Glory of youth

CHAPTER I HE girl knelt on the floor, feverishly packing a

A shabby little trunk.

Outside was a streaming April storm, and the rain, rushing against the square, small-paned windows, shut out the view of the sea, shut out the light, and finally brought such darkness that the girl stood up with a sigh, brushed off her black dress with thin white hands, and groped her way to the door.

Beyond the door was the blackness of an upper hall in a tall century-old house. A spiral stairway descended into a well of gloom. An ancient iron lantern, attached to a chain, hung from the low ceil¬ ing.

The girl lighted the lantern, and the faint illumina¬ tion made deeper the shadows below.

And from the shadows came a man's voice.

“ May I come up ? "

GLORT OF TOOTH

As the girl bent over the railing, the glow of the lantern made of her hair a shining halo. “ Oh,” she cried, radiantly, “ I’m so glad you’ve come. I—I was afraid-”

The thunder rolled, the waves pounded on the rocks, and the darkness grew more dense, but now the girl did not heed, for what mattered a mere storm, when, ascending the stairs, was one who knew fear neither of life nor of death, nor of the things which come after death ?

When at last her visitor emerged from the gloom, he showed himself beyond youthful years, with hair slightly touched with gray, not tall, but of a com¬ manding presence, with clear, keen blue eyes, and with cheeks which were tanned by out-of-door exer¬ cise, and reddened by the prevailing weather.

“ I just had to come,” he said, as he took her hand. “ I knew you’d be frightened.”

“Yes,” she said, “ Miss Matthews is at school, and I am alone-”

“ And unhappy ? ”

Her lips quivered, but she drew her hand from his, and went on into the shabby room, where she lighted a candle in a brass holder, and touched a match to a fire which was laid in the blackened brick fireplace, io

The doctor’s quick eye noted the preparations for departure.

“ What does that mean ? ” he asked, and pointed to the trunk.

“ I—I am going away-”

“ Away ? ”

“ Yes,” nervously; “ I—I can’t stay here,

doctor.”

“ Why not ? ”

“ Oh,” tremulously, “ it was all right when I had mother, because she was so sick that I was too busy to realize how deadly lonely it was here. I knew she needed the sea air, and she could get it better in the top of this old house than anywhere else. But now that she’s gone—I can’t stand it. I’m young, and Miss Matthews is away all day teaching—and when she comes home at night we have nothing in common, and there’s the money left from the insur¬ ance—and so—I’m going away.”

He looked at her, with her red-gold hair tn high relief against the worn leather of the chair in which she sat, at the flower-like face, the slender figure, the tiny feet in childish strapped slippers.

“ You aren't fit to fight the world,” he said; “ you aren’t fit.”

“ Perhaps it won’t be such*a fight,” she said. " 1 could get something to do in the city, and-”

He shook his head. “You don’t know—you

can’t know-” Then he broke off to ask,

“ What would you do with your furniture ? ”

“ Miss Matthews would be glad to take the rooms just as they are. She was delighted when you asked her to stay with me after mother died. She loves our old things, the mahogany and the banjo clock, and the embroidered peacocks, and the Vene¬ tian heirlooms that belonged to Dad’s family. But I hate them.”

“ Hate them—why?”

“ Because, oh, you know, because Dad treated mother so dreadfully. He broke her heart.”

His practiced eye saw that she was speaking tensely.

“ I wish you’d get me a cup of tea,” he said, sud¬ denly. “ I’m just from the sanatorium. I operated on a bad case—and, well, that’s sufficient excuse, isn’t it, for me to want to drink a cup of tea with you ? ”

She was busy in a moment with her hospitality.

“ Oh, why didn’t you tell me ? And you’re wet.” Her hand touched his coat lightly as she passed him, 12

“ The rain came so suddenly that I couldn’t get the window of my car closed ; it’s an awful storm.

“And now,” he said, when she had brought the tea on an old Sheffield tray, and had set it on a little folding table which he placed between them on the hearth, “ and now let’s talk about it.”

“ Please don’t try to make me stay-”

“ Why not ? ”

“ Because, oh, because you can’t know what I suf¬ fer here; it isn’t just because I’ve lost mother, but the people—they all know about her and about Dad, and they aren’t nice to me.”

“ My dear child ! ”

“ Perhaps it’s because father was a singer and an Italian, and mother came of good old Puritan stock. They seem to think she lowered herself by marrying him. They can’t understand that though he was unkind to her, he belonged to an aristocratic Venetian family-”

“ It’s from those wonderful women of Venice, then, that you get that hair. Do you remember Browning’s:

“ * Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and grown old.’ M

There was no response to his thought in her young eyes.

“ I’ve never read Browning,” she said, negligently, “ and I hate to think of ‘ dear dead women.’ I want to think of live things, of bright things, of gay things. It seems sometimes as if I should die here among the shadows.”

She was sobbing now, with her head on the table.

“ Bettina,” the doctor bent over her, “ poor child, poor little child.”

“ Please let me go,” she whispered.

“ I can’t keep you, of course. I wish I knew what to do. I wish Diana were here.”

“ Diana ? ”

“ I forgot that you did not know her. She has been away for two years. She’s rather wonderful, * Bettina.”

The girl raised her head. The man was gazing straight into the fire. All the eager light that had made his face seem young had gone, and he looked worn and tired. Bettina had no worldly intui¬ tions to teach her the reason for the change a woman’s name had wrought, and so absorbed was she in her own trouble that she viewed the trans¬ formation with unseeing eyes.

“ What could she do if she were here ? ” she asked with childish directness.

“ She would find some way out of it—she is very wise.” He spoke with some hesitation, as a man speaks who holds a subject sacred. “ She has had to decide things for herself all her life—her father and mother died when she was a little girl; now she is over thirty and the mistress of a large fortune. She spends her winters in the city and her summers down here by the sea—but for the past two years she has been staying in Europe with a widowed friend who was a schoolmate of hers in Berlin.”

“ When is she coming back ? ”

Out of a long silence, he answered, “ I am not sure that she will come back. Her engagement was an¬ nounced last fall—to a German, Ulric Van Rosen— she is to be married in June.”

The fact, to him so pregnant of woeful possibili¬ ties, meant little to Bettina.

“ Of course if she’s not here, she can’t do anything —and anyhow most people don’t care to do practical things to help, do they ? ”

She looked so childish, so appealing, so altogether exquisite and young in her black-robed slenderness, 15 that he answered her as he would have answered a child.

“ It’s too bad that the world should hurt you.”

“ But I’m going to do wonderful things in the city.”

“ Wonderful things—poor little girl-”

As he brought his eyes back from the fire to her face, he seemed to bring his thoughts back from an uneasy reverie.

“ You ought,” he said, “ to marry-”

The color flamed into the girl’s cheeks. “ Mother was always saying that, in those last days. But I hated to have her; it seemed so dreadful to talk qi marriage—without love. I know she didn’t mean it that way, poor darling ! She married for love and her life was such a failure. But I couldn’t—not just to get married, could I—not just to have some one take care of me ? ”

He stood up, and thrust his hands in his pockets. “ No,” he agreed bluffly, “ you couldn’t, of course.”

“ And there’s never been any one in love with me,” was her naive confession, “ and I’ve never been in love, not really-”

He was looking down at her with smiling eyes. 4 There s plenty of time.”

“ Yes—that’s what I always told mother—but she dreaded to think of me—alone.”

The eager, dying woman had said the same thing to the doctor, and it had seemed to him, sometimes, that her burning eyes had begged of him a favor which he could not grant.

For there had always been—Diana !

He straightened his shoulders. ‘‘I’m going to ask you to stay here,” he said, “ instead of going to the city. I haven’t any real right to keep you, for I’m not legally your guardian, but I promised your mother to look after you. I can find work for you. We need some one at the sanatorium to look after the office-”

For a moment she set her will against his. “ But Td rather go to the city.”

He put his strong hands on her shoulders. “ Lit¬ tle child, look at me,” he said, and when she flashed up at him a startled glance, he went on, gently, “Your motner wanted me to take care of you—to keep you from harm. In the city you’ll be too fai away. I want you to stay here. Will you ? ”

And presently she whispered, “ I will stay.”

Outside the rain was rushing and the wind was blowing, and plain little Miss Matthews battled with 17 the storm. Miss Matthews, who, every day in the year, taught a class of tumultuous children, and whose life dealt always with the commonplace. And it was plain little Miss Matthews who, having weath¬ ered the storm and climbed the winding stairs, came in, rain-coated and soft-hatted, to find by the fire the doctor drawing on his gloves and Bettina hovering about him like a gold-tipped butterfly.

“ It’s a dreadful storm,” said Miss Matthews, su¬ perfluously, as Bettina went to get boiling water. “There’s a young man down-stairs who wants to speak to you, Dr. Blake. He said that he couldn’t find you at the sanatorium. He saw your car in front of the house and knew you were here. But the bell wouldn’t ring, and so he waited. I told him the bell was broken and that you’d come down at once. He’s hurt his hand.”

“They would have fixed him up at the sanato¬ rium.”

“He said he wanted you, and nobody else, and that he came into the hall because he was like a pussy cat and hated the rain. He is a queer looking creature in a leather cap and leather leggins.”

The doctor gave an amused laugh. “ That’s Justin Ford,” he said ; “ the pussy-cat speech sounds like 18 him, and he wears the leather costume when he flies.”

Bettina, coming back with fresh tea for Miss Matthews, asked, “ How does he fly ? ”

“ In an aeroplane. He’s to try out his hydro¬ aeroplane to-morrow. He’s probably been at work on the machinery and hurt his hand.”

Bettina sparkled. “ Think of a man who can fly,” she said. “ Doesn’t it sound incredible ? ”

“ It’s the most marvelous thing in the world,” said the big-hearted surgeon, not knowing that he, as a man of healing, was more marvelous, for he had to do with the mechanics of flesh and blood, while Justin had to do only with steel and aluminum and canvas, which are, at best, unimportant things when compared with nerves and ligaments and bones.

“Would you mind if Ford came up?” the doctor asked. “ I’ve got to go straight to my old man with the pneumonia after I leave here, and I could look at his hand.”

Bettina shivered. “ Shall I have to look at it ? ” she asked in a little voice.

He laughed. “ Of course not. You can go in the other room.”

But when the young man, who had answered th& 19 doctors call, entered, she did not go, for the face which was framed by the leather cap w r as that of a youth whose beauty matched her own, and whose mocking eyes, as he acknowledged the introduction, seemed to beat against the door of her maiden heart and demand admission.

Chapter II

T HE injury to Justin’s hand proved to be one of strain and sprain.

“ A bandage for a few days,” the doctor pro¬ nounced, “ and then a little carefulness, and you’ll be all right.”

Justin lingered. The litde fire was like a heart of gold in the shadowy room. Plain little Miss Mat¬ thews sipped her tea, with her feet on the fender. Bettina, during the doctor’s examination of Justin’s hand, had seated herself in her low chair on the hearth, and now her eyes were fixed steadily on the flames.

“ It’s a shivery, shaky sort of day,” said Justin, surveying the teapot longingly, and Anthony laughed. “ He wants his tea, Bettina,” he said, “ and a place by your fire. It’s another of his pussy¬ cat traits—so if you’ll be good to him, I’ll have an¬ other cup, and he shall tell us about his hydro-aero¬ plane.”

Justin, standing in front of the fire, was like & young god fresh from Olympus. His nose was straight, his mocking eyes a golden-brown, and, with his cap off, his upstanding shock of hair showed glittering lights. In deference to the prevailing fashion, his fair little mustache was slightly upturned at the corners. He had doffed his rain coat, and ap¬ peared in a brown Norfolk suit with leather leggins that reached his knees.

“I’m afraid Fve intruded upon your hospitality,” he said to Bettina, as she handed him a steaming cup, “ but I’m always falling into pleasant things— and I haven’t the will power to get out when I should, truly I haven’t. But it isn’t my fault—it’s just a part of my pussy-cat inheritance.”

“ He can afford to say such things,” Anthony re¬ marked ; “ he’s really more like a bird than a pussy cat. You should see him up in the air.”

Justin’s eyes flashed. “ You should see me com¬ ing down on the water after a flight. By Jove, An¬ thony, that’s the most wonderful little machine. I’ve called her ‘The Gray Gull’ because she not only flies but swims—cuts through the water like a motor boat.”

As he talked his eyes were on Bettina. “You 22 beauty, you beauty,” was the thought which thrilled him.

When, at last, he stood up, he apologized some¬ what formally. “I’ve stayed too long,” he said, “ but Anthony must make my excuses. I was down there in Purgatory—and he showed me—Paradise.”

The doctor looked at him sharply. He knew Jus¬ tin as a man of the world—gay, irresponsible—and Bettina had no one to watch over her.

“ I’ll take you as far as the shops,” he said, crisply, * * and then I must get at once to my old man with the pneumonia.”

As the two men rode away in the doctor’s small covered car, Justin asked, “ Where did you discover her ? ” Anthony, his eyes fixed on the muddy road ahead of them, gave a brief outline : “ Profes¬ sionally. The mother died in those rooms. The girl is alone, except for Miss Matthews and the old Lane sisters who own the house and live in the lower part. I have constituted myself a sort of guardian for Bettina—the mother requested it, and I couldn’t re¬ fuse.”

“ I see.” Justin asked no more questions, but set¬ tled himself back in a cushioned corner, and as the two men rode on in silence, their thoughts were cen- 23 tered on the single vision of a shadowy room, and of a slender golden-haired, black-robed figure against a background of glowing flame.

All that night and the next day the doctor battled with Death, and came out triumphant. By four o’clock in the afternoon the old man with pneumonia showed signs of holding his own.

Worn out, Anthony drove back toward the sana¬ torium. The rain was over, but a heavy fog had rolled in, so that the doctor’s little car seemed to float in a sea of cloud. Now and then another car passed him, specter-like amid the grayness. Silent figures, magnified by the mist, came and went like shadow pictures on a screen. From the far distance sounded the incessant moan of fog-horns c

Anthony stopped his car in front of a small shop, whose lights struggled faintly against the gloom.

Crossing the threshold, he went from a world of dampness and chill into the warmth and cheer of an old-fashioned fish house.

For fifty years there had been no change in Lillibridge’s. The floor of the main room was bare and clean, and, in the middle, a round black stove ra¬ diated comfort on cold days. Along one side of the **0081 ran three stalls, in which were placed tables for

IN THE SHADOWT ROOM such patrons as might desire partial privacy. On the spick and span counter were set forth various condiments and plates of crackers. A card, tacked up on the wall, tempted the appetite with its list of sea foods.

Anthony wanted nothing to eat. He ordered coffee, and went into one of the stalls to drink it.

But a man at one of the tables in the main part of the room wanted more than coffee. He was a little man in a blue reefer, but he had, evidently, more than a little appetite. As Anthony sat down, he was just finishing a bowl of chowder, and was gazing with eyes of hungry appreciation upon various dishes of fried fish and fried potatoes, of hot rolls and pickles which were being set before him.

“ You’d better have some, doctor,” was his hoarse invitation.

“ Too tired,” said Anthony. “Til wait till I’ve had a bath and rub-down before I eat-”

“ What you need,” said the little man, between large mouthfuls, “ is a good day’s fishin’. You come out to-morrow morning, and we’ll catch some cod.”

The doctor’s tired eyes brightened. “ There’s noth¬ ing that I’d like better, captain, but I’ve got an old man ill of pneumonia, and there’s a girl with ap* pendicitis.”

“ There you go,” said the little man ; “ if it wasn’t a girl with appendicitis, it would be a kid with the colic, or a lady with a claim to heart trouble. Whai you’ve got to do, doctor, is to cut it all out and come with me.”

Anthony shook his head. “Suppose some one had said to you when you sailed the seas that you could leave the ship-?”

“ I shouldn’t have left,” said the little man, “ but I didn’t have such a look as you’ve got in your eyeSc What you need is a good night’s sleep, and a day’s fishin’. And you need it now.”

Having eaten presently his last morsel, he ordered a piece of pie. “ There’s nothing like sea air to blow your brains clear,” he stated “ And when this fog lifts, it’ll be fine fishin’ weather.”

Again the doctor shook his head. “I’d like it, more than a little, but I’ve got to stick to my post.”

Captain Stubbs began on his pie, and remarked, “ The trouble with you is that you’re mixed up with too many wimmen.”

Anthony’s head went up. “ What do you mean ? w

“ Wimmen,” said the little captain, “ are bad 26 enough anyhow. But when you have to handle a lot of wimmen with nerves, then the Lord help you/*

He said it so solemnly that Anthony threw back his head and laughed.

“ Now, up at that sannytarium of yours,” said the captain, “ there’s about ten of them that need to be dipped into the good salt sea and hung up in the sun to dry, and that’s all they need, no coddling and medi¬ cine and operations—but just a cold shock and a warm-up—and a day’s fishin’.”

And now Anthony did not laugh. “ By Jove,” he said, “ I believe you’re right. I’m going to try some personally conducted parties, and you shall take them out, captain-”

“ Me-? ” the captain demanded, incredulously.

* Me take those wimmen out fishin’ ? ”

Anthony nodded. “ Yes, once a week. Is it a bar¬ gain ? ”

The captain stood up. “ No, it ain’t,” he said, firmly. “ I’ll take you and gladly 0 But not any of that nervous bunch.”

He settled his cap firmly on his head, and went toward the door. Then he turned. “ Some day,” he said, “ I’m going to ask that Betty child to go out in my boat.”

“ Bettina? ” Anthony’s mind went swiftly to the shadowed room.

“ Yes. She’s lonesome, and so was her mother I used to take fish up to them, and I showed the Betty child how to make chowder.”

“She told me,” said Anthony. “You’re one of her best friends, captain.”

“ Well, goodness only knows she needs friends,” said the little captain, adding with a significant emphasis which escaped the preoccupied Anthony, “ She needs somebody to take care of her.”

Receiving no response, the little man lighted his pipe, buttoned his coat, and, remarking genially, “ Well, you let me know about that day’s fishin’,” he steamed out.

After his departure Anthony sat for some time in the deserted room. He knew that rest and refresh¬ ment were waiting for him and he knew that he needed them, but his mind was weighed down by the problem of that helpless child in the old house. All through the night as he had battled for the life of his patient, he had thought of her, who must battle with the world. He could get her work, of course, but he shrank from the thought of her pale loveliness set to sordid uses.

With a sudden gesture of resolution, he stood up and drew on his gloves.

Ten minutes later he was climbing the winding stairway, where the iron lantern again illumined the darkness.

There had been no response to his call from be¬ low, and when he reached the upper landing he found the door shut. He knocked and presently Bettina came. He saw at a glance that she had been crying.

“ I can stay only a minute,” he said. “ I haven’t had much sleep since I saw you yesterday.”

" HI make you some tea,” she offered, but he stopped her with a quick, “ No, no,—I’ve just had coffee, and I must get home.”

They sat down, somewhat stiffly, on opposite sides of the hearth.

“ What made you cry?” he asked, with his keen eyes on her downcast face.

“ Everything—the rain yesterday—the fog to-day. I wish the sun would shine—I wish—I were —dead-”

With a sharp exclamation, he stood up. “ You’re too young to say such things—there’s all of life be¬ fore you.”

“Yes,” she said dully “there’s all of life-”

To him she was a most appealing figure. Her weakness seemed to stand out against the back¬ ground of his strength. Suddenly he held out his hands to her. “Come here, Betty child,” he said, using, unconsciously, the little captain’s name for her, “ come here.”

Some new note in his voice made her cheeks flame, but she obeyed him. He took both of her hands in his. “ I’ve been thinking of you, and your future. Somehow I can’t see you, a little slip of a thing like you, being beaten and bruised by the hard things of life. The world is cruel and you are so—sweet. You need some one to take care of you-”

“Yes,” she whispered; “ but there isn’t any one.”

“ Except me. And I’m such an old fellow—years too old for you. But I’m alone, and you’re alone. Could I make you happy, Betty child ? ”

She stared at him, all the bright color gone from her face

“ Why, how ? ” Her voice fluttered and died.

“ As my wife. There’s the big house on the rocks that I am building.”

He faltered. The great house had been built for 30

Diana, on a sudden hopeful impulse that when it was finished she would consent to be its mistress.

“ There’s the big house,” he went on, after a moment, “ and there’s money enough and to spare. Not that I want you to marry me for that, but I think I could comfort you in your loneliness, Bettina.”

In her secluded girlhood there had been no opportunity for masculine adoration; hence there seemed nothing lacking when this man of men, whose coming during her mother’s illness had made the one bright spot in her day, whose sympathy had comforted her in her sorrow, whose friendship had sustained her in the months which had followed her great loss, when he spoke of marriage with never a word of love.

“ But I’m not wise enough or good enough,” she said, with a quick catch of her breath.

He drew her to him, holding her gently.

“ Would you like,” he asked, “ would you like to think that all your life I should take care of you ? ”

She lay quietly, not answering for a while, then she whispered, “ Do you really want me ? ”

Perhaps his arm relaxed a little, but his voice

3 * was very steady. “ I really want to make you happy.”

“ And you’ll let me love you with all my heart ? ” Her eyes were hidden.

He put his hand against the softness of her hair, turning her face up toward him. “ I shall hope that you may love me with all your heart, and that I may be worthy of it.”

Her hand crept up and touched his cheek. 11 Kiss me,” she whispered, like a child.

He would have been less than a man if his heart had not leaped a little, if he had not responded to the love call of this wistful white and gold woman creature.

“ My dear,” he said, brokenly, and bent his head.

On the foggy streets below men and women passed and repassed like ghosts in the stillness. Little Miss Matthews, meeting Captain Stubbs on a street corner, was unconscious of his nearness until the little captain, guided by that sixth sense, which is given to sailors for their protection at sea, hailed her.

“You needn’t hurry home,” he told her; “that Betty child don’t want you. Dr. Blake is there That’s his car.”

3 *

“ He was there yesterday,” said Miss Matthews, disturbed by the doctor’s departure from his usual routine.

“And he’ll probably be there to-morrow; he’s getting sweet on that Betty child, Miss Mattie.”

“ Oh, dear, no,” said the shocked Miss Matthews. “ Why, he’s in love with Diana Gregory.”

The captain gazed at her blankly. “You don’t mean it,” he protested.

“ Yes, I do,” said Miss Matthews ; “ they’ve known each other all their lives. But she doesn’t want to settle down,”

“ Well, she’d better look out,” said the little cap¬ tain ; “ men won't wait forever.”

“ Men like Anthony Blake,” returned Miss Mat¬ thews with conviction, “will. And as for Bettina, she's nothing but a child ! ”

The little captain carried the conversation over, tactfully, to his favorite topic. “ I want you and that Betty child to go with me for a day’s fishin’ soon,” he said ; “ you just name the day.”

Little Miss Matthews hated the sea, with the hatred of a woman whose ancestors had made their living on the Banks and had been drowned in storms. But she liked the captain. “ I am sure you are very 33 kind,” she said, primly, “ but it will have to be Sat¬ urday when there isn’t any school.”

“ All right,” said the captain,—“ make it a week from Saturday, and we’ll probably have clearing weather.”

The doctor, going down, met little Miss Mat¬ thews. Bettina, leaning over the rail, greeted the little lady somewhat self-consciously. “ I’ll make your tea in a minute,” she said ; “ the doctor didn’t want any.”

When Anthony reached the bottom of the stair, he looked up. The faint light of the lantern drew a circle of radiance about Bettina’s head.

“Wait,” she called softly, and came down to him, and in the darkness whispered that she was happy, so very happy—and would she see him soon?