, vanishing, "nine times!"
+
+Oh, I'm weary of these bickerings; so womanish! Every creature whose rival
+I could possibly become is my enemy. I don't blame them. What chance have
+they while I am present? Women who agree about nothing else make common
+cause against one who surpasses them. They are like prairie wolves that
+run in packs to pull down the buffalo, and I shall pity them as I would
+pity wolves. They shall find that I have a long memory.
+
+I have decided. I shall marry Strathay.
+
+February--March--April--three long, long months, and still Ned doesn't
+come, does not write. Yes, it's time to act; thank God, I've still some
+pride!
+
+While Darmstetter lived, I couldn't have left New York; but now, now that
+I am safe, why should I stay here, flatting with a shrew, provoking the
+Van Dams, to whom I owe some gratitude, wasting my life for a man who--who
+said he didn't love me?
+
+Milly's at home again; let Ned return to her, if he chooses. I shall marry
+Strathay. Meg shall be friend to a Countess. Then I shall be quits with
+her and with Mrs. Henry and with Peggy. And the "best people" will no more
+fight shy of me--though they don't now; they don't need to. Except Mrs.
+Schuyler, who has snubbed me just enough to leave herself right, whatever
+happens, few of them have ever met me.
+
+I owe no thanks to Mrs. Whitney, with her prunes and her prisms and her
+penny-pinchings. I must secure my future.
+
+And there's only one way--Strathay. I've been foolish to hesitate. He
+tried to speak yesterday, after the flower tea--for that's the extent of
+my social shining now; I am good to draw a crowd at a bazaar!--and I
+should have let him; I meant to do so.
+
+But I can't blame myself for being sentimental, weak, and for putting him
+off; I was tired out. What an ordeal I'd undergone! What black looks from
+the women! They'd rather have starved their summer church in the
+Adirondacks than nursed it with my help!
+
+But he must have understood; I think he saw everything that happened. The
+girls at my stall were sulky because no one bought of them, while I was
+surrounded; and one, in lifting a handful of roses, drew them towards her
+with a spiteful jerk that left a long thorn-scratch across my hand.
+
+I pretended not to notice. Then in a minute I cried:--
+
+"Why, see; how could that have happened?"
+
+And I laid my perfect hand beside hers, ugly with outstanding veins, that
+she might note the accident--and the difference. People giggled, and she
+snatched her hand away, blushing furiously.
+
+I was in high spirits, with a crowd about me. I knew how tall and graceful
+I looked behind my flowers; and to tease Mrs. Terry, I pinned Bellmer's
+boutonniere with unnecessary graciousness, and smiled at her while he
+sniffed it with beatitude beaming from his moony face.
+
+"Awf'ly slow things, teas," he said regretfully, as she bore him off';
+"awf'ly slow, don't you think?" Really the man's little better than a
+downright fool; if he were poor, no one would waste a better word upon
+him.
+
+As he went, I caught sight of a slight figure, a pair of jealous,
+worshipping eyes. Poor Strathay had seen the incident; had perhaps
+thought--
+
+I took pains to be cordial to him, when he had made his way with Poultney
+to my side; and to Mr. Poultney, too; though I don't like him much better
+than Cadge does, with his cold eyes and his thin smile, that seems to say:
+"Hope you find my schoolboy entertaining."
+
+An Earl is always entertaining!
+
+Yet I ran away from him. I left the tea early. I wanted to think. All the
+way home in the carriage I marshalled arguments in his favour. I saw
+myself at court, throned in my brilliant circle, flattered by princes,
+consulted by statesmen, the ornament of a society I am fitted to adorn. I
+saw a world of jealous women at my feet and Ned convinced that I had been
+playing with him. I even rehearsed the scene we should enact when Strathay
+should speak; I foresaw the flush upon his face, the sparkle of his eyes
+when I should tell him that I would try to love him.
+
+He must have slipped his cousin's leash, for he was at the Nicaragua
+almost as soon as I was. But there at home, with the boy's eyes fixed on
+mine, with the tremour of his voice telling me how much he cared, I
+couldn't listen.
+
+I made talk with him, for him. I gave him no chance to speak, determined
+as I was that he should speak. I was conscious of but one desire--to put
+off the avowal.
+
+At last he said: "Sometimes I fancy you're not happy."
+
+His voice was tense. He was leaning forward in his eagerness; he looked so
+zealous to be my champion--so honest!
+
+I tried to smile. I really liked him.
+
+Happy! Out of memory there came to me a picture: I was creeping to Ethel's
+bed at night, whispering to her that I was the happiest girl in the world;
+she kissed me sleepily, and said she was happy too, and then I groped my
+way back to bed, and lay there in the dark, smiling. That was years ago.
+Three months? Years, long, long years ago!
+
+Now it flashed across me that Lord Strathay loved me as I had loved Ned.
+That gave me a measure of the gift he was to offer. I felt Ned's kisses on
+my hands, bidding me be honest.--I felt other kisses, too; I saw--good
+God, how long must I see?--a gray old face--the face of Darmstetter!
+Happy! I closed my eyes to shut out the vision. I shuddered.
+
+"You--really, I'm afraid you're very tired," he said, after waiting a
+little.
+
+"Yes; tired," I gasped; "that's all."
+
+But I knew I must marry him. I controlled myself. I smiled; I waited. I
+wished him to go on, but he was peering into my straining eyes with
+anxious sympathy.
+
+"I'm afraid you're too tired to talk with me to-day," he said; "but--you
+will let me come again?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Such a relief! Though what was to be gained by waiting? What must be must
+be.
+
+Indeed an older man might have seen the wisdom of speaking at once. But
+Strathay looked wistfully at me for a moment, then turned away with a big,
+honest schoolboy sigh; and something like a sob broke his voice as he
+whispered:--
+
+"I--I would do anything to serve you."
+
+Then he went away.
+
+Perverse! I _will_ marry him. Other women take husbands so. I like
+him; I should like him even if he were not an Earl--and his name a career.
+
+I shall make Strathay as fine a Countess as any cold, blonde English girl,
+and he'll be proud of me, and every man will envy him. I shall wrong him
+less than I should have wronged John Burke. I should have hated John if I
+had married him, for he'd expect love, where Strathay will be content to
+give it. Why, the one honest thing I've done was to break with John.
+
+I wish I could afford to keep on being honest!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE LOVE OF LORD STRATHAY.
+
+May 5.
+
+Lord deliver me from the well-meaning!
+
+Because of one pestilential dun, I've done what the weary waiting for
+money, money, money would never have driven me to do. I've been to Uncle,
+unknown to his wife, to ask advice. I might have known better.
+
+It was with a wildly beating pulse that I entered the familiar little
+private office, thinking that Ned might be on the other side of the
+partition--near enough, perhaps, to hear me; that he might at any moment
+rap upon the door and enter the room as he used to do, upon such flimsy
+errands! I wondered how he would look, and what he'd say if he came; but
+he never did come, though the talk was long enough, mercy knows; long and
+profitless.
+
+It was hard, with that cold sinking at my heart, to talk to the Judge, as
+he sat with his keen eyes fixed upon me, leaning back in his chair, at
+times frowning absent-mindedly.
+
+"I've come to tell you--I've written home for money," I began breathlessly
+to explain. "But they don't understand, of course--it isn't half what I
+need, now. I really don't quite know what to do. And so I came to--"
+
+My words died away into unintelligibility.
+
+"Anticipated your allowance a little? Well, well, how much do you need?"
+he asked indulgently.
+
+"I don't exactly know; not much," I cried eagerly, "I haven't asked Father
+to send it all at once. Two or three thousand dollars would be a great
+help--for the present."
+
+"Two or three thousand! Is it little Nelly Winship who is talking about
+thousands? And what important scheme has she in mind?"
+
+His tone was playful.
+
+"To pay my bills.'"
+
+"Bills aggregating thousands?" He dropped his paper cutter sharply. "Is it
+possible that in so short a time--if the recital be not too painful, pray
+explain."
+
+"Oh, it's simple enough; the dressmaker would say: 'Do let me make you
+this, it's such a pleasure to fit you;' or, 'That would be the rage, if
+you'd introduce it.' And Mrs. Van Dam begged me to buy a hat from a
+protegee just starting in business, because it would be a help to have the
+beautiful Miss Winship for a customer. It did help the milliner, too, for
+I bought three and they were printed in the papers. But she wants her pay
+just as if it hadn't been worth the price twice over as an advertisement.
+And all the things for the flat--"
+
+"Furniture?"
+
+"Why, yes; we've rearranged the place and I've contributed a little. Uncle
+Timothy, you can see--I need more money than other women. I can't walk
+without attracting notice, and cab hire or a carriage by the month--and--
+and I can't shop for myself, you don't know what a difference that makes;
+and--oh, everything is different! Why, I've just had my portrait painted.
+But Father isn't a poor man." "He is poor, measured by New York
+standards. And he is sending you a great deal of money."
+
+"Yes, but--I must have a _lot_ more."
+
+The Judge frowned slowly, considering what he had heard. Finally he said,
+slowly shaking his head:--
+
+"Doubtless we should have warned you, upon your coming to New York, but I
+did not anticipate that one of your substantial Western stock would
+develop habits of extravagance; nor were they apparent while you were with
+us. I cannot think it was altogether our fault, and certainly it was not
+your father's. I am not unmindful of the recent unsettling experiences
+which furnish excuse for confusion of ideas; but, Nelly, I appeal to a
+head that should be logical, even if--I have never thought it giddy with
+adulation--to see the facts as they exist. You must yield to your aunt's
+wish and return to her or to Marcia--"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"--you must bring me your bills; doubtless we can give up the furniture--"
+
+"Give it up!"
+
+The coolly spoken words struck to my heart. Why, we had just finished
+arranging it! But he misunderstood my exclamation, and added:--
+
+"I comprehend your reluctance, and I confess that I should little like to
+advise returning goods bought in good faith, if there were any chance of
+payment; but--let me see; are you of age?"
+
+"Why, yes; just twenty-one."
+
+"Is it possible? How time passes, to be sure! Yet--ah, the point is not
+important; the tradespeople should not have trusted you. Consider that you
+are unable to pay; the less of two evils is to return the goods as soon as
+possible, that they may be received undamaged."
+
+"Oh, it's not so bad as that?" I said hastily. "Nearly everybody is
+willing to wait, and I--you know Aunt Frank doesn't want me, and I should
+be a--white elephant to Miss Baker. I must live somewhere. It's not my
+fault if my only friends are rich, and if I--but why can't Father--"
+
+"I do not believe your father can pay your debts," he interrupted, "in
+addition to the generous sums he has already forwarded, unless--surely you
+were not suggesting that he should mortgage the farm in order to--pay for
+paintings?"
+
+"I didn't mean that at all!" I cried; "I never thought of that. But how
+_do_ people--"
+
+"You and I must do what is to be done, if possible without distressing
+him," he said; "your father is not so young as he once was. If you have
+bought things for which your allowance will not pay, although"--he
+hesitated a moment, "--the situation is--ah--trying to Mrs. Whitney. I
+suppose her half of the common stock is secure?"
+
+"Her half!"
+
+"Has she been leaning upon your slender purse?" he asked not unkindly.
+
+"Why--she saves money by me and I increase her social importance. Of
+course she had furniture, but it was old and--and--"
+
+I could not find the words to explain to a man my horror of ugliness. He
+wouldn't have understood.
+
+"Well, well, it makes no difference now. I must arrange matters for you,
+and I think you will agree, upon reflection, that the first step must be
+to give up whatever we can."
+
+"But, Uncle--" I tried to speak calmly, to show him the situation--"Mrs.
+Whitney is a Van Dam, and they befriended me when--why, they would never
+forgive me; it would be ruin. And even from the practical standpoint--you
+wouldn't like to have your lawbooks sold, would you? Well, people have
+introduced me--and pretty furniture and pretty clothes and not to have any
+scandal or any talk--oh, you can see!"
+
+"In the light of reports that reach me," said the Judge, "I might suppose
+that you"--he hesitated a moment, then continued, in an attempt at a
+bantering manner, "that you refer to your luxuries as preliminary to--ah--
+matrimony, which is said to be the only gainful occupation that my sex
+leaves almost exclusively to yours, and in which fine clothing is
+undoubtedly an adjuvant. But observation leads me to think that it is a
+business less profitable than is often imagined. Hm!"
+
+He drummed on the table, and when he continued, he seemed talking to gain
+time, considering what he wished to say.
+
+"I grant you," he said with his cumbrous playfulness, "that the
+sensibility of flesh and blood to beauty is as broad a fact as the effect
+of heat or cold. It is so universally recognised that we take a pretty
+girl, like original sin or the curse of labour, as a _chose jugeé_.
+Her sway must have begun with the glacial drifters and the kitchen
+middeners and the Engis skull man, when they and the rest of the
+paleoliths were battling with the dodo and the dinornis and the
+didifornis, and had no time for the cult of beauty except by proxy. Did it
+ever occur to you that we men drove a hard bargain with your sex when we
+compelled you to beauty, made you carry the topknots and the tail-
+feathers? Men propose marriage, women adorn themselves to listen. Let
+women choose their mates, and they might go as plain as peahens; and men
+would strut about, displaying wattles, combs and argus-eyed plumes."
+
+"Women would be less beautiful if they proposed?"
+
+"Some could not be, I fear." He pulled down his brows, considering the
+proposition, then shook his head positively, with a little sigh. "You will
+remember--was it not Darwin who said that women, in order to attract men,
+borrow the plumage of male birds, which these have acquired to please the
+females of their kind? Beauty must be the first law of life to the sex
+that has not the privilege of choosing. Under the circumstances, it is
+surprising how much of plainness women have preserved. Possibly because of
+the extraordinary directions which beauty culture may take. Burton asserts
+that the Somali choose wives by ranging the women in line for inspection;
+she wins a husband of note who projects farthest _a tergo_. Yet among
+famous Greek statues there is also a steatopygous Venus."
+
+The office boy came to the door, and his knock woke Uncle out of his
+revery. He excused himself to his caller, and, returning to me, went on:--
+
+"I have been--ah--I admit, rather evading the personal question. I wish,
+without seeking embarrassing confidences, to remind you that young people
+are apt to think bad matters--other than business matters--worse than they
+are. I am not asking questions, but, when I was younger, cynicism usually
+hid but ill the scars of heartache. Do not, I pray you, throw yourself
+away in the gloom of momentary unhappiness."
+
+Did he guess--about Ned? That I was the one most hurt there? He should
+never know that I winced. I shrugged my shoulders, ignoring his fatherly
+glance, and faced him with a stare meant to be brazen.
+
+"You do not at the present time believe in sentiment?" he said. "Then I
+shall adapt my argument to your whim of practicality, and speak of the
+rumours which connect your name with that of young Lord Strathay."
+
+"Oh; that boy!"
+
+"I presume you are right; he does seem to have fallen deeply in love with
+you. But--if indeed, you are dazzled by the glamour of a title--do not be
+too confident of his fealty. I know men better than you know them, my
+dear. Man loves beauty, but he does not always want to marry it. The rare
+white swan is admired, but the little brown partridge, clucking as she
+marshals her covey of chicks, is the type of the marrying woman. Again, no
+man is master of himself. That Strathay wishes to marry you, I can
+understand; but, perhaps, when he is not under the spell of your presence,
+he falls to wondering how you will pronounce the social shibboleths, and
+may let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would.' It is idle to deny that,
+admitting as one must the existence of lines of social cleavage in modern
+life, it is often a mistake to overstep their boundaries in matrimony;
+though as to international alliances--"
+
+"Oh," I said, interrupting his prosings with a light laugh, "you mustn't
+take the matter _au sérieux_."
+
+"I take it so because it is serious." The Judge's eyes and his tone were
+very grave. "Forgive me if I remind you that these _obiter dicta_
+have grown out of a discussion of your money affairs, wherein you are
+bankrupt. If--and I ask your pardon if the supposition does you wrong--if
+you are relying on a brilliant marriage to help you out of financial
+difficulties--"
+
+He hesitated a moment, then went on slowly: "Perhaps I ought to warn you
+that, if at any time this does become a serious matter, you will have
+powerful opposition. I had not intended to tell you--though now I deem it
+best--that Mr. Stephen Allardyce Poultney has lately done me the honour to
+call; and--"
+
+"Lord Strathay's cousin?" I thought he could hear the thrumming of my
+heart. This was why he had beaten so long about the bush! "Was he--was he
+speaking about me?"
+
+I felt a sudden chill of apprehension, and almost feared to hear the
+answer.
+
+"He was; he came to the point with a refreshing directness worthy of a
+business man, and said that he wanted to know all about you."
+
+"And you--"
+
+"I need not trouble you with our conversation. In view of the attentions
+which his Lordship has been paying you, his cousin felt it a duty, he
+intimated, to make inquiries. He did not care a button, I inferred, for
+your position here, as it could not affect Lord Strathay's in England; but
+he had read the newspapers with pardonable perplexity, and asked if you
+were really the only daughter of a bonanza farmer. I did not feel it
+necessary to enter into particulars, but informed him that your father was
+rich in honesty and in the possession of a daughter good and beautiful
+enough for any Lord that lives. He thanked me and said 'quite so,' as
+Englishmen usually do say when they disagree with one. He added that he
+would try to get the poor beggar--for so he referred to his kinsman--away
+fishing.
+
+"You will note that, in the higher social strata, the choice of
+matrimonial partners has progressed beyond the personal selection so
+confidently assumed by the scientists, and has become a matter for
+relatives to--"
+
+"And my only relative in New York," I said slowly, wondering how fatal was
+this unexpected news, "has made it impossible for me to achieve a success
+that was almost within my grasp."
+
+I don't see that the remark was so very terrible, but he looked at me with
+an odd air of astonishment and consternation. Then he seemed to consider
+it best to treat my natural disappointment as a joke.
+
+"Not very serious is this conversation, as you have reminded me," he said.
+"You don't wish me to tell that which is not?"
+
+"Why, naturally--no." I was stunned, but I forced a laugh. "But it
+_is_ funny. Why--I was nearer landing the prize than I supposed,
+wasn't I?--that is, if I had wanted to land it?"
+
+"Um--yes; it was rather close. But in this world you'll find strong men
+often dissuading weak ones from action briefly meditated."
+
+He gazed at me solemnly, portentously, critically.
+
+"Yes," I said, trying to speak with careless ease; "one Lord gone, but
+there are others. Don't be too hard upon Strathay, though. He's not so
+bad. His estates are not heavily encumbered, and he's as likely now to wed
+a music hall singer as a daughter of the Beerage. Perhaps such a marriage
+as he might have offered is not the best in life, but it is something that
+women who love their daughters as well as you love yours are glad to
+arrange for them. I should have made Strathay a very decent wife--"
+
+But at the word I stopped; something in the sound of it shattered my cool
+philosophy.
+
+"Of course, of course," Uncle assented. Then after a pause he went on,
+hesitatingly:--
+
+"Nelly, these are not matters for a man to discuss with you. Why don't you
+run in and talk with your aunt?"
+
+I hadn't the least intention of calling, but I answered him according to
+his folly.
+
+"I must, some time; but I'm so worried--"
+
+"Ah, yes; those debts. Could you not, if you are determined not to come
+home to us, seek less expensive apartments? You know that for any wants in
+reason your aunt and I--"
+
+"I--I can't, just yet," I faltered, with a dreary vision before my eyes of
+such a boarding house as that from which Kitty rescued me.
+
+"Very well, Nelly, but think about it; you will see that to go on as you
+are doing would be only throwing money into a bottomless pit. But bring me
+your bills to-morrow; I must have facts and figures, if we are to
+straighten your affairs. Now--you need money--"
+
+He was fumbling for his check book. Badly as I needed help, instinctively
+I cried:--
+
+"Oh, no; not that!"
+
+"Quite sure? It is the situation that troubles you and not the butcher,
+the baker--"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"I desist. But sleep on what I have said. Remember that I am in your
+father's place, that I--your aunt and I--are very anxious about you."
+
+He took my hand, seeming as perplexed as I am myself. He looked
+affectionate enough, but so futile.
+
+So I came away heartsick. It's useless to argue with Judge Baker. He's a
+plebeian from his thick shoe soles to his thin hair; but he's honest. And
+yet--if he had been less ponderously precise--he might have said: "Why,
+really, I don't exactly know. Mr. Winship is a well-to-do man. It has been
+years since I knew, but I can ascertain and--"
+
+Or he might just have told the plain truth--that Father has a large
+Western farm. Englishmen think all Western folks are rich. Why, I believe
+Meg Van Dam would dower me if I were to marry Strathay. I could make it
+worth her while. It wouldn't be the first arrangement of that sort in New
+York, either.
+
+If only Strathay had seen me once more, no power on earth could have
+prevented an avowal; and marriage with a peer of England would have given
+me a station befitting my beauty.
+
+But perhaps it's not too late. Strathay may not heed his cousin. If he
+comes wooing again, I shall not be so silly as I was the last time.
+Strange that I have not seen him. Can he have gone already?
+
+I might do the London season by borrowing from Meg. It would cost a
+fortune, and--unless Strathay does propose--perhaps even she wouldn't care
+to finance me now.
+
+I wish---
+
+Oh, I wish I could get out of my dreams the ghastly form of Darmstetter,
+as I saw him dead at my feet! He haunts me all day long, and all the night
+I dream of him!
+
+And I wish I had not broken John Burke's honest heart--how wistful he
+looked, as he waited for me at the door of the office and helped me to my
+carriage! Perhaps Ned wasn't in the building; perhaps--he may have avoided
+me.
+
+I wish I had not brought him sorrow, and I wish--
+
+No, I don't! I just hope Milly is even more wretched than I am!
+
+Father really might mortgage. I could easily pay it back. I wonder I never
+thought of that. I'll ask him. I will not take my bills to Judge Baker--to
+be lectured on the dodo and on lines of social cleavage--as if any man
+could be a match for me.
+
+I'll never go back to Aunt Frank! There is Bellmer, now--and Strathay must
+soon return to New York, to sail.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+LITTLE BROWN PARTRIDGES.
+
+May 20.
+
+I wonder if I couldn't _earn_ money. For the last week--nothing but
+trouble. No check from Father. Hugh Bellmer I have not seen. Strathay has
+really gone, spirited away by that superior cousin.
+
+And Mrs. Whitney has deserted me--oh, if it were not for money troubles, I
+wouldn't mind that, cruel as was the manner of it!
+
+Of course the newspapers soon learned that Strathay had left town. Trust
+them for that; and to make sensational use of it! The first I knew of it,
+indeed, was when one day Cadge came bursting into the room.
+
+"Isn't it a shame?" she began in her piercing voice; as ever at fever heat
+of unrest, she waved at me a folded newspaper.
+
+"Emphatically; but what is it?"
+
+"That fierce tale of the _Echo_; haven't seen it? We couldn't print a
+line. Big Tom says the chief has put his foot down; won't have stories
+about women in private life, you know--without their consent. But why
+didn't you--why can't you give us a whack at it?"
+
+"Because there isn't a word of truth in the whole disgusting--what does it
+say?"
+
+I had seized the sheet from her hands and rapidly glanced over the staring
+headlines. Eagerly she interrupted me:--
+
+"Oh, isn't it the worst ever? But I see how it happened. They must have
+sent out a leg man to get facts, and when no one would talk, they stirred
+this up in the office. But--not to print, now--what _are_ you going
+to do with His Lordship? Honest, Princess?"
+
+"Nothing; there's absolutely nothing between us. He's a nice fellow, and I
+like him, and we're good friends; that's all. I--I knew he was going;
+fishing."
+
+"Well, I'm glad of that. But so must I be going."
+
+And she whisked out of the room, leaving in my hands this astounding
+outrage upon truth and decency:
+
+
+BY EDWARD PEPPER.
+
+Helen Winship is the most extraordinary woman living;
+
+The most beautiful woman in the world;
+
+A scientist of national repute;
+
+She has just passed through a tragedy which has left an impress upon her
+whole life;
+
+Most wonderful of all, she is the only American girl who has ever refused
+a titled lover.
+
+This is her life story, told for the first time:--
+
+_Chapter I.--Death:_
+
+A woman's scream of agony!
+
+A strange scene, like an alchemist's den, the light of falling day
+reflected from test tubes and crucibles, revealing in dark corners uncouth
+appliances, queer diagrams, strange odours. Upon the floor the inert
+figure of the foremost of New York's chemists; above his prostrate form,
+wild-eyed with horror at seeing his dramatic death, a beautiful woman, the
+most beautiful in the world.
+
+This was the end of Prof. Carl Darmstetter;
+
+This was how the legacy of science came to Helen Winship.
+
+To carry it out, she has refused a title.
+
+_Chapter II.--Love:_
+
+Born upon a Western farm, Helen Winship's father is a yeoman of the sturdy
+stock that has laid the world under tribute for its daily bread.
+
+Early she made the choice that devotes her life to science. She was the
+confidant of the dead chemist, whose torch of knowledge she took up firm-
+handed, when it fell from his nerveless fingers.
+
+She is vowed as a vestal virgin to science.
+
+Strange whim of destiny! Across this maiden life of devoted study came the
+shadow of a great name which for two hundred years has been blazoned upon
+the pages of England's history.
+
+In the loom of fate the modest gray warp of Helen Winship's life crossed
+the gay woof of a Lord of high degree, and left a strange mark upon the
+web of time.
+
+Love came to her--many times; but came at last in a guise that seldom woos
+in vain.
+
+_Chapter III.--Sacrifice:_
+
+Who has forgotten the memorable scene in the Metropolitan Opera House,
+when the beautiful Miss Winship took the vast audience by storm, causing
+almost a panic, which was exclusively reported in these columns?
+
+It was followed by a greater sensation.
+
+Rumour ran through the ranks of the Four Hundred, and the rustle of it was
+as the wind in a great forest. For one of the proudest titles from beyond
+the sea, before which the wealth and fashion of the city had marshalled
+their attractions, had passed them by to kneel at the feet of the lovely
+scholar.
+
+The Earl of Strathay is the twelfth Earl of his house. He is twenty-one
+years old. His mother, the Countess Strathay, famous as a beauty, has been
+prominent in the "Prince's set."
+
+Witley Castle, his seat, is one of the show places of England, though
+financially embarrassed by the follies of the late Earl.
+
+It was Lord Strathay's intention, upon landing in New York to go West in a
+week; but he looked upon the fair investigator, and to look is to love.
+
+He laid his title at the feet of the lovely daughter of Democracy, but
+with that smile whose sweetness is a marvel to all men, she shook her
+beautiful head.
+
+She was wedded to learning.
+
+Fretted by the pain, he plunged into the wilderness to hide like a wounded
+deer.
+
+What shall be said of this beautiful woman, for whom men sigh as for the
+unattainable? That she is lovely as the morning? All New York knows it.
+That her walk is like a lily's swaying in the wind, her voice is the
+sweetest music that ever ravished ear, her hair a lure for sunbeams? It is
+the commonplace of conversation at every smart house.
+
+For this lovely woman of science is no ascetic. She moves by right of
+beauty and high purpose, in the best society. This farmer's daughter walks
+among the proudest in the land, and none there is to compare with her.
+
+Like the Admirable Crichton, no art is to her unknown, no accomplishment
+by her neglected. Her eager soul, not satisfied with dominion over the
+realm of beauty and of love, would have all knowledge for its sphere.
+
+
+Amusing, isn't it?--to one who is not the heroine of the tale! The tragedy
+of Darmstetter revived, my scientific attainments--but oh, the worst--the
+worst of all--is the wicked lie that I am in the "best society."
+
+Why, the very day before, we had been "at home," Mrs. Whitney and I, and
+hardly a soul that counts was here. Mrs. Van Dam had a convenient
+headache; I haven't seen her since Peggy's wedding. If she had not been so
+very civil--she and Mrs. Henry--I might think that even then she suspected
+that Strathay--
+
+There were a few correct, vapid young men in gray trousers and long frock
+coats among our guests that day, but none worth serious attention. And the
+women!
+
+One creature tucked tracks under the tea cloth, whereat Mrs. Whitney's
+pinched nose was elevated. Ethel saw the action--in spite of her mother
+and sister, the poor girl clings to me; I suppose it's natural that
+_she_ should love beauty--and hopping round the table at the first
+chance, she pulled out one, chuckling mightily.
+
+"'Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain,'" she quoted in undertone; "oh,
+Nelly, take your share of the unco guid and the riders of hobby horses,
+and be thankful it's no larger."
+
+Ethel doesn't know how great it is. There was the woman who insists on
+gloating over me as a proof of the superiority of her sex; the woman who
+had written a book, the woman who would talk about Karma, and the woman--
+there was more than one--who would talk about the Earl.
+
+After they had gone, Mrs. Whitney's disgust was as plain as her horror of
+their appetite for cake and other creature comforts. But the storm broke
+in earnest a day or two later, after the last reception we shall ever hold
+together.
+
+I can't describe it. I don't understand it. Women are fast leaving the
+city; it was too late for an "evening."
+
+But that made no difference; I do not deceive myself. I am pressing with
+my shoulders against a mountain barrier--the prejudice of women--and it
+never, never yields. Active opposition I could fight; but the tactics are
+now to ignore me. In response to cards, I get "regrets," or women simply
+stay away.
+
+Men--ah, yes, there are always men, and many of them like as well as
+admire me. But there is a subtle something that affects every man's
+thought of a woman of whom women disapprove. They don't condemn me--ah, a
+man can be generous!--they imagine they allow for women's jealousies; but
+deep in their hearts lies hid the suspicion that only women are qualified
+judges of women. They respect me, but they reserve judgment; and they do
+not wholly respect themselves, for in order to see me, they evade their
+lawful guardians--their wives and mothers.
+
+It may have been the wine--I overheard two young cads making free of my
+house to discuss my affairs.
+
+"Mrs. Terry really dragged Hughy out of town?" one of them asked, assuming
+a familiarity with Bellmer that I suspect he cannot claim.
+
+"Guess so; he's playing horse with old Bellmer's money; always wrong side
+of the betting."
+
+"Needs Keeley cure. Good natured cuss; wonder if the Winship'll get him."
+
+"Lay ye three to one--say twenties--that he gets away, like that
+Strathay--"
+
+I addressed some smiling speech to the wretches, but through the whole
+evening my cheeks did not cease to burn.
+
+When the last guest had gone, tired and hysterical as she was, Mrs.
+Whitney began a long tirade.
+
+"It must be stopped! It must be stopped!" she cried, pacing back and
+forth.
+
+The blaze of anger improved her. She must have been a handsome woman
+once--tall and slender, with fine dark eyes that roll about dramatically.
+
+"I don't see what there is to stop," I said, perversity taking possession
+of me, though at heart I quite agreed with her estimate of the evening.
+"The object of an entertainment being to entertain, why shouldn't the men
+I know come to ours? If they stayed away, you'd be disappointed; but when
+they come, as they did to-night, you're frightened, or pretend to be."
+
+"I'm not frightened; I'm appalled. I don't mean Mr. Burke, though he's a
+detrimental--and, by the way, he was as much distressed to-night as I was.
+I mean the men who have families--wives and daughters! Why didn't they
+bring 'em--or stay away?"
+
+"I'd thank John Burke to mind his own business," I cried hotly. "He
+doesn't have to come here unless he wants to."
+
+"There is only one way," she went on, as if speaking to herself, pacing
+the floor and fanning herself violently--for her face, and especially her
+nose, was as red as a beet; she really laces disgracefully--"there's only
+one way; I must fall ill at once. I must have nervous prostration, or--
+it's nearly June. I shall leave town. Heavens! What a night!"
+
+"You're assuming a great deal. Our arrangements were made by two, and are
+hardly to be broken by one. You can't agree to matronize me--let me buy
+furniture for you, and then abandon me, cut off my social opportunities--
+leave me--"
+
+"Social opportunity! Social collapse! Disgrace! Why, your prospects were
+really extraordinary. But now! Where was Meg to-night? Where was Mrs.
+Marmaduke? Why did my own sister-in-law stay away?"
+
+"I don't know; do you?"
+
+Her harangue begun, she couldn't stop. "Where's Strathay?" she demanded.
+"Gone; and no announcement--what was the matter? Needn't tell me you
+refused him! And why is the letter box always full of duns? Can't you pay
+your bills? Why didn't you say so earlier? Would have saved us both a deal
+of trouble!"
+
+"I didn't tell you I had money."
+
+"You played the part, ordering dresses fit for a Duchess, and things for
+the flat. You spent enough on a wedding gift for Peggy--or was it a
+promise to spend?--to support a family a month--peace offering because
+you'd abused her!--Of course if you'd made the great success everybody
+expected, you'd be on the top wave, and so should I. I don't deny I
+thought of that. But now--an evening like this--no women worth counting
+and a horde of men--well, it's bad enough for me, but it's worse for you.
+No one'll say I brought 'em."
+
+"Oh, no," I assented.
+
+"It comes to this, then," she went on at full heat, flushing and fanning
+herself still more violently; "either you or I must leave this house, and
+at once."
+
+"Well, I sha'n't."
+
+And so she did!
+
+Whose fault was it that we were left in such a predicament--that of the
+inexperienced girl, or the chaperon's? What is a chaperon for? Mrs.
+Whitney has treated me shamefully, shamefully! Here I am all by myself,
+and I don't know what to do.
+
+Ah, well, I must play my own hand. She shall regret this night's work, if
+I marry rank or money.
+
+It is so strange how every one prospers except poor, baffled, loveless me,
+who have the greatest gift of all. I wonder if it is really Nature's law
+that the very beautiful must suffer; if this is her way of equalizing the
+lot of the poor and plain and lowly; her law of compensation to make the
+splendid creatures walk lonely and in sorrow all their days while plain
+ones coo and are happy. Was Uncle Tim right about the little brown
+partridges?
+
+If I were superstitious or easily disheartened, I should say--but I am
+neither! I shall succeed. I will take my place by right of beauty or die
+fighting! If I see Lord Strathay again, he shall marry me within a week.
+They shall call it "one of those romantic weddings."
+
+I can't live here alone. I have nothing to fall back upon; nothing but a
+father who doesn't answer my letters, and Judge Baker who lectures me in
+polysyllables, and John Burke--poor old John; what a good fellow he is!--
+who simply loves me; and Mrs. Van Dam, who was my friend as long as she
+hoped to rise by my beauty to higher place, but who has headaches now; and
+Mrs. Marmaduke--
+
+I don't understand her desertion.
+
+Ah--yes, there is another, my constant companion now.
+
+He is an old man, thin and sallow. He lies prone on the floor, staring at
+me with dead, sightless eyes. He whispers from muted lips "Delilah!" and
+the sound of it is in my ears day and night; day and night!
+
+My God! It will drive me mad!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+LETTERS AND SCIENCE.
+
+May 29.
+
+I've revised my opinion of the newspapers. The Star has done me a good
+turn, a great service.
+
+I had tried to borrow money of Cadge, for the third time, and she told me
+she had none--which was true, or she would have let me have it. Then she
+said:--
+
+"Why don't you sell a story to some paper--either something very
+scientific, or else, 'Who's the Handsomest Man in New York?' or--"
+
+"I think I ought to get something from them, after all the stuff they've
+printed; but how? To whom do I go?"
+
+"Nobody! Heavens!" cried Cadge. "Want to create an earthquake on Park Row?
+You're a disturber of traffic. Let me manage. I know the ropes and it
+helps me at the office to bring in hot features. They might give you fifty
+for it, too."
+
+And I actually did get $50 for digging out of the text books an essay on
+Rats as Disseminators of Bubonic Plague; they only used a little of it,
+but the pictures and the signature and the nonsense about me as a
+scientist were the real thing, Cadge said.
+
+The money, the money, the money was the real thing to me! It has given me
+a breathing spell--. that and the hundred for signing a patent medicine
+testimonial; but I had to sacrifice more than half I got from both sources
+to pacify greedy creditors. And a month between remittances, and so little
+when they come! Father _can't_ refuse to mortgage; why doesn't he
+write to me?
+
+The day I took the article to Cadge I had a long talk with her and with
+Pros. Reid, who spends at the eyrie every hour he can spare. One must have
+some society or go crazy, though perhaps they aren't exactly what I'd
+choose if my kingdom had opened to me.
+
+Pros. has shrewd eyes that inspire confidence--gray eyes with the tired
+night work look in them. He talks amazing slang at times, at others not at
+all; and I wish every one might be as kind and thoughtful.
+
+I could think of nothing all the evening but my bills, and at last I was
+moved to ask him abruptly:--
+
+"What can a girl do to get money, Pros.?"
+
+"'Pends on the girl."
+
+"This girl; a somewhat educated person; and grasping. One who wants much
+money and wants it right now."
+
+"Princesses don't earn money; they have it."
+
+"Suppose the Princess were enchanted--or--or something? Oh, you may not
+think me serious, but I really don't know what I shall do, if my ship
+doesn't come in pretty soon."
+
+He looked quizzically at me; he thinks I plead poverty as a joke; Cadge
+would never tell him how I have tried to borrow.
+
+"'Twould be a hard case, supposing it possible," he said, "because you
+would want a good deal of money, and because you'd be a bother to have
+'round--too beautiful. You couldn't sell many newspaper stories, because
+you'd soon cease to be a novelty as a special, and would get a press
+ticket to City Hall Park. Reporting's another coloured horse altogether--
+poor pay, and takes training to get it. Beauty's a disadvantage even
+there; too much beauty. Tell you what you could do, though, if ever you
+_should_ want to earn money--go on the stage."
+
+"Girl I knew," said Cadge, "made a pot of money going round to summer
+resorts, giving women lessons, energizing and decomposing; kind of
+Delsarte; said it made her 'most die--to see 'em rolling on the floor like
+elephants, trying to get lean, and eating 'emselves fat four times a day,
+with caramels between--and not be able to laugh. Might try the Barnard
+girls. It can't be sure beauty to be up there; I've seen some of 'em. Say
+now; that's not so bad--'How to be Helen; in Twenty Lessons.' Or say,
+Princess; answer the great question: 'Does Soap Hurt the Skin?'"
+
+She grinned. Cadge fancies, I suppose, that by any mail I may get a big
+check from home.
+
+"You display almost human intelligence," said Pros, admiringly; "stage's
+better, though."
+
+"But, Mr. Reid, that's too public."
+
+"Inherited instinct; no more public than--than being a beauty." He gazed
+at me with mild audacity,--"Money getting's prosaic, off the stage. Most
+girls who want cash become tiddlety-wink typewriters at eight per; bargain
+price; fully worth four. Now that isn't your class; if $8 a week would
+satisfy you, which it wouldn't, do you suppose there's an office in town
+that'd have you? Men won't subject their clerks to the white light of
+beauty; wives won't stand for it, either. There are places where no girl
+can get work unless she's pulchritudinous. Catch the idea? A pretty London
+barmaid can't draw more beer than an ugly one, but draws more custom.
+What's a Princess to do with such jobs? You'd be like the man who wouldn't
+be fool enough to marry any woman who'd be fool enough to have him--in
+getting work, I mean. This is the other side of all that rot about Woman's
+Century and Woman's Widening Sphere. Never go into an office, Miss
+Winship; my wife won't, when we're married."
+
+"'Cause she'll be in one already," interrupted Cadge; "why, if I had to
+mope 'round all day in a flat, I'd be driven to drink--club tea. Imagine
+it; Cadge Bryant a clubwoman!"
+
+"Clubwomaning is exciting enough, election time."
+
+"But men get money," I persisted. "Isn't there anything a girl can do?"
+
+"I've a sister," said Reid, "--other sister out in Cincinnati--who wants a
+profession; law's the one I'm recommending. It's so harmless. Course
+she'll never have any practice; she won't get out and hustle with the
+greasy Yahoudis who run the bar now-a-days. No, so long as my sister has
+the career fever, I say law, every time. Cadge, why don't you study law?"
+
+"The dear boy does so enjoy talking nonsense," Cadge explained
+indulgently.
+
+"In ordinary business," Reid went on, "pretty women are only employed as
+lures for men. Swell milliners have 'em to overawe with their great
+grieving eyes the Hubbies who're inclined to kick at market rates for
+bonnets. Now there's dry goods, chief theme of half the race. You'd think
+there'd be a show there for a pretty girl; well, there ain't. It's retail
+trade; one girl can sell about as many papers of pins in a day as
+another."
+
+"Some pretty cloak and suit models get big wages," said Cadge.
+
+"Yes, in the jobbing houses. That's wholesale trade, and every dicker
+counts. Have to corset themselves to death, though."
+
+"It's a fact," Cadge put in. "Many's the filler I've written about it.
+Girl has to destroy her beauty to get a living by her beauty."
+
+"Sure! Fashions not made to fit women, but women to fit fashions. Then
+those girls have an awful time, if they're careful about their associates.
+Why, it's getting so a model is expected to sell goods herself--held
+responsible if she doesn't. No sale, no job next week. See the situation,"
+Pros. added, "--on the one hand the buyer, a vain man away from home, with
+thousands to invest; on the other a girl who must get that money for her
+firm. Well, of course it's not so bad as that, but----"
+
+"But _I_ wouldn't corset myself Redfern shape and go into such horrid
+places for the world," I cried.
+
+No more than Judge Baker, or Father, or any one else, could Reid see my
+situation. What do I care about earning $8 a week--or $80? I must have a
+great deal of money, at once; to pay my debts and to live upon. Men get
+money quickly--in Wall Street or by inventions or----
+
+"Course not," said Pros. "You're the Princess; and Princesses may be
+Honorary Presidents and ask questions and take an interest, but they don't
+do things."
+
+"Pros. is right about the stage," said Cadge; "that's the best sort of
+wholesale business. You sell a chance to look at you to fifteen hundred
+people at once; and folks can't paw you over to see how your clothes fit,
+either. I'd like it myself, but I'm too--well, after all, I might do; I'm
+at least picturesquely ugly."
+
+And so the antiphony of discouragement ended in a laugh.
+
+I wonder--women on the stage do get big sums, and they often graduate from
+it to society. If even a music hall singer can become a duchess----
+
+Bellmer's father made his money in sugar, they say. If I had it, I could
+storm any position. I suppose Mrs. Terry has shooed him off on that
+automobile tour I heard about; but he must come back--and so must
+Strathay.
+
+I can't wait long, I'm not safe an hour from human vultures hungry for
+money, though I've none to yield them.
+
+I must do something. No sooner had Mrs. Whitney vanished from the flat in
+a whirlwind of tears and reproaches than in came the furniture man, as if
+he had been watching the house, to threaten that, unless I pay at once, he
+will take away everything. He was not rude in words, but oh, so different
+from the oily people who sold me the things. His ferret eyes searched the
+apartment; he seemed counting every article.
+
+"The furniture's safe," I said; "it won't walk away."
+
+"Of course it's safe," he answered with a suspicion of a sneer; "but
+when'll it be paid for?"
+
+"I don't know; go away!" I said. "I've written to my father."
+
+The fellow looked at me with open admiration.
+
+"Better 'tend to this thing; better write again to--your father," he said
+and walked off, leaving me cold and tremulous with rage.
+
+I must have imagined the pause, the inflection; but he has me under
+surveillance. Like a thief!
+
+I flew to the dining-room and swallowed a glass of sherry, for I was faint
+and quivering; but before I had turned from the sideboard Cadge bounced
+into the room, tearing through the flat to find me, and stopped to stare,
+open-eyed.
+
+"Drop that!" she cried.
+
+"Oh, don't preach! I've just been having such a time!"
+
+"Everybody has 'em; I've had fifty a year for fifty years. And I don't
+mind your drowning sorrow in the flowing bowl, either. But do it like a
+man, in company. Honest now, Helen."
+
+She changed the subject abruptly to the errand that had brought her; but,
+before she went away, she looked curiously at the sideboard and said:----
+
+"Helen, you really don't----"
+
+"Mercy, no! Scarcely at table, even. Why I used to be shocked to see how
+things to drink are thrust upon women, even in department stores. But
+they're not all deadly; there's 'creme de menthe' now--the pep'mint
+extract Ma used to give me for stomach-ache."
+
+Cadge laughed with me, but she turned quickly grave again.
+
+"Mind what I tell you, Princess," she said, "and never, never drink even
+'pep'mint extract' in the house like that, alone; if you do, I see your
+finish; reporters learn a thing or two."
+
+She's right--for ordinary women. But I told her the truth; I don't care
+for wine. I've seen girls flushed at dinner, but I know too much of
+physiology, and I care too much for my beauty.
+
+Still, in emergencies----
+
+Emergencies--oh! I could have named to her the very day I first tasted
+wine. It was here in the Nicaragua, the day Darmstetter----
+
+Well, well,--I mustn't think about that. I can't understand why I don't
+hear from Father. Impossible to make him see how different are my present
+tastes and pressing needs from those I brought from home. I hope he won't
+delay long about the money.
+
+My position is becoming intolerable. I owe the butcher, grocer, furniture
+dealer, photographer--and the milliner is the worst of all. The money I
+got from the _Star_ is filched from me by people who need it far less
+than I. Why, I even owe money to the maids, and I can't discharge either
+of them, because I'd have to pay her. But they must somehow be sent away.
+
+I wonder if Father couldn't sell the farm. That would bring more than a
+mortgage; but it might take months, and even then I need in a single year
+more than all he has in the world.
+
+Will any woman who reads the story of my life--the real story which
+sometime I shall write, leaving out the paltry details which now harass
+me--will any woman believe that the most beautiful woman in the world in
+the wonderful year, of the finding of the Bacillus actually thought of
+tramping the streets, looking for work, like a story heroine seeking her
+fortune? I shall have to do something--anything!
+
+But I can't work; I'm not calm enough, and it would ruin my beauty.
+
+The luck must change!
+
+Sometimes I see more clearly than the sordidness of this horrible
+existence, a big palace with a terraced front and a mile long drive
+straight to the park gate, past great trees and turf that is always green;
+and long rows of stately ladies looking down on me from their frames on
+the lofty wall beside soldiers that have stood silent guard there three
+hundred years. I can see a beautiful woman courtesying to a Queen and all
+the world reading it in the morning paper; and a big town house with
+myriad lights blinking through the fog outside, where shivering wretches
+watch the carriages drive up to my door. For twenty--no thirty years--I
+might be the one inimitable and wholly adorable being, clothed with rare
+garments, blazing with jewels, confidant of statesmen, maker of the men
+who make history. History! I should _be_ history!
+
+I could do it all myself--I have never had a chance, never yet the glimmer
+of a chance, but I could do anything, conquer anything, achieve anything!
+
+It is so little that I ask--the money to live upon, and a chance, only the
+chance--it is maddening to be denied that!--and fair play to live my life
+and carry out my destiny.
+
+There was a time when I wanted less, expected less; like Cadge with queer,
+devoted Pros. or Kitty Reid, her hair blowing about her face, happy with
+her daubs, messing about in the studio. Was I happier when I was like
+that? I would not go back to it! I would not barter my beauty for any
+other gift on earth. I shall fight and fight to the last ditch. I don't
+propose to be a pawn on the chess-board.
+
+If it comes to that, I shall know what to do!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A CHAPERON ON A CATTLE TRAIN.
+
+June 4.
+
+This has been one of my worst days, and I have for a long time had no days
+but bad ones. Three things have happened, either one of which would alone
+have been a calamity. Together they crush, they frighten, they humiliate
+me!
+
+This morning came this letter from Father:--
+
+Hannibal, May 31.
+
+"DEAR NELLY:--
+
+"I take my pen in hand to tell you that we are all well and hope that you
+are the same. It was a very cold winter and we were so put to it to get
+water for the stock after the dry fall that I am thinking of putting down
+a driven well this summer if I can find the money. Ma has a sprained wrist
+which is painful but not serious. John Burke sent home some little items
+from the papers. We are glad that you have been having a good time. We
+were glad that you had gone to Timothy's house, though John Burke said the
+girl you were with before was very nice. But twas right not to stay long
+enough to wear out your welcome. I do not see how I can get so much money.
+I have sent you all I had by me and we have been pinched a good deal too.
+I had a chance of a pass on a cattle train and Ma said why don't you go
+east yourself and see Nelly. But I said no school's most done and she'll
+be coming home and how can I leave? Shaw said she we can tend to
+everything all right so maybe I will come. I have written to Timothy and
+will do as he says. I have a feeling Daughter that you need some one by
+you in the city. Ma sends her love and asks why you don't write oftener.
+We wouldn't scarcely know what you was doing at all if it wasn't for John.
+
+"Your Loving Father,
+
+"EZRA D. WINSHIP." It seems I'm to have a new chaperon. He's a little
+stiff in the joints and his face is wrinkled and his talk is not that of
+society and he's coming out of the West on a cattle train. Good Lord!
+
+Oh, yes, he'll come. Uncle Timothy'll urge him to take me back to the
+farm.
+
+I won't go back! As soon as I had read this news I started for the
+Imperial Theatre to see the manager. I walked, for I have no more credit
+at the livery stable; and I was grimly amused to see in the shop windows
+the "Winship hats" and graceful "Winship scarves" that are coining money
+for other people while I have scarcely carfare.
+
+The unusual exercise may have tired me, or perhaps it was some lingering
+remnant of the old farm superstition against the theatre that made me
+slacken my steps as I neared the office. I remembered my father's
+tremulous voice cautioning me against play-houses before I started for the
+city.
+
+"Now don't ye go near them places," he said, wiping his nose and dodging
+about the corners of his eyes. "They're bad for young girls."
+
+Why do I think of these things? If he cares so much for me, why doesn't he
+get me the money I asked for; instead of coming here-on a cattle train?
+
+Whatever the reason, Puritanic training or fear of my errand, I walked
+slowly back and forth in front of the dingy little office of the theatre
+for some time before I conquered my irresolution and went desperately into
+the place.
+
+They told me the manager was out, but after a little waiting I began to
+suspect that this was a dingy white lie, and so it proved; for when I
+lifted my veil and blushing like a school-girl, told the people in the
+office who I was, at once some one scurried into a little den and
+presently came out to say that Mr. Blumenthal had "returned."
+
+Oh, the manager's an important person in his way; he has theatres in every
+part of the country and is a busy man. But he was willing enough to see me
+when his stupid people had let him know that I was the Miss Winship! Sorry
+as was my heart, I felt a thrill of triumph at this new proof of my fame
+and the power beauty gives.
+
+When I entered his office, a bald little man turned from a litter of
+papers and looked at me with frank, business-like curiosity, as if he had
+a perfect right to do so-and indeed he had. I was not there to barter
+talent, but to rent my face. I understood that; but perhaps for this very
+reason my tongue tripped as it has seldom done of late when I blunderingly
+explained my errand.
+
+"Guess we can do something for you," he said promptly. "Of course there's
+a horde of applicants, but you're exceptional; you know that."
+
+He smiled good-naturedly, and I felt at once relieved and indignant that
+he should treat as an everyday affair the step I had pondered during so
+many sleepless nights.
+
+"Must remember though," he added, "on the stage a passably pretty woman
+with a good nose, who has command of her features and can summon
+expression to them, often appears more beautiful than a goddess-faced
+stick. However, it's worth trying. I don't believe you're a stick. Ah,--
+would you walk on?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Stage slang; would you be willing to go on as a minor character--wear
+fine clothes and be looked at without saying much--at first, you know?
+Or--of course your idea's to star-you got a backer?"
+
+"I don't understand that, either."
+
+"Some one to pay the bills while you're being taught. To hire a company
+and a theatre as a gamble."
+
+"Impossible! I want money at once. I supposed that my--my beauty would
+command a position on the stage; it's certainly a bar to employment off
+it."
+
+"Of course it would; yes, yes, but not immediately. Why, even Mrs.
+Farquhar had to have long and expensive training before she made her
+debut. And you know what a scandal there had been about her!
+
+"Not that there's been any about you," he added hastily, to my look of
+amazement. "But you know--ah--public mention of any sort piques curiosity.
+Er--what's your act?"
+
+"My act?"
+
+"Yes; what can you do?"
+
+"Sing a little; nothing else. I thought of opera."
+
+This proposition didn't seem to strike him favourably.
+
+"I don't know--" he hesitated. "You have a wonderful speaking voice, and
+you've been advertised to beat the band. Who's your press agent?"
+
+"I don't quite know what a press agent is; but I'm sure I never had any."
+
+"Well, you don't need any. Now that I see you--, but I fancied months ago
+that you were probably getting ready for this. Suppose you sing a little
+song for me."
+
+We stumbled through dim passages to the stage, half-lighted by a window or
+two high overhead. Mr. Blumenthal sat alone in the orchestra, and I
+summoned all my resolution, and then, frightened and ashamed and
+desperate, I sang the "Sehnsucht," following it with what Cadge calls a
+"good yelling song" to show the power of my voice.
+
+Then the rotund little manager rolled silently back to the office, and I
+knew as I followed him that I had been judged by a different standard from
+that of an applauding drawing-room.
+
+"Well!" said he, when we had regained his room. "You are a marvel! Sing by
+all means; but, if you must have immediate results, not in opera. Music
+halls get pretty much the most profitable part of the business since they
+became so fashionable in London. Tell you what I'll do.--I'll give you a
+short trial at--say a hundred a week. You've a wonderful voice and no
+training; but any teacher can soon put you in shape to sing a few showy
+songs. Give me an option on your services for a longer term at a higher
+figure, if you take to the business and it takes to you, and you can start
+in next month at the roof garden."
+
+"The roof garden!" I cried out; but then I saw how foolish it would be to
+feel affronted at this common man with money who would rank me as an
+attraction among acrobats and trick dogs.
+
+"I shouldn't like that," I said more calmly; "people are very foolish, of
+course, but I've been told that--that if I were to sing in public, my
+appearance would mark a new era in music; now, I wouldn't care to sing in
+such a place; I had hoped, too, that I could get more--more salary."
+
+"Would seem so, wouldn't it?" said Mr. Blumenthal. "But it's a fair offer.
+Tell you why.
+
+"You'll take with an audience, for a short run, anyhow, if you've got--er--
+temperament; but I run the risk that you haven't. I spend considerable
+money getting you ready to appear, and then you're on the stage only a few
+minutes. Another thing: Most people nowadays are short sighted; you have
+to capture 'em in the mass--two Topsies, four Uncle Toms, eight Markses
+the lawyers, twenty chorus girls kicking at once-big stage picture, you
+know, not the individual. And the individual must have the large manner.
+Yes, yes; I use you for bait to draw people, but I need other performers
+to amuse 'em after they're here. They want to feel that there's 'something
+doing' all the while, something different. Curiosity wouldn't last long;
+either you'd turn out an artist and--er--do what a music hall audience
+wants done, or you'd fail. In the former case you could command more
+money; never so much as people say, though. There's so many liars."
+
+"I--I'll think over your offer," I said. "I wouldn't have to wear--"
+
+"Costumes of approved brevity? No; at least not to start with."
+
+Mr. Blumenthal also had risen. He looked at me, as if aroused to my
+ignorance of things theatrical, with a more personal and kindly interest.
+
+"Sorry my offer doesn't strike you favourably," he said. "I'd like mighty
+well to bring you out; but if you hold off for opera--that isn't my line,
+though--mind you, I don't say it could be done; but if some one were found
+to put up the money, would you wait and study? Know what you'd be
+undertaking, I suppose--hard work, regular hours, open air, steady habits?
+That's the life of a singer. Your health good? No nerves? We might make a
+deal, if you mean business. Trouble is, so many beautiful women think
+beauty as an asset is worth more than it is; it makes 'em careless about
+studying while they're young, and it can't last--"
+
+I never heard the end of that sentence. I flew home and went straight to
+my mirror. Sure enough, I fancied I saw a haggard look about the eyes--
+
+My God! This gift of beauty doesn't confer immunity from fatigue,
+accident, old age. This loveliness must fade and crack and wrinkle, these
+full organ tones must shrivel to a shrill pipe; and I--I! shall one day be
+a tottering old woman, bent, gray, hideous!
+
+And all the little disfiguring hurts of life--they frighten me! I never
+enter a train that I do not think, with a shudder, of derailment and
+bleeding gashes and white scars; or cross a street without looking about
+for the waving hoofs of runaway horses that shall beat me down, or for
+some bicycle rider who might roll me over in a limp heap on the paving
+stones.
+
+Yesterday I saw a horrid creature; her face blotched with red by acid
+stain or by a birth mark. Why does she not kill herself? Why didn't she
+die before I saw her? I shall dream of her for months--of her and
+Darmstetter, old and wrinkled as I shall be some day, and dead--with that
+same awful look in my fixed eyes!
+
+Ah, what a Nelly I have come to be! Is it possible that I once rode frisky
+colts bareback and had no nerves! I mustn't have nerves! They make one
+old. Mr. Blumenthal said so. But how to avoid them? Oh, I must be careful;
+so careful! How do women dare to ride bicycles?
+
+And this theatrical Napoleon, part of whose business is the appraisement
+of beauty--did he suspect that mine was less than perfect? It was perfect
+a month ago.
+
+He couldn't have meant that, or he was trying to make a better bargain by
+cheapening the wares I brought--
+
+But I can't go upon the stage. How could I have thought of it? I mustn't
+subject myself to the late hours, the grease paint, the bad air! Of what
+use would be a mint of money, if I lost my beauty?
+
+I steadied my nerves with a tiny glass of Curaçoa, and looked again. The
+face in the mirror was beautiful, beautiful! There is no other like it!
+And gazing upon radiant Her, I might have recovered myself but for the
+third untoward event of the day.
+
+It came in the shape of Bellmer.
+
+Perhaps I ought not to have seen him alone, but it is hard for one who has
+lived in the free atmosphere of the prairie, and has been a bachelor girl
+in New York with Kitty Reid to think about caution. Besides, it was such a
+blessed relief to see his full-moon face rise above the darkness of my
+troubles! I greeted him with my sweetest smile, and did my very best to
+make myself agreeable.
+
+"You've been out of town, haven't you?" I asked when the talk began to
+flag, as it soon does with Hughy.
+
+"Aw, yes," he said; "pickin' up a record or two, with my 'mobe;' y' ought
+to see it; it's a beauty, gasolene, you know. Awful nuisance, punctures,
+though. Cost me thirteen dollars to repair one; vulcanize the tire, y'see.
+Tires weigh thirty pounds each; awful lot, ain't it? Stripped one right
+off, though, trying to turn in the mud; fastened on with half-inch spikes,
+too. Can't I persuade you to--aw--take a spin some day? Where's Mrs.
+Whitney?"
+
+"Gone to the country; she--she's ill."
+
+"Awful tabby, wa'n't she?"
+
+"Oh, no; I like her very much, but she was in a hurry to leave town."
+
+"So Aunt Terry said. Awf'ly down on you, Aunt Terry is," he drawled with
+even more than his usual tactlessness, "but I stand up for you, I assuah
+you, Miss Winship. I tell her you're awf'ly sensible an' jolly--lettin' a
+fellow come like this, now, and talk to you's jolly, ain't it? An' you
+will try my mobe? Awf'ly jolly 'twould be to take a spin."
+
+"Very jolly indeed," I said. I turned my head that I might not see his
+shining scalp. Thank heaven, I thought, Hughy doesn't know enough to be
+deterred by two rejections, nor even by the gossip about Strathay. I
+wished--it was wicked, of course--I wished I were his widow; but I was
+determined not to repeat such folly as I had shown about the Earl.
+
+"Very jolly," I repeated, "but you don't know what a coward I am; I
+believe I'd be afraid."
+
+"Aw, no, Miss Winship," he remonstrated; "afraid of the mobe? Aw, no; not
+with me. I'll teach you how to run it, I do assuah you; awf'ly jolly that
+would be."
+
+"Why, yes; that would be nice, of course," I said; "but--"
+
+Oh, how shall I tell the rest? I was afraid of the machine; I knew I could
+never mount it, with his hand on the lever; I was just trying to refuse
+without offending him.
+
+"--I'm such a coward, really," I went on; I smiled painstakingly into his
+stupid pink face that seemed suddenly to have grown pinker; and then I
+felt my smile stiffen upon my lips, for he had whirled around on the piano
+stool on which he was sitting, and he smiled back at me, but not as he
+would have done in Mrs. Whitney's presence. He--he leered!
+
+"You wouldn't be afraid, with me, y' know,--" was all he said, but he rose
+as if to come nearer me.
+
+"Oh, yes, I should--I should--" I stammered; I couldn't move; I couldn't
+look away from him.
+
+I seemed face to face with some foolish, grinning masque of horror. My
+heart beat as I think a bird's must when a snake has eyed it; and a cold
+moisture broke out upon me.
+
+"Oh, yes, I should!" I cried as I broke loose from the spell of terror,
+and made some halting excuse to get rid of him. I didn't dare even wait to
+see him leave the room, but fled from it myself, conscious as I went of
+his open-mouthed stare, and of his detaining: "Aw, now, Miss Winship--"
+
+To get as far away as possible, I retreated to the kitchen, where I
+surprised Nora and Annie in conclave. They seized the opportunity to "give
+notice." Nora has a sweetheart and is to be married; Annie has invented
+the excuse of an ailing mother, because she dares not stay alone with me.
+They are both afraid, now that Mrs. Whitney--selfish creature!--has gone,
+and left me helpless against the world.
+
+At any other time the news would have been a fresh calamity--for how can I
+pay them, or how get rid of them without paying? But with the memory of
+that awful scene in my head, I could think of nothing else. I don't know
+what I said in reply.
+
+Bellmer's insult has stayed with me and haunted me. I had bearded a
+theatrical manager in his den and had been received with kindness and
+courtesy. He had even assumed that some things in the profession about
+which I was inquiring might be trying to a tenderly reared girl, and that
+he ought to give me advice and warnings. But this Thing bearing a
+gentleman's repute; this bat-brained darling of a society that I'm not
+thought good enough to enter, had insulted me like a boor under my own
+roof; and he would probably boast of it like a boor to others as base as
+himself! The poverty of it, the grossness of it!
+
+I'm not ignorant, now. I know there's a way open to me--God knows I never
+mean to walk on it--but if ever I do go, open-eyed, into what the world
+calls wrong to end my worries, it will be at the invitation of one who has
+at least the manner of a gentleman!
+
+Sometimes I wonder if I did right about Ned. If he had known that I loved
+him, if I had made it plain, if I were even now to tell him all the
+truth.--But he said--
+
+I hate him! The whole world's against me, but I won't be beaten! I won't
+go back to the farm with Father. I will not give up the fight!
+
+What shall I do?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+A BURST OF SUNLIGHT.
+
+June 8.
+
+They say the darkest hour comes just before the dawn. It was so with me.
+My troubles grew too great to bear, then vanished in an hour.
+
+Fate couldn't forever frown. I knew there must be help; some hand
+outstretched in a pitiless world.
+
+Really I am almost happy, for in the most unexpected and yet the most
+natural fashion, my perplexities have vanished; and I believe that my life
+will not be, after all, a failure.
+
+The hour before the dawn was more than dark. It was dreary. In the morning
+I did not care to go out, and no one came except one strange man who
+besieged the door--there have been many such here recently, dunning and
+dunning and dunning, until my patience was worn to shreds. This was a
+decent-looking fellow with a thin face, a mustache dyed black and a
+carefully unkeen expression that noticed everything.
+
+"Miss Winship?" he said, and upon my acknowledging the name, he placed a
+paper in my hands and went away. I was so relieved because he said nothing
+about wanting "a little money on account;" he wasn't even coarsely
+insolent, like so many of them. He did look surprised at my appearance; so
+surprised that his explanation of his errand died away into an
+unintelligible murmur. But I wasn't curious about it.
+
+I tried to read a newspaper, only to gather from some headlines that
+Strathay and his cousin were passengers by an out-going steamship. I
+wonder if it was all money, money, that kept him from me--or was it more
+than half the fear of beauty?
+
+I couldn't read anything else, not even a note from Mrs. Marmaduke; it was
+dated from her country place; she hoped to see me--"in the autumn!" Peggy
+is in Europe; the General's going if she's not gone already. "May see you
+at the wedding of that odd Miss Bryant," ran her last brusque message. "I
+begged an invitation; really I like her. But the chances are against my
+being here."
+
+All gone, I thought; my last hope, all my friends.
+
+There was a note from Mrs. Baker; I compelled myself to glance at that,
+and when I had done so, seized my hat and veil. She would call, it said,
+that afternoon!
+
+With no thought but of escape, I left the house; I cared not where I went,
+nor what I did. I knew the Judge had sent Aunt Frank to pry into my
+troubles; I walked with feverish haste, I would have liked to fly to avoid
+her. My hands shook.
+
+Oh, I was wretched!
+
+As I passed the Park, I saw that spring had leaped to summer and the trees
+waved fresh, green branches in the air--just such trees as John and I
+walked under, less than a year ago, making great plans for a golden
+future; and a golden future there must be, but I had then no hope of it,
+no joy in life, no happiness even in my beauty. One only thought spurred
+me on, to forget past, present and future; to buy forgetfulness by any
+caprice; to win diversion by any adventure.
+
+After some time I saw that I was in a side street whose number seemed
+familiar; self-searching at last recalled to me that on this street lived
+two rival faith healers, about whose lively competition for clients Cadge
+had once told us girls a funny story.
+
+Could there have come to my thought some hope of finding rest from sorrow
+in the leading of another mind? Impossible to say. I was near insanity, I
+think. I chose the nearer practitioner and rang the bell.
+
+I can smile now at memory of the stuffy little parlour into which I was
+ushered, but I did not smile then at it, nor at the middle-aged woman who
+received me with a set smile of stereotyped placidity. Her name, I think,
+was Mallard.
+
+"Have you a conviction of disease, my daughter?" she asked, in a low voice
+with a caressing overtone gurgling in its cadences. "You look as radiant
+as the morn. You should not think ill."
+
+"I am not ill," I replied; "but the world is harsh."
+
+"The world is the expression of our sense life to the spirit," she cooed.
+"We do not live or die, but we pass through the phenomena. Through the
+purifying of our thoughts we will gradually become more and more ethereal
+until we are translated."
+
+I felt that momentary shiver that folk tales tells us is caused by some
+one walking over our graves.
+
+"I'm in no haste to be translated," I said.
+
+"No one need be translated until she is ready--unless she has enemies. Are
+you suffering from the errors of others? Has any one felt fear for you?
+That would account for what the world calls unhappiness. Is some one
+trying to influence your subjective state?"
+
+"I am convinced of it," I said with wasted sarcasm. "But you can do
+nothing for me; you can't--can you work on unbelievers?"
+
+"Most assuredly. We are channels through which truth must flow to our
+patients. I need not tell you what I myself have done."--Mrs. Mallard
+modestly cast down her eyes.--"Mrs. Eddy has healed carous bones and
+cancers. I--some of our healers can dissuade the conviction of decayed
+teeth. The 'filling,' as the world calls it, is, in such cases, pink and
+very durable. If these marvels can be wrought upon the body, why may not
+the mind be led toward healing? Confide; confide."
+
+"Heal the world of its hate of me," I cried out. "What you say is all so
+vague. Does the mind exist?"
+
+"It Is the only thing that does exist. Without mind man and the universe
+would collapse; the winds would weary and the world stand still. Sin-
+tossed humanity, expressed in tempest and flood, the divine mind calms and
+limits with a word."
+
+I rose hastily to go. Chance alone and weariness of life had led me to
+enter the woman's parlor, but there was no forgetfulness in it. Impatience
+spurred me to be moving, and I turned to the door, with the polite fiction
+that I was leaving town but might soon consult the healer.
+
+"That makes no difference," she persisted, getting between me and the
+door. "We treat many cases, of belief in unhappiness by the absent method.
+From 9 to 10 A. M. we go into the Silence for our Eastern patients. Our
+ten o'clock is nine o'clock for those living in the central time belt. At
+11 A. M. it is nine for those in Denver or Rocky Mountain time region.
+Thus we are in the Silence during the entire forenoon, but it is always
+nine for the patient. Will you not arrange for treatment; you really look
+very badly?"
+
+"Not today." I pushed past her.
+
+To my astonishment the woman followed me to the outer door, abruptly
+changing her tone.
+
+"I know very well why you don't get healed," she said. "You fill your mind
+with antagonistic thoughts by reading papers that are fighting some one on
+every page. You want to get into some kind of society where you can pay
+$15 or $20 a week and get free healing, and you are disappointed because I
+won't give you my time and strength for nothing, so that you can have the
+money to go somewhere and have a good time. Oh, I know you society
+people!"
+
+By degrees her voice had lost its cooing tone and had risen to a shriek. I
+was amazed--until I remembered the rival across the street, who was
+probably watching me from behind closed blinds.
+
+As I walked away with the woman's angry words ringing after me from the
+doorstep, I was divided between amusement and despair; I cannot express it
+by any other phrase. And that cynical mingling of feelings was the nearest
+approach to contentment that I had known for days.
+
+The feeling died away; reaction came. It was the worst hour of my life.
+The thought of suicide--the respite I had always held in reserve against a
+day too evil to be borne--pressed upon my mind.
+
+I wandered to a ferry and crossed the East River to some unfamiliar suburb
+where saloons were thicker than I had ever before seen them; and all the
+way over I looked at the turbid water and knew in my heart that I should
+never have the courage to throw my beautiful body into that foul tide.
+
+From the ferry I presently reached a vast, forbidding cemetery, and as I
+went among the crowded graves there came floating out from a little chapel
+the sound of prayers intoned for the dead. I almost envied them; almost
+wished that I, too, might be laid to rest in the little churchyard at
+home.
+
+Then I lay down flat upon the turf in a lonely place, and tried to think
+of myself as dead. Never had the pulse beat stronger in my veins then at
+that moment. There were little living things all around me, joying in the
+warm sun; tiny insects that crawled, unrebuked, over my gown, so busy, so
+happy in their way, with their petty affairs all prospering, that I
+wondered why I should be so out of tune with the world. And then a rain of
+tears gushed from my eyes. I do not think that any one who should have
+seen me there could have guessed that the prone and weeping woman was the
+most beautiful of created things; I do not think I have an enemy so bitter
+that she would not have pitied me.
+
+I tried to think, but I was too tired. I had a vision of myself returning
+to the narrow round of farm life, to Ma's reproaches, to dreary, grinding
+toil that I might win back dollar by dollar the money I had squandered--my
+back bent, my face seamed, my hands marred, like Aunt Emily's; and I
+shuddered and wept and grovelled before fate.
+
+Then I saw myself remaining in the city, seeking work and finding nothing.
+Teach I could not; every door was barred except--I saw myself before the
+footlights, coarsened, swallowing greedily the applause of a music hall
+audience, taking a husband from that audience perhaps--a brute like
+Bellmer! Better die!
+
+But as the vision passed, a great desire of life grew upon me. It seemed
+monstrous, hideous, that I should ever die or be unhappy; the fighting
+instinct sent the blood galloping. I sat erect.
+
+Then I noticed that the sun was gone, and the evening cool was rapidly
+falling. The little people of the grass whose affairs I had idly watched I
+could no longer see--gone to their homes maybe; and I turned to mine,
+desolate as it was, hungry and chilled and alone.
+
+And that evening John Burke brought the sunshine.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+PLIGHTED TROTH.
+
+"Helen, you seem tired," John said as I met him at the door--at first I
+peeped out from behind it, I remember, as if I feared the bogey-man--"Have
+you been too hard at work?"
+
+"I've been out all the afternoon," I said, "and I suppose I am rather
+tired, but it was pleasant and warm; and I wore a veil."
+
+There was a little awkward pause after I had ushered him to the reception
+room, and then, guiding the talk through channels he thought safe, he
+spoke about his law work, the amusing things that happen at the office,
+his gratifying progress in his profession.
+
+"Oh," I said, "talking of the law reminds me--some stupid paper was left
+here to-day."
+
+I found with some difficulty and handed to him the stiff folded legal cap
+the man had brought.
+
+He glanced through it with apprehensive surprise, skipping the long
+sentences to the end.
+
+"Why, this is returnable to-morrow," he said; "Nelly, I had no idea you
+were in such urgent money troubles; why didn't you send for me at once;
+this morning?"
+
+"Oh, if that's all--I've had so many duns that I'm tired of them: tired to
+death of them."
+
+"But this isn't a dun," he began in the unnaturally quiet tone of a man
+who is trying to keep his temper and isn't going to succeed. "It is a
+court order; and people don't ignore court orders unless they want to get
+into trouble. This paper calls you to court to-morrow morning in
+supplementary proceedings."
+
+"I don't know what they are."
+
+"You don't want to know what they are. You mustn't know. It's an ordeal so
+terrible that most creditors employ it only as a last resort, especially
+against a woman. This plaintiff, being herself a woman, is less merciful."
+
+"Why is it so terrible? I have no money; they can't make me pay what I
+haven't got, can they? Is it the Inquisition?"
+
+"Yes, of a sort; it's an inquiry into your ability to pay, and almost no
+question that could throw light upon that is barred. You'll be asked about
+your business in New York, your income and expenses, your family and your
+father's means. It will be a turning inside out of your most intimate
+affairs."
+
+"Why, I should expect all that," I said.
+
+"But, Nelly--" he hesitated. "You're alone here?"
+
+He had not before alluded to Mrs. Whitney, though I suppose he understood
+that she had gone; I appreciated his delicacy.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be asked about that," he went on; "asked, I mean, how a
+young woman without money maintains a fine apartment. They'll inquire
+about your servants, the daily expenses of your table, your wine bills, if
+you ever have any; then they'll question you about your visitors, their
+character and number, and try to wring admissions from you, and to give
+sinister shades to innocent relations. The reporters will all be there, a
+swarm of them. You're a semi-public character, more's the pity, and some
+lawyers like to be known for their severity to debtors. What a field day
+for the press! The beautiful Miss Winship in supplementary proceedings--
+columns of testimony, pages of pictures--! Ugh! In a word, the experience
+is so severe that you cannot undergo it."
+
+"I don't see how it's to be helped; is it a crime to live alone?" I said.
+"I won't ask Uncle Timothy for money--and have Aunt Frank know about it."
+
+Again he hesitated, then he said more slowly, but plumping out the last
+words in a kind of desperation: "I've heard a woman--once--asked if she
+had a lover--to pay the money, you know."
+
+I didn't understand at first; then a flush deepened upon my face.
+
+"They wouldn't dare! This woman knows all about me; why, she's Meg Van
+Dam's dressmaker; Mrs. Whitney's too--" I said.
+
+"I've heard it done," John repeated patiently. "You must pardon me. I
+didn't want to go into this phase of it, but it may explain what, with
+your permission, I am about to do. Now, before I go--for I must go at once
+to find this attorney, at his house, the Democratic Club, anywhere--I must
+be frank with you."
+
+He was already at the door, where he turned and faced me, looking almost
+handsome in his sturdy manliness, his colour heightened by excitement.
+
+"I must tell you one thing," he went on very slowly. "I haven't in all the
+world a fraction of the money called for by this one bill; but in a way I
+have made some success. I am beginning to be known. If I myself offer
+terms, so much cash down, so much a month, pledging my word for the
+payment, the woman's lawyer will agree. She'll be glad to get the money in
+that way, or in any way. But I must guard your reputation. I shall tell
+plaintiff's counsel that you are my affianced wife, that I didn't know how
+badly you were in debt--both statements are true--and that I assume
+payment. I wish to assure you that, in thus asserting our old relation, I
+shall not presume upon the liberty I am obliged to take."
+
+I think I have treated John badly; yet he brought me help. And he had no
+thought of recompense. Since he has seen how useless it was, he has ceased
+to pester me with love making, but has been simply, kindly helpful. And I
+have been so lonely, so harassed and tormented.
+
+It was far enough from my thoughts to do such a thing, but as I stood
+dumbly looking at him, it flashed upon me that here, after all, was the
+man who had always loved me, always helped me, always respected me. I
+almost loved him in return. Why not try to reward his devotion, and throw
+my distracted self upon his protection?
+
+"I would not have you tell a lie for me, John," said I uncertainly,
+holding out my hands and smiling softly into his eyes.
+
+"I don't understand--" he stood irresolute, yet moved, I could see, by my
+beauty. "Do you mean--" and he slowly approached, peering from under his
+contracted brows as if trying to read my eyes.
+
+"I mean that I have treated you very badly; and that I am sorry," I
+whispered, hiding my head with a little sigh upon his shoulder; and after
+a time he put his arms about me gently as if half afraid, and was silent.
+I felt how good he was, how strong and patient, and was at peace. I knew I
+could trust him.
+
+So we stood for a little while at the dividing line between the future and
+the past. I do not know what were his thoughts, but I had not been so much
+at rest for a long, long time-not since I came from home to New York.
+
+Then with a sigh of quiet content, he said in a low and gentle voice:--
+
+"It's a strange thing to hurry away now, Nelly; but you know I have so
+much to do before I can rest tonight. I must speak of this: Now--now that
+we are to belong to each other always--I must know exactly about all your
+affairs, so that I can arrange them. There are other debts?"
+
+The word grated upon my nerves, I had been so glad to forget.
+
+"Yes, I'm afraid I owe a lot of money, but must we--just to-night?" I
+asked.
+
+"I'm afraid it's safest. It is not alone that you will be able to forget
+the matter sooner if you confide in me now, but how can we know that these
+proceedings will not be repeated if I don't attend promptly to everything?
+Some one else may bring suit tomorrow, and another the next day, giving
+you no peace. I'm sorry, but it is the best way. Tell me everything now,
+and I will arrange with them all, and need never mention the subject
+again. Then you can be at peace."
+
+"Well, if I must--"
+
+It seemed impossible to go on. Even the thought of how good he was and how
+he had taken up my burden when it was too heavy for my own strength made
+it harder to face the horrible business.
+
+"--I owe ten dollars to Kitty Reid, and about twenty-five to Cadge," I
+admitted. "I didn't mean to borrow of them, but I had to do it, just
+lately--"
+
+"Poor child!" said John, stroking my hand with his big, warm paw, as he
+would a baby's. "Poor child!"
+
+"I've bills somewhere for everything else--"
+
+It was like digging among the ruins of my past greatness to pull out the
+crumpled papers from my writing desk, reminding me of the gay scenes that
+for me were no more; but John quietly took them from me, and began
+smoothing them and laying them in methodical piles and making notes of
+amounts and names.
+
+"I've refused all these to Uncle Timothy; he's been worrying me with
+questions--" I said desperately.
+
+"Three florists, two confectioners," he enumerated, as if he had not heard
+me.
+
+"--Women eat sweets by the ton, but lately there have been few of 'em in
+this house. Then here are the accounts for newspaper clippings, you know;
+Shanks and Romeike; but they're trifles."
+
+"You must have been a good customer," John said, glancing about the
+dishevelled flat--I hadn't had the heart to rearrange it since Mrs.
+Whitney left. "From the look of the place, I believe you would have bought
+a mummy or a heathen god, if anybody had suggested it to you."
+
+"I have a little heathen god--Gautama; alabaster--and a mummied cat."
+
+"And you're very fond of that? But no matter. Shoemaker and milliner and
+furniture man; that makes eleven."
+
+He lengthened his list on the margin of a newspaper.
+
+"Well, I never paid Van Nostrand for that painting, and I've even
+forgotten how much he said it would be. And there's a photograph bill--a
+perfectly scandalous one--and another dressmaker; Mrs. Edgar; I went back
+to her after Meg's woman got crusty, but she never'll sue me. And the
+Japanese furniture shop and--another photographer--and here's the bill for
+bric-a-brac--that's sixteen. The wine account--there is one, but it ought
+to be Mrs. Whitney's; for entertaining. I suppose Pa and Ma would say that
+was a very wicked bill, now wouldn't they, Schoolmaster?"
+
+"They would indeed, Helen 'Lizy; I'm not sure that I don't agree with
+them. By the way, does your father know about all this?"
+
+"Yes, a little. I've begged him for money, but he won't mortgage the farm.
+And Judge Baker knows. He wants me to come back to his house, but of
+course I won't do it. I guess he's sent for Father; Pa's coming East soon,
+on a cattle train pass."
+
+"A cattle train!"
+
+John stabbed the paper viciously, then he said more gently:--
+
+"A cattle train is cold comfort for a substantial farmer at his time of
+life; and I don't think we will let him mortgage."
+
+That young man will need discipline; but I imagine he was thinking less
+about my poor old father than about--well, I needn't have mentioned the
+Baker house, but what does he really know of how I came to leave it?
+Perhaps suspicion and bitter memories made my retort more spirited than it
+need have been.
+
+"We won't discuss that, please," I said with hauteur; "and we won't be too
+emphatic about what is past. It _is_ past. I'll find out what is a
+proper scale of expenditure for a young lawyer's wife in New York, and I
+shall not exceed it. I've been living very economically for the sphere
+that seemed open to me. Perhaps I ought not to have tried it; but I think
+you should blame those who lured me into extravagance and then deserted
+me. I've had a terrible, terrible experience! Do you know that? And I was
+within an ace of becoming an ornament of the British peerage. Did you know
+that?"
+
+"Yes; I don't blame you for refusing, either; some girls don't seem to
+have the necessary strength of mind. No; I'm not blaming anybody for
+anything. Nelly, next week it will be a year since our first betrothal; do
+you remember? Haven't you, after all, loved me a little, all the time?"
+
+He looked at me wistfully.
+
+"At least," I said, "I didn't love Lord Strathay."
+
+I didn't think it necessary to correct him as to my refusal of the Earl.
+
+"We'll see if Kitty won't take you in again until we can be married," he
+said, jabbing the paper again and changing the subject almost brusquely.
+"If you don't want to go back to your aunt, that'll be better than a
+boarding house, won't it? You pay the girls out of this, and I'll look
+after the other bills. There's a good fellow. Now, then what's No. 18?"
+
+I fingered with an odd reluctance the little roll of bills he handed me,
+though it was like a life buoy to a drowning sailor.
+
+"You'd better," he said, with quiet decision, cutting short my hesitation.
+"The girls won't need to know where it comes from, or that I know anything
+about it. It's ever so much nicer that way, don't you think?"
+
+I put the money with my pride into my pocket, and continued sorting out
+bills from the rubbish. In all we scheduled over forty before we gave it
+up. Besides the Van Nostrand painting and one or two accounts that
+probably escaped us, I found that I owed between $4,000 and $5,000.
+
+"That is the whole of my dowry, John," I said.
+
+"I would as willingly accept you as a portionless bride," he declaimed in
+theatrical fashion; and then we both broke into hysterical laughter.
+
+"Never mind," he said, at last, wiping his eyes. "I never dreamed that all
+this rubbish about you could cost so much; I ought to have had my eyes
+open. But now we aren't going to worry one little worry, are we? I'll
+straighten it all out in time. And now I really must go."
+
+And so he went away with a parting kiss, leaving me very happy. I don't
+know that I love him; or rather I know that I don't--but I shall be good
+to him and make him so happy that he'll forget all the trouble I have cost
+him. Dear old unselfish, patient John!
+
+And I am more content and less torn by anxiety than I have been for many a
+long day. It is such a relief!
+
+And so I'm thinking it over. Even from the selfish standpoint I have not
+done so badly. John is developing wonderfully. He is not so destitute of
+social finesse as when he came, his language is better, his bearing more
+confident. He makes a good figure in evening dress. He will be a famous
+success in the law, and, with a beautiful wife to help him, he should go
+far. He may be President some day, or Minister to the Court of St. James,
+or a Justice of the Supreme Court.
+
+Whatever his career, I shall help him. I have the power to do things in
+the world as well as he. And once married, I may almost choose my friends
+and his associates. The women will no longer fear me so much. He shall not
+regret this night's work.
+
+So that is settled. I am so relieved, and more tired than I have ever
+guessed a woman could be. Tired, tired, tired!
+
+I'm sure it is the best thing I could do, now; but--Judge Baker is right!
+What was it he said? "A loveless marriage,"--Oh, well, since I broke Ned
+Hynes's heart by setting a silly little girl to drive him away, and broke
+my own by breaking his, I haven't much cared what becomes of me; only to
+be at peace.
+
+It will be a relief to move out of this accursed flat, where I have spent
+the gloomiest hours of my life.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
+
+(From the Shorthand Notes of John Burke.)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE DEEDS OF THE FARM.
+
+Sunday, June 13.
+
+In three days it will be a year since Helen promised to marry me, and on
+that anniversary she will be my wife.
+
+It is strange how exactly according to my plan things have come about--and
+how differently from all that I have dreamed.
+
+She is the most beautiful woman in the world; she is to be my wife sooner
+than I dared to hope--and--I must be good to her. I must love her.
+
+Did I ever doubt my love until she claimed it five days ago with such
+confidence in my loyalty? In that moment, as I went to her, as I took her
+in my arms, as I felt that she needed me and trusted me, with the
+suddenness of a revelation I knew--
+
+It was hard to meet Ethel--and Milly and Mrs. Baker afterwards.
+
+To-day, in preparing to move to our new home, I came across the rough
+notes I wrote last December, when the marvel of Helen's beauty was fresh
+to me. As I read the disjointed and half incredulous words I had set to
+paper, I found myself living over again those days of Faery and
+enchantment.
+
+Custom has somewhat dulled the shock of her beauty; I have grown quickly
+used to her as the most radiantly lovely of created beings; my mind has
+been drawn to dwell upon moral problems and to sorrow at seeing her
+gradually become the victim of her beauty--her nature, once as fine as the
+outward form that clothes it, warped by constant adulation, envy and
+strife; until--
+
+But it is a miracle! As unbelievable, as unthinkable as it was on the very
+first day when that glowing dream of loveliness made manifest floated
+toward me in the little room overlooking Union Square, and I was near
+swooning with pure delight of vision.
+
+Beautiful; wonderful! She didn't love me then and she doesn't now; but the
+most marvellous woman in the world needs me--and I will not fail her.
+
+I wish I could take her out of the city for a change of mental atmosphere.
+She shrinks from her father's suggestion of a summer on the farm. But in
+time her wholesome nature must reassert itself; she must become, if not
+again the fresh, light-hearted girl I knew a year ago, a sweet and
+gracious woman whose sufferings will have added pathos to her charm.
+
+And even now she's not to be judged like other women; before the shining
+of her beauty, reproach falls powerless. It is my sacred task to guard
+her--to soothe her awakening from all that nightmare of inflated hopes and
+vain imaginings. Kitty Reid and---yes, and little Ethel--will help me.
+
+Kitty is a good fellow.
+
+"Why, cert.," she said when I begged her last Wednesday to take care of
+Helen. "Married! Did you say married? Oh, Cadge, quit pegging shoes!"
+
+Jumping up from the drawing table, Kitty left streams of India ink making
+her beastesses all tigers while she called to Miss Bryant, who was
+pounding viciously upon a typewriter:--
+
+"Cadge, did you hear? Cadge! The Princess is going to be married. 'Course
+you remember, Mr. Burke, Cadge is going to be married herself Saturday."
+
+"Don't be too sure of it," returned Miss Bryant, "and do let me finish
+this sentence. Ten to one Pros. or I'll be grabbed off for an assignment
+Saturday evening 'fore we can be married. But the Princess is different;
+she has leisure. Burke, shake!"
+
+She sprang up to take my hand, her eyes shining with excitement.
+
+Kitty hurried with me to the Nicaragua, where she pounced upon Helen, her
+red curls madly bobbing.
+
+"What a bride you'll make!" she cried fondly. "Going to be married from
+the den, aren't you? Oh, I'm up to my eyes in weddings; Cadge simply won't
+attend to anything. But what have you been doing to yourself? Come here,
+Helen."
+
+She pushed the proud, pale beauty into a chair, smothering her with kisses
+and the piles of cushions that seem to add bliss to women's joys and
+soften all their griefs.
+
+"Tired, aren't you?" she purred. "Needed me. Now just you sit and talk
+with Mr. Burke and I'll pack up your brittle-brae in three no-times.
+Clesta,--where's that imp?"
+
+She called to the little combination maid and model who had accompanied
+us.
+
+"Clesta's afraid of you, Helen. 'Why'd ye fetch me 'long?' she whimpers.
+'Miss Kitty, why'd ye fetch me 'long?' Huh, I 'member how you used to have
+his picture with yours in a white and gold frame!"
+
+Helen scarcely replied to Kitty's raptures. She laid her head back half-
+protestingly among her cushions, showing her long, exquisite throat. For
+an instant she let her shadowy lashes droop over the everchanging lustre
+of her eyes. I couldn't help thinking of a great, glorious bird of heaven
+resting with broken wing.
+
+"Poor little Princess!" said Kitty, who hardly comes to Helen's shoulder.
+Then we all laughed.
+
+Kitty stayed at the Nicaragua that night, and when I came Thursday
+afternoon she stopped me outside the door, to say:--
+
+"I wouldn't let Helen talk too much; she's nervous."
+
+"Can you tell me what is the matter with her?" I asked. "I don't think
+she's well."
+
+"Oh, nothing. You know--she's been worrying." Then loyal Kitty spoke
+purposely of commonplaces. "General must have danced her off her feet.
+Darmstetter's death upset her terribly, too. She never will speak of it.
+But she'll be as right as right with me. Bring her 'round as soon as the
+man comes for the trunks. You've only to head up a barrel of dishes,
+quick, 'fore Clesta gets in any fine work smashing 'em."
+
+As I passed through the hall, littered with trunks and packing cases, to
+the dismantled parlour, Helen looked up from a mass of old letters and
+dance cards.
+
+"I'm sorting my--souvenirs," she said.
+
+The face she lifted was white, only the lips richly red, with a shade of
+fatigue under the haunting eyes. The graceful figure in its close-fitting
+dress looked a trifle less round than it had done earlier in the winter,
+and one fair arm, as it escaped from its flowing sleeve, was almost thin.
+
+"Dear," I said wistfully, for something in her drooping attitude smote me
+to remorse and inspired me with tenderness; "will you really trust your
+life to me?"
+
+She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent
+till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then--I saw among the rubbish
+on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have
+spoken.
+
+"What's that?" I asked. "Not--pawn tickets?"
+
+"For a necklace," she said; "and this--this must be my diamond--"
+
+"Pawned and not paid for!"
+
+She offered me the tickets, only half understanding, her great eyes as
+innocent as they were lovely.
+
+"I had forgotten," she said. "I only found them when I came to--"
+
+She brushed the rubbish of her winter's triumphs and disappointments to
+the floor, and turned from it with a little, disdainful movement.
+
+"I had to pay the maids," she said simply.
+
+"Nelly, why--why didn't you come to me sooner?"
+
+With a bump against the door, Clesta sidled into the room awestruck and
+smutched, bearing a tray.
+
+"Miss Kitty said," she stammered, "as how I should make tea." And as soon
+as she had found a resting place for her burden, the frightened girl made
+a dash for the door.
+
+Before Helen had finished drinking, there was a stir in the hall, and then
+the sound of a familiar voice startled us.
+
+"Wa-al, Helen 'Lizy," it said. "How ye do, John? Don't git up; I can set
+till ye're through."
+
+And Mr. Winship himself stood before us, stoop-shouldered, roughly dressed
+from the cattle cars, his kindly old eyes twinkling, his good face all
+glorified by the honest love and pride shining through its plainness.
+
+"Why, Father!" cried Helen with a start.
+
+She looked at him with a nervous repugnance to his appearance, which she
+tried to subdue. He did not seem to notice it.
+
+"Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?" he asked. "Kind o' thought
+I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let
+me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're
+movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'."
+
+Mr. Winship has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his
+bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech,
+seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the
+wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the
+Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.
+
+Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes
+scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of
+tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he
+would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze
+with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.
+
+She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and
+fast growing feeble. The instinct of father love has grown in him so
+refined that he sees the soul and not the envelope. Grand and beautiful as
+she is to others, to him she is still his little Nelly.
+
+He would not even own that he thought her altered.
+
+"I d'know," he said, a shade of anxiety blending with the old fond pride.
+"Fust-off, Sis didn't look jes' nat'ral, spite of all the picters she's
+sent us; but that was her long-tailed dress, mebbe. W'en she's a young
+one, Ma was all for tyin' back her ears and pinchin' her nose with a
+clo'espin--to make it straight or so'thin'; but I says to Ma, w'en Helen
+'Lizy lef' home, 'don't ye be one mite afeard,' I says, 'but what them
+bright eyes'll outshine the peaked city gals.' Guess they have, sort o',
+eh, Sis; f'om what John's been writin'?"
+
+"I don't know, Father."
+
+"Don't ye--don't ye want t' hear 'bout the folks? Brought ye heaps o'
+messages. Frenchy, now--him that worked for us--druv over f'om the Merriam
+place to know 'f 'twas true that city folks made a catouse over ye. He'd
+heard the men readin' 'bout ye in the papers.
+
+"'Wa-al,' I says to Frenchy, 'Helen 'Lizy was al'ays han'some.'
+
+"'D'know 'bout zat,' says Frenchy, only he says it in his lingo, 'but she
+was one vair cute li'l gal.'
+
+"'Han'some as a picter,' I tol' him; 'an' cutes' little tyke y'ever see.'"
+
+"How is Mother?" asked Helen constrainedly.
+
+"Ma's lottin' on havin' ye home; wants t' hear all 'bout the good times.
+School done? All packed and ready for a start, ain't ye? But ye don't seem
+to be feeling any too good. Don't New York agree with ye, Sissy? Been
+studying too hard?"
+
+"She is a goot organism; New York agrees vit her," I said. "Wasn't that
+how poor old Darmstetter put it, Nelly? Mr. Winship, Nelly has overworked,
+but with your consent, she is about to let a tyrannical husband take care
+of her."
+
+At my heedless mention of Darmstetter, Helen's white face grew whiter. Her
+trembling hand strayed, seeking support.
+
+"Al'ays s'posed you'n' Sis'd be marryin' some day," said Mr. Winship,
+dubiously watching her, while he stroked his beard; "but seems mos's if
+ye'd better wait a spell, till Ma's chirked her up some. Han'some place
+here."
+
+His eyes examined the luxurious, disordered room.
+
+"These here things ain't yourn, Sis?"
+
+"Not all of them."
+
+"I ain't refusin' to let Sis marry, if ye're both sot on't," he conceded.
+Then he caught sight of the Van Nostrand painting, and his slow glance
+travelled from it to Helen. "That done for you, Sis? I never helt with
+bare necks. Yes, Sis can marry, if she says so, though Ma wants her home.
+But she ain't been writin' real cheerful. She--she's asked for money,
+that's the size on't. An' here ye are up in arms an' she nigh sick. I
+don't want nothing hid away f'om me; how come ye livin' in a place like
+this?"
+
+He rose laboriously, surveying through the open doorway the beautiful hall
+and the dining-room; while I interposed some jesting talk on other
+matters, for I had hoped to get Helen out of the Nicaragua before her
+father's arrival, and still hoped to spare him knowledge of our worst
+troubles.
+
+"If Sis has been buyin' all this here, I ain't denying that I'll feel the
+expense," he said, sticking to the subject; "but I guess we can manage."
+
+Fumbling for his wallet, he drew some papers from it and handed them to
+Helen, adding:--
+
+"There, Sis; there they are."
+
+"Money, Father?" she asked with indifference. "I don't believe I need
+any."
+
+"Don't ye? Ye wrote 'bout mortgagin'. I didn't want to do it, 'count o'
+Ma, partly; but we kep' worryin' an' worryin' 'bout ye. Ma couldn't sleep
+o' nights or eat her victuals; an fin'lly--'Ezry,' she says, 'we was
+possessed to let Helen 'Lizy, at her age, an' all the chick or child we
+got, go off alone to the city. Ezry,' she says, 'you go fetch her home.
+Like's not Tim can let ye have the money,' she says; 'his wife bein' an
+own cousin, right in the family, y'know.' So I've brought the deeds, Sis,
+an'--"
+
+"What!" cried Helen, starting up. "The deeds of the farm? Let me see!"
+
+She reached out a shaking hand for the papers.
+
+"I'll pay you back!" she cried. "Why didn't you come sooner? How much can
+you get? How much money?"
+
+"Not much more'n three thousan', I'm afeared, on a mortgage; cap'tal's
+kind o' skeery--but Tim--"
+
+"Three thousand dollars!"
+
+Laughing hysterically, she fell back in her chair.
+
+"I had ought 'a come sooner; an' three thousan' ain't a gre't deal, I
+don't suppose, here in the city; but it's been spend, spend--not that I
+grutch it--an' things ain't so flourishin' as they was. I'm gittin' too
+old to manage, mebbe--"
+
+"Mr. Winship," I said, "Nelly has told you the truth; she doesn't need
+money; she--"
+
+"Three thousand will save me!" Helen cried. "I can pay a little to
+everybody. I can hold out, I can--"
+
+"Please, Miss--the furniture--"
+
+Behind Clesta appeared two men who gaped at Helen in momentary
+forgetfulness of their errand.
+
+Helen's creditors have proved more than reasonable, with the exception of
+the furniture people; their demands were such that there seemed no
+alternative but to surrender the goods. As the men who came for them
+advanced into the room, stammering questions about the articles they were
+to remove, Helen struggled to her feet and started to meet them, then
+stopped, clutching at a table for support. Their eyes never left her face.
+
+"Are they takin' your things, Sis?" asked Mr. Winship.
+
+Her feverish glance answered him.
+
+"What's to pay?" he inquired.
+
+"Want to keep the stuff, Boss?" asked the head packer.
+
+"Yes," I said, seeing her distress, and resolving desperately to find the
+means, somehow.
+
+"It ain't none o' your look-out," interposed Mr. Winship. "Sis ain't a-
+goin' to be beholden to her husband, not till she's married. Ezry Winship
+al'ays has done for his own, an' he proposes to do, jes' as fur's he's
+able. Sis'll tell ye I hain't stented her--What's to pay?"
+
+I couldn't see all his savings go for gauds!
+
+"You may take the goods," I said to the men, with sudden revulsion of
+feeling. "There's no room for them," I added gruffly to Mr. Winship, "in
+our--the rooms--where we are to live."
+
+"All right, Boss," said the head packer; "which gent speaks for the lady?"
+
+"Father!" Helen gasped.
+
+"What's to pay?" insisted Mr. Winship.
+
+"Take the goods," I repeated.
+
+"All right, Boss;" and the two men went about their work, still glancing
+at us with sidelong looks of curiosity.
+
+Helen gazed at me with eyes that stabbed. Then slowly her glance dulled.
+She dropped on a packing box and sat silent--a bowed figure of despair--
+forgetting apparently that she was not alone.
+
+Mr. Winship made no further attempt to interfere with events. He stood by
+Helen's side, puzzled and taciturn.
+
+I, too, was silent, reproaching myself for the brutality of my action,
+unable to decide what I should have done or ought to do. Helen herself had
+suggested that we give up the furniture, and I had not mourned the
+necessity, for I hated the stuff, with its reminders of the General and
+the Whitney woman and Bellmer and the Earl and all those strange people
+that I used to see around her. But I might have known that she could not,
+all at once, wean herself from the trumpery.
+
+A minute later Clesta ushered in the man who was to take the trunks, and
+when I had given him his directions, I asked:--
+
+"Shall we go, Nelly?"
+
+"If ye ain't reconciled to movin'--" Mr. Winship began.
+
+But Helen answered neither of us. Her eyes were bent upon the floor, and a
+look, not now of resentment, but of--was it fear?--had slowly crept upon
+her face. Her hands were clenched.
+
+Darmstetter! Instinct--or memory of my careless words spoken but a little
+earlier--told me the truth. The growing pallor of her cheek spoke her
+thought. How that tragedy haunts her! The face I looked upon was at the
+last almost ghastly.
+
+"Nelly--" I said, very gently.
+
+She looked around with the slow bewilderment that I once saw on the face
+of a sleep-walker. Her eyes saw through us, and past us, fixed upon some
+invisible horror. She was heedless of the familiar scene, the figures
+grouped about her. Then there came a sudden flush to her face, a quick
+recoil of terror; she shuddered as if waking from a nightmare.
+
+"Why do we stay here?" she cried starting up with sudden, panic strength.
+"Let's get out of this horrible place! Let's go! Oh, let's go! Let's go!"
+
+And so it was, in sorrow and with dark forebodings, that we left the gay
+rooms where Helen had so passionately enjoyed her little flight in the
+sunshine.
+
+The drive through the streets was at first silent. Shutting her eyes, she
+leaned back in the carriage. Sometimes she shuddered convulsively.
+
+"Where ye goin'?" Mr. Winship asked at last, peering out at the carriage
+window. Indeed the trip to Fourteenth Street seemed interminable to me,
+and I didn't wonder at his impatience.
+
+The simple question broke down Helen's reserve.
+
+"Anywhere!" she sobbed, breaking into violent, hysterical tears. "I didn't
+want to stay there! I didn't want the furniture! I didn't want it! I don't
+want money! Father, you needn't mortgage!"
+
+"We'll talk 'bout that some other time," said Mr. Winship soothingly.
+"Nevermind now, Sissy."
+
+"Ye'll take good care of Helen 'Lizy?" he said to Cadge and Kitty when we
+had half carried her up the long flights of stairs to the studio. He
+seemed to take no notice of the strange furnishings of the loft, but his
+furrowed brow smoothed itself as he looked into the hospitable faces of
+the two girls.
+
+"Ye'll take good care of her?" he repeated simply. "I'm afeard my daughter
+ain't very well."
+
+"We will; we will!" they assured him eagerly; and indeed it seemed that
+Helen had found her needed rest, for she bade us good night almost
+cheerfully.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CADGE'S ASSIGNMENT.
+
+"You say Winship is around at your place?" asked Judge Baker Friday
+morning. I had before told him about the approaching marriage. "The dear
+old boy! I am very glad."
+
+"He wants to talk with you about a mortgage," I said bluntly. "Can you
+dissuade him? I think the situation in its main features is no secret to
+you."
+
+The Judge frowned in surprise. "You don't mean that she--"
+
+"Of course Helen has refused her father's offer. We have so arranged
+everything that no help from him is needed, but he may be rather
+obstinate, for I'm afraid she wrote to him, suggesting--I mean, she now
+regrets it," I added.
+
+"Ah, those regrets! Those regrets!" He sat silent for a moment, thinking
+deeply. "That phase of an otherwise rosy situation is unfortunate. I will
+do my best with Winship, and you must explain to me your proposed
+arrangements; for I claim an uncle's privilege to be of use to Nelly, and
+she, with perhaps natural reticence, has acquainted me only partially with
+her affairs. I rejoice to hear that she now wishes to spare her father,
+but--you will pardon me, Burke?--she was hasty; she was hasty. It is
+easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion.
+Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless
+in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the
+vision of a hair-trigger God, always cocked and ready to shoot if they
+crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe
+test of character. May I offer you both my heartiest--"
+
+It was just at that happy moment that the office boy announced Mr. Winship
+to share the Judge's kind wishes; and by good luck in came also Mrs.
+Baker, but a moment behind him.
+
+"Why, Ezra!" she chirped in a flutter of amazed cordiality at sight of her
+husband's visitor. "You in New York? Why, for Nelly's wedding, of course!
+John Burke, why've you kept us in the dark these months and months? I'm--
+I'm really ashamed of you!"
+
+Her plump gloved hands seized Mr. Winship's, while her small, swift, bird-
+like eyes looked reproach at me.
+
+"Patience, Mrs. Baker; patience!" rejoined the Judge. "Is not an engaged
+man entitled to his secrets? Has it escaped your memory how, once upon a
+time, you and I--."
+
+"There, now, Bake! Stop, can't you?" she interrupted with vehement good
+nature; and I ceased to intrude upon the three old friends.
+
+That afternoon, when I sought Helen at the studio, I was more surprised
+than I should have been, and wonderfully relieved to discover the result
+of their conference.
+
+Ignorant of any quarrel and overflowing with anxiety, Helen's father had
+unbosomed his anxieties about her health and accomplished what no
+diplomacy could have done. Mrs. Baker had flown with him to the studio,
+where, constrained by his presence, Helen had submitted to an incredible
+truce with her aunt.
+
+"I told Tim'thy an' Frances we'd eat Sunday dinner with 'em," Mr. Winship
+told me; "an' they say you'n' Sis had ought to be married f'om their
+house. Good idee, seems to me, though Sis here don't take to it, somehow."
+
+"Oh, I suppose I can endure Aunt Frank," said Helen, making savage dabs at
+Cadge's typewriter; "if you wish it--you and John."
+
+She was making a great effort for her father's sake, and I could not
+exclaim against her chilly reception of the olive branch.
+
+"It'll please Ma, w'en she comes to hear 'bout it; she thinks a sight of
+Frank Baker," urged Mr. Winship.
+
+"'Fraid I'll have to tackle someb'dy else 'bout that money," he went on
+after a pause; "Tim'thy says he ain't got a cent loose, jest now. I did
+kind o' want to keep it quiet, keep it to the fambly like, but I can git
+it; I can git th' money; on'y it'll take time."
+
+"Why, Father, I begged you not to try," said Helen impatiently. "I don't
+need money; ask John."
+
+"W'at you've spent can't come on John," declared Mr. Winship; "I'll have
+to be inquirin' 'round. But I'm glad to see ye lookin' brighter'n you did
+yist'day, Sissy; Tim'thy's wife'll have an eye on ye. She's comin' here
+agin to-morrer, she says, to a weddin'. You didn't tell me 'bout any one
+gittin' married--not in sich a hurry, not to-morrer. W'ich gal is it?"
+
+"Wouldn't think it was Cadge, would you?" laughed Kitty, staggering into
+the room under the weight of a big palm. "Next chum I have, it'll be in
+the contract that, in case of emergency, she helps run her own wedding.
+'Course Helen's all right with me--or will be, once Caroline Bryant's
+disposed of."
+
+In spite of the confusion of the wedding preparations, Helen did do credit
+to Kitty's nursing; and last evening, when there came the climax of all
+the bustle, she seemed stronger even than on Friday.
+
+It was a night to remember!
+
+The big Indians of the canvasses peeped grimly from ambushes of flowers
+and tall ferns, as the studio door opened and Kitty came running to meet
+me, her cheeks flushed and her curls in a hurricane.
+
+"'Most time for the minister," she cried breathlessly, "and not a sign of
+Cadge! Not a sign! And I want to tell you--Helen's sorry we invited the
+General, but she won't come, so that's no matter; but the Bakers--do they
+like him?"
+
+"Like the minister?"
+
+"Like Ned Hynes?" panted Kitty. "When we asked 'em yesterday, I forgot,
+but he'll be here. Pros. and he belong to a downtown club--'At the Sign of
+the Skull and Crossbones'--or something--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, it's all right, but I thought I'd tell you. If only Cadge'd come!
+That's what eating me!" Kitty groaned. "But do you see our Princess? All
+she needed was me to make her comfy. Shall I get you the least little bit
+of colour, out of a box, Helen? Or--no; you're too lovely. But come, you
+must have some roses."
+
+As Helen joined us, very pale in her shimmering dress, with her hair like
+an aureole about her head, she looked a tall, white Grace, a swaying lily
+shining in the dusky place. Almost with the old reverence I whispered:--
+
+"You are the most beautiful of woman!"
+
+"Do I please you, Sir?" she said, smiling as she moved away again with
+Kitty. "Won't you see to Father? He's come without his necktie."
+
+"Sho, Sis!" said Mr. Winship; "don't my beard hide it? Declare I clean
+forgot."
+
+Soon Helen returned to pin a flower at my button-hole.
+
+"Where _can_ Cadge be?" she cried gaily; but her hands shook and she
+dropped the rose. "Do you suppose she's interviewing a lunatic asylum?"
+
+What had changed her voice and burned fever spots in her cheeks? I wasn't
+so indifferent as I had seemed to Kitty's news. Had she told Helen, too,
+that Ned Hynes--what was he to my betrothed?
+
+"Can't you rest somewhere and just show for the ceremony?" I said, "Nelly,
+you're not strong."
+
+"There's not a place big enough for a mouse. But did you mean it? Do I
+really look well to-night? Am I just as beautiful as I was three-four
+months ago, or have I--"
+
+"Oh, do slip out and 'phone the _Star_! I can feel my hair
+whitening," whispered Kitty, turning to me hastily, as a couple of women
+entered. "See, folks are beginning to come."
+
+I went out into the warm and rainy night, but there was no Cadge at the
+_Star_ office. By the time I had returned with this information, the
+eyry held a considerable gathering. Mrs. Baker had arrived, and her two
+daughters; but I had no time to wonder at Milly's coming, for behind me
+entered Mrs. Van Dam and then, among a group of strangers, I noticed
+Hynes.
+
+Involuntarily, at sight of him, my eyes turned to Helen; but not a muscle
+of her face betrayed deeper feeling than polite pleasure as she helped
+Kitty receive the wedding guests, greeting the General cordially, Hynes
+with graciousness.
+
+Kitty's welcome to Mrs. Van Dam would have been irresistibly funny, if I
+had had eyes to see the humour.
+
+"Cadge promised to be home early," she sputtered, "but probably she's
+telling some one this minute: 'Oh, I'll be there in time; I don't need
+much--not much more than the programme.'
+
+"Can't _you_ guess where she is, Pros.?" she implored in an
+undertone, as her brother approached us. "If the minister gets here before
+Cadge does, I'll cut her off with a shilling."
+
+"What an interesting place!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam, examining her
+surroundings through her quizzing glasses. "I've heard so much about your
+paintings, Miss Reid. And what an astonishing girl, this Miss Bryant!
+Where can she be? Helen, you sly girl, I hear news about you."
+
+"Oh, very likely Miss Bryant is out of town," Reid answered for her with a
+quiet smile. "She'll show up after the paper goes to press, if not
+sooner."
+
+"On her wedding day! The girl's a genius! And when may that be? When will
+the--ah--when will the paper go to press?"
+
+"They take copy up to two o'clock for the second edition. But she maybe
+here at any moment."
+
+The General stared at him with amazement.
+
+"Oh, you don't know Cadge," sighed Kitty, "if you think she'd be jarred by
+her own wedding. But we must do something. Everybody's here and waiting.
+Sing, Helen, won't you? Oh, do sing."
+
+Helen had not joined in the rapid conversation. Now she smiled assent with
+stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a
+mandolin--not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmanship in
+inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting
+tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the
+puckers in her forehead every minute growing deeper.
+
+While I listened to the gladsome music, my glance strayed to Milly, but
+she was almost hidden by the curtains of the tepee; and then to Ned, who
+sat with his face turned partly away from us. I noticed that he looked
+gaunt, and I found a bitter satisfaction in the thought that, perhaps, in
+Helen's "three-four months" he had not seen, until that night, either of
+the women with whose lives his own had been entangled.
+
+"Just one more," begged Kitty, when Helen stopped. "You're my only hope;
+do sing, Helen."
+
+Dropping the mandolin, Helen began without accompaniment "The King of
+Thule:"--
+
+"'There stood the old carouser,
+And drank the last life glow;
+And hurled the hallowed goblet
+Into the tide below.
+
+"He saw it plunging and filling,
+And sinking deep in the sea;
+Then fell his eyelids forever,
+And never more drank he!'"
+
+It was the ballad she had sung at Christmas--in what different mood! Then
+her voice had been as carefree as a bird's carol, but now it lent to the
+limpid simplicity of the air a sobbing, shuddering sweetness--an almost
+weird intensity that strangely affected her listeners.
+
+When she had finished, something like a gasp went through the room. With a
+heart-breaking coldness I felt that I was her only unmoved auditor, or--
+no; Ned seemed studying with weary disapproval the pattern of his shoes.
+
+"Love and death; and at a wedding!" Mrs. Van Dam shivered. "Something more
+cheerful, Helen."
+
+"Let's go--let's go and eat up Cadge's spread; that'd be cheerful,"
+sniffed Kitty, her hot, nervous hand patting Helen's shoulder. "The
+Princess's tired. But we must do something."
+
+"Eat the wedding supper before the wedding. Original, I must say!"
+
+But the General willingly enough helped Kitty to marshal us into the
+crowded little dining-room; where Helen and I found ourselves beside Mr.
+Winship and Ethel. Her father accepted Helen's music with as little
+surprise as he had shown at her beauty.
+
+"Comin' home pretty soon, ain't ye," he asked, "to give us some hymn tunes
+Sunday evenings? W'at'll I git for ye? Must be hungry after so much
+singing."
+
+"I'm afraid I wasn't in voice to-night," said she rather wearily.
+
+"Not in voice!" protested Ethel with shy enthusiasm; "why, Nelly, I never
+before heard even you sing like that; it was-it was-oh, it was wonderful!"
+
+I dared not look at her, yet I saw every movement of the slight little
+figure--saw the blush of eagerness that mounted even to the blonde little
+curls about her forehead; and, retreating impatiently, I tried to follow
+Mr. Winship's example, as he waited on the company with a quaintly fine
+courtesy. Indeed, he made quite a conquest of the General, who presently,
+after chatting with him for some time with keen interest, asked
+abruptly:--
+
+"Why haven't we had him here before? So interesting, such an original!
+Room here for you, Milly. Some salad, please, Mr. Hynes."
+
+Hynes's pinched face took colour. With alacrity he obeyed the General's
+orders, fetching plates and glasses, and hovering about the group that
+included Milly and her mother, until Mrs. Baker's face began to wear a
+disturbed flush, though Milly's small, white features remained impassive.
+
+I watched the little drama with dawning comprehension. Then Ned did not--
+Helen--it was really Ethel's sister with whom he longed to make peace,
+while I--Ethel--
+
+Helen's voice roused me.
+
+"Can't we go into the other room?" she asked. "I'm tired; can't we go and
+sit quietly together?"
+
+With the fading of the glow and colour left by the music, she looked
+indeed tired, almost haggard. In spite of the regal self possession with
+which she rose, drawing Ethel with her, I knew in the face of Milly's
+triumph-yes, I had known before--why her restless spirit had spurred her
+on to such flights of folly; why she had--she brings no love to me; has
+she perhaps offered pity?
+
+We turned together to the door, but there was a sound of hurrying feet,
+and Miss Bryant rushed before us, followed by a big bearded giant of a
+man.
+
+"Forbear and eat no more till my necessities be served," she declaimed,
+advancing to the table. "Food has not passed my lips to-day; or--not much
+food."
+
+"Cadge!" gasped Helen with a choking laugh, sinking again upon her chair.
+
+Reid calmly extended a plate of salad to his betrothed, while Kitty
+groaned, scandalized:--
+
+"You mustn't eat now! You mustn't! Where've you been? Look at the state
+you're in! _Don't_ eat, Cadge; you must dress this minute!"
+
+"Bridgeport," returned Miss Bryant, grinning benevolently on the wedding
+guests, her wet hair clinging about her face, her shirt waist dampened
+with the raindrops that trickled from her hatbrim. "Driving an antelope to
+a racing sulky. If _I_ bear marks, y'ought to see the antelope;
+_and_ the sulky! Seven column picture, Kitty; I've made a lay-out.
+You must get right at it--antelope kicking the atmosphere into small
+pieces--"
+
+"Cadge," suggested Reid, mildly, "our train leaves at midnight."
+
+"We'll make it; but this story must come out whether or not 'Mrs. Prosper
+K. Reid' does. Won't dress, but--say, just you show my wedding gown,
+Kitty; not for publication but as an evidence--more salad, Pros."
+
+Kitty ran and brought a billowy mass of fleecy white stuff, and Cadge
+stood, devouring salad, over the dainty thing, gesticulating at it with
+her fork and explaining its beauties:--
+
+"You can see for yourselves it's swell. Mrs. Edgar fitted me at the
+_Star_ office, with furious mug-makers pounding on the door."
+
+"With _what_?" gasped the General.
+
+"Mug-makers; alleged artists; after an old photo. Anyhow, it's money in
+Mrs. Edgar's pocket. One of her biggest customers owes her a lot, she
+says, and she can't get a cent; needed cash to pay her rent; little boy
+ill, too. My, but I'm hungry! Can't I eat while I'm being married?"
+
+I felt Helen start; I remembered that I had seen Mrs. Edgar's name among
+her bills. Poor girl!
+
+And then the wedding; and the practical Cadge surprised us all.
+
+All her soul was shining in her eyes as she said, "I will." She looked
+upon Pros. with the shy love of a girl who has loved but once. For a brief
+minute we saw the depth, the earnestness, the affection that in her seek
+so often the mask of frivolity, and I wouldn't be surprised if more than
+one tempest-tossed soul envied her peace, her love, her certitude.
+
+The ceremony was short. The giant, who proved to be Big Tom, gave away the
+bride. As the couple rushed off for a brief honeymoon, the newly made Mrs.
+Reid--still with the shimmer of tears in her beautiful eyes--tried hard to
+resume her old manner.
+
+"'Member, Kitty," she called back from the stairway in a voice that
+trembled, "you can't make that antelope cavort too lively. Brown'll send
+photographs in the morning."
+
+Soon only Mr. Winship and I were left with Kitty and Helen and the painted
+Indians.
+
+"What a Cadge!" said Helen languidly, as she walked with us to the door.
+"But she's the best girl in the world."
+
+I believe she's pretty nearly right. I haven't always done Miss Bryant
+justice. My mind dwelt upon the lovely picture she had made of trust and
+happiness; and I wondered whether my own wife would show shining, happy
+eyes like hers when--In my restless dreams the vision of them lingered,
+grotesquely alternating with a swaying figure driving a shadowy antelope--
+a figure that was sometimes Helen's and sometimes little Ethel's--until I
+waked--
+
+And thus began to-day--it has been the hardest day in a hard week.
+
+It is three hours now, maybe, since we returned from Mrs. Baker's Sunday
+dinner. A love feast after a feud is trying, but Helen was brave. Mrs.
+Baker is too honest for diplomacy, and at first I watched Helen nervously,
+as she sat in the familiar library, a red spot in each cheek, pitting a
+quiet hauteur against the embarrassed chirpings of her aunt and Milly's
+sphynx-like silence.
+
+But little by little the cordiality of the Judge and of his tactful
+sister, helped by Ethel's radiant delight and Mr. Winship's pleasure in
+the visit, gave another flavour to the dinner than that of the fatted
+calf, and warmed the atmosphere out of its chill reminiscence of the
+encounter with Hynes.
+
+The children, too, were a resource, though for a minute Joy was a terror.
+Baker, junior, was offering me a kodak picture, when she came running up
+to look at it.
+
+"You can have it," said Boy; "it's clearer than the one you liked the
+other day."
+
+"Thath me!" cried Joy, with a fiendish hop and skip. "Me'n Efel on 'e
+thidewalk. Mither Burke, you like me'n Efel?"
+
+"I like you very much."
+
+"Efel too, or o'ny me? Mr. Burke, w'y you don't like Efel too?"
+
+Like Ethel--the shy little wild flower! Like Ethel!
+
+"Say, Mr. Burke," said Boy opportunely, "here's an envelope to put it in."
+
+"W'at I like," Mr. Winship said, his frosty blue eyes twinkling with
+enjoyment, "is to see Sis here gittin' a good dose o' home folks; do her
+more good'n med'cine."
+
+And almost he seemed right, for, as the minutes wore on, a brighter colour
+rose to Helen's cheeks, and the marvellous charm she knows so well how to
+use held us fascinated. She waged a war of jests with the Judge and fell
+back into her old caressing ways with Miss Baker. Ethel could scarcely
+contain her happiness, and even Milly showed signs of melting.
+
+I brought Helen away as early as I could--as soon as we had completed
+plans for a quiet wedding next Wednesday.
+
+"I hope you're proud of her, Ezra," declared Mrs. Baker as we took leave;
+"she told you she's refused a title? But there! All foreigners break their
+wives' hearts--Nelly's a sensible girl! You didn't expect, though, to find
+New York crazy over her?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know; Helen 'Lizy's ma was a hansome girl; Sis here had ought
+to be satisfied if she wears a half as well."
+
+"Come again thoon to thing to Joy," lisped the baby; "Joy loveth you tho
+muth."
+
+Helen buried her face in the yellow curls, and when she turned away her
+eyes were wet.
+
+I stayed at the studio only long enough to beg Kitty to see that her
+charge rests. Just as we were parting at the door, Helen turned full on me
+her great, lambent eyes.
+
+"Do you love me?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"Why, I loved you," I replied, "when you were a little freckled Nelly in
+pigtails."
+
+And that, at least, is true! God help me to be kind to the most beautiful
+woman in the world!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"P. P. C."
+
+June 21, 19--.
+
+Helen and I were to have been married just a year ago. To-day I have been
+going over her own story of her life--of her meeting with Darmstetter, of
+the blight he cast upon her, of her growth in loveliness, her brief
+fluttering in the sunshine, her failure, her supping with sorrow, her
+death.
+
+I must bring to a close the record of this miracle.
+
+This who was the most extraordinary woman that ever lived, was also little
+Nellie Winship. Again as I remember her as she was--a thing of such vital
+force that no man could be unmoved in her presence, of such supernal
+loveliness that words can never tell of it--again I feel that I must be in
+an ugly dream. But this bit of paper, blotted with tears and stained with
+wine and ashes, tells me that there was no mistake.
+
+She had seemed in high spirits that Sunday at the Bakers', though she was
+tired when we returned to the studio. Mr. Winship and I made no stop.
+Pros. and Cadge were enjoying their brief honeymoon trip and so Kitty and
+Helen were left together.
+
+Monday morning I went first to the rooms I had taken; Kitty was to be
+there later, arranging our little furniture. She was to live with us for a
+time and care for Nelly. But when I reached the office, there lay on my
+desk a telegram.
+
+"Helen is ill; come," it read.
+
+Cadge met me at the studio door, white-faced, strangely, silently gentle.
+From a tumbled heap among the cushions of the tepee came a voice like
+Kitty's, moaning. Cadge tried to speak, but could only point to the little
+bedroom.
+
+There, in the straight white dress she wore at the wedding, Helen lay, as
+if sleeping, upon a couch. Floods of shining hair fell about her
+shoulders. In the white dignity of death her face was marvellous. All
+trace of stress and strain had left it, replaced by an enigmatic calm. She
+looked not merely beautiful, but Beauty's self vouchsafed to mortal eyes.
+
+I do not know how long I gazed. Vaguely, between Kitty's sobs, I heard the
+ticking of a watch.
+
+"For another woman of such loveliness," at length said a reverent voice
+behind me, "we must wait the final evolution of humanity."
+
+Dr. Upton, one of Reid's friends whom I had seen at the wedding, had
+reached the house before me. He had been examining a glass, a spoon and
+some other objects so quietly that I had not heard. He said that Helen had
+been dead some hours.
+
+Mechanically I listened, but it was not until afterward that I understood
+the full purport of his speech or of Kitty's story of the night and
+morning. Their words reached me as if spoken from some great distance by
+the people who live in dreams.
+
+Kitty had come to us; she stood in the doorway, white and shaking.
+
+"Helen--Helen's head ached," she sobbed, "and she begged me to brush her
+hair, but when I began, she said it hurt, and told me to stop; then she
+fell to writing. I coaxed her to come to bed, for I thought she was ill;
+but she called me 'Kathryn' and then I knew I couldn't manage her. Oh, I
+was wicked, wicked; but I was afraid of her, always--you know. So I--oh,
+how could I?--I fixed a screen against the light and lay down, meaning to
+try again in a few minutes; but the instant my head touched the pillow I
+must have dropped asleep. The last thing I said was: 'Shall I tell Morphy
+you're coming?' I was so tired that I don't know whether she answered. And
+this morning--oh, I can't believe it; Oh, Helen, Helen!"
+
+"And this morning?" prompted Dr. Upton.
+
+"This morning when--when I waked and saw her on the couch, I wondered why
+she hadn't come to bed; but I dropped a shawl over her and tiptoed out. It
+wasn't until half-past eight that I tried--oh, I can't! I can't! Don't ask
+me!"
+
+Kitty's voice was lost in hysterical chokings.
+
+Dr. Upton handed me Helen's visiting card. Below the name was scrawled:
+"P. P. C."
+
+"It was found pinned to Miss Reid's bedspread," he said; "is that Miss
+Winship's handwriting?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. The shaky letters were unrecognisable.
+
+"Don't you see! To say farewell," wailed Kitty. "She's done it a hundred
+times when she started for school before I was up. Barnard is so far. Oh,
+I can't bear it! How could you, Helen?"
+
+"Don't, Kitty," said Cadge, drawing her from the room.
+
+The doctor motioned me to a table behind the screen of which Kitty had
+spoken. There Helen had sat, there lay her writing case, the key sealed in
+an envelope addressed to me. Picking up a slip of paper torn from a letter
+pad, he asked:--
+
+"Is this also Miss Winship's writing?"
+
+He held it out to me and I read the single line:--
+
+"Don't tell Father."
+
+Dazed, half-comprehending, I repeated: "Yes."
+
+Upton had found nothing else, except Helen's watch, open beside the
+writing case, and a glass that still held a little sherry. At this he
+looked with sombre intelligence and set it carefully aside.
+
+Nothing in the room had been disturbed. Helen's chair had the look of
+having been pushed from the table as she rose but a minute before. Near it
+on an easel stood the Van Nostrand picture, smiling--smiling, as if it had
+seen no tragedy. On the floor was a little ash as of charred paper.
+
+In a few minutes Mrs. Reid and Kitty returned with Mr. Winship. Through
+the fog that enveloped me I saw with dull curiosity that they had told him
+something that he didn't understand.
+
+He could not believe Helen dead, but knelt by her side and coaxed her to
+wake, rubbing her fair, slender hands between his leathery palms and
+calling her by every pet name of her childhood.
+
+"It's on'y your ol' Dad, Sis," he crooned. "Jes' come to fetch ye t' yer
+Ma; that's all. I know yer tired--plum tired out; but Ma 'n' me'll take
+care on ye." It was pitiful to hear him.
+
+He desisted at last and looked back at us with a mien of anger.
+
+"Do suthin', some o' ye," he snarled, "'stid o' standin' round like gumps!
+Speak to me, Poppet; tell yer ol' Pap w'at ails ye. Fetch some hot water,
+you gals! Ain't ye got no sense? Rub her feet; an' her hands. Speak to me,
+Sissy--why don't ye?"
+
+As the truth slowly won over him, he straightened himself, one hand still
+clasping Helen's cold one.
+
+"It's sudden; sudden," he said. "Doctor, w'at ailed my little Nelly?"
+
+Still numbly inquisitive, I waited. The old man couldn't see the truth,
+the horrible truth. What would the doctor say?
+
+It was Cadge's voice that broke the silence; gentle, assured, yet with a
+note almost of defiance.
+
+"We think--in fact, Helen overstudied," she said. "We've been much worried
+about her."
+
+Dr. Upton turned abruptly. Cadge's irregular, mobile face for once was
+still, its quiet demand bent full upon him. His answering look refused
+her, but the effort was obvious with which he spoke to the broken man
+waiting his verdict.
+
+"Miss Winship--your daughter--" he began.
+
+The words died. Cadge's steady black eyes controlled him.
+
+"Wa-al?"
+
+The doctor bowed his head over Helen. I was listening again to her watch
+that ticked insistently. "Don't tell Father! Don't tell Father!" it said
+over and over, over and over, louder and louder, until the words echoed
+from every corner of the room.
+
+They must hear! That was why she had left it!
+
+"I ast ye w'at ailed my little girl."
+
+"Cardiac asthenia--heart failure," said Dr. Upton, abruptly.
+
+Kitty threw herself upon Cadge, kissing her convulsively, while Mr.
+Winship persisted:--
+
+"Sis was first-rate yist'day; w'at fetched the attack on?"
+
+As gently as Cadge herself, Dr. Upton answered:--
+
+"Mr. Winship, your daughter wasn't so strong as she seemed. There was much
+in her condition to cause anxiety. I'll be back in an hour," he added,
+moving hastily, as Reid entered, toward the door.
+
+Could I let him shoulder the responsibility of concealment? And if I
+refused? Publicity--an inquest? At last I was alive to the situation; in
+silent gratitude I wrung Upton's hand, but he took no notice of me. As he
+passed Reid he growled:--
+
+"Your wife's a good woman to tie to, Pros. She's all right. Lucky she was
+telegraphed for."
+
+Cadge had begun to talk in low tones to Mr. Winship. He did not seem to
+listen, but the quiet voice soothed him. Gradually his gray, set features
+relaxed, though he would not submit to be led from the bedside.
+
+"Ma was right," he said at last, broken and querulous. "We'd never ought
+to have let her come to the city. Ye say she'll be famous? Sissy, my poor
+little Poppet, w'at good to ye is fame; w'at good is all your studyin'?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I did not open Helen's writing case for weeks; not until after my return
+from the dreary journey West with Mr. Winship.
+
+Stunned by the shock of her death, bearing not only my grief but the
+knowledge that her father and mother must hold me in part responsible for
+her fatal coming to New York, I could not face the secret of her choice of
+death rather than marriage with me.
+
+It was a hot July night when I turned the key that guarded the secret.
+
+I found the story of the Bacillus, the curse that killed Darmstetter, that
+killed Helen. With it was a letter that I have read a thousand times--this
+letter that I am now reading. The scent of roses still breathes from it.
+On the last page there are splashes of wine.
+
+This is what it says:--
+
+JOHN: I cannot bear it. Prof. Darmstetter gave me death when he gave me
+beauty.
+
+I am not a coward; but what is left? I am tired, wretched; there is no
+place for me.
+
+The Bacillus has defeated every wish it has aroused. It has refused me
+love, ambition, honest work. From men it has compelled fear; from women
+hate; it has cut me off from my kind.
+
+You saw Ned smiling into Milly's pale eyes. I should not have cared, I who
+was to marry you, but--I love him; you know it--you have known it since my
+heart broke, since I tore it out and swore to reign, to dazzle, to be
+Queen of the world.
+
+You know what came of my ambitions. The world treated my beauty as a
+menace; it struck me down. Then I asked to earn my bread; but without you
+I might have starved. You were my refuge--and you--you love a cripple!
+
+Why didn't I guess? I would have been glad, for Ethel is a dear child, and
+I had given you sorrow enough. I did not love you; I do not think I have
+pretended to love you. But can no man help seeming to care for me--help
+caring while he is with me? Ned told me he did not love; but you, you I
+trusted; you would have married me, not letting me know--
+
+Ethel limps, she is plain. Plain as I was when you adored my ugly face, my
+freckles. Does beauty kill love, or do men see beauty only where they
+love? Little brown partridges, little brown partridges--
+
+The Bacillus is a cheat; every woman to her lover is the most beautiful!
+
+Ethel's good. You would have found me conspicuous, an annoyance among
+people who shrink from the extraordinary. I have been fond of Ethel.
+
+I was marrying you to get my debts paid--you knew that--but there was
+more. You must believe--you know there was more. I thought you loved me.
+Was that strange? How many times have you spoken to me of love? I wanted
+to show my gratitude, to make you happy, since happiness was not for me. I
+would have tried; I would have buried my own misery; buried everything but
+the sense of your goodness. I would have given you the co-operation of a
+clever woman. I would have given you the affection you know I have always
+felt. I would have worked, planned, compelled success for you.
+
+But that's over. Ethel is a dear child. I will not stand between you and
+Ethel.
+
+Don't pity me. I need no pity. I would endure yesterday and to-day a
+thousand times for the sake of the first hour of my beauty. Would I change
+now to be like Ethel, to be white putty like Milly--to have your love, or
+Ned's? Beauty--I can die with it sooner than drown it in tears.
+
+Don't tell Father. He will suffer; but less than if I went home to eat my
+heart out in repinings, to grow old and ugly, cursing the world. I have
+lived too long. I am already less beautiful.
+
+If I could destroy the secret! Death, leaving that behind, is crucifixion.
+But I was the first, I was the first! That dead face so gray and old--
+"Delilah!" it mows at me. I keep my promise! I haven't robbed you, you
+shall have your fame! I, too, I shall never be forgotten!
+
+John, take the secret. Keep my word for me. If you doubt the discovery,
+try it on an enemy. If you think my sorrow could have been avoided, offer
+the Bacillus as a wedding gift to--.
+
+Give Milly, who has Ned's love, my beauty? Would it turn him from her? If
+I thought it--But even for that, there shall be no other! It shall go
+first. Forever and forever my name, my face,--
+
+"Delilah!" It grins, it gibbers. Wait for no tests. Print quick! To-
+morrow, to-day--it's almost day. Give him what he wants, John--"Delilah!"
+
+Why do you come back, dead face, dead eyes? Haven't I promised? You shall
+have print, type, a million circulation! Go away, you're dead! What's fame
+to youth, health, life? It's you who rob and kill. I won't look--I won't!
+If I wake Kitty, could she help? I won't look, I'm going mad!
+
+Gone! I must hurry. He might come back. Shall I leave the secret? It's
+life for life, we're even. If beauty were cheap, who'd care for it? It's
+death to be first, but afterwards--nothing! If I burned it--but no--I
+promised--.
+
+Why not?
+
+"Delilah!" Your health, dead eyes! I haf put t'e bacillus of perfect vine
+into t'e new grape juice, and I svear it's--Prosit, dead eyes!--here's a
+P.P.C.; quickest goodby--Poor Kitty! You'll be sorry for the most
+beautiful woman in the--
+
+The Bacillus of Beauty has had its victim.
+
+Why do I keep the wine-splashed, rose-breathing letter? Why read over and
+over the fragments of Helen's journal? Better remember my little school-
+mate as she was before the poison stung her. Might she, with time and
+contact with life, have reacted against the virus, or must such loveliness
+be fatal to what is best in woman? Who can answer? Helen is dead,
+Darmstetter is dead, and the Bacillus--
+
+The Bacillus shall have no other victim.
+
+We who were near to Helen have been slow to recover from the shock and the
+bitterness of her death. Her father and mother have nothing to hold them
+to life; they are uprooted. Ned has grieved for her with bitter self-
+reproach, though he is happy with Milly. Ethel and I--
+
+But to-night I can think only of Helen.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bacillus of Beauty, by Harriet Stark
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