summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/94-h/94-h.htm
blob: 46a9515d466ea3756016c12bb4370348489d8662 (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Alexander’s Bridge, by Willa Cather</title>
<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">

body { margin-left: 20%;
       margin-right: 20%;
       text-align: justify; }

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight:
normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;}

h1 {font-size: 300%;
    margin-top: 0.6em;
    margin-bottom: 0.6em;
    letter-spacing: 0.12em;
    word-spacing: 0.2em;
    text-indent: 0em;}
h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;}
h4 {font-size: 120%;}
h5 {font-size: 110%;}

.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */

div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;}

hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}

p {text-indent: 1em;
   margin-top: 0.25em;
   margin-bottom: 0.25em; }

.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}

p.poem {text-indent: 0%;
        margin-left: 10%;
        font-size: 90%;
        margin-top: 1em;
        margin-bottom: 1em; }

p.letter {text-indent: 0%;
          margin-left: 10%;
          margin-right: 10%;
          margin-top: 1em;
          margin-bottom: 1em; }

p.right {text-align: right;
         margin-right: 10%;
         margin-top: 1em;
         margin-bottom: 1em; }

a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none}
a:hover {color:red}

</style>
  </head>
  <body>

<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE ***</div>

<h1>Alexander&rsquo;s Bridge</h1>

<h2 class="no-break">by Willa Cather</h2>

<h3>And<br/>
THE BARREL ORGAN by Alfred Noyes</h3>

<hr />

<h2>CONTENTS</h2>

<table summary="" style="">

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"><big><b>ALEXANDER&rsquo;S BRIDGE by Willa Cather</b></big></a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X</a></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2H_EPIL">EPILOGUE</a><br /><br /></td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0013"><big><b>THE BARREL ORGAN by Alfred Noyes</b></big></a></td>
</tr>

</table>

<hr />

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001"></a>
ALEXANDER&rsquo;S BRIDGE by Willa Cather</h2>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a>
CHAPTER I</h2>

<p>
Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the head of
Chestnut Street, looking about him with the pleased air of a man of taste who
does not very often get to Boston. He had lived there as a student, but for
twenty years and more, since he had been Professor of Philosophy in a Western
university, he had seldom come East except to take a steamer for some foreign
port. Wilson was standing quite still, contemplating with a whimsical smile the
slanting street, with its worn paving, its irregular, gravely colored houses,
and the row of naked trees on which the thin sunlight was still shining. The
gleam of the river at the foot of the hill made him blink a little, not so much
because it was too bright as because he found it so pleasant. The few
passers-by glanced at him unconcernedly, and even the children who hurried
along with their school-bags under their arms seemed to find it perfectly
natural that a tall brown gentleman should be standing there, looking up
through his glasses at the gray housetops.
</p>

<p>
The sun sank rapidly; the silvery light had faded from the bare boughs and the
watery twilight was setting in when Wilson at last walked down the hill,
descending into cooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow. His nostril, long
unused to it, was quick to detect the smell of wood smoke in the air, blended
with the odor of moist spring earth and the saltiness that came up the river
with the tide. He crossed Charles Street between jangling street cars and
shelving lumber drays, and after a moment of uncertainty wound into Brimmer
Street. The street was quiet, deserted, and hung with a thin bluish haze. He
had already fixed his sharp eye upon the house which he reasoned should be his
objective point, when he noticed a woman approaching rapidly from the opposite
direction. Always an interested observer of women, Wilson would have slackened
his pace anywhere to follow this one with his impersonal, appreciative glance.
She was a person of distinction he saw at once, and, moreover, very handsome.
She was tall, carried her beautiful head proudly, and moved with ease and
certainty. One immediately took for granted the costly privileges and fine
spaces that must lie in the background from which such a figure could emerge
with this rapid and elegant gait. Wilson noted her dress, too,&mdash;for, in
his way, he had an eye for such things,&mdash;particularly her brown furs and
her hat. He got a blurred impression of her fine color, the violets she wore,
her white gloves, and, curiously enough, of her veil, as she turned up a flight
of steps in front of him and disappeared.
</p>

<p>
Wilson was able to enjoy lovely things that passed him on the wing as
completely and deliberately as if they had been dug-up marvels, long
anticipated, and definitely fixed at the end of a railway journey. For a few
pleasurable seconds he quite forgot where he was going, and only after the door
had closed behind her did he realize that the young woman had entered the house
to which he had directed his trunk from the South Station that morning. He
hesitated a moment before mounting the steps. &ldquo;Can that,&rdquo; he
murmured in amazement,&mdash;&ldquo;can that possibly have been Mrs.
Alexander?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
When the servant admitted him, Mrs. Alexander was still standing in the
hallway. She heard him give his name, and came forward holding out her hand.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Is it you, indeed, Professor Wilson? I was afraid that you might get
here before I did. I was detained at a concert, and Bartley telephoned that he
would be late. Thomas will show you your room. Had you rather have your tea
brought to you there, or will you have it down here with me, while we wait for
Bartley?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson was pleased to find that he had been the cause of her rapid walk, and
with her he was even more vastly pleased than before. He followed her through
the drawing-room into the library, where the wide back windows looked out upon
the garden and the sunset and a fine stretch of silver-colored river. A
harp-shaped elm stood stripped against the pale-colored evening sky, with
ragged last year&rsquo;s birds&rsquo; nests in its forks, and through the bare
branches the evening star quivered in the misty air. The long brown room
breathed the peace of a rich and amply guarded quiet. Tea was brought in
immediately and placed in front of the wood fire. Mrs. Alexander sat down in a
high-backed chair and began to pour it, while Wilson sank into a low seat
opposite her and took his cup with a great sense of ease and harmony and
comfort.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You have had a long journey, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Mrs. Alexander
asked, after showing gracious concern about his tea. &ldquo;And I am so sorry
Bartley is late. He&rsquo;s often tired when he&rsquo;s late. He flatters
himself that it is a little on his account that you have come to this Congress
of Psychologists.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It is,&rdquo; Wilson assented, selecting his muffin carefully;
&ldquo;and I hope he won&rsquo;t be tired tonight. But, on my own account,
I&rsquo;m glad to have a few moments alone with you, before Bartley comes. I
was somehow afraid that my knowing him so well would not put me in the way of
getting to know you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s very nice of you.&rdquo; She nodded at him above her cup
and smiled, but there was a little formal tightness in her tone which had not
been there when she greeted him in the hall.
</p>

<p>
Wilson leaned forward. &ldquo;Have I said something awkward? I live very far
out of the world, you know. But I didn&rsquo;t mean that you would exactly fade
dim, even if Bartley were here.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Mrs. Alexander laughed relentingly. &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m not so vain! How
terribly discerning you are.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She looked straight at Wilson, and he felt that this quick, frank glance
brought about an understanding between them.
</p>

<p>
He liked everything about her, he told himself, but he particularly liked her
eyes; when she looked at one directly for a moment they were like a glimpse of
fine windy sky that may bring all sorts of weather.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Since you noticed something,&rdquo; Mrs. Alexander went on, &ldquo;it
must have been a flash of the distrust I have come to feel whenever I meet any
of the people who knew Bartley when he was a boy. It is always as if they were
talking of someone I had never met. Really, Professor Wilson, it would seem
that he grew up among the strangest people. They usually say that he has turned
out very well, or remark that he always was a fine fellow. I never know what
reply to make.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson chuckled and leaned back in his chair, shaking his left foot gently.
&ldquo;I expect the fact is that we none of us knew him very well, Mrs.
Alexander. Though I will say for myself that I was always confident he&rsquo;d
do something extraordinary.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Mrs. Alexander&rsquo;s shoulders gave a slight movement, suggestive of
impatience. &ldquo;Oh, I should think that might have been a safe prediction.
Another cup, please?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, thank you. But predicting, in the case of boys, is not so easy as
you might imagine, Mrs. Alexander. Some get a bad hurt early and lose their
courage; and some never get a fair wind. Bartley&rdquo;&mdash;he dropped his
chin on the back of his long hand and looked at her
admiringly&mdash;&ldquo;Bartley caught the wind early, and it has sung in his
sails ever since.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Mrs. Alexander sat looking into the fire with intent preoccupation, and Wilson
studied her half-averted face. He liked the suggestion of stormy possibilities
in the proud curve of her lip and nostril. Without that, he reflected, she
would be too cold.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I should like to know what he was really like when he was a boy. I
don&rsquo;t believe he remembers,&rdquo; she said suddenly. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t
you smoke, Mr. Wilson?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson lit a cigarette. &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t suppose he does. He was never
introspective. He was simply the most tremendous response to stimuli I have
ever known. We didn&rsquo;t know exactly what to do with him.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
A servant came in and noiselessly removed the tea-tray. Mrs. Alexander screened
her face from the firelight, which was beginning to throw wavering bright spots
on her dress and hair as the dusk deepened.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I now and again hear stories about
things that happened when he was in college.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;But that isn&rsquo;t what you want.&rdquo; Wilson wrinkled his brows and
looked at her with the smiling familiarity that had come about so quickly.
&ldquo;What you want is a picture of him, standing back there at the other end
of twenty years. You want to look down through my memory.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She dropped her hands in her lap. &ldquo;Yes, yes; that&rsquo;s exactly what I
want.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
At this moment they heard the front door shut with a jar, and Wilson laughed as
Mrs. Alexander rose quickly. &ldquo;There he is. Away with perspective! No
past, no future for Bartley; just the fiery moment. The only moment that ever
was or will be in the world!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The door from the hall opened, a voice called &ldquo;Winifred?&rdquo;
hurriedly, and a big man came through the drawing-room with a quick, heavy
tread, bringing with him a smell of cigar smoke and chill out-of-doors air.
When Alexander reached the library door, he switched on the lights and stood
six feet and more in the archway, glowing with strength and cordiality and
rugged, blond good looks. There were other bridge-builders in the world,
certainly, but it was always Alexander&rsquo;s picture that the Sunday
Supplement men wanted, because he looked as a tamer of rivers ought to look.
Under his tumbled sandy hair his head seemed as hard and powerful as a
catapult, and his shoulders looked strong enough in themselves to support a
span of any one of his ten great bridges that cut the air above as many rivers.
</p>

<p class="p2">
After dinner Alexander took Wilson up to his study. It was a large room over
the library, and looked out upon the black river and the row of white lights
along the Cambridge Embankment. The room was not at all what one might expect
of an engineer&rsquo;s study. Wilson felt at once the harmony of beautiful
things that have lived long together without obtrusions of ugliness or change.
It was none of Alexander&rsquo;s doing, of course; those warm consonances of
color had been blending and mellowing before he was born. But the wonder was
that he was not out of place there,&mdash;that it all seemed to glow like the
inevitable background for his vigor and vehemence. He sat before the fire, his
shoulders deep in the cushions of his chair, his powerful head upright, his
hair rumpled above his broad forehead. He sat heavily, a cigar in his large,
smooth hand, a flush of after-dinner color in his face, which wind and sun and
exposure to all sorts of weather had left fair and clear-skinned.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You are off for England on Saturday, Bartley, Mrs. Alexander tells
me.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, for a few weeks only. There&rsquo;s a meeting of British engineers,
and I&rsquo;m doing another bridge in Canada, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, every one knows about that. And it was in Canada that you met your
wife, wasn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, at Allway. She was visiting her great-aunt there. A most remarkable
old lady. I was working with MacKeller then, an old Scotch engineer who had
picked me up in London and taken me back to Quebec with him. He had the
contract for the Allway Bridge, but before he began work on it he found out
that he was going to die, and he advised the committee to turn the job over to
me. Otherwise I&rsquo;d never have got anything good so early. MacKeller was an
old friend of Mrs. Pemberton, Winifred&rsquo;s aunt. He had mentioned me to
her, so when I went to Allway she asked me to come to see her. She was a
wonderful old lady.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Like her niece?&rdquo; Wilson queried.
</p>

<p>
Bartley laughed. &ldquo;She had been very handsome, but not in Winifred&rsquo;s
way. When I knew her she was little and fragile, very pink and white, with a
splendid head and a face like fine old lace, somehow,&mdash;but perhaps I
always think of that because she wore a lace scarf on her hair. She had such a
flavor of life about her. She had known Gordon and Livingstone and Beaconsfield
when she was young,&mdash;every one. She was the first woman of that sort
I&rsquo;d ever known. You know how it is in the West,&mdash;old people are
poked out of the way. Aunt Eleanor fascinated me as few young women have ever
done. I used to go up from the works to have tea with her, and sit talking to
her for hours. It was very stimulating, for she couldn&rsquo;t tolerate
stupidity.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It must have been then that your luck began, Bartley,&rdquo; said
Wilson, flicking his cigar ash with his long finger. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s curious,
watching boys,&rdquo; he went on reflectively. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I did you
justice in the matter of ability. Yet I always used to feel that there was a
weak spot where some day strain would tell. Even after you began to climb, I
stood down in the crowd and watched you with&mdash;well, not with confidence.
The more dazzling the front you presented, the higher your facade rose, the
more I expected to see a big crack zigzagging from top to
bottom,&rdquo;&mdash;he indicated its course in the air with his
forefinger,&mdash;&ldquo;then a crash and clouds of dust. It was curious. I had
such a clear picture of it. And another curious thing, Bartley,&rdquo; Wilson
spoke with deliberateness and settled deeper into his chair, &ldquo;is that I
don&rsquo;t feel it any longer. I am sure of you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander laughed. &ldquo;Nonsense! It&rsquo;s not I you feel sure of;
it&rsquo;s Winifred. People often make that mistake.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m serious, Alexander. You&rsquo;ve changed. You have decided
to leave some birds in the bushes. You used to want them all.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander&rsquo;s chair creaked. &ldquo;I still want a good many,&rdquo; he
said rather gloomily. &ldquo;After all, life doesn&rsquo;t offer a man much.
You work like the devil and think you&rsquo;re getting on, and suddenly you
discover that you&rsquo;ve only been getting yourself tied up. A million
details drink you dry. Your life keeps going for things you don&rsquo;t want,
and all the while you are being built alive into a social structure you
don&rsquo;t care a rap about. I sometimes wonder what sort of chap I&rsquo;d
have been if I hadn&rsquo;t been this sort; I want to go and live out his
potentialities, too. I haven&rsquo;t forgotten that there are birds in the
bushes.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley stopped and sat frowning into the fire, his shoulders thrust forward as
if he were about to spring at something. Wilson watched him, wondering. His old
pupil always stimulated him at first, and then vastly wearied him. The
machinery was always pounding away in this man, and Wilson preferred companions
of a more reflective habit of mind. He could not help feeling that there were
unreasoning and unreasonable activities going on in Alexander all the while;
that even after dinner, when most men achieve a decent impersonality, Bartley
had merely closed the door of the engine-room and come up for an airing. The
machinery itself was still pounding on.
</p>

<p>
Bartley&rsquo;s abstraction and Wilson&rsquo;s reflections were cut short by a
rustle at the door, and almost before they could rise Mrs. Alexander was
standing by the hearth. Alexander brought a chair for her, but she shook her
head.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No, dear, thank you. I only came in to see whether you and Professor
Wilson were quite comfortable. I am going down to the music-room.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why not practice here? Wilson and I are growing very dull. We are tired
of talk.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, I beg you, Mrs. Alexander,&rdquo; Wilson began, but he got no
further.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why, certainly, if you won&rsquo;t find me too noisy. I am working on
the Schumann &lsquo;Carnival,&rsquo; and, though I don&rsquo;t practice a great
many hours, I am very methodical,&rdquo; Mrs. Alexander explained, as she
crossed to an upright piano that stood at the back of the room, near the
windows.
</p>

<p>
Wilson followed, and, having seen her seated, dropped into a chair behind her.
She played brilliantly and with great musical feeling. Wilson could not imagine
her permitting herself to do anything badly, but he was surprised at the
cleanness of her execution. He wondered how a woman with so many duties had
managed to keep herself up to a standard really professional. It must take a
great deal of time, certainly, and Bartley must take a great deal of time.
Wilson reflected that he had never before known a woman who had been able, for
any considerable while, to support both a personal and an intellectual passion.
Sitting behind her, he watched her with perplexed admiration, shading his eyes
with his hand. In her dinner dress she looked even younger than in street
clothes, and, for all her composure and self-sufficiency, she seemed to him
strangely alert and vibrating, as if in her, too, there were something never
altogether at rest. He felt that he knew pretty much what she demanded in
people and what she demanded from life, and he wondered how she squared
Bartley. After ten years she must know him; and however one took him, however
much one admired him, one had to admit that he simply wouldn&rsquo;t square. He
was a natural force, certainly, but beyond that, Wilson felt, he was not
anything very really or for very long at a time.
</p>

<p>
Wilson glanced toward the fire, where Bartley&rsquo;s profile was still
wreathed in cigar smoke that curled up more and more slowly. His shoulders were
sunk deep in the cushions and one hand hung large and passive over the arm of
his chair. He had slipped on a purple velvet smoking-coat. His wife, Wilson
surmised, had chosen it. She was clearly very proud of his good looks and his
fine color. But, with the glow of an immediate interest gone out of it, the
engineer&rsquo;s face looked tired, even a little haggard. The three lines in
his forehead, directly above the nose, deepened as he sat thinking, and his
powerful head drooped forward heavily. Although Alexander was only forty-three,
Wilson thought that beneath his vigorous color he detected the dulling
weariness of on-coming middle age.
</p>

<p class="p2">
The next afternoon, at the hour when the river was beginning to redden under
the declining sun, Wilson again found himself facing Mrs. Alexander at the
tea-table in the library.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he remarked, when he was bidden to give an account of
himself, &ldquo;there was a long morning with the psychologists, luncheon with
Bartley at his club, more psychologists, and here I am. I&rsquo;ve looked
forward to this hour all day.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Mrs. Alexander smiled at him across the vapor from the kettle. &ldquo;And do
you remember where we stopped yesterday?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Perfectly. I was going to show you a picture. But I doubt whether I have
color enough in me. Bartley makes me feel a faded monochrome. You can&rsquo;t
get at the young Bartley except by means of color.&rdquo; Wilson paused and
deliberated. Suddenly he broke out: &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t a remarkable
student, you know, though he was always strong in higher mathematics. His work
in my own department was quite ordinary. It was as a powerfully equipped nature
that I found him interesting. That is the most interesting thing a teacher can
find. It has the fascination of a scientific discovery. We come across other
pleasing and endearing qualities so much oftener than we find force.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;And, after all,&rdquo; said Mrs. Alexander, &ldquo;that is the thing we
all live upon. It is the thing that takes us forward.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson thought she spoke a little wistfully. &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; he assented
warmly. &ldquo;It builds the bridges into the future, over which the feet of
every one of us will go.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;How interested I am to hear you put it in that way. The bridges into the
future&mdash;I often say that to myself. Bartley&rsquo;s bridges always seem to
me like that. Have you ever seen his first suspension bridge in Canada, the one
he was doing when I first knew him? I hope you will see it sometime. We were
married as soon as it was finished, and you will laugh when I tell you that it
always has a rather bridal look to me. It is over the wildest river, with mists
and clouds always battling about it, and it is as delicate as a cobweb hanging
in the sky. It really was a bridge into the future. You have only to look at it
to feel that it meant the beginning of a great career. But I have a photograph
of it here.&rdquo; She drew a portfolio from behind a bookcase. &ldquo;And
there, you see, on the hill, is my aunt&rsquo;s house.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson took up the photograph. &ldquo;Bartley was telling me something about
your aunt last night. She must have been a delightful person.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Winifred laughed. &ldquo;The bridge, you see, was just at the foot of the hill,
and the noise of the engines annoyed her very much at first. But after she met
Bartley she pretended to like it, and said it was a good thing to be reminded
that there were things going on in the world. She loved life, and Bartley
brought a great deal of it in to her when he came to the house. Aunt Eleanor
was very worldly in a frank, Early-Victorian manner. She liked men of action,
and disliked young men who were careful of themselves and who, as she put it,
were always trimming their wick as if they were afraid of their oil&rsquo;s
giving out. MacKeller, Bartley&rsquo;s first chief, was an old friend of my
aunt, and he told her that Bartley was a wild, ill-governed youth, which really
pleased her very much. I remember we were sitting alone in the dusk after
Bartley had been there for the first time. I knew that Aunt Eleanor had found
him much to her taste, but she hadn&rsquo;t said anything. Presently she came
out, with a chuckle: &lsquo;MacKeller found him sowing wild oats in London, I
believe. I hope he didn&rsquo;t stop him too soon. Life coquets with dashing
fellows. The coming men are always like that. We must have him to dinner, my
dear.&rsquo; And we did. She grew much fonder of Bartley than she was of me. I
had been studying in Vienna, and she thought that absurd. She was interested in
the army and in politics, and she had a great contempt for music and art and
philosophy. She used to declare that the Prince Consort had brought all that
stuff over out of Germany. She always sniffed when Bartley asked me to play for
him. She considered that a newfangled way of making a match of it.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
When Alexander came in a few moments later, he found Wilson and his wife still
confronting the photograph. &ldquo;Oh, let us get that out of the way,&rdquo;
he said, laughing. &ldquo;Winifred, Thomas can bring my trunk down. I&rsquo;ve
decided to go over to New York to-morrow night and take a fast boat. I shall
save two days.&rdquo;
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a>
CHAPTER II</h2>

<p>
On the night of his arrival in London, Alexander went immediately to the hotel
on the Embankment at which he always stopped, and in the lobby he was accosted
by an old acquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fell upon him with effusive
cordiality and indicated a willingness to dine with him. Bartley never dined
alone if he could help it, and Mainhall was a good gossip who always knew what
had been going on in town; especially, he knew everything that was not printed
in the newspapers. The nephew of one of the standard Victorian novelists,
Mainhall bobbed about among the various literary cliques of London and its
outlying suburbs, careful to lose touch with none of them. He had written a
number of books himself; among them a &ldquo;History of Dancing,&rdquo; a
&ldquo;History of Costume,&rdquo; a &ldquo;Key to Shakespeare&rsquo;s
Sonnets,&rdquo; a study of &ldquo;The Poetry of Ernest Dowson,&rdquo; etc.
Although Mainhall&rsquo;s enthusiasm was often tiresome, and although he was
often unable to distinguish between facts and vivid figments of his
imagination, his imperturbable good nature overcame even the people whom he
bored most, so that they ended by becoming, in a reluctant manner, his friends.
In appearance, Mainhall was astonishingly like the conventional
stage-Englishman of American drama: tall and thin, with high, hitching
shoulders and a small head glistening with closely brushed yellow hair. He
spoke with an extreme Oxford accent, and when he was talking well, his face
sometimes wore the rapt expression of a very emotional man listening to music.
Mainhall liked Alexander because he was an engineer. He had preconceived ideas
about everything, and his idea about Americans was that they should be
engineers or mechanics. He hated them when they presumed to be anything else.
</p>

<p>
While they sat at dinner Mainhall acquainted Bartley with the fortunes of his
old friends in London, and as they left the table he proposed that they should
go to see Hugh MacConnell&rsquo;s new comedy, &ldquo;Bog Lights.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really quite the best thing MacConnell&rsquo;s done,&rdquo;
he explained as they got into a hansom. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tremendously well put
on, too. Florence Merrill and Cyril Henderson. But Hilda Burgoyne&rsquo;s the
hit of the piece. Hugh&rsquo;s written a delightful part for her, and
she&rsquo;s quite inexpressible. It&rsquo;s been on only two weeks, and
I&rsquo;ve been half a dozen times already. I happen to have MacConnell&rsquo;s
box for tonight or there&rsquo;d be no chance of our getting places.
There&rsquo;s everything in seeing Hilda while she&rsquo;s fresh in a part.
She&rsquo;s apt to grow a bit stale after a time. The ones who have any
imagination do.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Hilda Burgoyne!&rdquo; Alexander exclaimed mildly. &ldquo;Why, I
haven&rsquo;t heard of her for&mdash;years.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Mainhall laughed. &ldquo;Then you can&rsquo;t have heard much at all, my dear
Alexander. It&rsquo;s only lately, since MacConnell and his set have got hold
of her, that she&rsquo;s come up. Myself, I always knew she had it in her. If
we had one real critic in London&mdash;but what can one expect? Do you know,
Alexander,&rdquo;&mdash;Mainhall looked with perplexity up into the top of the
hansom and rubbed his pink cheek with his gloved finger,&mdash;&ldquo;do you
know, I sometimes think of taking to criticism seriously myself. In a way, it
would be a sacrifice; but, dear me, we do need some one.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Just then they drove up to the Duke of York&rsquo;s, so Alexander did not
commit himself, but followed Mainhall into the theatre. When they entered the
stage-box on the left the first act was well under way, the scene being the
interior of a cabin in the south of Ireland. As they sat down, a burst of
applause drew Alexander&rsquo;s attention to the stage. Miss Burgoyne and her
donkey were thrusting their heads in at the half door. &ldquo;After all,&rdquo;
he reflected, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s small probability of her recognizing me. She
doubtless hasn&rsquo;t thought of me for years.&rdquo; He felt the enthusiasm
of the house at once, and in a few moments he was caught up by the current of
MacConnell&rsquo;s irresistible comedy. The audience had come forewarned,
evidently, and whenever the ragged slip of a donkey-girl ran upon the stage
there was a deep murmur of approbation, every one smiled and glowed, and
Mainhall hitched his heavy chair a little nearer the brass railing.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he murmured in Alexander&rsquo;s ear, as the curtain
fell on the first act, &ldquo;one almost never sees a part like that done
without smartness or mawkishness. Of course, Hilda is Irish,&mdash;the
Burgoynes have been stage people for generations,&mdash;and she has the Irish
voice. It&rsquo;s delightful to hear it in a London theatre. That laugh, now,
when she doubles over at the hips&mdash;who ever heard it out of Galway? She
saves her hand, too. She&rsquo;s at her best in the second act. She&rsquo;s
really MacConnell&rsquo;s poetic motif, you see; makes the whole thing a fairy
tale.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The second act opened before Philly Doyle&rsquo;s underground still, with Peggy
and her battered donkey come in to smuggle a load of potheen across the bog,
and to bring Philly word of what was doing in the world without, and of what
was happening along the roadsides and ditches with the first gleam of fine
weather. Alexander, annoyed by Mainhall&rsquo;s sighs and exclamations, watched
her with keen, half-skeptical interest. As Mainhall had said, she was the
second act; the plot and feeling alike depended upon her lightness of foot, her
lightness of touch, upon the shrewdness and deft fancifulness that played
alternately, and sometimes together, in her mirthful brown eyes. When she began
to dance, by way of showing the gossoons what she had seen in the fairy rings
at night, the house broke into a prolonged uproar. After her dance she withdrew
from the dialogue and retreated to the ditch wall back of Philly&rsquo;s
burrow, where she sat singing &ldquo;The Rising of the Moon&rdquo; and making a
wreath of primroses for her donkey.
</p>

<p>
When the act was over Alexander and Mainhall strolled out into the corridor.
They met a good many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed, knew almost every one,
and he babbled on incontinently, screwing his small head about over his high
collar. Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim-browed and rather
battered-looking, who had his opera cloak on his arm and his hat in his hand,
and who seemed to be on the point of leaving the theatre.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. Bartley Alexander. I say! It&rsquo;s
going famously to-night, Mac. And what an audience! You&rsquo;ll never do
anything like this again, mark me. A man writes to the top of his bent only
once.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The playwright gave Mainhall a curious look out of his deep-set faded eyes and
made a wry face. &ldquo;And have I done anything so fool as that, now?&rdquo;
he asked.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I was saying,&rdquo; Mainhall lounged a little nearer
and dropped into a tone even more conspicuously confidential. &ldquo;And
you&rsquo;ll never bring Hilda out like this again. Dear me, Mac, the girl
couldn&rsquo;t possibly be better, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
MacConnell grunted. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll do well enough if she keeps her pace
and doesn&rsquo;t go off on us in the middle of the season, as she&rsquo;s more
than like to do.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He nodded curtly and made for the door, dodging acquaintances as he went.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Poor old Hugh,&rdquo; Mainhall murmured. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s hit terribly
hard. He&rsquo;s been wanting to marry Hilda these three years and more. She
doesn&rsquo;t take up with anybody, you know. Irene Burgoyne, one of her
family, told me in confidence that there was a romance somewhere back in the
beginning. One of your countrymen, Alexander, by the way; an American student
whom she met in Paris, I believe. I dare say it&rsquo;s quite true that
there&rsquo;s never been any one else.&rdquo; Mainhall vouched for her
constancy with a loftiness that made Alexander smile, even while a kind of
rapid excitement was tingling through him. Blinking up at the lights, Mainhall
added in his luxurious, worldly way: &ldquo;She&rsquo;s an elegant little
person, and quite capable of an extravagant bit of sentiment like that. Here
comes Sir Harry Towne. He&rsquo;s another who&rsquo;s awfully keen about her.
Let me introduce you. Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander, the American
engineer.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he had met Mr. Alexander and his wife in
Tokyo.
</p>

<p>
Mainhall cut in impatiently.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I say, Sir Harry, the little girl&rsquo;s going famously to-night,
isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Sir Harry wrinkled his brows judiciously. &ldquo;Do you know, I thought the
dance a bit conscious to-night, for the first time. The fact is, she&rsquo;s
feeling rather seedy, poor child. Westmere and I were back after the first act,
and we thought she seemed quite uncertain of herself. A little attack of
nerves, possibly.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He bowed as the warning bell rang, and Mainhall whispered: &ldquo;You know Lord
Westmere, of course,&mdash;the stooped man with the long gray mustache, talking
to Lady Dowle. Lady Westmere is very fond of Hilda.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
When they reached their box the house was darkened and the orchestra was
playing &ldquo;The Cloak of Old Gaul.&rdquo; In a moment Peggy was on the stage
again, and Alexander applauded vigorously with the rest. He even leaned forward
over the rail a little. For some reason he felt pleased and flattered by the
enthusiasm of the audience. In the half-light he looked about at the stalls and
boxes and smiled a little consciously, recalling with amusement Sir
Harry&rsquo;s judicial frown. He was beginning to feel a keen interest in the
slender, barefoot donkey-girl who slipped in and out of the play, singing, like
some one winding through a hilly field. He leaned forward and beamed
felicitations as warmly as Mainhall himself when, at the end of the play, she
came again and again before the curtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyes
dancing and her eager, nervous little mouth tremulous with excitement.
</p>

<p>
When Alexander returned to his hotel&mdash;he shook Mainhall at the door of the
theatre&mdash;he had some supper brought up to his room, and it was late before
he went to bed. He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne for years; indeed, he had
almost forgotten her. He had last written to her from Canada, after he first
met Winifred, telling her that everything was changed with him&mdash;that he
had met a woman whom he would marry if he could; if he could not, then all the
more was everything changed for him. Hilda had never replied to his letter. He
felt guilty and unhappy about her for a time, but after Winifred promised to
marry him he really forgot Hilda altogether. When he wrote her that everything
was changed for him, he was telling the truth. After he met Winifred Pemberton
he seemed to himself like a different man. One night when he and Winifred were
sitting together on the bridge, he told her that things had happened while he
was studying abroad that he was sorry for,&mdash;one thing in
particular,&mdash;and he asked her whether she thought she ought to know about
them. She considered a moment and then said &ldquo;No, I think not, though I am
glad you ask me. You see, one can&rsquo;t be jealous about things in general;
but about particular, definite, personal things,&rdquo;&mdash;here she had
thrown her hands up to his shoulders with a quick, impulsive
gesture&mdash;&ldquo;oh, about those I should be very jealous. I should torture
myself&mdash;I couldn&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo; After that it was easy to forget,
actually to forget. He wondered to-night, as he poured his wine, how many times
he had thought of Hilda in the last ten years. He had been in London more or
less, but he had never happened to hear of her. &ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; he
lifted his glass, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s to you, little Hilda. You&rsquo;ve made
things come your way, and I never thought you&rsquo;d do it.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he reflected, &ldquo;she always had that combination
of something homely and sensible, and something utterly wild and daft. But I
never thought she&rsquo;d do anything. She hadn&rsquo;t much ambition then, and
she was too fond of trifles. She must care about the theatre a great deal more
than she used to. Perhaps she has me to thank for something, after all.
Sometimes a little jolt like that does one good. She was a daft, generous
little thing. I&rsquo;m glad she&rsquo;s held her own since. After all, we were
awfully young. It was youth and poverty and proximity, and everything was young
and kindly. I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if she could laugh about it with me now. I
shouldn&rsquo;t wonder&mdash; But they&rsquo;ve probably spoiled her, so that
she&rsquo;d be tiresome if one met her again.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley smiled and yawned and went to bed.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a>
CHAPTER III</h2>

<p>
The next evening Alexander dined alone at a club, and at about nine
o&rsquo;clock he dropped in at the Duke of York&rsquo;s. The house was sold out
and he stood through the second act. When he returned to his hotel he examined
the new directory, and found Miss Burgoyne&rsquo;s address still given as off
Bedford Square, though at a new number. He remembered that, in so far as she
had been brought up at all, she had been brought up in Bloomsbury. Her father
and mother played in the provinces most of the year, and she was left a great
deal in the care of an old aunt who was crippled by rheumatism and who had had
to leave the stage altogether. In the days when Alexander knew her, Hilda
always managed to have a lodging of some sort about Bedford Square, because she
clung tenaciously to such scraps and shreds of memories as were connected with
it. The mummy room of the British Museum had been one of the chief delights of
her childhood. That forbidding pile was the goal of her truant fancy, and she
was sometimes taken there for a treat, as other children are taken to the
theatre. It was long since Alexander had thought of any of these things, but
now they came back to him quite fresh, and had a significance they did not have
when they were first told him in his restless twenties. So she was still in the
old neighborhood, near Bedford Square. The new number probably meant increased
prosperity. He hoped so. He would like to know that she was snugly settled. He
looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten; she would not be home for a
good two hours yet, and he might as well walk over and have a look at the
place. He remembered the shortest way.
</p>

<p>
It was a warm, smoky evening, and there was a grimy moon. He went through
Covent Garden to Oxford Street, and as he turned into Museum Street he walked
more slowly, smiling at his own nervousness as he approached the sullen gray
mass at the end. He had not been inside the Museum, actually, since he and
Hilda used to meet there; sometimes to set out for gay adventures at Twickenham
or Richmond, sometimes to linger about the place for a while and to ponder by
Lord Elgin&rsquo;s marbles upon the lastingness of some things, or, in the
mummy room, upon the awful brevity of others. Since then Bartley had always
thought of the British Museum as the ultimate repository of mortality, where
all the dead things in the world were assembled to make one&rsquo;s hour of
youth the more precious. One trembled lest before he got out it might somehow
escape him, lest he might drop the glass from over-eagerness and see it
shivered on the stone floor at his feet. How one hid his youth under his coat
and hugged it! And how good it was to turn one&rsquo;s back upon all that
vaulted cold, to take Hilda&rsquo;s arm and hurry out of the great door and
down the steps into the sunlight among the pigeons&mdash;to know that the warm
and vital thing within him was still there and had not been snatched away to
flush Cæsar&rsquo;s lean cheek or to feed the veins of some bearded Assyrian
king. They in their day had carried the flaming liquor, but to-day was his! So
the song used to run in his head those summer mornings a dozen years ago.
Alexander walked by the place very quietly, as if he were afraid of waking some
one.
</p>

<p>
He crossed Bedford Square and found the number he was looking for. The house, a
comfortable, well-kept place enough, was dark except for the four front windows
on the second floor, where a low, even light was burning behind the white
muslin sash curtains. Outside there were window boxes, painted white and full
of flowers. Bartley was making a third round of the Square when he heard the
far-flung hoof-beats of a hansom-cab horse, driven rapidly. He looked at his
watch, and was astonished to find that it was a few minutes after twelve. He
turned and walked back along the iron railing as the cab came up to
Hilda&rsquo;s number and stopped. The hansom must have been one that she
employed regularly, for she did not stop to pay the driver. She stepped out
quickly and lightly. He heard her cheerful &ldquo;Good-night, cabby,&rdquo; as
she ran up the steps and opened the door with a latchkey. In a few moments the
lights flared up brightly behind the white curtains, and as he walked away he
heard a window raised. But he had gone too far to look up without turning
round. He went back to his hotel, feeling that he had had a good evening, and
he slept well.
</p>

<p>
For the next few days Alexander was very busy. He took a desk in the office of
a Scotch engineering firm on Henrietta Street, and was at work almost
constantly. He avoided the clubs and usually dined alone at his hotel. One
afternoon, after he had tea, he started for a walk down the Embankment toward
Westminster, intending to end his stroll at Bedford Square and to ask whether
Miss Burgoyne would let him take her to the theatre. But he did not go so far.
When he reached the Abbey, he turned back and crossed Westminster Bridge and
sat down to watch the trails of smoke behind the Houses of Parliament catch
fire with the sunset. The slender towers were washed by a rain of golden light
and licked by little flickering flames; Somerset House and the bleached gray
pinnacles about Whitehall were floated in a luminous haze. The yellow light
poured through the trees and the leaves seemed to burn with soft fires. There
was a smell of acacias in the air everywhere, and the laburnums were dripping
gold over the walls of the gardens. It was a sweet, lonely kind of summer
evening. Remembering Hilda as she used to be, was doubtless more satisfactory
than seeing her as she must be now&mdash;and, after all, Alexander asked
himself, what was it but his own young years that he was remembering?
</p>

<p>
He crossed back to Westminster, went up to the Temple, and sat down to smoke in
the Middle Temple gardens, listening to the thin voice of the fountain and
smelling the spice of the sycamores that came out heavily in the damp evening
air. He thought, as he sat there, about a great many things: about his own
youth and Hilda&rsquo;s; above all, he thought of how glorious it had been, and
how quickly it had passed; and, when it had passed, how little worth while
anything was. None of the things he had gained in the least compensated. In the
last six years his reputation had become, as the saying is, popular. Four years
ago he had been called to Japan to deliver, at the Emperor&rsquo;s request, a
course of lectures at the Imperial University, and had instituted reforms
throughout the islands, not only in the practice of bridge-building but in
drainage and road-making. On his return he had undertaken the bridge at
Moorlock, in Canada, the most important piece of bridge-building going on in
the world,&mdash;a test, indeed, of how far the latest practice in bridge
structure could be carried. It was a spectacular undertaking by reason of its
very size, and Bartley realized that, whatever else he might do, he would
probably always be known as the engineer who designed the great Moorlock
Bridge, the longest cantilever in existence. Yet it was to him the least
satisfactory thing he had ever done. He was cramped in every way by a niggardly
commission, and was using lighter structural material than he thought proper.
He had vexations enough, too, with his work at home. He had several bridges
under way in the United States, and they were always being held up by strikes
and delays resulting from a general industrial unrest.
</p>

<p>
Though Alexander often told himself he had never put more into his work than he
had done in the last few years, he had to admit that he had never got so little
out of it. He was paying for success, too, in the demands made on his time by
boards of civic enterprise and committees of public welfare. The obligations
imposed by his wife&rsquo;s fortune and position were sometimes distracting to
a man who followed his profession, and he was expected to be interested in a
great many worthy endeavors on her account as well as on his own. His existence
was becoming a network of great and little details. He had expected that
success would bring him freedom and power; but it had brought only power that
was in itself another kind of restraint. He had always meant to keep his
personal liberty at all costs, as old MacKeller, his first chief, had done, and
not, like so many American engineers, to become a part of a professional
movement, a cautious board member, a Nestor <i>de pontibus</i>. He happened to
be engaged in work of public utility, but he was not willing to become what is
called a public man. He found himself living exactly the kind of life he had
determined to escape. What, he asked himself, did he want with these genial
honors and substantial comforts? Hardships and difficulties he had carried
lightly; overwork had not exhausted him; but this dead calm of middle life
which confronted him,&mdash;of that he was afraid. He was not ready for it. It
was like being buried alive. In his youth he would not have believed such a
thing possible. The one thing he had really wanted all his life was to be free;
and there was still something unconquered in him, something besides the strong
work-horse that his profession had made of him. He felt rich to-night in the
possession of that unstultified survival; in the light of his experience, it
was more precious than honors or achievement. In all those busy, successful
years there had been nothing so good as this hour of wild light-heartedness.
This feeling was the only happiness that was real to him, and such hours were
the only ones in which he could feel his own continuous identity&mdash;feel the
boy he had been in the rough days of the old West, feel the youth who had
worked his way across the ocean on a cattle-ship and gone to study in Paris
without a dollar in his pocket. The man who sat in his offices in Boston was
only a powerful machine. Under the activities of that machine the person who,
in such moments as this, he felt to be himself, was fading and dying. He
remembered how, when he was a little boy and his father called him in the
morning, he used to leap from his bed into the full consciousness of himself.
That consciousness was Life itself. Whatever took its place, action,
reflection, the power of concentrated thought, were only functions of a
mechanism useful to society; things that could be bought in the market. There
was only one thing that had an absolute value for each individual, and it was
just that original impulse, that internal heat, that feeling of one&rsquo;s
self in one&rsquo;s own breast.
</p>

<p>
When Alexander walked back to his hotel, the red and green lights were blinking
along the docks on the farther shore, and the soft white stars were shining in
the wide sky above the river.
</p>

<p>
The next night, and the next, Alexander repeated this same foolish performance.
It was always Miss Burgoyne whom he started out to find, and he got no farther
than the Temple gardens and the Embankment. It was a pleasant kind of
loneliness. To a man who was so little given to reflection, whose dreams always
took the form of definite ideas, reaching into the future, there was a
seductive excitement in renewing old experiences in imagination. He started out
upon these walks half guiltily, with a curious longing and expectancy which
were wholly gratified by solitude. Solitude, but not solitariness; for he
walked shoulder to shoulder with a shadowy companion&mdash;not little Hilda
Burgoyne, by any means, but some one vastly dearer to him than she had ever
been&mdash;his own young self, the youth who had waited for him upon the steps
of the British Museum that night, and who, though he had tried to pass so
quietly, had known him and come down and linked an arm in his.
</p>

<p>
It was not until long afterward that Alexander learned that for him this youth
was the most dangerous of companions.
</p>

<p class="p2">
One Sunday evening, at Lady Walford&rsquo;s, Alexander did at last meet Hilda
Burgoyne. Mainhall had told him that she would probably be there. He looked
about for her rather nervously, and finally found her at the farther end of the
large drawing-room, the centre of a circle of men, young and old. She was
apparently telling them a story. They were all laughing and bending toward her.
When she saw Alexander, she rose quickly and put out her hand. The other men
drew back a little to let him approach.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Mr. Alexander! I am delighted. Have you been in London long?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley bowed, somewhat laboriously, over her hand. &ldquo;Long enough to have
seen you more than once. How fine it all is!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She laughed as if she were pleased. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you think so. I like
it. Won&rsquo;t you join us here?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Miss Burgoyne was just telling us about a donkey-boy she had in Galway
last summer,&rdquo; Sir Harry Towne explained as the circle closed up again.
Lord Westmere stroked his long white mustache with his bloodless hand and
looked at Alexander blankly. Hilda was a good story-teller. She was sitting on
the edge of her chair, as if she had alighted there for a moment only. Her
primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheath for her slender, supple figure,
and its delicate color suited her white Irish skin and brown hair. Whatever she
wore, people felt the charm of her active, girlish body with its slender hips
and quick, eager shoulders. Alexander heard little of the story, but he watched
Hilda intently. She must certainly, he reflected, be thirty, and he was
honestly delighted to see that the years had treated her so indulgently. If her
face had changed at all, it was in a slight hardening of the mouth&mdash;still
eager enough to be very disconcerting at times, he felt&mdash;and in an added
air of self-possession and self-reliance. She carried her head, too, a little
more resolutely.
</p>

<p>
When the story was finished, Miss Burgoyne turned pointedly to Alexander, and
the other men drifted away.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I thought I saw you in MacConnell&rsquo;s box with Mainhall one evening,
but I supposed you had left town before this.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She looked at him frankly and cordially, as if he were indeed merely an old
friend whom she was glad to meet again.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ve been mooning about here.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda laughed gayly. &ldquo;Mooning! I see you mooning! You must be the busiest
man in the world. Time and success have done well by you, you know.
You&rsquo;re handsomer than ever and you&rsquo;ve gained a grand manner.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander blushed and bowed. &ldquo;Time and success have been good friends to
both of us. Aren&rsquo;t you tremendously pleased with yourself?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She laughed again and shrugged her shoulders. &ldquo;Oh, so-so. But I want to
hear about you. Several years ago I read such a lot in the papers about the
wonderful things you did in Japan, and how the Emperor decorated you. What was
it, Commander of the Order of the Rising Sun? That sounds like &lsquo;The
Mikado.&rsquo; And what about your new bridge&mdash;in Canada, isn&rsquo;t it,
and it&rsquo;s to be the longest one in the world and has some queer name I
can&rsquo;t remember.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley shook his head and smiled drolly. &ldquo;Since when have you been
interested in bridges? Or have you learned to be interested in everything? And
is that a part of success?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why, how absurd! As if I were not always interested!&rdquo; Hilda
exclaimed.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, I think we won&rsquo;t talk about bridges here, at any
rate.&rdquo; Bartley looked down at the toe of her yellow slipper which was
tapping the rug impatiently under the hem of her gown. &ldquo;But I wonder
whether you&rsquo;d think me impertinent if I asked you to let me come to see
you sometime and tell you about them?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why should I? Ever so many people come on Sunday afternoons.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I know. Mainhall offered to take me. But you must know that I&rsquo;ve
been in London several times within the last few years, and you might very well
think that just now is a rather inopportune time&mdash;&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She cut him short. &ldquo;Nonsense. One of the pleasantest things about success
is that it makes people want to look one up, if that&rsquo;s what you mean.
I&rsquo;m like every one else&mdash;more agreeable to meet when things are
going well with me. Don&rsquo;t you suppose it gives me any pleasure to do
something that people like?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Does it? Oh, how fine it all is, your coming on like this! But I
didn&rsquo;t want you to think it was because of that I wanted to see
you.&rdquo; He spoke very seriously and looked down at the floor.
</p>

<p>
Hilda studied him in wide-eyed astonishment for a moment, and then broke into a
low, amused laugh. &ldquo;My dear Mr. Alexander, you have strange delicacies.
If you please, that is exactly why you wish to see me. We understand that, do
we not?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley looked ruffled and turned the seal ring on his little finger about
awkwardly.
</p>

<p>
Hilda leaned back in her chair, watching him indulgently out of her shrewd
eyes. &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t be angry, but don&rsquo;t try to pose for me, or
to be anything but what you are. If you care to come, it&rsquo;s yourself
I&rsquo;ll be glad to see, and you thinking well of yourself. Don&rsquo;t try
to wear a cloak of humility; it doesn&rsquo;t become you. Stalk in as you are
and don&rsquo;t make excuses. I&rsquo;m not accustomed to inquiring into the
motives of my guests. That would hardly be safe, even for Lady Walford, in a
great house like this.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Sunday afternoon, then,&rdquo; said Alexander, as she rose to join her
hostess. &ldquo;How early may I come?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She gave him her hand and flushed and laughed. He bent over it a little
stiffly. She went away on Lady Walford&rsquo;s arm, and as he stood watching
her yellow train glide down the long floor he looked rather sullen. He felt
that he had not come out of it very brilliantly.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a>
CHAPTER IV</h2>

<p>
On Sunday afternoon Alexander remembered Miss Burgoyne&rsquo;s invitation and
called at her apartment. He found it a delightful little place and he met
charming people there. Hilda lived alone, attended by a very pretty and
competent French servant who answered the door and brought in the tea.
Alexander arrived early, and some twenty-odd people dropped in during the
course of the afternoon. Hugh MacConnell came with his sister, and stood about,
managing his tea-cup awkwardly and watching every one out of his deep-set,
faded eyes. He seemed to have made a resolute effort at tidiness of attire, and
his sister, a robust, florid woman with a splendid joviality about her, kept
eyeing his freshly creased clothes apprehensively. It was not very long,
indeed, before his coat hung with a discouraged sag from his gaunt shoulders
and his hair and beard were rumpled as if he had been out in a gale. His dry
humor went under a cloud of absent-minded kindliness which, Mainhall explained,
always overtook him here. He was never so witty or so sharp here as elsewhere,
and Alexander thought he behaved as if he were an elderly relative come in to a
young girl&rsquo;s party.
</p>

<p>
The editor of a monthly review came with his wife, and Lady Kildare, the Irish
philanthropist, brought her young nephew, Robert Owen, who had come up from
Oxford, and who was visibly excited and gratified by his first introduction to
Miss Burgoyne. Hilda was very nice to him, and he sat on the edge of his chair,
flushed with his conversational efforts and moving his chin about nervously
over his high collar. Sarah Frost, the novelist, came with her husband, a very
genial and placid old scholar who had become slightly deranged upon the subject
of the fourth dimension. On other matters he was perfectly rational and he was
easy and pleasing in conversation. He looked very much like Agassiz, and his
wife, in her old-fashioned black silk dress, overskirted and tight-sleeved,
reminded Alexander of the early pictures of Mrs. Browning. Hilda seemed
particularly fond of this quaint couple, and Bartley himself was so pleased
with their mild and thoughtful converse that he took his leave when they did,
and walked with them over to Oxford Street, where they waited for their
&lsquo;bus. They asked him to come to see them in Chelsea, and they spoke very
tenderly of Hilda. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a dear, unworldly little thing,&rdquo;
said the philosopher absently; &ldquo;more like the stage people of my young
days&mdash;folk of simple manners. There aren&rsquo;t many such left. American
tours have spoiled them, I&rsquo;m afraid. They have all grown very smart. Lamb
wouldn&rsquo;t care a great deal about many of them, I fancy.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander went back to Bedford Square a second Sunday afternoon. He had a long
talk with MacConnell, but he got no word with Hilda alone, and he left in a
discontented state of mind. For the rest of the week he was nervous and
unsettled, and kept rushing his work as if he were preparing for immediate
departure. On Thursday afternoon he cut short a committee meeting, jumped into
a hansom, and drove to Bedford Square. He sent up his card, but it came back to
him with a message scribbled across the front.
</p>

<p class="letter">
So sorry I can&rsquo;t see you.  Will you come and dine with me Sunday evening
at half-past seven?
</p>

<p class="right">
H.B.
</p>

<p>
When Bartley arrived at Bedford Square on Sunday evening, Marie, the pretty
little French girl, met him at the door and conducted him upstairs. Hilda was
writing in her living-room, under the light of a tall desk lamp. Bartley
recognized the primrose satin gown she had worn that first evening at Lady
Walford&rsquo;s.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so pleased that you think me worth that yellow dress, you
know,&rdquo; he said, taking her hand and looking her over admiringly from the
toes of her canary slippers to her smoothly parted brown hair. &ldquo;Yes,
it&rsquo;s very, very pretty. Every one at Lady Walford&rsquo;s was looking at
it.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda curtsied. &ldquo;Is that why you think it pretty? I&rsquo;ve no need for
fine clothes in Mac&rsquo;s play this time, so I can afford a few duddies for
myself. It&rsquo;s owing to that same chance, by the way, that I am able to ask
you to dinner. I don&rsquo;t need Marie to dress me this season, so she keeps
house for me, and my little Galway girl has gone home for a visit. I should
never have asked you if Molly had been here, for I remember you don&rsquo;t
like English cookery.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander walked about the room, looking at everything.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t had a chance yet to tell you what a jolly little place I
think this is. Where did you get those etchings? They&rsquo;re quite unusual,
aren&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Lady Westmere sent them to me from Rome last Christmas. She is very much
interested in the American artist who did them. They are all sketches made
about the Villa d&rsquo;Este, you see. He painted that group of cypresses for
the Salon, and it was bought for the Luxembourg.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander walked over to the bookcases. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the air of the whole
place here that I like. You haven&rsquo;t got anything that doesn&rsquo;t
belong. Seems to me it looks particularly well to-night. And you have so many
flowers. I like these little yellow irises.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Rooms always look better by lamplight&mdash;in London, at least. Though
Marie is clean&mdash;really clean, as the French are. Why do you look at the
flowers so critically? Marie got them all fresh in Covent Garden market
yesterday morning.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad,&rdquo; said Alexander simply. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell
you how glad I am to have you so pretty and comfortable here, and to hear every
one saying such nice things about you. You&rsquo;ve got awfully nice
friends,&rdquo; he added humbly, picking up a little jade elephant from her
desk. &ldquo;Those fellows are all very loyal, even Mainhall. They don&rsquo;t
talk of any one else as they do of you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda sat down on the couch and said seriously: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a neat little
sum in the bank, too, now, and I own a mite of a hut in Galway. It&rsquo;s not
worth much, but I love it. I&rsquo;ve managed to save something every year, and
that with helping my three sisters now and then, and tiding poor Cousin Mike
over bad seasons. He&rsquo;s that gifted, you know, but he will drink and loses
more good engagements than other fellows ever get. And I&rsquo;ve traveled a
bit, too.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Marie opened the door and smilingly announced that dinner was served.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;My dining-room,&rdquo; Hilda explained, as she led the way, &ldquo;is
the tiniest place you have ever seen.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
It was a tiny room, hung all round with French prints, above which ran a shelf
full of china. Hilda saw Alexander look up at it.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not particularly rare,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but some of it
was my mother&rsquo;s. Heaven knows how she managed to keep it whole, through
all our wanderings, or in what baskets and bundles and theatre trunks it
hasn&rsquo;t been stowed away. We always had our tea out of those blue cups
when I was a little girl, sometimes in the queerest lodgings, and sometimes on
a trunk at the theatre&mdash;queer theatres, for that matter.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
It was a wonderful little dinner. There was watercress soup, and sole, and a
delightful omelette stuffed with mushrooms and truffles, and two small rare
ducklings, and artichokes, and a dry yellow Rhone wine of which Bartley had
always been very fond. He drank it appreciatively and remarked that there was
still no other he liked so well.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I have some champagne for you, too. I don&rsquo;t drink it myself, but I
like to see it behave when it&rsquo;s poured. There is nothing else that looks
so jolly.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Thank you. But I don&rsquo;t like it so well as this.&rdquo; Bartley
held the yellow wine against the light and squinted into it as he turned the
glass slowly about. &ldquo;You have traveled, you say. Have you been in Paris
much these late years?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda lowered one of the candle-shades carefully. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I go over to
Paris often. There are few changes in the old Quarter. Dear old Madame Anger is
dead&mdash;but perhaps you don&rsquo;t remember her?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t I, though! I&rsquo;m so sorry to hear it. How did her son
turn out? I remember how she saved and scraped for him, and how he always lay
abed till ten o&rsquo;clock. He was the laziest fellow at the Beaux Arts; and
that&rsquo;s saying a good deal.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, he is still clever and lazy. They say he is a good architect when
he will work. He&rsquo;s a big, handsome creature, and he hates Americans as
much as ever. But Angel&mdash;do you remember Angel?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Perfectly. Did she ever get back to Brittany and her <i>bains de
mer?</i>&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Ah, no. Poor Angel! She got tired of cooking and scouring the coppers in
Madame Anger&rsquo;s little kitchen, so she ran away with a soldier, and then
with another soldier. Too bad! She still lives about the Quarter, and, though
there is always a <i>soldat</i>, she has become a <i>blanchisseuse de fin</i>.
She did my blouses beautifully the last time I was there, and was so delighted
to see me again. I gave her all my old clothes, even my old hats, though she
always wears her Breton headdress. Her hair is still like flax, and her blue
eyes are just like a baby&rsquo;s, and she has the same three freckles on her
little nose, and talks about going back to her <i>bains de mer</i>.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley looked at Hilda across the yellow light of the candles and broke into a
low, happy laugh. &ldquo;How jolly it was being young, Hilda! Do you remember
that first walk we took together in Paris? We walked down to the Place
Saint-Michel to buy some lilacs. Do you remember how sweet they smelled?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Indeed I do. Come, we&rsquo;ll have our coffee in the other room, and
you can smoke.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda rose quickly, as if she wished to change the drift of their talk, but
Bartley found it pleasant to continue it.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;What a warm, soft spring evening that was,&rdquo; he went on, as they
sat down in the study with the coffee on a little table between them;
&ldquo;and the sky, over the bridges, was just the color of the lilacs. We
walked on down by the river, didn&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda laughed and looked at him questioningly. He saw a gleam in her eyes that
he remembered even better than the episode he was recalling.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I think we did,&rdquo; she answered demurely. &ldquo;It was on the Quai
we met that woman who was crying so bitterly. I gave her a spray of lilac, I
remember, and you gave her a franc. I was frightened at your
prodigality.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I expect it was the last franc I had. What a strong brown face she had,
and very tragic. She looked at us with such despair and longing, out from under
her black shawl. What she wanted from us was neither our flowers nor our
francs, but just our youth. I remember it touched me so. I would have given her
some of mine off my back, if I could. I had enough and to spare then,&rdquo;
Bartley mused, and looked thoughtfully at his cigar.
</p>

<p>
They were both remembering what the woman had said when she took the money:
&ldquo;God give you a happy love!&rdquo; It was not in the ingratiating tone of
the habitual beggar: it had come out of the depths of the poor creature&rsquo;s
sorrow, vibrating with pity for their youth and despair at the terribleness of
human life; it had the anguish of a voice of prophecy. Until she spoke, Bartley
had not realized that he was in love. The strange woman, and her passionate
sentence that rang out so sharply, had frightened them both. They went home
sadly with the lilacs, back to the Rue Saint-Jacques, walking very slowly, arm
in arm. When they reached the house where Hilda lodged, Bartley went across the
court with her, and up the dark old stairs to the third landing; and there he
had kissed her for the first time. He had shut his eyes to give him the
courage, he remembered, and she had trembled so&mdash;
</p>

<p>
Bartley started when Hilda rang the little bell beside her. &ldquo;Dear me, why
did you do that? I had quite forgotten&mdash;I was back there. It was very
jolly,&rdquo; he murmured lazily, as Marie came in to take away the coffee.
</p>

<p>
Hilda laughed and went over to the piano. &ldquo;Well, we are neither of us
twenty now, you know. Have I told you about my new play? Mac is writing one;
really for me this time. You see, I&rsquo;m coming on.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen nothing else. What kind of a part is it? Shall you wear
yellow gowns? I hope so.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He was looking at her round slender figure, as she stood by the piano, turning
over a pile of music, and he felt the energy in every line of it.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No, it isn&rsquo;t a dress-up part. He doesn&rsquo;t seem to fancy me in
fine feathers. He says I ought to be minding the pigs at home, and I suppose I
ought. But he&rsquo;s given me some good Irish songs. Listen.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She sat down at the piano and sang. When she finished, Alexander shook himself
out of a reverie.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Sing &lsquo;The Harp That Once,&rsquo; Hilda. You used to sing it so
well.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Nonsense. Of course I can&rsquo;t really sing, except the way my mother
and grandmother did before me. Most actresses nowadays learn to sing properly,
so I tried a master; but he confused me, just!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander laughed. &ldquo;All the same, sing it, Hilda.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda started up from the stool and moved restlessly toward the window.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s really too warm in this room to sing. Don&rsquo;t you feel
it?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander went over and opened the window for her. &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t you
afraid to let the wind low like that on your neck? Can&rsquo;t I get a scarf or
something?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Ask a theatre lady if she&rsquo;s afraid of drafts!&rdquo; Hilda
laughed. &ldquo;But perhaps, as I&rsquo;m so warm&mdash;give me your
handkerchief. There, just in front.&rdquo; He slipped the corners carefully
under her shoulder-straps. &ldquo;There, that will do. It looks like a
bib.&rdquo; She pushed his hand away quickly and stood looking out into the
deserted square. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t London a tomb on Sunday night?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander caught the agitation in her voice. He stood a little behind her, and
tried to steady himself as he said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s soft and misty. See how
white the stars are.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
For a long time neither Hilda nor Bartley spoke. They stood close together,
looking out into the wan, watery sky, breathing always more quickly and
lightly, and it seemed as if all the clocks in the world had stopped. Suddenly
he moved the clenched hand he held behind him and dropped it violently at his
side. He felt a tremor run through the slender yellow figure in front of him.
</p>

<p>
She caught his handkerchief from her throat and thrust it at him without
turning round. &ldquo;Here, take it. You must go now, Bartley.
Good-night.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley leaned over her shoulder, without touching her, and whispered in her
ear: &ldquo;You are giving me a chance?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes. Take it and go. This isn&rsquo;t fair, you know. Good-night.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander unclenched the two hands at his sides. With one he threw down the
window and with the other&mdash;still standing behind her&mdash;he drew her
back against him.
</p>

<p>
She uttered a little cry, threw her arms over her head, and drew his face down
to hers. &ldquo;Are you going to let me love you a little, Bartley?&rdquo; she
whispered.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a>
CHAPTER V</h2>

<p>
It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas. Mrs. Alexander had been
driving about all the morning, leaving presents at the houses of her friends.
She lunched alone, and as she rose from the table she spoke to the butler:
&ldquo;Thomas, I am going down to the kitchen now to see Norah. In half an hour
you are to bring the greens up from the cellar and put them in the library. Mr.
Alexander will be home at three to hang them himself. Don&rsquo;t forget the
stepladder, and plenty of tacks and string. You may bring the azaleas upstairs.
Take the white one to Mr. Alexander&rsquo;s study. Put the two pink ones in
this room, and the red one in the drawing-room.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
A little before three o&rsquo;clock Mrs. Alexander went into the library to see
that everything was ready. She pulled the window shades high, for the weather
was dark and stormy, and there was little light, even in the streets. A foot of
snow had fallen during the morning, and the wide space over the river was thick
with flying flakes that fell and wreathed the masses of floating ice. Winifred
was standing by the window when she heard the front door open. She hurried to
the hall as Alexander came stamping in, covered with snow. He kissed her
joyfully and brushed away the snow that fell on her hair.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I wish I had asked you to meet me at the office and walk home with me,
Winifred. The Common is beautiful. The boys have swept the snow off the pond
and are skating furiously. Did the cyclamens come?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;An hour ago. What splendid ones! But aren&rsquo;t you frightfully
extravagant?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Not for Christmas-time. I&rsquo;ll go upstairs and change my coat. I
shall be down in a moment. Tell Thomas to get everything ready.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
When Alexander reappeared, he took his wife&rsquo;s arm and went with her into
the library. &ldquo;When did the azaleas get here? Thomas has got the white one
in my room.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I told him to put it there.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;But, I say, it&rsquo;s much the finest of the lot!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I had it put there. There is too much color in that
room for a red one, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley began to sort the greens. &ldquo;It looks very splendid there, but I
feel piggish to have it. However, we really spend more time there than anywhere
else in the house. Will you hand me the holly?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He climbed up the stepladder, which creaked under his weight, and began to
twist the tough stems of the holly into the frame-work of the chandelier.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Wilson, this morning,
explaining his telegram. He is coming on because an old uncle up in Vermont has
conveniently died and left Wilson a little money&mdash;something like ten
thousand. He&rsquo;s coming on to settle up the estate. Won&rsquo;t it be jolly
to have him?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;And how fine that he&rsquo;s come into a little money. I can see him
posting down State Street to the steamship offices. He will get a good many
trips out of that ten thousand. What can have detained him? I expected him here
for luncheon.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Those trains from Albany are always late. He&rsquo;ll be along sometime
this afternoon. And now, don&rsquo;t you want to go upstairs and lie down for
an hour? You&rsquo;ve had a busy morning and I don&rsquo;t want you to be tired
to-night.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
After his wife went upstairs Alexander worked energetically at the greens for a
few moments. Then, as he was cutting off a length of string, he sighed suddenly
and sat down, staring out of the window at the snow. The animation died out of
his face, but in his eyes there was a restless light, a look of apprehension
and suspense. He kept clasping and unclasping his big hands as if he were
trying to realize something. The clock ticked through the minutes of a
half-hour and the afternoon outside began to thicken and darken turbidly.
Alexander, since he first sat down, had not changed his position. He leaned
forward, his hands between his knees, scarcely breathing, as if he were holding
himself away from his surroundings, from the room, and from the very chair in
which he sat, from everything except the wild eddies of snow above the river on
which his eyes were fixed with feverish intentness, as if he were trying to
project himself thither. When at last Lucius Wilson was announced, Alexander
sprang eagerly to his feet and hurried to meet his old instructor.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Hello, Wilson. What luck! Come into the library. We are to have a lot of
people to dinner to-night, and Winifred&rsquo;s lying down. You will excuse
her, won&rsquo;t you? And now what about yourself? Sit down and tell me
everything.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;d rather move about, if you don&rsquo;t mind. I&rsquo;ve
been sitting in the train for a week, it seems to me.&rdquo; Wilson stood
before the fire with his hands behind him and looked about the room. &ldquo;You
<i>have</i> been busy. Bartley, if I&rsquo;d had my choice of all possible
places in which to spend Christmas, your house would certainly be the place
I&rsquo;d have chosen. Happy people do a great deal for their friends. A house
like this throws its warmth out. I felt it distinctly as I was coming through
the Berkshires. I could scarcely believe that I was to see Mrs. Bartley again
so soon.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Thank you, Wilson. She&rsquo;ll be as glad to see you. Shall we have tea
now? I&rsquo;ll ring for Thomas to clear away this litter. Winifred says I
always wreck the house when I try to do anything. Do you know, I am quite
tired. Looks as if I were not used to work, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Alexander
laughed and dropped into a chair. &ldquo;You know, I&rsquo;m sailing the day
after New Year&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Again? Why, you&rsquo;ve been over twice since I was here in the spring,
haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, I was in London about ten days in the summer. Went to escape the hot
weather more than anything else. I shan&rsquo;t be gone more than a month this
time. Winifred and I have been up in Canada for most of the autumn. That
Moorlock Bridge is on my back all the time. I never had so much trouble with a
job before.&rdquo; Alexander moved about restlessly and fell to poking the
fire.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I seen in the papers that there is some trouble about a
tidewater bridge of yours in New Jersey?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, that doesn&rsquo;t amount to anything. It&rsquo;s held up by a steel
strike. A bother, of course, but the sort of thing one is always having to put
up with. But the Moorlock Bridge is a continual anxiety. You see, the truth is,
we are having to build pretty well to the strain limit up there. They&rsquo;ve
crowded me too much on the cost. It&rsquo;s all very well if everything goes
well, but these estimates have never been used for anything of such length
before. However, there&rsquo;s nothing to be done. They hold me to the scale
I&rsquo;ve used in shorter bridges. The last thing a bridge commission cares
about is the kind of bridge you build.&rdquo;
</p>

<p class="p2">
When Bartley had finished dressing for dinner he went into his study, where he
found his wife arranging flowers on his writing-table.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;These pink roses just came from Mrs. Hastings,&rdquo; she said, smiling,
&ldquo;and I am sure she meant them for you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley looked about with an air of satisfaction at the greens and the wreaths
in the windows. &ldquo;Have you a moment, Winifred? I have just now been
thinking that this is our twelfth Christmas. Can you realize it?&rdquo; He went
up to the table and took her hands away from the flowers, drying them with his
pocket handkerchief. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been awfully happy ones, all of them,
haven&rsquo;t they?&rdquo; He took her in his arms and bent back, lifting her a
little and giving her a long kiss. &ldquo;You are happy, aren&rsquo;t you
Winifred? More than anything else in the world, I want you to be happy.
Sometimes, of late, I&rsquo;ve thought you looked as if you were
troubled.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s only when you are troubled and harassed that I feel
worried, Bartley. I wish you always seemed as you do to-night. But you
don&rsquo;t, always.&rdquo; She looked earnestly and inquiringly into his eyes.
</p>

<p>
Alexander took her two hands from his shoulders and swung them back and forth
in his own, laughing his big blond laugh.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m growing older, my dear; that&rsquo;s what you feel. Now, may I
show you something? I meant to save them until to-morrow, but I want you to
wear them to-night.&rdquo; He took a little leather box out of his pocket and
opened it. On the white velvet lay two long pendants of curiously worked gold,
set with pearls. Winifred looked from the box to Bartley and exclaimed:&mdash;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Where did you ever find such gold work, Bartley?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s old Flemish. Isn&rsquo;t it fine?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;They are the most beautiful things, dear. But, you know, I never wear
earrings.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, yes, I know. But I want you to wear them. I have always wanted you
to. So few women can. There must be a good ear, to begin with, and a
nose&rdquo;&mdash;he waved his hand&mdash;&ldquo;above reproach. Most women
look silly in them. They go only with faces like yours&mdash;very, very proud,
and just a little hard.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Winifred laughed as she went over to the mirror and fitted the delicate springs
to the lobes of her ears. &ldquo;Oh, Bartley, that old foolishness about my
being hard. It really hurts my feelings. But I must go down now. People are
beginning to come.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley drew her arm about his neck and went to the door with her. &ldquo;Not
hard to me, Winifred,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Never, never hard to
me.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Left alone, he paced up and down his study. He was at home again, among all the
dear familiar things that spoke to him of so many happy years. His house
to-night would be full of charming people, who liked and admired him. Yet all
the time, underneath his pleasure and hopefulness and satisfaction, he was
conscious of the vibration of an unnatural excitement. Amid this light and
warmth and friendliness, he sometimes started and shuddered, as if some one had
stepped on his grave. Something had broken loose in him of which he knew
nothing except that it was sullen and powerful, and that it wrung and tortured
him. Sometimes it came upon him softly, in enervating reveries. Sometimes it
battered him like the cannon rolling in the hold of the vessel. Always, now, it
brought with it a sense of quickened life, of stimulating danger. To-night it
came upon him suddenly, as he was walking the floor, after his wife left him.
It seemed impossible; he could not believe it. He glanced entreatingly at the
door, as if to call her back. He heard voices in the hall below, and knew that
he must go down. Going over to the window, he looked out at the lights across
the river. How could this happen here, in his own house, among the things he
loved? What was it that reached in out of the darkness and thrilled him? As he
stood there he had a feeling that he would never escape. He shut his eyes and
pressed his forehead against the cold window glass, breathing in the chill that
came through it. &ldquo;That this,&rdquo; he groaned, &ldquo;that this should
have happened to <i>me!</i>&rdquo;
</p>

<p class="p2">
On New Year&rsquo;s day a thaw set in, and during the night torrents of rain
fell. In the morning, the morning of Alexander&rsquo;s departure for England,
the river was streaked with fog and the rain drove hard against the windows of
the breakfast-room. Alexander had finished his coffee and was pacing up and
down. His wife sat at the table, watching him. She was pale and unnaturally
calm. When Thomas brought the letters, Bartley sank into his chair and ran them
over rapidly.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a note from old Wilson. He&rsquo;s safe back at his grind,
and says he had a bully time. &lsquo;The memory of Mrs. Bartley will make my
whole winter fragrant.&rsquo; Just like him. He will go on getting measureless
satisfaction out of you by his study fire. What a man he is for looking on at
life!&rdquo; Bartley sighed, pushed the letters back impatiently, and went over
to the window. &ldquo;This is a nasty sort of day to sail. I&rsquo;ve a notion
to call it off. Next week would be time enough.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That would only mean starting twice. It wouldn&rsquo;t really help you
out at all,&rdquo; Mrs. Alexander spoke soothingly. &ldquo;And you&rsquo;d come
back late for all your engagements.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley began jingling some loose coins in his pocket. &ldquo;I wish things
would let me rest. I&rsquo;m tired of work, tired of people, tired of trailing
about.&rdquo; He looked out at the storm-beaten river.
</p>

<p>
Winifred came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s
what you always say, poor Bartley! At bottom you really like all these things.
Can&rsquo;t you remember that?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He put his arm about her. &ldquo;All the same, life runs smoothly enough with
some people, and with me it&rsquo;s always a messy sort of patchwork.
It&rsquo;s like the song; peace is where I am not. How can you face it all with
so much fortitude?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She looked at him with that clear gaze which Wilson had so much admired, which
he had felt implied such high confidence and fearless pride. &ldquo;Oh, I faced
that long ago, when you were on your first bridge, up at old Allway. I knew
then that your paths were not to be paths of peace, but I decided that I wanted
to follow them.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley and his wife stood silent for a long time; the fire crackled in the
grate, the rain beat insistently upon the windows, and the sleepy Angora looked
up at them curiously.
</p>

<p>
Presently Thomas made a discreet sound at the door. &ldquo;Shall Edward bring
down your trunks, sir?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes; they are ready. Tell him not to forget the big portfolio on the
study table.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Thomas withdrew, closing the door softly. Bartley turned away from his wife,
still holding her hand. &ldquo;It never gets any easier, Winifred.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
They both started at the sound of the carriage on the pavement outside.
Alexander sat down and leaned his head on his hand. His wife bent over him.
&ldquo;Courage,&rdquo; she said gayly. Bartley rose and rang the bell. Thomas
brought him his hat and stick and ulster. At the sight of these, the
supercilious Angora moved restlessly, quitted her red cushion by the fire, and
came up, waving her tail in vexation at these ominous indications of change.
Alexander stooped to stroke her, and then plunged into his coat and drew on his
gloves. His wife held his stick, smiling. Bartley smiled too, and his eyes
cleared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll work like the devil, Winifred, and be home again
before you realize I&rsquo;ve gone.&rdquo; He kissed her quickly several times,
hurried out of the front door into the rain, and waved to her from the carriage
window as the driver was starting his melancholy, dripping black horses.
Alexander sat with his hands clenched on his knees. As the carriage turned up
the hill, he lifted one hand and brought it down violently. &ldquo;This
time&rdquo;&mdash;he spoke aloud and through his set teeth&mdash;&ldquo;this
time I&rsquo;m going to end it!&rdquo;
</p>

<p class="p2">
On the afternoon of the third day out, Alexander was sitting well to the stern,
on the windward side where the chairs were few, his rugs over him and the
collar of his fur-lined coat turned up about his ears. The weather had so far
been dark and raw. For two hours he had been watching the low, dirty sky and
the beating of the heavy rain upon the iron-colored sea. There was a long, oily
swell that made exercise laborious. The decks smelled of damp woolens, and the
air was so humid that drops of moisture kept gathering upon his hair and
mustache. He seldom moved except to brush them away. The great open spaces made
him passive and the restlessness of the water quieted him. He intended during
the voyage to decide upon a course of action, but he held all this away from
him for the present and lay in a blessed gray oblivion. Deep down in him
somewhere his resolution was weakening and strengthening, ebbing and flowing.
The thing that perturbed him went on as steadily as his pulse, but he was
almost unconscious of it. He was submerged in the vast impersonal grayness
about him, and at intervals the sidelong roll of the boat measured off time
like the ticking of a clock. He felt released from everything that troubled and
perplexed him. It was as if he had tricked and outwitted torturing memories,
had actually managed to get on board without them. He thought of nothing at
all. If his mind now and again picked a face out of the grayness, it was Lucius
Wilson&rsquo;s, or the face of an old schoolmate, forgotten for years; or it
was the slim outline of a favorite greyhound he used to hunt jack-rabbits with
when he was a boy.
</p>

<p>
Toward six o&rsquo;clock the wind rose and tugged at the tarpaulin and brought
the swell higher. After dinner Alexander came back to the wet deck, piled his
damp rugs over him again, and sat smoking, losing himself in the obliterating
blackness and drowsing in the rush of the gale. Before he went below a few
bright stars were pricked off between heavily moving masses of cloud.
</p>

<p>
The next morning was bright and mild, with a fresh breeze. Alexander felt the
need of exercise even before he came out of his cabin. When he went on deck the
sky was blue and blinding, with heavy whiffs of white cloud, smoke-colored at
the edges, moving rapidly across it. The water was roughish, a cold, clear
indigo breaking into whitecaps. Bartley walked for two hours, and then
stretched himself in the sun until lunch-time.
</p>

<p>
In the afternoon he wrote a long letter to Winifred. Later, as he walked the
deck through a splendid golden sunset, his spirits rose continually. It was
agreeable to come to himself again after several days of numbness and torpor.
He stayed out until the last tinge of violet had faded from the water. There
was literally a taste of life on his lips as he sat down to dinner and ordered
a bottle of champagne. He was late in finishing his dinner, and drank rather
more wine than he had meant to. When he went above, the wind had risen and the
deck was almost deserted. As he stepped out of the door a gale lifted his heavy
fur coat about his shoulders. He fought his way up the deck with keen
exhilaration. The moment he stepped, almost out of breath, behind the shelter
of the stern, the wind was cut off, and he felt, like a rush of warm air, a
sense of close and intimate companionship. He started back and tore his coat
open as if something warm were actually clinging to him beneath it. He hurried
up the deck and went into the saloon parlor, full of women who had retreated
thither from the sharp wind. He threw himself upon them. He talked delightfully
to the older ones and played accompaniments for the younger ones until the last
sleepy girl had followed her mother below. Then he went into the smoking-room.
He played bridge until two o&rsquo;clock in the morning, and managed to lose a
considerable sum of money without really noticing that he was doing so.
</p>

<p>
After the break of one fine day the weather was pretty consistently dull. When
the low sky thinned a trifle, the pale white spot of a sun did no more than
throw a bluish lustre on the water, giving it the dark brightness of newly cut
lead. Through one after another of those gray days Alexander drowsed and mused,
drinking in the grateful moisture. But the complete peace of the first part of
the voyage was over. Sometimes he rose suddenly from his chair as if driven
out, and paced the deck for hours. People noticed his propensity for walking in
rough weather, and watched him curiously as he did his rounds. From his
abstraction and the determined set of his jaw, they fancied he must be thinking
about his bridge. Every one had heard of the new cantilever bridge in Canada.
</p>

<p>
But Alexander was not thinking about his work. After the fourth night out, when
his will suddenly softened under his hands, he had been continually hammering
away at himself. More and more often, when he first wakened in the morning or
when he stepped into a warm place after being chilled on the deck, he felt a
sudden painful delight at being nearer another shore. Sometimes when he was
most despondent, when he thought himself worn out with this struggle, in a
flash he was free of it and leaped into an overwhelming consciousness of
himself. On the instant he felt that marvelous return of the impetuousness, the
intense excitement, the increasing expectancy of youth.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a>
CHAPTER VI</h2>

<p>
The last two days of the voyage Bartley found almost intolerable. The stop at
Queenstown, the tedious passage up the Mersey, were things that he noted dimly
through his growing impatience. He had planned to stop in Liverpool; but,
instead, he took the boat train for London.
</p>

<p>
Emerging at Euston at half-past three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon, Alexander
had his luggage sent to the Savoy and drove at once to Bedford Square. When
Marie met him at the door, even her strong sense of the proprieties could not
restrain her surprise and delight. She blushed and smiled and fumbled his card
in her confusion before she ran upstairs. Alexander paced up and down the
hallway, buttoning and unbuttoning his overcoat, until she returned and took
him up to Hilda&rsquo;s living-room. The room was empty when he entered. A coal
fire was crackling in the grate and the lamps were lit, for it was already
beginning to grow dark outside. Alexander did not sit down. He stood his ground
over by the windows until Hilda came in. She called his name on the threshold,
but in her swift flight across the room she felt a change in him and caught
herself up so deftly that he could not tell just when she did it. She merely
brushed his cheek with her lips and put a hand lightly and joyously on either
shoulder. &ldquo;Oh, what a grand thing to happen on a raw day! I felt it in my
bones when I woke this morning that something splendid was going to turn up. I
thought it might be Sister Kate or Cousin Mike would be happening along. I
never dreamed it would be you, Bartley. But why do you let me chatter on like
this? Come over to the fire; you&rsquo;re chilled through.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She pushed him toward the big chair by the fire, and sat down on a stool at the
opposite side of the hearth, her knees drawn up to her chin, laughing like a
happy little girl.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;When did you come, Bartley, and how did it happen? You haven&rsquo;t
spoken a word.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I got in about ten minutes ago. I landed at Liverpool this morning and
came down on the boat train.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander leaned forward and warmed his hands before the blaze. Hilda watched
him with perplexity.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something troubling you, Bartley. What is it?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley bent lower over the fire. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the whole thing that
troubles me, Hilda. You and I.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda took a quick, soft breath. She looked at his heavy shoulders and big,
determined head, thrust forward like a catapult in leash.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;What about us, Bartley?&rdquo; she asked in a thin voice.
</p>

<p>
He locked and unlocked his hands over the grate and spread his fingers close to
the bluish flame, while the coals crackled and the clock ticked and a street
vendor began to call under the window. At last Alexander brought out one
word:&mdash;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Everything!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda was pale by this time, and her eyes were wide with fright. She looked
about desperately from Bartley to the door, then to the windows, and back again
to Bartley. She rose uncertainly, touched his hair with her hand, then sank
back upon her stool.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do anything you wish me to, Bartley,&rdquo; she said
tremulously. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stand seeing you miserable.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t live with myself any longer,&rdquo; he answered roughly.
</p>

<p>
He rose and pushed the chair behind him and began to walk miserably about the
room, seeming to find it too small for him. He pulled up a window as if the air
were heavy.
</p>

<p>
Hilda watched him from her corner, trembling and scarcely breathing, dark
shadows growing about her eyes.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It . . . it hasn&rsquo;t always made you miserable, has it?&rdquo; Her
eyelids fell and her lips quivered.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Always. But it&rsquo;s worse now. It&rsquo;s unbearable. It tortures me
every minute.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;But why <i>now?</i>&rdquo; she asked piteously, wringing her hands.
</p>

<p>
He ignored her question. &ldquo;I am not a man who can live two lives,&rdquo;
he went on feverishly. &ldquo;Each life spoils the other. I get nothing but
misery out of either. The world is all there, just as it used to be, but I
can&rsquo;t get at it any more. There is this deception between me and
everything.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
At that word &ldquo;deception,&rdquo; spoken with such self-contempt, the color
flashed back into Hilda&rsquo;s face as suddenly as if she had been struck by a
whiplash. She bit her lip and looked down at her hands, which were clasped
tightly in front of her.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Could you&mdash;could you sit down and talk about it quietly, Bartley,
as if I were a friend, and not some one who had to be defied?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He dropped back heavily into his chair by the fire. &ldquo;It was myself I was
defying, Hilda. I have thought about it until I am worn out.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He looked at her and his haggard face softened. He put out his hand toward her
as he looked away again into the fire.
</p>

<p>
She crept across to him, drawing her stool after her. &ldquo;When did you first
begin to feel like this, Bartley?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;After the very first. The first was&mdash;sort of in play, wasn&rsquo;t
it?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda&rsquo;s face quivered, but she whispered: &ldquo;Yes, I think it must
have been. But why didn&rsquo;t you tell me when you were here in the
summer?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander groaned. &ldquo;I meant to, but somehow I couldn&rsquo;t. We had only
a few days, and your new play was just on, and you were so happy.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, I was happy, wasn&rsquo;t I?&rdquo; She pressed his hand gently in
gratitude. &ldquo;Weren&rsquo;t you happy then, at all?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if to draw in again the
fragrance of those days. Something of their troubling sweetness came back to
Alexander, too. He moved uneasily and his chair creaked.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, I was then. You know. But afterward. . .&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she hurried, pulling her hand gently away from him.
Presently it stole back to his coat sleeve. &ldquo;Please tell me one thing,
Bartley. At least, tell me that you believe I thought I was making you
happy.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
His hand shut down quickly over the questioning fingers on his sleeves.
&ldquo;Yes, Hilda; I know that,&rdquo; he said simply.
</p>

<p>
She leaned her head against his arm and spoke softly:&mdash;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You see, my mistake was in wanting you to have everything. I wanted you
to eat all the cakes and have them, too. I somehow believed that I could take
all the bad consequences for you. I wanted you always to be happy and handsome
and successful&mdash;to have all the things that a great man ought to have,
and, once in a way, the careless holidays that great men are not
permitted.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley gave a bitter little laugh, and Hilda looked up and read in the
deepening lines of his face that youth and Bartley would not much longer
struggle together.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I understand, Bartley. I was wrong. But I didn&rsquo;t know.
You&rsquo;ve only to tell me now. What must I do that I&rsquo;ve not done, or
what must I not do?&rdquo; She listened intently, but she heard nothing but the
creaking of his chair. &ldquo;You want me to say it?&rdquo; she whispered.
&ldquo;You want to tell me that you can only see me like this, as old friends
do, or out in the world among people? I can do that.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he said heavily.
</p>

<p>
Hilda shivered and sat still. Bartley leaned his head in his hands and spoke
through his teeth. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s got to be a clean break, Hilda. I
can&rsquo;t see you at all, anywhere. What I mean is that I want you to promise
never to see me again, no matter how often I come, no matter how hard I
beg.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda sprang up like a flame. She stood over him with her hands clenched at her
side, her body rigid.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No!&rdquo; she gasped. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late to ask that. Do you
hear me, Bartley? It&rsquo;s too late. I won&rsquo;t promise. It&rsquo;s
abominable of you to ask me. Keep away if you wish; when have I ever followed
you? But, if you come to me, I&rsquo;ll do as I see fit. The shamefulness of
your asking me to do that! If you come to me, I&rsquo;ll do as I see fit. Do
you understand? Bartley, you&rsquo;re cowardly!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander rose and shook himself angrily. &ldquo;Yes, I know I&rsquo;m
cowardly. I&rsquo;m afraid of myself. I don&rsquo;t trust myself any more. I
carried it all lightly enough at first, but now I don&rsquo;t dare trifle with
it. It&rsquo;s getting the better of me. It&rsquo;s different now. I&rsquo;m
growing older, and you&rsquo;ve got my young self here with you. It&rsquo;s
through him that I&rsquo;ve come to wish for you all and all the time.&rdquo;
He took her roughly in his arms. &ldquo;Do you know what I mean?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda held her face back from him and began to cry bitterly. &ldquo;Oh,
Bartley, what am I to do? Why didn&rsquo;t you let me be angry with you? You
ask me to stay away from you because you want me! And I&rsquo;ve got nobody but
you. I will do anything you say&mdash;but that! I will ask the least
imaginable, but I must have <i>something!</i>&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley turned away and sank down in his chair again. Hilda sat on the arm of
it and put her hands lightly on his shoulders.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Just something Bartley. I must have you to think of through the months
and months of loneliness. I must see you. I must know about you. The sight of
you, Bartley, to see you living and happy and successful&mdash;can I never make
you understand what that means to me?&rdquo; She pressed his shoulders gently.
&ldquo;You see, loving some one as I love you makes the whole world different.
If I&rsquo;d met you later, if I hadn&rsquo;t loved you so well&mdash;but
that&rsquo;s all over, long ago. Then came all those years without you, lonely
and hurt and discouraged; those decent young fellows and poor Mac, and me never
heeding&mdash;hard as a steel spring. And then you came back, not caring very
much, but it made no difference.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She slid to the floor beside him, as if she were too tired to sit up any
longer. Bartley bent over and took her in his arms, kissing her mouth and her
wet, tired eyes.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry, don&rsquo;t cry,&rdquo; he whispered.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve tortured each other enough for tonight. Forget everything
except that I am here.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I think I have forgotten everything but that already,&rdquo; she
murmured. &ldquo;Ah, your dear arms!&rdquo;
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a>
CHAPTER VII</h2>

<p>
During the fortnight that Alexander was in London he drove himself hard. He got
through a great deal of personal business and saw a great many men who were
doing interesting things in his own profession. He disliked to think of his
visits to London as holidays, and when he was there he worked even harder than
he did at home.
</p>

<p>
The day before his departure for Liverpool was a singularly fine one. The thick
air had cleared overnight in a strong wind which brought in a golden dawn and
then fell off to a fresh breeze. When Bartley looked out of his windows from
the Savoy, the river was flashing silver and the gray stone along the
Embankment was bathed in bright, clear sunshine. London had wakened to life
after three weeks of cold and sodden rain. Bartley breakfasted hurriedly and
went over his mail while the hotel valet packed his trunks. Then he paid his
account and walked rapidly down the Strand past Charing Cross Station. His
spirits rose with every step, and when he reached Trafalgar Square, blazing in
the sun, with its fountains playing and its column reaching up into the bright
air, he signaled to a hansom, and, before he knew what he was about, told the
driver to go to Bedford Square by way of the British Museum.
</p>

<p>
When he reached Hilda&rsquo;s apartment she met him, fresh as the morning
itself. Her rooms were flooded with sunshine and full of the flowers he had
been sending her. She would never let him give her anything else.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Are you busy this morning, Hilda?&rdquo; he asked as he sat down, his
hat and gloves in his hand.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Very. I&rsquo;ve been up and about three hours, working at my part. We
open in February, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, then you&rsquo;ve worked enough. And so have I. I&rsquo;ve seen
all my men, my packing is done, and I go up to Liverpool this evening. But this
morning we are going to have a holiday. What do you say to a drive out to Kew
and Richmond? You may not get another day like this all winter. It&rsquo;s like
a fine April day at home. May I use your telephone? I want to order the
carriage.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, how jolly! There, sit down at the desk. And while you are
telephoning I&rsquo;ll change my dress. I shan&rsquo;t be long. All the morning
papers are on the table.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda was back in a few moments wearing a long gray squirrel coat and a broad
fur hat.
</p>

<p>
Bartley rose and inspected her. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you wear some of those
pink roses?&rdquo; he asked.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;But they came only this morning, and they have not even begun to open. I
was saving them. I am so unconsciously thrifty!&rdquo; She laughed as she
looked about the room. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been sending me far too many
flowers, Bartley. New ones every day. That&rsquo;s too often; though I do love
to open the boxes, and I take good care of them.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why won&rsquo;t you let me send you any of those jade or ivory things
you are so fond of? Or pictures? I know a good deal about pictures.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda shook her large hat as she drew the roses out of the tall glass.
&ldquo;No, there are some things you can&rsquo;t do. There&rsquo;s the
carriage. Will you button my gloves for me?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Bartley took her wrist and began to button the long gray suede glove.
&ldquo;How gay your eyes are this morning, Hilda.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s because I&rsquo;ve been studying. It always stirs me up a
little.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He pushed the top of the glove up slowly. &ldquo;When did you learn to take
hold of your parts like that?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;When I had nothing else to think of. Come, the carriage is waiting. What
a shocking while you take.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in no hurry. We&rsquo;ve plenty of time.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
They found all London abroad. Piccadilly was a stream of rapidly moving
carriages, from which flashed furs and flowers and bright winter costumes. The
metal trappings of the harnesses shone dazzlingly, and the wheels were
revolving disks that threw off rays of light. The parks were full of children
and nursemaids and joyful dogs that leaped and yelped and scratched up the
brown earth with their paws.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going until to-morrow, you know,&rdquo; Bartley announced
suddenly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll cut off a day in Liverpool. I haven&rsquo;t felt so
jolly this long while.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda looked up with a smile which she tried not to make too glad. &ldquo;I
think people were meant to be happy, a little,&rdquo; she said.
</p>

<p>
They had lunch at Richmond and then walked to Twickenham, where they had sent
the carriage. They drove back, with a glorious sunset behind them, toward the
distant gold-washed city. It was one of those rare afternoons when all the
thickness and shadow of London are changed to a kind of shining, pulsing,
special atmosphere; when the smoky vapors become fluttering golden clouds,
nacreous veils of pink and amber; when all that bleakness of gray stone and
dullness of dirty brick trembles in aureate light, and all the roofs and
spires, and one great dome, are floated in golden haze. On such rare afternoons
the ugliest of cities becomes the most poetic, and months of sodden days are
offset by a moment of miracle.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like that with us Londoners, too,&rdquo; Hilda was saying.
&ldquo;Everything is awfully grim and cheerless, our weather and our houses and
our ways of amusing ourselves. But we can be happier than anybody. We can go
mad with joy, as the people do out in the fields on a fine Whitsunday. We make
the most of our moment.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She thrust her little chin out defiantly over her gray fur collar, and Bartley
looked down at her and laughed.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You are a plucky one, you.&rdquo; He patted her glove with his hand.
&ldquo;Yes, you are a plucky one.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda sighed. &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not. Not about some things, at any rate. It
doesn&rsquo;t take pluck to fight for one&rsquo;s moment, but it takes pluck to
go without&mdash;a lot. More than I have. I can&rsquo;t help it,&rdquo; she
added fiercely.
</p>

<p>
After miles of outlying streets and little gloomy houses, they reached London
itself, red and roaring and murky, with a thick dampness coming up from the
river, that betokened fog again to-morrow. The streets were full of people who
had worked indoors all through the priceless day and had now come hungrily out
to drink the muddy lees of it. They stood in long black lines, waiting before
the pit entrances of the theatres&mdash;short-coated boys, and girls in sailor
hats, all shivering and chatting gayly. There was a blurred rhythm in all the
dull city noises&mdash;in the clatter of the cab horses and the rumbling of the
busses, in the street calls, and in the undulating tramp, tramp of the crowd.
It was like the deep vibration of some vast underground machinery, and like the
muffled pulsations of millions of human hearts.
</p>

<p>
[See &ldquo;The Barrel Organ by Alfred Noyes. Ed.] [I have placed it at the end
for your convenience]
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Seems good to get back, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; Bartley whispered, as
they drove from Bayswater Road into Oxford Street. &ldquo;London always makes
me want to live more than any other city in the world. You remember our
priestess mummy over in the mummy-room, and how we used to long to go and bring
her out on nights like this? Three thousand years! Ugh!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;All the same, I believe she used to feel it when we stood there and
watched her and wished her well. I believe she used to remember,&rdquo; Hilda
said thoughtfully.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I hope so. Now let&rsquo;s go to some awfully jolly place for dinner
before we go home. I could eat all the dinners there are in London to-night.
Where shall I tell the driver? The Piccadilly Restaurant? The music&rsquo;s
good there.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;There are too many people there whom one knows. Why not that little
French place in Soho, where we went so often when you were here in the summer?
I love it, and I&rsquo;ve never been there with any one but you. Sometimes I go
by myself, when I am particularly lonely.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Very well, the sole&rsquo;s good there. How many street pianos there are
about to-night! The fine weather must have thawed them out. We&rsquo;ve had
five miles of &lsquo;Il Trovatore&rsquo; now. They always make me feel jaunty.
Are you comfy, and not too tired?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not tired at all. I was just wondering how people can ever
die. Why did you remind me of the mummy? Life seems the strongest and most
indestructible thing in the world. Do you really believe that all those people
rushing about down there, going to good dinners and clubs and theatres, will be
dead some day, and not care about anything? I don&rsquo;t believe it, and I
know I shan&rsquo;t die, ever! You see, I feel too&mdash;too powerful!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The carriage stopped. Bartley sprang out and swung her quickly to the pavement.
As he lifted her in his two hands he whispered: &ldquo;You
are&mdash;powerful!&rdquo;
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a>
CHAPTER VIII</h2>

<p>
The last rehearsal was over, a tedious dress rehearsal which had lasted all day
and exhausted the patience of every one who had to do with it. When Hilda had
dressed for the street and came out of her dressing-room, she found Hugh
MacConnell waiting for her in the corridor.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;The fog&rsquo;s thicker than ever, Hilda. There have been a great many
accidents to-day. It&rsquo;s positively unsafe for you to be out alone. Will
you let me take you home?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;How good of you, Mac. If you are going with me, I think I&rsquo;d rather
walk. I&rsquo;ve had no exercise to-day, and all this has made me
nervous.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder,&rdquo; said MacConnell dryly. Hilda pulled
down her veil and they stepped out into the thick brown wash that submerged St.
Martin&rsquo;s Lane. MacConnell took her hand and tucked it snugly under his
arm. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry I was such a savage. I hope you didn&rsquo;t think
I made an ass of myself.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Not a bit of it. I don&rsquo;t wonder you were peppery. Those things are
awfully trying. How do you think it&rsquo;s going?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Magnificently. That&rsquo;s why I got so stirred up. We are going to
hear from this, both of us. And that reminds me; I&rsquo;ve got news for you.
They are going to begin repairs on the theatre about the middle of March, and
we are to run over to New York for six weeks. Bennett told me yesterday that it
was decided.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda looked up delightedly at the tall gray figure beside her. He was the only
thing she could see, for they were moving through a dense opaqueness, as if
they were walking at the bottom of the ocean.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, Mac, how glad I am! And they love your things over there,
don&rsquo;t they?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Shall you be glad for&mdash;any other reason, Hilda?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
MacConnell put his hand in front of her to ward off some dark object. It proved
to be only a lamp-post, and they beat in farther from the edge of the pavement.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;What do you mean, Mac?&rdquo; Hilda asked nervously.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I was just thinking there might be people over there you&rsquo;d be glad
to see,&rdquo; he brought out awkwardly. Hilda said nothing, and as they walked
on MacConnell spoke again, apologetically: &ldquo;I hope you don&rsquo;t mind
my knowing about it, Hilda. Don&rsquo;t stiffen up like that. No one else
knows, and I didn&rsquo;t try to find out anything. I felt it, even before I
knew who he was. I knew there was somebody, and that it wasn&rsquo;t I.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
They crossed Oxford Street in silence, feeling their way. The busses had
stopped running and the cab-drivers were leading their horses. When they
reached the other side, MacConnell said suddenly, &ldquo;I hope you are
happy.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Terribly, dangerously happy, Mac,&rdquo;&mdash;Hilda spoke quietly,
pressing the rough sleeve of his greatcoat with her gloved hand.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve always thought me too old for you, Hilda,&mdash;oh, of
course you&rsquo;ve never said just that,&mdash;and here this fellow is not
more than eight years younger than I. I&rsquo;ve always felt that if I could
get out of my old case I might win you yet. It&rsquo;s a fine, brave youth I
carry inside me, only he&rsquo;ll never be seen.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Nonsense, Mac. That has nothing to do with it. It&rsquo;s because you
seem too close to me, too much my own kind. It would be like marrying Cousin
Mike, almost. I really tried to care as you wanted me to, away back in the
beginning.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, here we are, turning out of the Square. You are not angry with me,
Hilda? Thank you for this walk, my dear. Go in and get dry things on at once.
You&rsquo;ll be having a great night to-morrow.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She put out her hand. &ldquo;Thank you, Mac, for everything. Good-night.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
MacConnell trudged off through the fog, and she went slowly upstairs. Her
slippers and dressing gown were waiting for her before the fire. &ldquo;I shall
certainly see him in New York. He will see by the papers that we are coming.
Perhaps he knows it already,&rdquo; Hilda kept thinking as she undressed.
&ldquo;Perhaps he will be at the dock. No, scarcely that; but I may meet him in
the street even before he comes to see me.&rdquo; Marie placed the tea-table by
the fire and brought Hilda her letters. She looked them over, and started as
she came to one in a handwriting that she did not often see; Alexander had
written to her only twice before, and he did not allow her to write to him at
all. &ldquo;Thank you, Marie. You may go now.&rdquo;
</p>

<p class="p2">
Hilda sat down by the table with the letter in her hand, still unopened. She
looked at it intently, turned it over, and felt its thickness with her fingers.
She believed that she sometimes had a kind of second-sight about letters, and
could tell before she read them whether they brought good or evil tidings. She
put this one down on the table in front of her while she poured her tea. At
last, with a little shiver of expectancy, she tore open the envelope and
read:&mdash;
</p>

<p class="right">
B<small>OSTON</small>, February &mdash;
</p>

<p>
M<small>Y DEAR</small> H<small>ILDA</small>:&mdash;
</p>

<p>
It is after twelve o&rsquo;clock. Every one else is in bed and I am sitting
alone in my study. I have been happier in this room than anywhere else in the
world. Happiness like that makes one insolent. I used to think these four walls
could stand against anything. And now I scarcely know myself here. Now I know
that no one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person. Two
people, when they love each other, grow alike in their tastes and habits and
pride, but their moral natures (whatever we may mean by that canting
expression) are never welded. The base one goes on being base, and the noble
one noble, to the end.
</p>

<p>
The last week has been a bad one; I have been realizing how things used to be
with me. Sometimes I get used to being dead inside, but lately it has been as
if a window beside me had suddenly opened, and as if all the smells of spring
blew in to me. There is a garden out there, with stars overhead, where I used
to walk at night when I had a single purpose and a single heart. I can remember
how I used to feel there, how beautiful everything about me was, and what life
and power and freedom I felt in myself. When the window opens I know exactly
how it would feel to be out there. But that garden is closed to me. How is it,
I ask myself, that everything can be so different with me when nothing here has
changed? I am in my own house, in my own study, in the midst of all these quiet
streets where my friends live. They are all safe and at peace with themselves.
But I am never at peace. I feel always on the edge of danger and change.
</p>

<p>
I keep remembering locoed horses I used to see on the range when I was a boy.
They changed like that. We used to catch them and put them up in the corral,
and they developed great cunning. They would pretend to eat their oats like the
other horses, but we knew they were always scheming to get back at the loco.
</p>

<p>
It seems that a man is meant to live only one life in this world. When he tries
to live a second, he develops another nature. I feel as if a second man had
been grafted into me. At first he seemed only a pleasure-loving simpleton, of
whose company I was rather ashamed, and whom I used to hide under my coat when
I walked the Embankment, in London. But now he is strong and sullen, and he is
fighting for his life at the cost of mine. That is his one activity: to grow
strong. No creature ever wanted so much to live. Eventually, I suppose, he will
absorb me altogether. Believe me, you will hate me then.
</p>

<p>
And what have you to do, Hilda, with this ugly story? Nothing at all. The
little boy drank of the prettiest brook in the forest and he became a stag. I
write all this because I can never tell it to you, and because it seems as if I
could not keep silent any longer. And because I suffer, Hilda. If any one I
loved suffered like this, I&rsquo;d want to know it. Help me, Hilda!
</p>

<p class="right">
B.A.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a>
CHAPTER IX</h2>

<p>
On the last Saturday in April, the New York &ldquo;Times&rdquo; published an
account of the strike complications which were delaying Alexander&rsquo;s New
Jersey bridge, and stated that the engineer himself was in town and at his
office on West Tenth Street.
</p>

<p>
On Sunday, the day after this notice appeared, Alexander worked all day at his
Tenth Street rooms. His business often called him to New York, and he had kept
an apartment there for years, subletting it when he went abroad for any length
of time. Besides his sleeping-room and bath, there was a large room, formerly a
painter&rsquo;s studio, which he used as a study and office. It was furnished
with the cast-off possessions of his bachelor days and with odd things which he
sheltered for friends of his who followed itinerant and more or less artistic
callings. Over the fireplace there was a large old-fashioned gilt mirror.
Alexander&rsquo;s big work-table stood in front of one of the three windows,
and above the couch hung the one picture in the room, a big canvas of charming
color and spirit, a study of the Luxembourg Gardens in early spring, painted in
his youth by a man who had since become a portrait-painter of international
renown. He had done it for Alexander when they were students together in Paris.
</p>

<p class="p2">
Sunday was a cold, raw day and a fine rain fell continuously. When Alexander
came back from dinner he put more wood on his fire, made himself comfortable,
and settled down at his desk, where he began checking over estimate sheets. It
was after nine o&rsquo;clock and he was lighting a second pipe, when he thought
he heard a sound at his door. He started and listened, holding the burning
match in his hand; again he heard the same sound, like a firm, light tap. He
rose and crossed the room quickly. When he threw open the door he recognized
the figure that shrank back into the bare, dimly lit hallway. He stood for a
moment in awkward constraint, his pipe in his hand.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; he said to Hilda at last, and closed the door behind
her. He pointed to a chair by the fire and went back to his worktable.
&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you sit down?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He was standing behind the table, turning over a pile of blueprints nervously.
The yellow light from the student&rsquo;s lamp fell on his hands and the purple
sleeves of his velvet smoking-jacket, but his flushed face and big, hard head
were in the shadow. There was something about him that made Hilda wish herself
at her hotel again, in the street below, anywhere but where she was.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Of course I know, Bartley,&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;that after
this you won&rsquo;t owe me the least consideration. But we sail on Tuesday. I
saw that interview in the paper yesterday, telling where you were, and I
thought I had to see you. That&rsquo;s all. Good-night; I&rsquo;m going
now.&rdquo; She turned and her hand closed on the door-knob.
</p>

<p>
Alexander hurried toward her and took her gently by the arm. &ldquo;Sit down,
Hilda; you&rsquo;re wet through. Let me take off your coat&mdash;and your
boots; they&rsquo;re oozing water.&rdquo; He knelt down and began to unlace her
shoes, while Hilda shrank into the chair. &ldquo;Here, put your feet on this
stool. You don&rsquo;t mean to say you walked down&mdash;and without
overshoes!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda hid her face in her hands. &ldquo;I was afraid to take a cab. Can&rsquo;t
you see, Bartley, that I&rsquo;m terribly frightened? I&rsquo;ve been through
this a hundred times to-day. Don&rsquo;t be any more angry than you can help. I
was all right until I knew you were in town. If you&rsquo;d sent me a note, or
telephoned me, or anything! But you won&rsquo;t let me write to you, and I had
to see you after that letter, that terrible letter you wrote me when you got
home.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander faced her, resting his arm on the mantel behind him, and began to
brush the sleeve of his jacket. &ldquo;Is this the way you mean to answer it,
Hilda?&rdquo; he asked unsteadily.
</p>

<p>
She was afraid to look up at him. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t&mdash;didn&rsquo;t you
mean even to say goodby to me, Bartley? Did you mean just to&mdash;quit
me?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I came to tell you that I&rsquo;m willing to do as
you asked me. But it&rsquo;s no use talking about that now. Give me my things,
please.&rdquo; She put her hand out toward the fender.
</p>

<p>
Alexander sat down on the arm of her chair. &ldquo;Did you think I had
forgotten you were in town, Hilda? Do you think I kept away by accident? Did
you suppose I didn&rsquo;t know you were sailing on Tuesday? There is a letter
for you there, in my desk drawer. It was to have reached you on the steamer. I
was all the morning writing it. I told myself that if I were really thinking of
you, and not of myself, a letter would be better than nothing. Marks on paper
mean something to you.&rdquo; He paused. &ldquo;They never did to me.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda smiled up at him beautifully and put her hand on his sleeve. &ldquo;Oh,
Bartley! Did you write to me? Why didn&rsquo;t you telephone me to let me know
that you had? Then I wouldn&rsquo;t have come.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander slipped his arm about her. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know it before,
Hilda, on my honor I didn&rsquo;t, but I believe it was because, deep down in
me somewhere, I was hoping I might drive you to do just this. I&rsquo;ve
watched that door all day. I&rsquo;ve jumped up if the fire crackled. I think I
have felt that you were coming.&rdquo; He bent his face over her hair.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;And I,&rdquo; she whispered,&mdash;&ldquo;I felt that you were feeling
that. But when I came, I thought I had been mistaken.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander started up and began to walk up and down the room.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;No, you weren&rsquo;t mistaken. I&rsquo;ve been up in Canada with my
bridge, and I arranged not to come to New York until after you had gone. Then,
when your manager added two more weeks, I was already committed.&rdquo; He
dropped upon the stool in front of her and sat with his hands hanging between
his knees. &ldquo;What am I to do, Hilda?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I wanted to see you about, Bartley. I&rsquo;m going to
do what you asked me to do when you were in London. Only I&rsquo;ll do it more
completely. I&rsquo;m going to marry.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, it doesn&rsquo;t matter much! One of them. Only not Mac. I&rsquo;m
too fond of him.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander moved restlessly. &ldquo;Are you joking, Hilda?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Indeed I&rsquo;m not.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Then you don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking about.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, I know very well. I&rsquo;ve thought about it a great deal, and
I&rsquo;ve quite decided. I never used to understand how women did things like
that, but I know now. It&rsquo;s because they can&rsquo;t be at the mercy of
the man they love any longer.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander flushed angrily. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s better to be at the mercy of a
man you don&rsquo;t love?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Under such circumstances, infinitely!&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
There was a flash in her eyes that made Alexander&rsquo;s fall. He got up and
went over to the window, threw it open, and leaned out. He heard Hilda moving
about behind him. When he looked over his shoulder she was lacing her boots. He
went back and stood over her.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Hilda you&rsquo;d better think a while longer before you do that. I
don&rsquo;t know what I ought to say, but I don&rsquo;t believe you&rsquo;d be
happy; truly I don&rsquo;t. Aren&rsquo;t you trying to frighten me?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She tied the knot of the last lacing and put her boot-heel down firmly.
&ldquo;No; I&rsquo;m telling you what I&rsquo;ve made up my mind to do. I
suppose I would better do it without telling you. But afterward I shan&rsquo;t
have an opportunity to explain, for I shan&rsquo;t be seeing you again.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander started to speak, but caught himself. When Hilda rose he sat down on
the arm of her chair and drew her back into it.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t be so much alarmed if I didn&rsquo;t know how utterly
reckless you <i>can</i> be. Don&rsquo;t do anything like that rashly.&rdquo;
His face grew troubled. &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t be happy. You are not that
kind of woman. I&rsquo;d never have another hour&rsquo;s peace if I helped to
make you do a thing like that.&rdquo; He took her face between his hands and
looked down into it. &ldquo;You see, you are different, Hilda. Don&rsquo;t you
know you are?&rdquo; His voice grew softer, his touch more and more tender.
&ldquo;Some women can do that sort of thing, but you&mdash;you can love as
queens did, in the old time.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda had heard that soft, deep tone in his voice only once before. She closed
her eyes; her lips and eyelids trembled. &ldquo;Only one, Bartley. Only one.
And he threw it back at me a second time.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She felt the strength leap in the arms that held her so lightly.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Try him again, Hilda. Try him once again.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
She looked up into his eyes, and hid her face in her hands.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a>
CHAPTER X</h2>

<p>
On Tuesday afternoon a Boston lawyer, who had been trying a case in Vermont,
was standing on the siding at White River Junction when the Canadian Express
pulled by on its northward journey. As the day-coaches at the rear end of the
long train swept by him, the lawyer noticed at one of the windows a man&rsquo;s
head, with thick rumpled hair. &ldquo;Curious,&rdquo; he thought; &ldquo;that
looked like Alexander, but what would he be doing back there in the
daycoaches?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
It was, indeed, Alexander.
</p>

<p>
That morning a telegram from Moorlock had reached him, telling him that there
was serious trouble with the bridge and that he was needed there at once, so he
had caught the first train out of New York. He had taken a seat in a day-coach
to avoid the risk of meeting any one he knew, and because he did not wish to be
comfortable. When the telegram arrived, Alexander was at his rooms on Tenth
Street, packing his bag to go to Boston. On Monday night he had written a long
letter to his wife, but when morning came he was afraid to send it, and the
letter was still in his pocket. Winifred was not a woman who could bear
disappointment. She demanded a great deal of herself and of the people she
loved; and she never failed herself. If he told her now, he knew, it would be
irretrievable. There would be no going back. He would lose the thing he valued
most in the world; he would be destroying himself and his own happiness. There
would be nothing for him afterward. He seemed to see himself dragging out a
restless existence on the Continent&mdash;Cannes, Hyères, Algiers,
Cairo&mdash;among smartly dressed, disabled men of every nationality; forever
going on journeys that led nowhere; hurrying to catch trains that he might just
as well miss; getting up in the morning with a great bustle and splashing of
water, to begin a day that had no purpose and no meaning; dining late to
shorten the night, sleeping late to shorten the day.
</p>

<p>
And for what? For a mere folly, a masquerade, a little thing that he could not
let go. <i>And he could even let it go</i>, he told himself. But he had
promised to be in London at mid-summer, and he knew that he would go. . . . It
was impossible to live like this any longer.
</p>

<p>
And this, then, was to be the disaster that his old professor had foreseen for
him: the crack in the wall, the crash, the cloud of dust. And he could not
understand how it had come about. He felt that he himself was unchanged, that
he was still there, the same man he had been five years ago, and that he was
sitting stupidly by and letting some resolute offshoot of himself spoil his
life for him. This new force was not he, it was but a part of him. He would not
even admit that it was stronger than he; but it was more active. It was by its
energy that this new feeling got the better of him. His wife was the woman who
had made his life, gratified his pride, given direction to his tastes and
habits. The life they led together seemed to him beautiful. Winifred still was,
as she had always been, Romance for him, and whenever he was deeply stirred he
turned to her. When the grandeur and beauty of the world challenged
him&mdash;as it challenges even the most self-absorbed people&mdash;he always
answered with her name. That was his reply to the question put by the mountains
and the stars; to all the spiritual aspects of life. In his feeling for his
wife there was all the tenderness, all the pride, all the devotion of which he
was capable. There was everything but energy; the energy of youth which must
register itself and cut its name before it passes. This new feeling was so
fresh, so unsatisfied and light of foot. It ran and was not wearied,
anticipated him everywhere. It put a girdle round the earth while he was going
from New York to Moorlock. At this moment, it was tingling through him,
exultant, and live as quicksilver, whispering, &ldquo;In July you will be in
England.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Already he dreaded the long, empty days at sea, the monotonous Irish coast, the
sluggish passage up the Mersey, the flash of the boat train through the summer
country. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the feeling of rapid motion
and to swift, terrifying thoughts. He was sitting so, his face shaded by his
hand, when the Boston lawyer saw him from the siding at White River Junction.
</p>

<p>
When at last Alexander roused himself, the afternoon had waned to sunset. The
train was passing through a gray country and the sky overhead was flushed with
a wide flood of clear color. There was a rose-colored light over the gray rocks
and hills and meadows. Off to the left, under the approach of a weather-stained
wooden bridge, a group of boys were sitting around a little fire. The smell of
the wood smoke blew in at the window. Except for an old farmer, jogging along
the highroad in his box-wagon, there was not another living creature to be
seen. Alexander looked back wistfully at the boys, camped on the edge of a
little marsh, crouching under their shelter and looking gravely at their fire.
They took his mind back a long way, to a campfire on a sandbar in a Western
river, and he wished he could go back and sit down with them. He could remember
exactly how the world had looked then.
</p>

<p>
It was quite dark and Alexander was still thinking of the boys, when it
occurred to him that the train must be nearing Allway. In going to his new
bridge at Moorlock he had always to pass through Allway. The train stopped at
Allway Mills, then wound two miles up the river, and then the hollow sound
under his feet told Bartley that he was on his first bridge again. The bridge
seemed longer than it had ever seemed before, and he was glad when he felt the
beat of the wheels on the solid roadbed again. He did not like coming and going
across that bridge, or remembering the man who built it. And was he, indeed,
the same man who used to walk that bridge at night, promising such things to
himself and to the stars? And yet, he could remember it all so well: the quiet
hills sleeping in the moonlight, the slender skeleton of the bridge reaching
out into the river, and up yonder, alone on the hill, the big white house;
upstairs, in Winifred&rsquo;s window, the light that told him she was still
awake and still thinking of him. And after the light went out he walked alone,
taking the heavens into his confidence, unable to tear himself away from the
white magic of the night, unwilling to sleep because longing was so sweet to
him, and because, for the first time since first the hills were hung with
moonlight, there was a lover in the world. And always there was the sound of
the rushing water underneath, the sound which, more than anything else, meant
death; the wearing away of things under the impact of physical forces which men
could direct but never circumvent or diminish. Then, in the exaltation of love,
more than ever it seemed to him to mean death, the only other thing as strong
as love. Under the moon, under the cold, splendid stars, there were only those
two things awake and sleepless; death and love, the rushing river and his
burning heart.
</p>

<p>
Alexander sat up and looked about him. The train was tearing on through the
darkness. All his companions in the day-coach were either dozing or sleeping
heavily, and the murky lamps were turned low. How came he here among all these
dirty people? Why was he going to London? What did it mean&mdash;what was the
answer? How could this happen to a man who had lived through that magical
spring and summer, and who had felt that the stars themselves were but flaming
particles in the far-away infinitudes of his love?
</p>

<p>
What had he done to lose it? How could he endure the baseness of life without
it? And with every revolution of the wheels beneath him, the unquiet
quicksilver in his breast told him that at midsummer he would be in London. He
remembered his last night there: the red foggy darkness, the hungry crowds
before the theatres, the hand-organs, the feverish rhythm of the blurred,
crowded streets, and the feeling of letting himself go with the crowd. He
shuddered and looked about him at the poor unconscious companions of his
journey, unkempt and travel-stained, now doubled in unlovely attitudes, who had
come to stand to him for the ugliness he had brought into the world.
</p>

<p>
And those boys back there, beginning it all just as he had begun it; he wished
he could promise them better luck. Ah, if one could promise any one better
luck, if one could assure a single human being of happiness! He had thought he
could do so, once; and it was thinking of that that he at last fell asleep. In
his sleep, as if it had nothing fresher to work upon, his mind went back and
tortured itself with something years and years away, an old, long-forgotten
sorrow of his childhood.
</p>

<p>
When Alexander awoke in the morning, the sun was just rising through pale
golden ripples of cloud, and the fresh yellow light was vibrating through the
pine woods. The white birches, with their little unfolding leaves, gleamed in
the lowlands, and the marsh meadows were already coming to life with their
first green, a thin, bright color which had run over them like fire. As the
train rushed along the trestles, thousands of wild birds rose screaming into
the light. The sky was already a pale blue and of the clearness of crystal.
Bartley caught up his bag and hurried through the Pullman coaches until he
found the conductor. There was a stateroom unoccupied, and he took it and set
about changing his clothes. Last night he would not have believed that anything
could be so pleasant as the cold water he dashed over his head and shoulders
and the freshness of clean linen on his body.
</p>

<p>
After he had dressed, Alexander sat down at the window and drew into his lungs
deep breaths of the pine-scented air. He had awakened with all his old sense of
power. He could not believe that things were as bad with him as they had seemed
last night, that there was no way to set them entirely right. Even if he went
to London at midsummer, what would that mean except that he was a fool? And he
had been a fool before. That was not the reality of his life. Yet he knew that
he would go to London.
</p>

<p>
Half an hour later the train stopped at Moorlock. Alexander sprang to the
platform and hurried up the siding, waving to Philip Horton, one of his
assistants, who was anxiously looking up at the windows of the coaches. Bartley
took his arm and they went together into the station buffet.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have my coffee first, Philip. Have you had yours? And now,
what seems to be the matter up here?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The young man, in a hurried, nervous way, began his explanation.
</p>

<p>
But Alexander cut him short. &ldquo;When did you stop work?&rdquo; he asked
sharply.
</p>

<p>
The young engineer looked confused. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t stopped work yet,
Mr. Alexander. I didn&rsquo;t feel that I could go so far without definite
authorization from you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Then why didn&rsquo;t you say in your telegram exactly what you thought,
and ask for your authorization? You&rsquo;d have got it quick enough.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, really, Mr. Alexander, I couldn&rsquo;t be absolutely sure, you
know, and I didn&rsquo;t like to take the responsibility of making it
public.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander pushed back his chair and rose. &ldquo;Anything I do can be made
public, Phil. You say that you believe the lower chords are showing strain, and
that even the workmen have been talking about it, and yet you&rsquo;ve gone on
adding weight.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, Mr. Alexander, but I had counted on your getting here
yesterday. My first telegram missed you somehow. I sent one Sunday evening, to
the same address, but it was returned to me.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Have you a carriage out there? I must stop to send a wire.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander went up to the telegraph-desk and penciled the following message to
his wife:&mdash;
</p>

<p class="letter">
I may have to be here for some time. Can you come up at once? Urgent.
</p>

<p class="right">
B<small>ARTLEY</small>.
</p>

<p>
The Moorlock Bridge lay three miles above the town. When they were seated in
the carriage, Alexander began to question his assistant further. If it were
true that the compression members showed strain, with the bridge only two
thirds done, then there was nothing to do but pull the whole structure down and
begin over again. Horton kept repeating that he was sure there could be nothing
wrong with the estimates.
</p>

<p>
Alexander grew impatient. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all true, Phil, but we never were
justified in assuming that a scale that was perfectly safe for an ordinary
bridge would work with anything of such length. It&rsquo;s all very well on
paper, but it remains to be seen whether it can be done in practice. I should
have thrown up the job when they crowded me. It&rsquo;s all nonsense to try to
do what other engineers are doing when you know they&rsquo;re not sound.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;But just now, when there is such competition,&rdquo; the younger man
demurred. &ldquo;And certainly that&rsquo;s the new line of development.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander shrugged his shoulders and made no reply.
</p>

<p>
When they reached the bridge works, Alexander began his examination
immediately. An hour later he sent for the superintendent. &ldquo;I think you
had better stop work out there at once, Dan. I should say that the lower chord
here might buckle at any moment. I told the Commission that we were using
higher unit stresses than any practice has established, and we&rsquo;ve put the
dead load at a low estimate. Theoretically it worked out well enough, but it
had never actually been tried.&rdquo; Alexander put on his overcoat and took
the superintendent by the arm. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t look so chopfallen, Dan.
It&rsquo;s a jolt, but we&rsquo;ve got to face it. It isn&rsquo;t the end of
the world, you know. Now we&rsquo;ll go out and call the men off quietly.
They&rsquo;re already nervous, Horton tells me, and there&rsquo;s no use
alarming them. I&rsquo;ll go with you, and we&rsquo;ll send the end riveters in
first.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Alexander and the superintendent picked their way out slowly over the long
span. They went deliberately, stopping to see what each gang was doing, as if
they were on an ordinary round of inspection. When they reached the end of the
river span, Alexander nodded to the superintendent, who quietly gave an order
to the foreman. The men in the end gang picked up their tools and, glancing
curiously at each other, started back across the bridge toward the river-bank.
Alexander himself remained standing where they had been working, looking about
him. It was hard to believe, as he looked back over it, that the whole great
span was incurably disabled, was already as good as condemned, because
something was out of line in the lower chord of the cantilever arm.
</p>

<p>
The end riveters had reached the bank and were dispersing among the
tool-houses, and the second gang had picked up their tools and were starting
toward the shore. Alexander, still standing at the end of the river span, saw
the lower chord of the cantilever arm give a little, like an elbow bending. He
shouted and ran after the second gang, but by this time every one knew that the
big river span was slowly settling. There was a burst of shouting that was
immediately drowned by the scream and cracking of tearing iron, as all the
tension work began to pull asunder. Once the chords began to buckle, there were
thousands of tons of ironwork, all riveted together and lying in midair without
support. It tore itself to pieces with roaring and grinding and noises that
were like the shrieks of a steam whistle. There was no shock of any kind; the
bridge had no impetus except from its own weight. It lurched neither to right
nor left, but sank almost in a vertical line, snapping and breaking and tearing
as it went, because no integral part could bear for an instant the enormous
strain loosed upon it. Some of the men jumped and some ran, trying to make the
shore.
</p>

<p>
At the first shriek of the tearing iron, Alexander jumped from the downstream
side of the bridge. He struck the water without injury and disappeared. He was
under the river a long time and had great difficulty in holding his breath.
When it seemed impossible, and his chest was about to heave, he thought he
heard his wife telling him that he could hold out a little longer. An instant
later his face cleared the water. For a moment, in the depths of the river, he
had realized what it would mean to die a hypocrite, and to lie dead under the
last abandonment of her tenderness. But once in the light and air, he knew he
should live to tell her and to recover all he had lost. Now, at last, he felt
sure of himself. He was not startled. It seemed to him that he had been through
something of this sort before. There was nothing horrible about it. This, too,
was life, and life was activity, just as it was in Boston or in London. He was
himself, and there was something to be done; everything seemed perfectly
natural. Alexander was a strong swimmer, but he had gone scarcely a dozen
strokes when the bridge itself, which had been settling faster and faster,
crashed into the water behind him. Immediately the river was full of drowning
men. A gang of French Canadians fell almost on top of him. He thought he had
cleared them, when they began coming up all around him, clutching at him and at
each other. Some of them could swim, but they were either hurt or crazed with
fright. Alexander tried to beat them off, but there were too many of them. One
caught him about the neck, another gripped him about the middle, and they went
down together. When he sank, his wife seemed to be there in the water beside
him, telling him to keep his head, that if he could hold out the men would
drown and release him. There was something he wanted to tell his wife, but he
could not think clearly for the roaring in his ears. Suddenly he remembered
what it was. He caught his breath, and then she let him go.
</p>

<p class="p2">
The work of recovering the dead went on all day and all the following night. By
the next morning forty-eight bodies had been taken out of the river, but there
were still twenty missing. Many of the men had fallen with the bridge and were
held down under the debris. Early on the morning of the second day a closed
carriage was driven slowly along the river-bank and stopped a little below the
works, where the river boiled and churned about the great iron carcass which
lay in a straight line two thirds across it. The carriage stood there hour
after hour, and word soon spread among the crowds on the shore that its
occupant was the wife of the Chief Engineer; his body had not yet been found.
The widows of the lost workmen, moving up and down the bank with shawls over
their heads, some of them carrying babies, looked at the rusty hired hack many
times that morning. They drew near it and walked about it, but none of them
ventured to peer within. Even half-indifferent sightseers dropped their voices
as they told a newcomer: &ldquo;You see that carriage over there? That&rsquo;s
Mrs. Alexander. They haven&rsquo;t found him yet. She got off the train this
morning. Horton met her. She heard it in Boston yesterday&mdash;heard the
newsboys crying it in the street.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
At noon Philip Horton made his way through the crowd with a tray and a tin
coffee-pot from the camp kitchen. When he reached the carriage he found Mrs.
Alexander just as he had left her in the early morning, leaning forward a
little, with her hand on the lowered window, looking at the river. Hour after
hour she had been watching the water, the lonely, useless stone towers, and the
convulsed mass of iron wreckage over which the angry river continually spat up
its yellow foam.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Those poor women out there, do they blame him very much?&rdquo; she
asked, as she handed the coffee-cup back to Horton.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Nobody blames him, Mrs. Alexander. If any one is to blame, I&rsquo;m
afraid it&rsquo;s I. I should have stopped work before he came. He said so as
soon as I met him. I tried to get him here a day earlier, but my telegram
missed him, somehow. He didn&rsquo;t have time really to explain to me. If
he&rsquo;d got here Monday, he&rsquo;d have had all the men off at once. But,
you see, Mrs. Alexander, such a thing never happened before. According to all
human calculations, it simply couldn&rsquo;t happen.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Horton leaned wearily against the front wheel of the cab. He had not had his
clothes off for thirty hours, and the stimulus of violent excitement was
beginning to wear off.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be afraid to tell me the worst, Mr. Horton. Don&rsquo;t
leave me to the dread of finding out things that people may be saying. If he is
blamed, if he needs any one to speak for him,&rdquo;&mdash;for the first time
her voice broke and a flush of life, tearful, painful, and confused, swept over
her rigid pallor,&mdash;&ldquo;if he needs any one, tell me, show me what to
do.&rdquo; She began to sob, and Horton hurried away.
</p>

<p>
When he came back at four o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon he was carrying his
hat in his hand, and Winifred knew as soon as she saw him that they had found
Bartley. She opened the carriage door before he reached her and stepped to the
ground.
</p>

<p>
Horton put out his hand as if to hold her back and spoke pleadingly:
&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you drive up to my house, Mrs. Alexander? They will take him
up there.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Take me to him now, please. I shall not make any trouble.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
The group of men down under the riverbank fell back when they saw a woman
coming, and one of them threw a tarpaulin over the stretcher. They took off
their hats and caps as Winifred approached, and although she had pulled her
veil down over her face they did not look up at her. She was taller than
Horton, and some of the men thought she was the tallest woman they had ever
seen. &ldquo;As tall as himself,&rdquo; some one whispered. Horton motioned to
the men, and six of them lifted the stretcher and began to carry it up the
embankment. Winifred followed them the half-mile to Horton&rsquo;s house. She
walked quietly, without once breaking or stumbling. When the bearers put the
stretcher down in Horton&rsquo;s spare bedroom, she thanked them and gave her
hand to each in turn. The men went out of the house and through the yard with
their caps in their hands. They were too much confused to say anything as they
went down the hill.
</p>

<p>
Horton himself was almost as deeply perplexed. &ldquo;Mamie,&rdquo; he said to
his wife, when he came out of the spare room half an hour later, &ldquo;will
you take Mrs. Alexander the things she needs? She is going to do everything
herself. Just stay about where you can hear her and go in if she wants
you.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Everything happened as Alexander had foreseen in that moment of prescience
under the river. With her own hands she washed him clean of every mark of
disaster. All night he was alone with her in the still house, his great head
lying deep in the pillow. In the pocket of his coat Winifred found the letter
that he had written her the night before he left New York, water-soaked and
illegible, but because of its length, she knew it had been meant for her.
</p>

<p>
For Alexander death was an easy creditor. Fortune, which had smiled upon him
consistently all his life, did not desert him in the end. His harshest critics
did not doubt that, had he lived, he would have retrieved himself. Even Lucius
Wilson did not see in this accident the disaster he had once foretold.
</p>

<p>
When a great man dies in his prime there is no surgeon who can say whether he
did well; whether or not the future was his, as it seemed to be. The mind that
society had come to regard as a powerful and reliable machine, dedicated to its
service, may for a long time have been sick within itself and bent upon its own
destruction.
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2H_EPIL"></a>
EPILOGUE</h2>

<p>
Professor Wilson had been living in London for six years and he was just back
from a visit to America. One afternoon, soon after his return, he put on his
frock-coat and drove in a hansom to pay a call upon Hilda Burgoyne, who still
lived at her old number, off Bedford Square. He and Miss Burgoyne had been fast
friends for a long time. He had first noticed her about the corridors of the
British Museum, where he read constantly. Her being there so often had made him
feel that he would like to know her, and as she was not an inaccessible person,
an introduction was not difficult. The preliminaries once over, they came to
depend a great deal upon each other, and Wilson, after his day&rsquo;s reading,
often went round to Bedford Square for his tea. They had much more in common
than their memories of a common friend. Indeed, they seldom spoke of him. They
saved that for the deep moments which do not come often, and then their talk of
him was mostly silence. Wilson knew that Hilda had loved him; more than this he
had not tried to know.
</p>

<p>
It was late when Wilson reached Hilda&rsquo;s apartment on this particular
December afternoon, and he found her alone. She sent for fresh tea and made him
comfortable, as she had such a knack of making people comfortable.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;How good you were to come back before Christmas! I quite dreaded the
Holidays without you. You&rsquo;ve helped me over a good many
Christmases.&rdquo; She smiled at him gayly.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;As if you needed me for that! But, at any rate, I needed <i>you</i>. How
well you are looking, my dear, and how rested.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
He peered up at her from his low chair, balancing the tips of his long fingers
together in a judicial manner which had grown on him with years.
</p>

<p>
Hilda laughed as she carefully poured his cream. &ldquo;That means that I was
looking very seedy at the end of the season, doesn&rsquo;t it? Well, we must
show wear at last, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson took the cup gratefully. &ldquo;Ah, no need to remind a man of seventy,
who has just been home to find that he has survived all his contemporaries. I
was most gently treated&mdash;as a sort of precious relic. But, do you know, it
made me feel awkward to be hanging about still.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Seventy? Never mention it to me.&rdquo; Hilda looked appreciatively at
the Professor&rsquo;s alert face, with so many kindly lines about the mouth and
so many quizzical ones about the eyes. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got to hang about
for me, you know. I can&rsquo;t even let you go home again. You must stay put,
now that I have you back. You&rsquo;re the realest thing I have.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson chuckled. &ldquo;Dear me, am I? Out of so many conquests and the spoils
of conquered cities! You&rsquo;ve really missed me? Well, then, I shall hang.
Even if you have at last to put ME in the mummy-room with the others.
You&rsquo;ll visit me often, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Every day in the calendar. Here, your cigarettes are in this drawer,
where you left them.&rdquo; She struck a match and lit one for him. &ldquo;But
you did, after all, enjoy being at home again?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Oh, yes. I found the long railway journeys trying. People live a
thousand miles apart. But I did it thoroughly; I was all over the place. It was
in Boston I lingered longest.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Ah, you saw Mrs. Alexander?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Often. I dined with her, and had tea there a dozen different times, I
should think. Indeed, it was to see her that I lingered on and on. I found that
I still loved to go to the house. It always seemed as if Bartley were there,
somehow, and that at any moment one might hear his heavy tramp on the stairs.
Do you know, I kept feeling that he must be up in his study.&rdquo; The
Professor looked reflectively into the grate. &ldquo;I should really have liked
to go up there. That was where I had my last long talk with him. But Mrs.
Alexander never suggested it.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson was a little startled by her tone, and he turned his head so quickly
that his cuff-link caught the string of his nose-glasses and pulled them awry.
&ldquo;Why? Why, dear me, I don&rsquo;t know. She probably never thought of
it.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda bit her lip. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what made me say that. I
didn&rsquo;t mean to interrupt. Go on please, and tell me how it was.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Well, it was like that. Almost as if he were there. In a way, he really
is there. She never lets him go. It&rsquo;s the most beautiful and dignified
sorrow I&rsquo;ve ever known. It&rsquo;s so beautiful that it has its
compensations, I should think. Its very completeness is a compensation. It
gives her a fixed star to steer by. She doesn&rsquo;t drift. We sat there
evening after evening in the quiet of that magically haunted room, and watched
the sunset burn on the river, and felt him. Felt him with a difference, of
course.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda leaned forward, her elbow on her knee, her chin on her hand. &ldquo;With
a difference? Because of her, you mean?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson&rsquo;s brow wrinkled. &ldquo;Something like that, yes. Of course, as
time goes on, to her he becomes more and more their simple personal
relation.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda studied the droop of the Professor&rsquo;s head intently. &ldquo;You
didn&rsquo;t altogether like that? You felt it wasn&rsquo;t wholly fair to
him?&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson shook himself and readjusted his glasses. &ldquo;Oh, fair enough. More
than fair. Of course, I always felt that my image of him was just a little
different from hers. No relation is so complete that it can hold absolutely all
of a person. And I liked him just as he was; his deviations, too; the places
where he didn&rsquo;t square.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda considered vaguely. &ldquo;Has she grown much older?&rdquo; she asked at
last.
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes, and no. In a tragic way she is even handsomer. But colder. Cold for
everything but him. &lsquo;Forget thyself to marble&rsquo;; I kept thinking of
that. Her happiness was a happiness <i>à deux</i>, not apart from the world,
but actually against it. And now her grief is like that. She saves herself for
it and doesn&rsquo;t even go through the form of seeing people much. I&rsquo;m
sorry. It would be better for her, and might be so good for them, if she could
let other people in.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Perhaps she&rsquo;s afraid of letting him out a little, of sharing him
with somebody.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson put down his cup and looked up with vague alarm. &ldquo;Dear me, it
takes a woman to think of that, now! I don&rsquo;t, you know, think we ought to
be hard on her. More, even, than the rest of us she didn&rsquo;t choose her
destiny. She underwent it. And it has left her chilled. As to her not wishing
to take the world into her confidence&mdash;well, it is a pretty brutal and
stupid world, after all, you know.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Hilda leaned forward. &ldquo;Yes, I know, I know. Only I can&rsquo;t help being
glad that there was something for him even in stupid and vulgar people. My
little Marie worshiped him. When she is dusting I always know when she has come
to his picture.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
Wilson nodded. &ldquo;Oh, yes! He left an echo. The ripples go on in all of us.
He belonged to the people who make the play, and most of us are only onlookers
at the best. We shouldn&rsquo;t wonder too much at Mrs. Alexander. She must
feel how useless it would be to stir about, that she may as well sit still;
that nothing can happen to her after Bartley.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Hilda softly, &ldquo;nothing can happen to one after
Bartley.&rdquo;
</p>

<p>
They both sat looking into the fire.
</p>

<hr />

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div class="chapter">

<h2><a name="link2H_4_0013"></a>
THE BARREL ORGAN by Alfred Noyes</h2>

<p class="poem">
    There&rsquo;s a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street,<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
And the music&rsquo;s not immortal; but the world has made it sweet<br/>
    And fulfilled it with the sunset glow;<br/>
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain<br/>
    That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;<br/>
And they&rsquo;ve given it a glory and a part to play again<br/>
    In the Symphony that rules the day and the night.<br/>
<br/>
And now it&rsquo;s marching onward through the realms of old romance,<br/>
    And trolling out a fond familiar tune,<br/>
And now it&rsquo;s roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,<br/>
    And now it&rsquo;s prattling softly to the moon,<br/>
And all around the organ there&rsquo;s a sea without a shore<br/>
    Of human joys and wonders and regrets;<br/>
To remember and to recompense the music evermore<br/>
    For what the cold machinery forgets. . . .<br/>
<br/>
Yes; as the music changes,<br/>
    Like a prismatic glass,<br/>
It takes the light and ranges<br/>
    Through all the moods that pass;<br/>
Dissects the common carnival<br/>
    Of passions and regrets,<br/>
And gives the world a glimpse of all<br/>
    The colors it forgets.<br/>
<br/>
And there <i>La Traviata</i> sights<br/>
    Another sadder song;<br/>
And there <i>Il Trovatore</i> cries<br/>
    A tale of deeper wrong;<br/>
And bolder knights to battle go<br/>
    With sword and shield and lance,<br/>
Than ever here on earth below<br/>
    Have whirled into&mdash;<i>a dance!</i>&mdash;<br/>
<br/>
Go down to Kew in lilac time; in lilac time; in lilac time;<br/>
Go down to Kew in lilac time; (it isn&rsquo;t far from London!)<br/>
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer&rsquo;s wonderland;<br/>
Go down to Kew in lilac time; (it isn&rsquo;t far from London!)<br/>
<br/>
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,<br/>
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)<br/>
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world&rsquo;s a blaze of
sky<br/>
The cuckoo, though he&rsquo;s very shy, will sing a song for London.<br/>
<br/>
The nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you&rsquo;ll hear him
there<br/>
At Kew, at Kew in lilac time (and oh, so near to London!)<br/>
The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo<br/>
And golden-eyed <i>tu-whit, tu whoo</i> of owls that ogle London.<br/>
<br/>
For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn&rsquo;t heard<br/>
At Kew, at Kew in lilac time (and oh, so near to London!)<br/>
And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out<br/>
You&rsquo;ll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for
London:&mdash;<br/>
<br/>
<i>Come down to Kew in lilac time; in lilac time; in lilac time;<br/>
    Come down to Kew in lilac time;</i> (<i>it isn&rsquo;t far from London!</i>)<br/>
<i>And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer&rsquo;s wonderland;<br/>
    Come down to Kew in lilac time;</i> (<i>it isn&rsquo;t far from London!</i>)<br/>
<br/>
And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet<br/>
Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,<br/>
And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they&rsquo;ll never meet,<br/>
Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,<br/>
    In the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote <i>Il Trovatore</i> did you dream<br/>
    Of the City when the sun sinks low<br/>
Of the organ and the monkey and the many-colored stream<br/>
On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem<br/>
To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam<br/>
As <i>A che la morte</i> parodies the world&rsquo;s eternal theme<br/>
    And pulses with the sunset glow?<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
There&rsquo;s a portly man of business with a balance of his own,<br/>
There&rsquo;s a clerk and there&rsquo;s a butcher of a soft reposeful
tone,<br/>
And they&rsquo;re all them returning to the heavens they have known:<br/>
They are crammed and jammed in busses and&mdash;they&rsquo;re each of them
alone<br/>
    In the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s a very modish woman and her smile is very bland<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
And her hansom jingles onward, but her little jeweled hand<br/>
Is clenched a little tighter and she cannot understand<br/>
What she wants or why she wanders to that undiscovered land,<br/>
For the parties there are not at all the sort of thing she planned,<br/>
    In the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s an Oxford man that listens and his heart is crying out<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
For the barge the eight, the Isis, and the coach&rsquo;s whoop and shout,<br/>
For the minute gun, the counting and the long disheveled rout,<br/>
For the howl along the tow-path and a fate that&rsquo;s still in doubt,<br/>
For a roughened oar to handle and a race to think about<br/>
    In the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s a laborer that listen to the voices of the dead<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
And his hand begins to tremble and his face is rather red<br/>
As he sees a loafer watching him and&mdash;there he turns his head<br/>
And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled,<br/>
For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led<br/>
    Through the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s and old and hardened demi-rep, it&rsquo;s ringing in her
ears,<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
With the wild and empty sorrow of the love that blights and sears,<br/>
Oh, and if she hurries onward, then be sure, be sure she hears,<br/>
Hears and bears the bitter burden of the unforgotten years,<br/>
And her laugh&rsquo;s a little harsher and her eyes are brimmed with tears<br/>
    For the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street,<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks low;<br/>
Though the music&rsquo;s only Verdi there&rsquo;s a world to make it sweet<br/>
Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet<br/>
Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet<br/>
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat<br/>
    In the land where the dead dreams go.<br/>
<br/>
        So it&rsquo;s Jeremiah, Jeremiah,<br/>
            What have you to say<br/>
        When you meet the garland girls<br/>
            Tripping on their way?<br/>
<br/>
        All around my gala hat<br/>
            I wear a wreath of roses<br/>
        (A long and lonely year it is<br/>
            I&rsquo;ve waited for the May!)<br/>
<br/>
        If any one should ask you,<br/>
            The reason why I wear it is,<br/>
        My own love, my true love, is coming home to-day.<br/>
<br/>
It&rsquo;s buy a bunch of violets for the lady<br/>
    (<i>It&rsquo;s lilac time in London; it&rsquo;s lilac time in London!</i>)<br/>
Buy a bunch of violets for the lady;<br/>
    While the sky burns blue above:<br/>
<br/>
On the other side of the street you&rsquo;ll find it shady<br/>
    (<i>It&rsquo;s lilac time in London; it&rsquo;s lilac time in London!</i>)<br/>
But buy a bunch of violets for the lady;<br/>
    And tell her she&rsquo;s your own true love.<br/>
<br/>
There&rsquo;s a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street,<br/>
    In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;<br/>
And the music&rsquo;s not immortal, but the world has made it sweet<br/>
And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete<br/>
In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,<br/>
    As it dies into the sunset glow;<br/>
<br/>
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain<br/>
    That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,<br/>
And they&rsquo;ve given it a glory and a part of play again<br/>
    In the Symphony that rules the day and night.<br/>
<br/>
        And there, as the music changes,<br/>
            The song runs round again;<br/>
        Once more it turns and ranges<br/>
            Through all its joy and pain:<br/>
        Dissects the common carnival<br/>
            Of passions and regrets;<br/>
        And the wheeling world remembers all<br/>
            The wheeling song forgets.<br/>
<br/>
        Once more <i>La Traviata</i> sighs<br/>
            Another sadder song:<br/>
        Once more <i>Il Trovatore</i> cries<br/>
            A tale of deeper wrong;<br/>
        Once more the knights to battle go<br/>
            With sword and shield and lance,<br/>
        Till once, once more, the shattered foe<br/>
            Has whirled into&mdash;<i>a dance!</i>&mdash;<br/>
<br/>
<i>Come down to Kew in lilac time; in lilac time; in lilac time;<br/>
    Come down to Kew in lilac time;</i> (<i>it isn&rsquo;t far from London!</i>)<br/>
<i>And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer&rsquo;s wonderland;<br/>
    Come down to Kew in lilac time;</i> (<i>it isn&rsquo;t far from London!</i>)<br/>
</p>

</div><!--end chapter-->

<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE ***</div>

</body>
</html>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-04-21 08:00:38 +0000