The collected stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding from Munsey's Magazine, 1920-1928 (part 1 of 5)

The collected stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding from Munsey's Magazine, 1920-1928

The Stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding in Munsey’s Magazine 1920-1928

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

DECEMBER, 1921 Vol. LXXIV NUMBER 3

The Married Man

A MODERN COMEDY OF ENLIGHTENED THOUGHT

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Author of “Angelica”

She had got used to Andrew’s forgetting all sorts of important anniversaries. In fact, she rather liked him to do so. It gave her something to forgive, and fed her measureless indulgence. All his eccentricities, his absurdities, his brilliant and explosive energy, his terrible exactions, constituted “Andy’s ways,” which she loved with a deep and pitying love.

Even if he was clever and successful and attractive, he couldn’t do the things she could do so easily and so well. He couldn’t darn his own socks or cook a dinner or make a bed. She insisted that he was helpless--that all men were helpless. She was the sort of woman who would have pitied Julius Cæsar because he couldn’t make an omelet.

Something of this kindly indulgence was reflected upon her nice face as she sat in the library sewing and waiting for Andrew. She was a handsome, dignified, good-tempered woman of thirty-five, who was never to be taken by surprise. No matter what might happen, she would raise her eyebrows and smile and say, “Well?”--which was her nice, kind way of saying, “I told you so!”

And generally she had told you so, because, like so many other unimaginative people, she could almost always foresee ordinary consequences. Her prognostications were based, not upon probabilities, but upon experience.

It was the tenth anniversary of their wedding--an important day in a household. And yet, knowing Andrew as she did, Marian had made no preparations for festivity, because he was as likely as not to forget or to neglect even a special dinner. She would remind him when he came in, and smile at him, and he would be startled and contrite. She would not acknowledge the little wound that was there, even to herself.

Nor would she acknowledge what she really knew quite well--that Andy wasn’t happy, as she was. Hadn’t she provided him with all the materials for happiness--a lovely, peaceful home, three pretty, healthy children, and just the social background he required?

What is more, she knew that no just man could find a fault in her as a wife. She was thrifty, conscientious, sympathetic, a correct and popular hostess, an excellent mother. She was never irritable, never gloomy, never exacting. She was handsome, and understood how to dress. There was really nothing within the domestic cosmos to which a sane man could object.

That may have been the trouble. Andrew was a man who did not approve of happiness. He wanted and required to be forever struggling and rebelling and resenting. Marian had often, with amusement, noticed him trying to provoke a quarrel with her; but of course he never could, for she never quarreled.

The clock struck eleven. She sighed a little, laid down her sewing, and picked up a book. It had been a very trying day. Andrew had vanished, without the least regard for appointments he himself had made, or office hours, and she had had to placate all sorts of people without knowing at all the cause of his delinquency. It was simply another of “Andy’s ways,” and a very troublesome one in a doctor.

She recognized it as part of a wife’s duties to smooth the path of her husband--above all, of a husband who was the next thing to a genius. She was accustomed to hearing him spoken of as “brilliant.” She was proud of it, and secretly a little proud of his eccentricities. He was an extraordinary man, no doubt about it, and he required a wife of extraordinary tact.

He was a physician, but not satisfied with that. He liked to write articles and give lectures, and he had a reputation as a very daring if not very sound investigator along sociological lines. He had proclaimed and printed office hours; but if he were busy writing, he wouldn’t see any one who came, and it was Marian, of course, who did have to see these people and get them away not too grossly offended.

At other times there would be some patient who interested him, and he would shut himself up with him or her; and again in this case Marian had to soothe and placate the other patients who had seen the favored one admitted, and who naturally resented being kept waiting so outrageously. There was not a trace of jealousy, or of curiosity, in Marian. She smiled at his interest in a pretty woman.

She wasn’t too much interested in anything--certainly not in the book she had taken up, for she put it down again with a yawn within a very few minutes, to look at the clock and to give a small sigh. She couldn’t help wishing that Andrew had remembered what day it was, at least to the extent of an extra kiss. Even the most able and placid woman might wish that.

Then, at last, he did come in, in a mood she knew well; and her faint hope that perhaps he had remembered, and would bring her flowers, fell stone dead. He flung himself into a chair, hot and tired and rather pale, with his red hair ruffled up, giving him the look of a sulky and earnest child.

“Well!” said Marian, with a nice smile. “Here you are! Such a day as I’ve had, Andy! People telephoning and insisting that they had appointments and refusing to be put off; and poor me without the least idea where you were or when you’d come back! There was that poor woman with the albino twins--”

He frowned impatiently.

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want the case, anyway. No! See here, Marian. I want to talk to you.”

She said “Yes?” inquiringly, with her kind and pleasant face turned toward him, but he didn’t look at her. He sat staring at the ground, huddled down in his chair, rumpled, disheveled.

“What is there about him so attractive?” Marian reflected, not for the first time.

He was not handsome, he was very untidy, he was casual, rude, distrait; a slender, wiry red-haired fellow of thirty-five, with a sharp-featured, rather pale, freckled face and restless, bright brown eyes.

At last he looked up at his wife, still frowning.

“Don’t be hurt!” he said “And try to understand!”

“Of course I will, Andy.”

“I’ve been walking,” he went on, “for hours--almost all day--thinking it out. This lecture that I’m to give, you know, to-morrow--”

“Oh, yes--before the Moral Courage Club.”

“I’d made fairly comprehensive notes of what I was going to say; but it’s been growing on me, every day, how weak and cowardly it is--how evasive. I hadn’t dared to be frank, I never have dared. I’ve compromised. I’ve lied. I’ve kept it up for ten years--ten years to-day, Marian!”

“Kept up what?” she asked, startled.

“This damnable hypocrisy!” he cried. “This wretched, revolting pretense! Do you know that it’s the anniversary to-night of that horrible ceremony--that perjury--that mockery we called our marriage?”

Marian had grown quite white.

“Why, Andy!” she faltered. “I never thought--I thought--I always hoped you were--happy!”

He sprang up and began to pace the room.

“I can’t stand it any longer!” he cried. “I’m at the end of my tether. Oh, this marriage!”

“Is it--me, Andy?” Marian asked rather pitifully.

“No! No! It’s simply marriage--marriage with any one. It’s this base, disgusting monotony, this abominable pettiness, this eternal talk about servants and children and coal-bills and neighbors and card-parties. It stifles me. It sickens me. I can’t live any more unless I’m free!”

“Do you mean that you--want a divorce, Andy?” she asked, with a gallant effort to disguise her terror and distress.

“No,” he answered, “not necessarily. I shouldn’t like to lose you altogether, Marian--unless, of course, you’d like to form another connection. Would you?”

“No--no, Andy, I wouldn’t!”

“I didn’t think so. What I want, Marian, is simply to ignore our marriage. I want to be released from its petty restrictions and obligations. Will you do that, Marian? Will you absolve me from all these preposterous ‘vows,’ and so on?”

“Yes,” she answered promptly. “I will--if you like.”

“And you won’t be hurt? You won’t be petty? You won’t think I’m not fond of you, Marian?”

She shook her head.

“You see, don’t you, that we can be just as fond of each other, and yet go our separate ways?”

“Are we--does that mean--that we’re to--part?” she asked.

He came over and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“My dear girl,” he said, “I can’t live with you any longer.”

She couldn’t restrain a sob.

“Oh, Andy! Oh! Is there--some one else?”

“No! Can’t you see? I want to be alone--to live alone--in freedom. I’ll take a house for myself somewhere, and you’ll go on here, just as usual; except that I’d like to have the children part of the time. I won’t be unreasonable, though.”

“I don’t think I’d--like to--go on here, without you,” she said in a trembling voice. “I’d be--lonely.”

“Nonsense! Not after a day or so. You’d enjoy the freedom, too. I’ve got my eye on a little house that will suit me very well. And really, Marian, I’d very much prefer you and the children keeping on here in the same way. Of course, I should make you the same housekeeping allowance, and so on.”

“I would like a little freedom, too,” she said. “I--can’t stop here--without you, Andrew.”

“Well, of course,” he answered, rather disconcerted, “I’ve no right to dictate to you.”

“You can stay here,” she said, “with the children, and I’ll go and stop with mother for a few days, where I can think it over quietly. Then I’ll send for the babies. I--you see, I want to--get used to this. It’s--rather sudden.”

It was no longer possible to conceal the fact that she was weeping. Her husband was really distressed. He patted her lovely, shining hair with a careless hand, while he scowled anxiously before him.

“My dear girl! Please! This isn’t a tragedy, by any means. Simply let’s be two sensible, modern people who refuse to be bound by certain conventions. Do be your own sensible self, won’t you?”

“I--will--try!” she sobbed. “Only--you’ll have to give me--a little time.”

He looked at the clock; it was a little after midnight.

“Perhaps I’d better leave you alone,” he said. “I’ll be going now.”

“Going? Where? At this hour?”

“Well, you see--that lecture to-morrow. It’s to be ‘Marriage from the Man’s Point of View.’ I can’t, with any dignity, any decency, say what I wish to say--be really honest--in the character of a domestic man. It would be a farce. I must be able to say that I’m a free man, do you see?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But--does that mean it’s got to begin now?”

“What?”

“The--living apart?”

“I’m afraid so. I thought I’d go to a hotel for the night, and send after my things in the morning.”

“Oh, no, Andy, please! I couldn’t explain--to the servants. No! That’s the only thing I ask you. Let me be the one to go. You can say it’s a telegram from mother.”

“Nonsense, my dear girl! I won’t hear of it! Turning you out of the house at this hour of the night! Let me go!”

“No, Andrew, I’d rather; really I would! I’d like to go. I--need a change. If you’ll call a taxi while I pack my bag--”

“You’re quite sure?” he asked anxiously, and again she assured him that she really wished to go.

She went up to the big, lamp-lit bedroom, so immaculate, so charming, with its two brass beds, the dressing-table and bureau gleaming with silver, the soft gray rug on the floor, her dear little sewing-table, all the photographs--

“Oh, why?” she cried. “Oh, why do I have to leave it?”

She went about in her brisk, sensible way, selecting things out of one drawer and another and packing them neatly into a bag; but long before she had finished a sudden spasm of pain overcame her. She sat down in her own particular wicker chair, and sobbed bitterly.

“I don’t understand!” she cried. “I don’t! I don’t! Not a bit!”

II

She was her usual calm self when she came down-stairs again, and was able to give her husband a great many directions and suggestions as they rode to the station.

“I’ll send a night letter to Miss Franklin to come and take care of the children till I send for them,” she said. “I happen to know that she’s free now. She’s such a capable girl! You’ll have nothing to worry about with her in the house.”

Anxiously, but timidly, afraid that it was a reactionary and contemptible insistence, but resolute to save herself in the eyes of her world, contemptible or not, she added:

“And you’ll be sure to say that I got a telegram from mother, won’t you, Andrew?”

She kissed him good-by kindly, pleasantly, and succeeded in getting into the train with her nice smile still on her lips. Andrew was reassured, and went home to spend what was left of the night in completing his lecture notes.

He fell asleep toward morning on the sofa in his office. He would no doubt have slept peacefully on till noon, as he had often done before, if it hadn’t been for an unusual noise in the dining-room at breakfast-time. He was a little indignant, for he had never been disturbed before, and he was curious, too. His children--even the four-year-old Frank--were singing lustily, in unison, a jubilant sort of chant, led by a very fresh, clear, loud young female voice.

“Hail! Hail!” they shouted.

All ruffled and rumpled as he was, he entered the room, to find a strange spectacle. His three children were standing on the window-seat, with arms outspread and face upturned. Behind them stood a young woman in the same yearning attitude, while they all cried their invocation:

“To the glorious sun that gives us life, all hail!”

That must have been the end of it, for the children got down and made a rush at him.

“Oh, daddy! Mother’s gone to grandma’s!” the eldest little girl told him eagerly. “Miss Franklin’s going to take care of us. I’m going to write to mother every single day, but not Jean and Frank. They only scribble. She couldn’t possibly read it!”

He was not attending. He was looking at the young woman who stood beside him, smiling. She was a short, sturdy blonde with a very pretty and impudent face, a wide, jolly mouth, and queer gray eyes, which were at the same time immensely candid and quite mysterious.

“I’m Christine Franklin,” said she. “I’m the originator of the Franklin method of child care. I dare say you’ve heard of me. Your wife sent me a night letter to come and take charge of your little family for a time. That’s what I do, you know--go from house to house, and liberate.”

“Liberate?”

“That’s how I put it. I always insist that there shall be no interference from parents or relatives or servants. Then I begin to set the children free--to let them express themselves--to be natural.”

“I see!” said Andrew. “Is breakfast over?”

It was not, and after a brief toilet he sat down to enjoy it with his family. He felt that he rather liked Miss Franklin.

“Nothing clinging and hyperfeminine about her!” he thought. “A man could make a friend of a girl like that.”

He decided to study her. Now that he was free and couldn’t be misunderstood, he had decided to make a comprehensive study of woman in general. He knew that there were points about them that he didn’t understand. He couldn’t really generalize upon the effects of marriage without a better knowledge of females--he admitted that. Why not, he asked himself, begin with this interesting specimen?

“What is the Franklin method?” he asked her.

“It’s not really a method at all,” she said. “It would be better to call it a theory. It’s simply nature and art, hand in hand. I don’t believe in directing or controlling a child. I simply help it along the road it indicates itself. My mission is solely to point out beauty to it.”

“That’s likely to make it very much more difficult for them to become accustomed to discipline and self-restraint when they’re old enough to be held responsible.”

“But, you see, I don’t believe either in discipline or self-restraint, in children or in adults. The natural impulses are sufficient. No, Dr. Nature implants in us only right and beautiful desires. I look upon self-restraint as superfluous, if not absolutely wrong, in a wholesome person.”

“Social interdependence requires--” Andrew began.

“We shouldn’t interdepend. We should each be a law unto himself. Let us be healthy, in mind and in body; then let desire be the sole rule, the sole conscience. Personally, I know that if I want to do a thing, it is right to do it. If I want to have a thing, it is a right thing for me to have.”

Andrew contested that, but she merely smiled at his arguments.

“Well!” she said. “As for me, when I want something, I go after it--and I generally get it.”

Andrew met her clear, shameless glance, and an unaccountable shudder ran through him. What a girl! What an enemy she would make--or what a pursuer!

She was undoubtedly an interesting and convenient subject for his new study, but he didn’t study her. On the contrary, he avoided her. He shut himself up in his study and tried to write, but the new freedom for his children entailed such a distressing amount of noise and quarreling that he accomplished very little.

He wished to write a long and careful letter to Marian. He was afraid that she hadn’t fully understood, that she was a little hurt, in spite of what she had said; but he found it a remarkably difficult thing to explain to a woman that you are very fond of her and yet wish to be rid of her. He was not the first man who has essayed such a task.

The noise in the dining-room became intolerable. He tore up his third attempt at a letter and went in there, in a very bad temper.

“Why the devil do you stay in here?” he shouted to his young family. “Why aren’t you out in the garden, or at school, or wherever it is your mother sends you? Don’t you know that I’m trying to work?”

Miss Franklin had entered from the kitchen, eating a slice of bread and sugar.

“Ask the cook for some!” she suggested, and the children vanished. “What are you writing?” she inquired frankly.

He didn’t care to mention the letter, so he said:

“My lecture. I’m giving one this afternoon, you know.”

“What on?”

“‘Marriage from the Man’s Point of View.’”

She pricked up her ears.

“What is a man’s point of view?” she asked.

“For a man,” he said, “marriage is moral death. It is slavery--bondage of the worst sort. It is a handicap which prevents any effective progress. It is, of course, an invention of woman’s, to safeguard herself and her offspring. She has found it necessary to provide herself with a refuge, and she has ruthlessly taken advantage of her sinister influence over the more sensitive and conscientious man to impress him with a mass of false and pernicious ideas about the ‘home.’ Man has not one single advantage to gain from marriage, yet he has actually been taught, by mothers, by women teachers, by all the females who surround young children, to think of it as a privilege. He secures a home. What is a home? A nest for the woman, a cage for the man. What is a wife? The most unprincipled, exacting slave-driver ever yet developed. For her and her children he is required to give all the fruit of has labor, and, in addition, a fantastic and debasing reverence and flattery--”

“You poor thing!” said Miss Franklin.

He stopped short, in surprise.

“Why?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“You must have been so wretched with your wife,” said she.

His face turned crimson.

“I wasn’t,” he said, with an immense effort at self-control. “Quite the contrary. One doesn’t apply general remarks to--specific cases.”

“Oh, yes, one does indeed!” Miss Franklin insisted.

III

He went off quite in the wrong frame of mind to deliver his lecture. When he had taken a stealthy peep at his audience, he became actually nervous. The Moral Courage Club seemed to be made up almost entirely of women--rows and rows of earnest faces. It would be very unpleasant to wound and distress them, as his words were sure to do, especially as they had all contributed toward the fee he was to receive. For a minute he was almost tempted to soften some of his remarks, but his reformer’s ardor flamed up again, and he went out upon the platform bravely.

The sight of their feathers and furs and earrings helped him. After all, they were nothing but barbarians, who must be enlightened at any cost. He began. He told than, as kindly as possible, how selfish, how greedy, how uncivilized they were, how unpleasant they looked in their skins of dead animals and feathers of dead birds, with all their savage and unesthetic finery; how brutally they preyed upon man.

“Marriage ruins a man,” he said. “It stifles his ambitions; it coarsens him, it debases him. It outrages his manly self-respect. He is debarred from wholesome and essential experiences. He is shamefully exploited. He is forced into hypocrisy and deceit. Partly from his native kindliness, partly from his woman-directed training, he never dares to tell the truth to the opposite sex.”

And so on, directly into those earnest faces, framed by all their barbaric plumes and furs and jewels. To his surprise and dismay, none of them changed, grew abashed or angry or stern. They were only interested, all of them.

They came up in a body when he had finished, and congratulated him.

“You are always so stimulating!” said one.

“You brush aside the non-essentials!” said another.

“It gives one a new outlook!”

“I hope to see it in print. It is so suggestive, dear doctor!”

Only one of the earnest horde made any sort of individual impression, and that was a slender, dark, elegant woman who approached him after every one else had gone.

“Doctor!” she said in a low, thrilling voice. “I feel that I must speak to you. Let me take you home in my car, won’t you?”

She was interesting, distinguished, and, he fancied, intelligent; so he was quite willing to follow her to her waiting motor-car and to seat himself beside her.

“Your lecture,” she began. “It’s such a startling idea to me--that of man being the victim in marriage.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s not the conventional, romantic idea, of course.”

“Nor the true one,” she cried. “Oh, doctor, your brain may be right, but your heart is wrong! There is so much that you don’t seem to know--to understand! You don’t seem to realize how hideously we suffer--what we endure. I cannot pretend to be impersonal. I want to tell you the truth--a side of it that you don’t know. I want to tell you of one case. Then you must tell me what you think.”

She laid her hand on his arm and looked earnestly into his face.

“I want you to hear my story, and then tell me frankly whether or not my husband was a victim!”

It was a very long and very harrowing story. It obliged them to go to the lady’s house and to have tea there, and to sit in her charming little sitting-room until dark, in order that it should all be told.

She was Mrs. Hamilton, she said, known to Marian, as to all other women of any social pretentions in that particular suburb, as the martyr wife of a fiendish husband. What she had suffered no one knew--except the twenty or thirty people whom she had told. She ended in tears.

Andrew comforted her with kindly words and complete exonerations. He said that she was blameless. The clock struck six, and he rose to take leave.

“Good-by!” said Mrs. Hamilton, giving him her slender hand. “Doctor, you’ve helped me. You’ve understood. Mayn’t I see you again? You don’t know what sympathy means to a lonely, heart-broken woman.”

He assured her that he would be delighted to come again, as soon as he had a free moment.

IV

He had declined the use of Mrs. Hamilton’s motor; he preferred to walk home and to reflect upon this new type. He was not altogether a fool. In spite of the fact that she was a very attractive woman, he had made up his mind that he would never go to her house again--not even to study her.

“No!” he was saying to himself. “She’s morbid--irresponsible. They’re really dangerous, that reckless sort!”

A hand clutched his sleeve and a breathless voice cried:

“Oh, doctor, I’ve been rushing after you for miles and miles!”

It was little Mavis Borrowby, daughter of an old patient. Always in the past Andrew had taken Mavis for granted as part of old Borrowby’s background. He was quite disconcerted to see her, this spring evening, as a detached individuality, and a very vivid one.

She took his arm and hung on it, looking up into his face with babyish violet eyes.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I went to your lecture. It was simply wonderful! But it depressed me awfully. Please let me walk along with you and ask you some questions!”

“Child, you shouldn’t go to my lectures,” said Andrew indulgently. “You’re too young. They’re not for you.”

“Oh, but they are, doctor! Why, I’m engaged, you know--at least, I was engaged, but I sha’n’t be any longer. I wouldn’t for worlds do all that harm to a helpless man. I’m going to tell Edward so to-night.”

Andrew was a little taken aback. He said something about thinking things out for oneself--not accepting another person’s ideas.

“Oh, no!” said little Mavis confidently. “I know you can think ever so much better than me. I like to get my ideas from wonderful men like you!”

The innocent, naive, violet-eyed little thing touched him with pity. What, he thought, was there in life for her except marriage? He couldn’t imagine her engaged in any work, any profession, any art. Would it not perhaps be better if some man were enslaved and sacrificed for the sake of this poor little baby-girl?

“Look here, Mavis,” he said; “this won’t do. You mustn’t throw over this fellow, you know, without a great deal of serious reflection. You might ruin your life and his, too.”

“But you said I’d ruin him by marrying him--”

“Never mind that. You--you’re too young to grasp it. And there are always exceptions. If you care for this chap--”

“I don’t really think I do, much,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyway, I simply couldn’t stand making a martyr of him, and having him be the one to do all the sacrificing. But, doctor, what are we to do, if men mustn’t get married?”

He couldn’t answer. To tell the truth, he had thought of marriage so exclusively from a man’s point of view that he had quite overlooked the woman’s. Freedom was all very well, but it wasn’t for the little Mavises of this world. He began to deliberate whether there weren’t certain men who should be set apart for marriage and martyrdom for the sake of the really nice young girls.

He was about to suggest this theory to Mavis, when he found himself before his own door.

“Hurry off home now, won’t you?” he said. “It’ll be dark soon. And see here, Mavis, don’t say anything to your Edward just yet--don’t do anything until we’ve talked it over. Come into the office some afternoon.”

She said she would, and hurried off, in the sunset.

As he let himself in, he heard from the dining-room the uproar which seemed an inevitable accompaniment of the Franklin method. Because playing in the dining-room had formerly been an unimaginable thing rather than a forbidden joy, it was now the rule. The doctor didn’t like it. He wanted his dinner in peace. It was not the sort of dinner he liked, either, and Miss Franklin distressed him by incessantly crunching lumps of sugar.

He retired to his study, where he swore furiously to himself; but for some reason which he didn’t care to analyze, he dared not tell Miss Franklin to take away the children. Nor was he surprised when she knocked at the door, and, being told to enter, did so, and sat down opposite him, prepared to spend the evening.

Crashes, screams, and slaps from the dining-room disturbed her not at all. She said she didn’t believe in supervising children; it hampered them.

She talked persistently about free love, which Andrew didn’t like. When spoken of as the relation of the sexes, it was quite proper and scientific; but directly one introduced that idea of love, it was entirely changed. It became sensational and distinctly alarming.

He was thankful when an accident occurred in the dining-room which could not be ignored. Little Frank had climbed into a drawer of the sideboard and broken through, and in the course of his struggles he upset everything within reach.

Once he had got Miss Franklin out, Andrew took good care that she should not get in again.

V

He had forgotten all about Mavis, and he was pleasantly surprised when she came into his office the next afternoon.

“I pretended that I had a sore throat,” she said, “so I could come and see you. You see, Edward came last night, and oh, doctor, he did seem so awfully flat, after you!”

“You mustn’t be so extreme,” he said. “There are some men who aren’t at all unhappy in marriage.”

“I know. Ordinary little men aren’t. It’s only the wonderful men like you. But, doctor dear, I couldn’t be happy with an ordinary man. I--I want a man like you!”

It wouldn’t do, of course, to tell her that there were mighty few men of this sort, and that they wouldn’t care for naive little girls, anyway. Andrew wasn’t even much flattered by her admiration; it was too indiscriminate.

“Suppose you don’t marry,” he said. “What will you do?”

“I thought you could tell me. I thought, of course, you had some perfectly wonderful sort of plan for women.”

Well, he hadn’t, and he saw that he must make one. It seemed that his first step toward the settlement of this specific case would be to make an analysis, and he at once began. Mavis answered all his questions readily and fully, but he had a suspicion that she told him what she thought he would like to hear, instead of keeping to facts. Still, even at that, he learned a great deal, for she was too ignorant and young to deceive a trained observer. Of course it took a very long time; his other office patients had to be sent away.

He went politely to the door with Mavis, and he was surprised to see Miss Franklin standing in the hall--the little private hall which was only for outgoing patients, and in which she had no possible business to be.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“I was just wondering what you were doing,” she retorted, “shut up in there with that girl all this long time!”

“I was writing an analysis of her.”

“Let’s see your analysis!”

“It’s not finished. Besides--”

“Do let me see it! Perhaps I can help you.”

“You don’t know Miss Borrowby--”

“Oh, yes, I do know Miss Borrowby!” said Miss Franklin. “I know her better than you do!”

Andrew didn’t like her tone, but he let it pass, with a meekness quite new to him. Miss Franklin smiled and went away.

He intended to spend the evening perfecting his analysis in peace; but scarcely had he got well started when Miss Franklin opened the door.

“A patient!” she said.

It was a lady. She sat down beside Andrew’s desk, without raising her veil, and at once began to sob.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I don’t know what to do! Oh, my suffering! What shall I do?”

He felt quite sure that this was a drug addict, and his manner, though kind, was one of thorough sophistication.

“Now, now, my dear madam!” he said. “Don’t excite yourself!”

“You don’t even know me!” she cried, pushing up her veil.

“I do!” he protested guiltily. “It’s Mrs. Hamilton. I knew your voice; but it’s dark here in the corners of the room when there’s only the lamp lighted.”

She smiled bitterly.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s it. I’m lost in the darkness, outside the circle of lamplight!”

“This chair--”

“I’m speaking figuratively, doctor. I’m in such trouble. I wish I were dead!”

Reluctantly, but in duty bound, he said:

“Tell me about it.”

She began to weep again.

“You’re the only one I can tell. You showed such an interest in me the other day. You cared, didn’t you?”

“Yes, certainly I did; but please don’t cry.”

“Oh, dear doctor, it is your own great trouble that makes you so sympathetic to others, I am sure!”

“My own great trouble?”

“I heard of it indirectly--through Miss Franklin. She mentioned it to some one I know. She said that your wife”--Mrs. Hamilton dropped her voice, and ended with the greatest delicacy: “That your wife has left you. I am so sorry!”

“Nothing of the sort!” Andrew began angrily.

Then it occurred to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain so modern a situation to so romantic a creature; so instead he encouraged her to tell him her own sad story.

He never learned what her trouble was, because she didn’t tell him. “My husband” and “a woman’s sensitive heart,” and “disgusting intoxication,” had something to do with it. She cried forlornly, and he tried to stop her. Common sense and all that he had learned from experience of her type warned him not to be too sympathetic, but it was difficult. She was exquisite. She had a sort of morbid charm about her--a sensibility at once dangerous and pitiful.

He rose, went over to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s hard,” he said. “Life is bound to be hard for people like you; but you must try to see it in a more robust way, with more humor, more indifference.”

“I do! No one knows how I try!” she said, looking up into his face with her dark eyes, luminous with tears.

Suddenly the door opened, without warning. Miss Franklin looked in, and disappeared again. Mrs. Hamilton rose.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“That’s Miss Franklin.”

“Oh! I didn’t know she was so young. Does she stay here as late as this?”

“She lives here.”

“Lives here--with your wife away?”

Mrs. Hamilton was moving toward the door.

“Good night, doctor!” she said, and there was a decided coolness in her voice.

VI

Peculiarly disturbed, Andrew returned to his office, to find Miss Franklin there, waiting for him. He was about to reprove her sharply for her outrageous intrusion, but she spoke first.

“Who was that?”

“A patient; and you must never, under any circumstances, come into this room when I have a patient here.”

“It’s long after office hours. I didn’t know it was a patient. She was ‘a lady to see the doctor,’ and I wondered what you were doing shut up here.”

“You needn’t constitute yourself my mentor!” he cried angrily.

“Why, doctor, I never thought of such a thing!”

“Then please don’t do it again.”

“But, if she wasn’t a patient, what was she here for?”

He stared at her, astounded at her effrontery--and uneasy.

“As I told you once before, I am making a series of analyses. I was making a study of--that lady.”

“You only analyze women, don’t you?”

“Certainly not!” he answered with a frown. “Only they happen to be about--”

“Yes, they do!” Miss Franklin agreed warmly. “They certainly do happen to be about!” She sat down. “I’ve been analyzing you,” she said.

Again instinct warned him, and he would have fled.

“Not worth it!” he said lightly.

“I can analyze you,” she went on; “but I can’t understand myself. I don’t quite see why you should affect me so. I’m not at all inclined to sentimentality. I’ve never felt like this before.”

He sat in frozen silence.

“And as a perfectly free woman,” went on, “I’m not ashamed to tell you that I want you.”

“Want me to what?” he asked stupidly.

“I’d be even willing to marry you,” she said, “as soon as you get a divorce. I can see that you’re timid and conventional, like most men.”

“Good God!” cried Andrew. “Please--”

“Why not? If you don’t love me now, you will later. I’ll make you. I’ve set my mind on you. I think you’re a fascinating creature!”

“You don’t know me!” he protested feebly.

“I do. I know that I’m in love with you, anyway, and that you’re lonely and need me.”

“Lonely!” thought the wretched man. “Not exactly!”

Aloud he said nothing, but sat silent, conscious of the steady gaze of her fierce, candid eyes.

“I hadn’t intended to tell you to-night,” she went on. “I know you’re very shy, and I’d intended to win you over little by little. Not by any feminine trickery or illusion, you understand. I’d just reveal myself. I’m sure that if you knew me, you’d love me. We’re so perfectly matched,” she ended, a bit impatiently. “I wish there weren’t all this fuss and trouble! I wish you’d make up your mind promptly!”

“But--” he began.

“Don’t answer me now, when you’re in this contrary, obstinate humor. I’ll wait till to-morrow evening. Now let’s talk about something else.”

“No!” said Andrew. “I’m going to bed. Good night!”

He went off with a quick step and a frown; but his going was not effective. It was too much like flight, and it was spoiled by the grin on Miss Franklin’s face.

Alone in his room he gave up the effort to hide his alarm.

“That woman’s got to go!” he cried. “I’m not going to be hounded and bothered by her like this! How am I to do any work? How can I get rid of her?”

Reflection convinced him that he could not.

“Then I’ll get myself called away, and I’ll stay away until--”

Until what? What was to save him? Where could he find a refuge from feminine persecution?

He went to bed, but he could not sleep. He was quite worn and haggard in the morning, and Miss Franklin observed it at the breakfast-table.

“You look awfully tired,” she said. “Why don’t you take a rest to-day?”

“Never was busier!” he answered hastily. “I haven’t a free moment all day. Please see that I’m not disturbed.”

“How am I to know which women disturb you and which ones you’re--studying?” Miss Franklin asked with outrageous impudence. “Better give me a list.”

He strode into his office, closed the door, and tried to resume that unfinished letter to Marian. He hadn’t got well started when the bell rang and the parlor-maid ushered in little Mavis Borrowby, flushed and out of breath.

“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “Such a row! Imagine! I’ve had to run away! Papa is in the most awful rage!” She sank into a chair. “You see,” she said, “I told Edward last night that I wouldn’t marry him--ever. I said I didn’t believe in marriage. And he--nasty little sneak!--ran off to papa and told him. You can imagine how papa took it, with his old-fogy ideas. He roared and stamped and swore. He wanted to know where I got such ideas from; and I said, very calmly, from you. Then he said I must never speak to you again, and all sorts of nonsense. Of course I said I would speak to you, and I would never, never renounce you for any one--”

“Renounce me! Really, Mavis, isn’t that a bit--”

“I told him that you were the most wonderful man I’d ever seen, and that I would not give you up. But, doctor dear, where are you going to hide me? He’ll be here after me any minute!”

“I’m not going to hide you at all!” cried Andrew. “It’s all nonsense!”

“Oh, but you must!” she cried. “You can’t be so horrible, when I’ve been so loyal to you.”

“There’s no reason for hiding, you silly child! You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Oh, but papa thinks so! He told me not to dare to see you again. He says it’s all your fault that I won’t marry Edward. He says you’ve put all sorts of awful ideas in my head. Oh, doctor! There’s the door-bell now! I know it’s father! Oh, don’t let him get me! He says he’ll send me to a convent!”

She had clutched his arm frantically and was looking into his face with brimming eyes.

“Oh, please, please hide me!” she cried. “Just till I can think of some sort of plan!”

He faltered and weakened. At last he opened the door of a clothes-closet.

“Lock the door and keep quiet,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get him away.”

After an earnest look around to see that she had not left any trace of herself--hat, gloves, or other incriminating articles--the doctor opened his office door, and there stood Mrs. Hamilton. She looked very pale and ill.

“Just an instant!” she said, with an odd smile. “I won’t keep you a minute. I only came to say good-by.”

“Where are you going?” he asked kindly.

She smiled again.

“It doesn’t matter. I thought if I came early, before your office hours, I might catch you alone for a few minutes; but it doesn’t matter.”

“But you have caught me alone,” he answered cheerfully. “Sit down, Mrs. Hamilton. I’m in no hurry.”

“Please don’t try to deceive me,” she said coldly. “I know all about that girl who came in here. That nursery governess--that Franklin person--told me in the hall. I have no claim on you, doctor. There’s no reason for deceiving me. You’re quite, quite free to do as you please. You won’t be troubled with me again. I’m going away.”

“Where?” he asked, wretchedly scenting some new and obscure trouble.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said again. “Nothing matters. My husband insists upon my going out to Wyoming with him at once. Of course I refused; so here I am penniless, alone in the world--”

“Your children?”

“He’s going to take them. They’re better without me, anyway. I’m a weak and indulgent mother. I love too intensely. That’s my nature--to be intense. I give--I ask nothing, I expect nothing, I simply give and give. I’m not complaining. I only wish,” she ended, with a pitiful little break in her voice, “that there were some one--just one person in the world--who cared! I’m not strong enough to stand alone. I’m not complaining. I know one can’t command the heart; but for a little while I did think--”

He felt like a brute.

“Good-by!” she said, holding out her slender hand and smiling pitifully. “Good-by, my dear!”

He grasped her hand.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

She looked at him steadily.

“Good-by!”

“No--look here! You won’t do anything reckless?”

“I shall have to carry out my plans. Good-by!”

“I sha’n’t let you go like this!”

“Please let go of my hand! There’s some one coming!”

VII

As Mrs. Hamilton went out, there came brushing by her, bursting into the room, a stout, middle-aged man. It was Mr. Borrowby, in a terrible fury. He resembled a heavy, solid little dog. One could imagine the impact of his body against the furniture, how he might hurl himself about and always rebound unhurt. His talk was like barking, growling, and snapping, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed unwaveringly upon his enemy. He was terrific.

“Where’s my girl?” he bellowed.

“Don’t shout like that!” said Andrew. “I can’t stand it. I’m worn out.”

“I’ll wear you out! Where’s my girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me, you dirty, low-lived, degenerate hound! You vile, treacherous Bolshevist!”

“You’re going too far!” cried Andrew. “You’ll behave yourself, or I’ll put you out!”

“No, you won’t! I’ll have my daughter, or I’ll call in the police. Don’t you dare!” he shouted, shaking his fist in Andrew’s face. “Don’t you dare deny it! That young woman who opened the door for me told me Mavis was in here.”

It occurred to the desperate Andrew that the only possible course was that of complete candor.

“What if she is?” he replied “I’m not--”

“I know what you are! Didn’t the girl herself tell me that since she’d known you, she could never marry? Good God! I could kill you, you scoundrel! Where is she?”

“In there,” said Andrew. “I sha’n’t deny it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of--absolutely nothing wrong.”

He was really afraid, for an instant, that the angry little dog was about to launch itself upon him. Instead, to his relief, Borrowby began to pound upon the closet door.

“Open the door!” he roared.

“No, I sha’n’t!” came Mavis’s calm response.

“I’ll break in the door!”

“All right! Begin! There’s a window in here, and I’ll jump out of it and run away; and every one will see me from the street!”

In the midst of this pounding and shouting the telephone rang.

“Keep quiet!” Andrew roared. “Stop your infernal noise! It may be something important!”

Mr. Borrowby desisted for an instant. Andrew took up the receiver, to hear the voice of Mrs. Hamilton.

“I want to say good-by to you,” she said in a calm and bitter voice. “It’s the last word you will ever hear from me. This is really good-by, to you and to all the world. I have something here that will end it all, all my sufferings--”

“No!” he cried. “No! What are you thinking of?”

“Don’t worry!” she said. “It is the best way, my dear!”

The doctor gave vent to such a strange and terrible howl that even Mr. Borrowby was startled.

“What is it?” asked a quiet voice beside him.

He was not surprised to see Marian there. He was past surprise.

“Mrs. Hamilton!” he explained “Going to take poison!”

“Speak to her,” whispered Marian. “Tell her you’re coming at once.”

He did so, and hung up the receiver.

“Now, go up-stairs and lie down, dear,” said Marian. “You’re worn out. I’ll send your lunch up to you. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll manage.”

“There’s Mavis Borrowby shut up in the closet,” he told her wearily; “and Mrs. Hamilton--and something worrying about Miss Franklin--I’ve forgotten just what.”

“Poor boy!” she murmured. “I’m so sorry! Go on, dear, and lie down. Try not to worry.”

He went up-stairs to his room and lay down on the bed, quite exhausted, trying to think, but unable to do so. A long time passed. He watched the trees moving in the April wind, and the clouds slipping across the gay blue sky.

VIII

At last Marian came, bringing a lunch-tray well laden with the proper things. She set it down on a table at the bedside, and drew up two chairs.

“Now, Andy dear!” she said in her old pleasant way. “Come on! You need food, you know. It’s after three o’clock!”

He was really very hungry. He began to eat without delay, while Marian watched him indulgently.

“I telephoned to Dr. Gryce. He’ll take your patients to-day,” she said. “You need a rest, don’t you? Miss Franklin’s gone home. Mr. Borrowby took Mavis home, and left a note, apologizing for his mistake. I explained to him about your theories, you know. I sent for Mr. Hamilton, and I stayed with his wife until he came. They had a perfectly beautiful reconciliation. They’re going out to Wyoming with the children, to start a new life; so there’s nothing to trouble you, is there?”

“Marian,” he said gravely, “I’ll tell you all about it later on. Just now I can’t think of anything but the relief--”

The parlor-maid knocked at the door.

“There’s a young gentleman from the Daily Review, sir,” she said. “He says the doctor promised him an interview.”

“The doctor is resting--” Marian began.

Andrew sat up.

“No!” he said. “I’ll see him. Bring him up, Sarah!”

“I’ll go,” said Marian.

“I’d rather you stayed,” said Andrew. “I’d like you to hear what I’m going to say.”

He was sitting up in bed, more rumpled and excited than ever, when the young man entered. The interviewer was surprised and a little embarrassed by the presence of a wife, because the opinions which the doctor was reputed to hold on marriage were not the sort of views that most wives like. However--

“We thought it would be of great interest to our readers if you would give us a few words on ‘Marriage from a Man’s Point of View,’” he began; “along the lines of the address you gave before the Moral Courage Club one afternoon last week, you know.”

“I said that marriage hampered and degraded a man, didn’t I? I said that marriage was slavery for my sex--don’t take that down, that’s only what I said last week. Now, please get this properly. I offer, as my earnest conviction, based upon experiment, that marriage is man’s only safeguard. Without its protection man could not survive. This is a woman’s world, dominated and developed by women. Every man imperatively requires the protection of a wife. Without it, he--he would be hounded to death.”

“Andrew!” murmured Marian, rather shocked.

The young man wrote it all down as faithfully as he could.

“That’s all. You can enlarge on that. I suppose you would, anyway. You might head it ‘Marriage Man’s Only Hope.’”

The young man thanked the doctor, took up his hat, and left.

Andrew looked at Marian, and she smiled affectionately at him.

“I shall never know,” said he, “whether you had any hand in all this, or whether it just happened; but I’m beaten, absolutely, and you are supremely vindicated. That’s what women always do. They’re able to prove a man wrong and make him see it himself, in spite of the fact that he’s right!”

The Foreign Woman

NO WONDER THE SOUL OF RUSSIA IS ONE OF THE GREAT ENIGMAS OF THE WORLD

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Author of “Angelica,” “The Married Man,” etc.

He sat in the small, hot room, in a state of pleased expectancy. He awaited the entrance of something exotic and highly interesting, probably with a beard. The catalogue of the Institute of Foreign Languages had promised him a “native teacher,” and what could a native Russian be but a bearded and mysterious creature?

He looked again through the pages of the unintelligible little red book--all in Russian--and thought with delight of the time to come, when it should be plain as day to him, when he should be able to say, with a casual air, that he could read and speak Russian.

He was anxious, poor young fellow, for some claim to distinction. He was only too well aware of his own ordinariness--a pleasant, friendly sort of mediocrity which distressed him profoundly. He was slight, sandy-haired, wiry, not unattractive, but certainly not fascinating. People liked him but didn’t remember him.

He was not an idiot. He knew well enough that he had no brilliant or remarkable qualities, and therefore, sure that he could not be anything extraordinary, he had decided to do something extraordinary. He had decided, in short, to go to Russia, live there for a long time, and write amazing books about it all.

Why not? He was a journalist; he could and did write articles about everything; he wrote with facility and a certain skill. He had, moreover, a naïve and innocent journalistic point of view. He saw the “human interest” in things. He felt that he would very easily discern the “human interest” in this Russian situation and present it to America in moving terms. His paper was willing to buy the special articles he intended to write, and on the pay for them he would live, Bolshevist fashion, while he collected his material.

He took out his watch. He had paid for an hour, and fifteen minutes of it had already passed. He frowned. After all, you know, he was somebody. He was a newspaper man, and a graduate of Columbia University, and he had paid cash for his twenty lessons, and people had no business to keep him waiting.

He got up, opened the door, and walked about, hoping that his restlessness might be observed from the corridor, and assuaged; but no one passed. All the other doors along the corridor were closed, and he heard a diligent hum, with now and then a French or German word familiar to him, from other teachers and other pupils, properly employed. He had decided to return to the office and “make a row,” and had got himself into the proper mood for one, when he saw a figure hastening along the corridor, and he went back and sat down.

She came in, breathless, sat down beside him, closed her eyes, and placed both hands above her heart. He waited for her to speak with some alarm, she gasped so. She was a plump little woman of indefinite age--forty-five, he imagined--dressed in clothes such as he hadn’t seen for fifteen years. All that she wore was dainty and fresh, with a pitiful sort of elegance--little ruffles of fine lace about her wrists, a bit of black velvet about her high collar. Her very shape was old-fashioned--a succession of curves, a round, tight look, a sort of dowdy neatness.

Nothing more foreign could be imagined. She didn’t stir, and he ventured a look at her face. With her eyes thus closed, her soft, plump visage had a look of profound sadness and immense wisdom. It impressed him, it almost hypnotized him.

Suddenly she opened her eyes--pale gray eyes, clear and blank.

“My heart!” she said, in excellent English. “I suffer very much!” She picked up the book. “Do you know any Russian words?” she asked, with a shadowy smile.

“No,” he said; “not one.”

“A beautiful, beautiful language!” said she. “Only listen!”

She began reading him something from the middle of the book. Of course he couldn’t comprehend a word, but he liked to hear it. Her voice was charming, and the foreign sounds entertained him. She turned a page and went on.

“This is an extract from a most beautiful Russian tale,” she explained. “You would surely admire it.”

She continued. Her voice became sad, she made soft, slow gestures with her small dimpled hand.

“Ah, how very sad this is!” she said. “All that is best in Russia is so sad!”

“What’s the story about?” he asked, with curiosity.

“It is about two young men who are in an inn--” she began, when suddenly a bell rang loudly in the room. “My God!” she said mildly. “What is this?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“It must be that the lesson is ended,” said she. “One would not believe how the time flies! You have not had your full time--I was so late. I think I must go with you to the office and ask if I cannot make this up to you.”

“Never mind,” said he. “Please don’t bother--it doesn’t matter!”

“Ah, but it does!” said she. “You have paid, and it is very important that one should secure what one has paid for.”

She had risen, and went walking briskly along the corridor, an odd little figure in a long, trailing skirt. He followed her into the quiet office, where a severe director sat writing at a desk. He looked up with a surprised air.

“I was late for this gentleman’s lesson,” said the stout little woman. “He has missed much of it.”

“Then why do you waste more time in coming here?” cried the director, with a frown. “Go back, madame, and finish it. Make the best of the time that is left.”

“I thought the hour finished.”

“But on the contrary--the half-hour bell has just rung.”

“Ah!” said she, with a pleased smile. “I did not understand!”

And they walked back again, down the corridor, to the hot little room.

“I don’t understand everything of this,” she explained to him. “This is my first lesson that I give. This position of Russian professor belongs to my husband, but he is ill, and they kindly permit me to take his place for this little while. Now we must not waste more time!”

She opened the book again, and studied it with serious regard.

“A difficult language,” she said; “but so very beautiful! The English and Americans can never learn to pronounce our consonant sounds--never! Could you say this?”

She uttered a sound, and he tried to imitate her, but failed. She smiled with a sort of benevolent triumph.

“Ah, it cannot be done--not ever! Now, on the contrary, we Russians have no difficulty whatsoever with any of the English words. I don’t know--it is the Russian soul, perhaps. We have so great a sympathy. Nothing is strange to us, nothing is foreign--nothing at all. We are at home in all languages, in all countries. It is our mystery.”

“You speak English very well,” he said.

“Why not? I lived for years in England; but in this country, only three months.”

She fell silent.

“Why is it that you wish to learn Russian?” she asked suddenly.

“Well, I thought of going to Russia, you know--to study the people and write a book.”

“Useless!” she said calmly.

“Why?”

“Never can you know our people--above all things, now, in our time of trouble. Oh,” she cried, “it is so terrible! I cannot bear that strange people should go there now--to our Holy Russia, to see our agony! If you knew!”

She covered her eyes with her hand.

“If you knew! We have left everything there, all we had on this earth. We have no news of our friends. Perhaps they are dead; certainly they are ruined. Such wonderful people--real Russian souls! We, too, are ruined. We have lost everything we had.”

He was deeply impressed by the tragic note in her voice.

“I know,” he said; “but perhaps things will improve before long.”

“For Russia, yes--for us, no. We are ruined. We are finished,” she said quite simply. “We are torn up by the roots. We are not young enough to begin again. Above all, such a man as my husband--one of the greatest minds of Russia. A wonderful man! Imagine you, he is an artist, he paints, composes music, writes poetry, all in the most charming taste, and he is also a marvelous financier. Ah, what is one to say to comfort such a man? And that now he must teach Russian in this place!”

Again she was silent, and he didn’t like to interrupt her. He was deeply interested in her--her fine voice, her passionate gesture, the extreme novelty of her. He was aware of a depth and variety of feeling in her which amazed him. She was like a woman in a novel; and with it all she had a simplicity such as he had never seen before. It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of a single word she uttered.

She began to speak again.

“What is it that you think you will see in Russia?” she asked. “I tell you, nothing! You will never see the Russian soul. You will stay there a year, five years, ten years, and never will you know a single Russian. No; we do not wear our hearts on our sleeves. Shall I tell you something of us?”

“Yes, please do!” he said earnestly.

She began to tell him of Petrograd--of shops there, more elegant, she said, than anything to be found in Paris. She described a certain confectioner’s shop. When you went in, you were invited to sample all the sweets displayed there, and there were hundreds of different sorts--hundreds, she assured him! She described forty to him, lingering in ecstasy over their perfections.

She told him of the houses, warm, full of flowers, in the bitterest winter weather; and the women--the kindest women in all the world. She talked of the court, but only briefly. She began to speak of the Czarina, but she could not go on. The words strangled her.

“And all that is gone!” she said. “All that--my God!”

He carefully concealed his American disapproval of courts and sovereigns. He even felt sorry, on her account, that it had gone.

“I do not think that you know in this country what social life is,” she said. “Here it is so formal, so without heart. With us, it is so different. It may be that on a certain day I am tired, ill, lazy. I do not wish to dress. I am in negligee. My friends come, and I receive them just in this fashion. No one is surprised.

“‘For God’s sake, do not apologize, Anastasie!’ they say. ‘It is you we come to see, not your fine clothes!’”

And here the bell rang again, unmistakably for the lesson’s end. Again she was surprised.

“Ah!” she said. “It has been very pleasant for me to talk to you! You are of a sympathetic nature, there is no doubt of that!”

He hadn’t learned a word, not a syllable of Russian, but he was entirely satisfied. He felt that he had met with something even more truly Russian than the language. He walked out of the building, feeling decidedly more cosmopolitan.

II

Two days later he returned for his next lesson, in the dusk of a snowy February afternoon. This time he found her waiting for him, sitting before the table in the little room. They smiled in friendly fashion.

“I was thinking, as I came,” he said, “that this must be like a Russian winter afternoon.”

“Oh, no!” she said. “It isn’t! It has not the--the feeling. There is--how shall I tell you?--a sort of excitement about our snowy days. But I must not waste your time. Let us begin!”

For ten minutes or so she worked industriously, teaching him Russian words for chair, table, wall, floor, ceiling.

“You are really learning now?” she asked solicitously.

“Yes,” he answered, very much pleased.

“It seems, however, that as a teacher I am not successful,” she said, with a melancholy little smile. “To you I give my first lesson, and to you I give my last. After this I have finished.”

“Why? Is your husband coming back?”

“No,” she said. “He is not well--yet.”

She got up, went over to the window, and stood there looking out. He couldn’t help thinking, as he regarded her round form in profile, that she looked like the little wooden figures of Noah’s wife in the arks that children play with. And then he saw her face, and was sorry for his fancy. She was gazing out across the dark, snow-covered expanse of Madison Square, wonderfully misty in the falling snow, and she was silently weeping.

“No,” she said. “He is not coming back. He is very ill.”

He felt terribly sorry for her, but he could think of nothing at all to say. She came back and sat down in the full glare of the electric light. She looked intolerably pitiful, her scanty eyebrows red with weeping, her mouth compressed and trembling a little.

“And they tell me this morning that there will be no more lessons for me. It seems that I talk too much English to the pupils, and that must not be. I must talk only in Russian, and I always forget.”

She shrugged her shoulders, while she wiped her eyes, quite unaffectedly, with an elaborate little lace handkerchief.

“And now,” she said, “do you remember the word for ‘table’?”

But he couldn’t bear that.

“About your husband,” he began respectfully. “Are you sure you have a good doctor? Being in a strange country, you know--”

“I don’t need a doctor, my friend!” she told him, with a stern smile. “I have seen too much of illness and death. A doctor can tell me nothing and can do nothing for me.”

“But,” he said, “in other ways--if you’re leaving here, can’t I help you to find some other sort of--occupation? I’m a newspaper man; I know all sorts of people. I should be more than happy to help you.”

She bowed her head gravely.

“Thank you! I know enough of the world to appreciate kindness. You are very good--very kind. I had a little plan. I thought perhaps I would give private lessons in my home, if I could find pupils.”

“I’d like to come, very much.”

“Oh, no! With you that is not possible. At least, not now. You have paid for a course of twenty lessons here.”

“I’d rather take them from you.”

“But you have paid!” she cried, with a sort of horror. “You must not waste that money!”

He smiled, with a slight feeling of superiority toward this foreign thrift.

“I’ll arrange it,” he said.

So before the end of the lesson she gave him a card on which was engraved:

MME. PAUL SENSOBIAREFF

“The French form of the name,” she explained. “It would be impossible for any one in this country to pronounce the Russian form.”

He felt a fleeting doubt of this. He would have liked a try at it.

“And your name?” she asked.

“Hardy,” he said. “Winslow Hardy.”

She repeated it, and in spite of Russian ease in foreign tongues, she certainly said “Vinslow.”

They arranged for an afternoon the next week, and they settled the terms, which were high. Hardy was by no means well off, and his heart sank a little at the thought of this expense; but a fine pity swayed him. He would have made many sacrifices for this unhappy woman.

He had never before been conscious of this chivalry in himself. He had been in love from time to time, but it had not been a disinterested passion. He had always sought for the advantage. He had always been kind, generous, a little idealistic in his dealings with his fellows; but never before had he been really moved by pity.

He thought time and again of the poor Russian lady. In fact, he hardly ever forgot her. He imagined the unhappy soul, with all her little elegancies, living in squalor and anxiety, and his mind was busy with schemes for her salvation. He planned to force or persuade every one he knew to study Russian.

III

Imagine Hardy’s surprise when he reached the address given him, and found it to be an imposing apartment house, with a palm-bedecked entrance and two negro boys in uniform to receive him and inspect him with a hostile air. He went up on the lift to the top floor, and found her there in a splendidly furnished sort of double salon, high-ceilinged, bright with sunshine, with flowers and plants all about. She herself was dressed in a short white garment suspiciously like a wrapper, worn over a voluminous black skirt. Over her soft, mouse-colored hair was tied a bit of lace.

He could scarcely avoid staring at her; she didn’t look dressed. It took him a long time to get used to her domestic costume.

The room, too, disconcerted him. It was no sort of room to have a lesson in. The elegance, the airy charm of it, destroyed his serious intent. He wanted to sit there and chat with his hostess; and in fact that is what he did.

She offered him Russian cigarettes from a little lacquer box, and while he smoked she instructed him for a few minutes; but they were interrupted by the entrance of a gaunt young girl who brought them weak, fragrant tea and a plate of biscuits. After that there was no more lesson. They talked--or, rather, Mme. Sensobiareff talked and he listened.

The hour passed very agreeably. When he saw by his watch that it was finished, he got up to take his leave.

“One minute, if you please!” she said, and went out of the room.

He waited, looking about him, wondering how it was that a woman existing in such comfort should either need or wish to give lessons for a living. Though it increased the illusion of aristocratic refinement there was about her, it filled him with some misgiving. They couldn’t be entirely ruined!

There was the sound of footsteps in the hall, the curtains parted, and she came in again, followed by a man.

“My husband,” she said. “Paul, this is the gentleman who has been so very kind to me.”

Oh, no doubt that he was ruined, poor devil! His face was like wax, his eyes sunken and extinguished, all his bearing hopeless and despairing. He was a slender, high-shouldered man, younger than she by some years, with fair hair and a light mustache--an upcurled mustache, bitterly at variance with his utter despondency. She was right--no doctor was needed to read his fate. Whatever mysterious malady he had, it had progressed beyond any earthly check.

He shook hands with Hardy. He offered him cigarettes again, and insisted upon giving him a glass of sherry. He was very polite, very nervous. He spoke English beautifully, but so fast, so volubly, that it was difficult to follow him.

Hardy couldn’t get away; he had to stay and talk for a long time. The poor chap was marvelously well informed upon American affairs, and it delighted him to talk. He said that he was “considering financial opportunities”; he asked questions about the stock market.

All the time he talked, Hardy was conscious of the stout little woman beside him, watching her husband’s ghastly face with a terrible fervor. It was as if she wanted to remember every one of his looks and his words forever.

It was a devotion of absolute simplicity. He was her sole object in life, her one interest. At the next lesson she began talking about him, and she never stopped. She felt obliged to interpret this great mind of Russia for her American friend. She showed his paintings, she played his music on the piano, she read aloud his Russian poems, and she explained his surroundings.

“Paul is dying of nostalgia,” she said. “He loved his country so! He is used to big, beautiful rooms and light and air. Ah, I never thought they could cost so dear! I have got the best I could for him, but at what a cost--what a cost! It is draining us of every penny. I am taking it, little by little, all we had put away, only to give him these few little things. He is so ill he doesn’t know how I manage. It is the last I can ever do for him. At least he shall die in peace and quiet!”

She did, inevitably, teach Hardy a little Russian. He was presently able to speak to the servant and to be comprehended; but he learned other things of greater value to him. He had before him a lesson in fortitude, in sublime unselfishness, which touched him to the heart. He was beginning to learn something of the charm and the magic that lie in utter sincerity, in spontaneous and artless intercourse.

However, his lessons were abruptly terminated. He found a new position on a Middle Western newspaper, and he left New York.

He parted from Mme. Sensobiareff with real regret. She listened to his plans with an actually motherly interest. He had decided, after all, that he would write a book about the Middle West, which he had heard was replete with atmosphere, and she approved his plan.

“Write, by all means!” she said. “I am sure that you will do well. You Americans are so clever! With us, it is so different. We feel--my God, we feel so deeply, but we are dumb!”

He hadn’t found her or her husband noticeably dumb; however, he didn’t say so. He said that he would write to her, and he went away, filled with hope and his own special and touching enthusiasm. It was not that he particularly liked writing, but it seemed to him the readiest way to distinguish himself, and that was his great desire.

IV

Hardy’s book was never written. In fact, his Middle Western career was brief and very unpleasant. He didn’t suit his editor at all. He was perpetually criticized and badgered, and his air of sophistication and cynic wisdom was resented as an affectation from the execrated metropolis. He came back to New York in midsummer, terribly disappointed and sorely perplexed. He couldn’t understand his failure, both professional and personal.

He had saved a little money, and he used it to give himself a vacation before applying to his old newspaper. He went on a fishing trip with two other men, to a beautiful, remote mountain spot, far from all noise and turmoil, and far from any supervised source of water supply.

When he came back to the city, he wondered that his vacation had done him so little good. He felt so tired, so wretched, so despondent, that he couldn’t think of going to work. He sat in his furnished room, in a stupor of misery, scarcely able to drag himself out for meals, waiting with alarm and anxiety for his physical and mental condition to improve.

“I hope I’m not going to be ill!” he thought, in despair.

His money was all gone, and what was he to do?

He tried to fight it off. He insisted to himself that it was nothing. He couldn’t lay a finger on any alarming symptom, except this weariness, this chill dread. He couldn’t eat, but he slept a great deal.

It was a sweltering August afternoon, and his room was like an oven. He awakened from a long nap, and sprang up, dizzy and confused, but filled with sudden activity. He wanted to go out, he wanted to talk to somebody, at once. He was in great haste. He brushed his hair with the greatest precision, but he didn’t observe that he had on no collar or tie.

He found it difficult to get down the stairs, and when he reached the street he had to walk very rapidly to keep from staggering. The fierce glare of the sun was intolerable.

Suddenly there came to his distracted brain the thought of Mme. Sensobiareff and her cool, airy rooms, the kindness of her voice. He felt that if he could have a cup of her weak, fragrant tea, and sit quietly listening to her for a little while, his malady would leave him. He needed to talk to her. He was so anxious to talk that he muttered to himself as he walked.

She said, afterward, that he had been guided to her. Perhaps he was; certainly he never quite understood how he got there. He arrived at the hottest hour of that intolerable day, a disheveled and sinister figure. The hall boy didn’t want to let him in, but Hardy pushed him aside with a melodramatic scowl, and began ascending the seven flights of stairs. It didn’t occur to him to use the lift.

He went on at a terrific gait, with his heart pounding madly and his head almost bursting. He didn’t rest once. He reached her door and rang the bell. She opened the door herself, and he lurched in, gasping, his face crimson. He couldn’t speak. He waved his hands feebly and flung himself down on the sofa and cried.

He didn’t faint, he didn’t actually lose consciousness, for he was aware of talking volubly for a long time; yet he didn’t know what was going on about him. At last he came to himself, and gradually became aware that he was lying in bed in a darkened room, with his shoes and coat off, and a damp towel about his forehead. The dark green shades at the windows were flapping with a gentle, pleasing sound. There was an agreeable fresh fragrance in the air--a feeling of wonderful peace and calm. He felt very sick and inert, and he made no effort to move, although he heard voices at his bedside. He looked with languid interest at a big bureau facing him, on which were two framed photographs and a silver toilet service.

“He ought to go to the hospital,” said a deep, buzzing voice.

“Never!” came the voice of Mme. Sensobiareff. “That shall not be!”

“Then you’ll have to get two nurses, one for the day and one for the night. You’ll have to turn your house upside down. It’ll cost you a great deal--a very great deal; and it’s unnecessary and foolish. Put him in the hospital, and--”

“Never! As for two nurses, that cannot be arranged. I shall take care of him myself.”

“Nonsense! He’ll have to be looked after constantly. There are all sorts of things to be done for him which an inexperienced--”

“Ah! Inexperienced, you tell me?” she whispered fervently. “There is no one in the world who can nurse better than I. I have a genius for nursing. I was at Port Arthur during the most awful days, and I nursed--my God!--perhaps five hundred men. I shall take care of him. My servant will help me.”

“Impossible! You’ll kill the fellow between you. And you’ll be held responsible for--”

“Enough!” she said curtly. “This is my affair. I take it upon myself. Give your instructions; they will be carried out to the letter.”

“You realize that this is a very serious illness?”

“It is the typhoid fever,” said she. “I know very well.”

“Yes,” said the other. “I see you do know something. Well--”

They walked quietly away, and Hardy fell asleep.

In the night he awoke, or grew conscious again, and he saw sitting bolt upright beside his bed the gaunt young servant, in a red calico dressing jacket and a tremendous braid of dark hair. Her flat face looked so immobile, so inhuman, that he suddenly became terrified.

“Madame!” he called. “Quick! Come here! A dead woman! Quick!”

Mme. Sensobiareff hurried into the room almost at once. She soothed him, gave him something to drink, and brought an ice cap for his head. He grew calmer and presently quite lucid.

“Don’t keep me here,” he said, in a weak whisper. “Send me to the hospital. This is too much for you!”

“Hush! Hush! Be quiet! You are not to talk!”

And he gave up completely and resigned himself to her miraculous care.

V

For two weeks Hardy was very ill, often delirious. Then he began little by little to improve, to enter into a delightful period of rest and peace. The two women devoted their lives to him. They waited upon him with the most passionate seriousness. There was no annoying fuss, no superfluous attention, but one or the other of them was at hand every minute, and they divined his every want.

The quiet, beautiful order of the room, the odd and touching delicacy of his nurses, sank into his spirit. In spite of his weakness, in spite of the minor pains and discomforts of his malady, he was happy.

But he couldn’t help worrying. One morning, while Mme. Sensobiareff was busy about the room, he spoke to her about his anxiety.

“It isn’t right!” he said, in a feeble, plaintive tone. “Your husband is ill, too, and I’m taking up all your time and upsetting everything. He won’t--”

“It makes no difference to him,” she said. “He is not here. Only rest and be tranquil, my dear!”

“But I feel like a beast!” he protested. “To come here like this, and to let you do all this! And the expense! I haven’t a cent to repay you. You can’t imagine how it makes me feel. I’m ashamed!”

“That is foolish, my dear--very foolish. I understand how it is with you.” She paused for a moment. “I do not think there is any one on this earth who can understand better the troubles of others,” she said; “because I have felt them all--all! You must believe me!”

As she looked at him, still smiling, her pale, clear eyes grew misty.

“I have the most sorrowful heart in the world,” she said. “He is dead!”

“Your husband?” he cried, shocked.

She bowed her head.

“Three months ago. But we will not speak of that, if you please. You will see now what a blessing it is for me that I can help you.”

As he grew stronger they talked more and more together--or, rather, she talked and he listened. It was a sort of monologue made up of her own vast experience. She had seen so much, traveled so much, suffered so much. She had seen plagues, famine, battles, she had lived in alien and hostile countries, she who lived so much through her friends had seen so many of them suffer; and now, past her youth, she found herself utterly alone, poor, friendless, thousands of miles from her home.

Hardy would sit propped up in a chaise longue near the window, and, while he smoked the five cigarettes he was permitted daily, he would listen to her charming voice, talking and talking. Sometimes he grew sleepy, but he concealed it.

There was one thing that puzzled him. She never sat with him in the evening. After they had had dinner, which he now took in the dining room, he was always conducted back to his own room, and Anna would come in, with her sewing, to keep him company. This was not very entertaining, for she didn’t know a dozen words of English, and he didn’t like to read and entirely ignore her.

What on earth did Mme. Sensobiareff do with herself? He heard the doorbell ring, time after time, every evening, but he heard no sounds to indicate social activity, no voices, no moving about. Who came? He couldn’t ask Anna, and he didn’t care to ask her mistress; but he thought about it a great deal, and he didn’t like it.

The time came when he was declared well, and the doctor made his last visit.

“Now I’ll have to be thinking about going away,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “I have this beautiful lodging, all paid for five months to come. You must stay here until you have found a position.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t--you see, it’s awfully kind of you, but it wouldn’t look--you see, you’re here all alone. People would talk.”

“These people, who are they? I have no friends. No one will know or care. Don’t trouble yourself, my friend!” she said, smiling. “There will be no difficulty. I am a thousand years old!”

In the end he decided that he would stay, for a time at least, as much for her sake as for his own, until he could find work and in that way be able to help her. He resolved to protect her and care for her all his life.

An amazing existence! It continued for six weeks, for even after he had found a place as copy writer for a mail order house, she insisted upon his taking his earnings to buy clothes.

“Without clothes one can do nothing,” she said. “It is always necessary to present a good appearance.”

She was truly like a mother to him. She looked after his clothes, she wanted to hear every detail of his day, and she dearly loved to give him advice, which was always sensible, but sometimes a little irritating, because it was so obvious. Never was there such a wonderful friend, so unfailingly kind, so loyal, so delicate.

And yet--would you believe it?--all his natural affection for her was poisoned by suspicion, because of those mysterious evenings. He bitterly resented being shunted off into his own room after dinner. He resented the secrecy and the mystery. He would sit there, listening to the sound of the doorbell, the front door opening and closing, and then nothing further. The room she had given him was at the back of the flat, because it was quiet there. It was very quiet.

One evening he went into the kitchen, to try to talk with Anna. Since he had been declared well, the maid no longer sat with him in the evenings, and he felt that even her silent company would be better than none.

He found her sitting by the table, her head in her hands, the picture of a despondent exile; but when he entered she looked up with a friendly, anxious smile.

“You eat?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” he said.

She shrugged her shoulders, to show her despair at not understanding, and kept on smiling.

Suddenly the swing door from the dining room was opened, and Mme. Sensobiareff came in. She looked at Hardy gravely; then, without a word, she drew herself a glass of water and went out again, leaving him astounded and distressed, a prey to the most disagreeable suspicions. What in Heaven’s name was she doing, dressed like that, in evening dress, with bare arms and neck and so elaborate a coiffure?

He went back to his own room and walked up and down in the dark, angry, terribly humiliated. After all, what did he know about her, except that she had been kind? Women of a certain sort were often kind, with a facile, lavish kindness. He felt that he comprehended the mystery now, that he knew what sort of house this was, and the thought of all that he had accepted was intolerable to him.

She had no right to force her kindness on him! It was shameful; she had degraded him. If any one should ever hear of it, that he had been supported--yes, certainly supported for weeks by this woman, out of her disgraceful earnings!

She thought him a little moody and ill-humored the next morning at breakfast; but with her unfailing generosity, she made allowances. She sat there in her crisp white wrapper, a very model of domesticity, and smiled at him over the pretty little bouquet of flowers that she always arranged on the table. She went to the front door with him, and bade him good-by; and with constraint, in misery, he replied to her, and hurried off. He had decided never to return.

He fully intended to write to her, but he never did. He found it too difficult. He couldn’t reproach her, for her conduct was none of his business, and he could think of no plausible lie. He put off writing for day after day, and little by little the pain of the thing wore off and his regret and shame grew faint.

However, he wasn’t ungrateful. He tried to compute the cost of his illness and his long stay, and he made a magnificent effort to save enough to repay the disconcerting total; but it wasn’t possible. It would take many months. He had got back into newspaper work again, doing special articles, and his earnings were not imposing.

When he had scraped together a small part of his debt, he decided to take the money to her. He trusted to her tact and good sense to avoid the necessity of an awkward explanation.

He arrived at the apartment house, and was about to enter the lift when the boy stopped him.

“The madam’s gone,” he said, with a grin.

“Gone? Moved away?”

“Yes, sir--moved away.” He chuckled. “She certainly did move away. She wuz moved away. Seems she’d borrowed some money on that furniture of hers, and couldn’t pay it. One day the people came and took it away. Ah thought Ah’d never get over laughin’. There she stood, watching it go; and she didn’t have a stick left in the place!”

“Do you know where she went?” asked Hardy.

“No, sir, Ah do not. She didn’t invite me to call,” said the boy.

Hardy went away, heavy-hearted. For many, many nights she came to haunt him--that poor, friendless foreign woman, so wonderfully kind, so wise and so sad. He blamed himself bitterly for losing track of her. She hadn’t investigated his morals, she hadn’t blamed, she hadn’t judged--she had simply helped. His scruples now appeared petty and cruel. He thought that he would give anything he had if he could only see her again, in her beruffled white wrapper, sitting before the samovar and talking.

He remembered her devotion to her husband. What if she had taken a wrong way, in order to live? Who was he, whom she had so greatly benefited, to despise her?

VI

Hardy owed many of his special articles to a detective friend of his named Clendenning--a big, magnificent creature with a princely air and a marvelous wardrobe. When there was something interesting to be “pulled off,” Clendenning used to “tip off” Hardy; and when it was possible, the detective would take his friend along, to witness his exploits.

He was a very useful man for a certain sort of work, for his gentlemanly air made it possible for him to go without arousing suspicion into places where some of his colleagues would have been conspicuous. He was an adroit fellow, full of guile and ironic humor. Nothing in life gave him such pleasure as his “little surprises,” his neat traps for knaves of all sorts.

“If you’re around such and such a corner, at such and such a time,” he would say, “you might see something you could work into a story, old man.”

Hardy always followed such suggestions, and was always rewarded.

One evening Clendenning came into the little restaurant where Hardy almost always ate his dinner, and sat down at the table beside him.

“Want to see something interesting?” he asked.

“I do,” said Hardy.

“There’s a poor old feeble ass of a man who’s been complaining of a mysterious Persian woman,” he said. “He says she’s bewitched him, and he can’t keep away from her. He goes every night to get a psychic consultation, and she gives him advice about the stock market. He’s lost thousands already, but he says he thought he hadn’t interpreted her advice right, and kept going back for more. At last he came to headquarters with a complaint--says she’s a fraud. He says her place is crowded every evening with people clamoring for a chance to press ten dollars into the mysterious Persian’s hand and get a psychic message. Of course, it’s a pretty plain case for the police; but from what he said I thought it might be funny. I like to see how those things are done. It’s wonderful to see how easy it is to fool people. I like to watch ’em work. She calls herself the Princess Zoraide. Ready?”

They rose and strolled out into the mild October night. They lighted cigars and sauntered uptown to a street of grim and moribund stone houses, given over to more or less mysterious enterprises. They stopped at one, rang the bell, and were admitted to a little drawing room furnished in moldy satin and poorly illuminated by a gas chandelier. Almost every seat was occupied, and the dreary light revealed a set of figures so dramatic, so interesting, that Hardy’s professional instincts were at once aroused.

He saw two women, probably a mother and daughter, sitting side by side, hand in hand, on a sofa, both weeping. He saw a white-bearded old man with his head thrown back and his dim eyes staring raptly at the ceiling. He saw a man who appeared to be on the brink of delirium tremens, his body twitching, his face contorted. He saw a great, fat blond woman in diamonds and silks and feathers, with a false, distrait smile on her painted face. In shadowy corners he saw other women whispering together. He was impressed by the atmosphere of pain, of terrible anxiety, that surrounded these people who came to receive relief and assuagement from the Princess Zoraide.

He sat down near the door with Clendenning, to await his turn. One by one he watched these people receive their summons, vanish into an inner room, and reappear again as shadows hastening through the dark hall to the front door. He would have liked to see their faces then, to see if the psychic consultation had in any way altered them.

The room had filled again, but Hardy was no longer observant. He was thinking. He was thinking of the immeasurable human longing after hope, and it occurred to him that perhaps even a charlatan might satisfy this.

The young woman who gave the summons to the waiting clients once more appeared before the curtains, and repeated her formula:

“The princess is ready for the next seeker!”

“You go first,” said Clendenning, and Hardy rose.

He walked across the room, past all those strained faces, opened the curtains, and entered a room completely dark, filled with a heavy perfume. A hand guided him to a chair, and he vaguely discerned a white form opposite him.

“What is your trouble?” asked a low voice.

He hesitated a moment. He hadn’t prepared anything to say.

“A love affair,” he said at last.

He knew that more questions would follow, but he was unable to arm himself, to set himself to invent something plausible. He was troubled, unhappy; he sat there in the dark with a blank and apprehensive mind.

“And what is the difficulty?” asked the Princess Zoraide. “What is it that you wish to know?”

He said nothing at all.

“Come, my friend!” she said a little impatiently. “Can you expect that I should enter into your heart and know its secrets? I have the most sympathetic nature in the world, but--”

He rose suddenly. He knew that phrase, that voice!

“What? Is it you?” he cried.

“I? Who? What is it that you mean?” she faltered.

“Mme. Sensobiareff!”

She gave a sigh that was like a groan.

“Yes,” she said. “See how I am obliged to gain my living! Ah, well! But why do you come here? Have you some trouble, my dear?”

“No! Listen! Don’t you know how dangerous this is? It’s illegal--it’s not allowed.”

“I do no harm.”

“But it’s against the law.”

“No one will trouble about me, so obscure, so--”

“The man who came with me is a detective. You’ll be arrested.”

“My God!” she cried. “My God! I--arrested?”

To him, an American, her alarm seemed exaggerated. To be arrested had not the same terrible meaning that it had for her. The hand that had clutched his arm trembled violently.

“Arrested? No, no! I do no harm. I help many people. I am very psychic. I am very sympathetic. I comprehend the troubles of others. If you knew! So many people bring their friends to me, because I have helped them! Oh, no! I cannot be arrested! Oh, my friend! At my age! And I am so alone here, in a foreign land! It will kill me! I shall die!”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Wait! Let me think! Can you slip out without being seen? I will wait for you on the corner of Fifth Avenue. Hurry!”

He went stealthily down the dark hall, opened the front door, and went out. He didn’t know whether the formidable Clendenning had seen him or not. He expected every moment to feel a hand on his shoulder, to see that handsome and ironic face; and then he would be lost. He felt himself absolutely incapable of deceiving Clendenning, or of outwitting him.

But no one came. Hardy stood in the shadow, nervous as a cat, watching the quiet street. He saw some one go up the steps of the house, and enter, but no one came out. Why didn’t she hurry? Had Clendenning already seized her?

He stopped a passing taxi and told the driver to wait, and once more he looked down the silent street. Certainly Clendenning would be growing impatient; if she didn’t come soon--

He was startled to hear her voice behind him.

“I left by the back door and went through the yards to the next street,” she whispered. “I am sure that no one saw me. Oh, my friend!”

He hurried her into the taxi.

“Be quick!” he said to the driver.

He took her to his lodging house, where they entered unobserved and went upstairs to his little room. He locked the door behind them and sat down on the bed, trying to smile, to reassure her; but he expected every moment to hear a knock at the door, and the detective’s voice, demanding satisfaction for this outrageous betrayal. What in Heaven’s name was he to do with her?

“Now, you know,” he said, with a distorted smile, “it wouldn’t be such a serious matter, even if you were arrested. Perhaps a fine--”

“No!” she said firmly. “I should die. If they come to arrest me, I shall kill myself. I have a pistol here in my hand bag!”

“Nonsense!” he cried impatiently. “Don’t be so absurd!”

“Do you think, then, that I have so much to live for?” she asked. “I have nothing--nothing at all. When you went away, without a word--I had thought I should always have you. Well, never mind; let us not speak of it. I am a foolish old woman. Let us say no more.”

He stared at her with a new idea dawning upon him. She wasn’t old. She wasn’t much over forty, he imagined, and she had certainly not renounced the intention to charm. He observed her queer little hat, made up of odds and ends of jet, lace, and satin, her carefully powdered face, her earrings, her drab hair artfully disposed, all her harmless coquetry. He recalled all that she had done for him, how she had nursed him and provided for all his wants. He thought of his base suspicions with shame. The poor soul had simply been holding her psychic consultations to earn money--so much of which she had used for him.

Why hadn’t he seen it before? She loved him--it must be that! For what other reason would a woman do all that she had done?

What sublime sacrifices she had made, and how brutally he had rewarded her! He thought he had never heard of so generous and noble a nature before. He felt crushed and immeasurably humiliated before her--her who had almost undoubtedly saved his life.

“Why shouldn’t I make a sacrifice?” he asked himself. “What better could I do with my life than to try to make her happy? I’m not much good. I’ll never be much use any other way.”

He began to walk up and down the room.

“Of course she’s at least twelve years older than I; but she’s a charming, intelligent woman, and I respect her.”

And then the unworthy thought came to him--what a startling and distinguished thing it would be to marry her!

He stopped short.

“Mme. Sensobiareff,” he said, with dignity, “will you marry me?”

“What?” she asked with a frown.

“I know I’ve acted badly, but I--at the time I didn’t understand. I didn’t really appreciate you; but now--if you will--”

“Marry you!” she said, with a look that amazed him. “Are you mad?”

“But--”

“Is it possible that you didn’t know?” she said. “Couldn’t you see? That man--that saint--”

She began to weep, holding a tiny lace handkerchief to her eyes.

“One of the master minds of Russia--a noble soul--the kindest and best of men!” she sobbed. “Is it possible that you think--oh, how little you know of women! You think I would replace him?”

“Replace him by you,” her tone implied.

Hardy was completely taken aback. He couldn’t speak.

“No,” she said, drying her eyes. “I have thought of nothing but him. Only help me to get away, where I shall be safe, and then forget me! I am the most unhappy wretch in the world. I have wished only to gain my living, and it seems that I have become a criminal. Only save me from this disgrace!”

“Yes, of course!” he said hurriedly. “Let me see!”

He fancied he heard a footstep on the stairs. He turned pale.

“Have you any money?” he cried. “If you could go to Canada--”

“Yes, I have money. In time, if it had not been for this, I should have become rich. But why are you so pale? Is there danger?”

“There’s no time to lose. Are you ready?”

She rose, adjusted her queer little hat before his mirror, and carefully patted her eyes.

“I am ready,” she said.

They went down the stairs and through the sleeping house with noiseless steps.

“Wait!” said Hardy. “Let me look first!”

He went out into the street and looked carefully up and down. No one there! He returned to fetch her. She took his arm with a pathetic, appealing gesture, and they went off through the quietest and darkest streets, both filled with haste and dread, unable to speak.

She was terribly out of breath when they reached the Grand Central Station. While he bought her ticket, she sat panting on a bench, her face concealed by a thick veil, but her little plump hands clasped passionately. A more forlorn, utterly foreign figure couldn’t be imagined.

They had nearly an hour to wait. He sat down beside her and tried to reassure her.

“You needn’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure there won’t be much of a search for you, and probably there’s no fear of further trouble. Only--you’ll never do that again, will you?”

“Never!”

“What will you do? Write me as soon as you reach Montreal. I’ll be anxious until I hear from you.”

“Yes, I shall write,” she said.

“How will you manage there?”

“I shall find a way.”

He persuaded her to take a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the lunch counter. Then he bought her some magazines and a box of chocolates.

“It’s time for you to go now,” he said. “I want you to know that never, as long as I live, shall I forget what you did for me. It was--”

“Hush!” she said. “You are repaying me, my dear. I only hope I have not brought you any trouble.”

The image of Clendenning rose up before him, but he answered valiantly:

“Certainly not! But when I think of what you did for me--a stranger--”

He could no longer repress the question which tormented him.

“But why did you do it? Why were you so good to me?”

She raised her veil and smiled at him.

“Ah, my dear!” she said “It is the Russian heart!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER, 1922 Vol. LXXVI NUMBER 4

Hanging’s Too Good for Him

THE PATHETIC STORY OF TOMMY ELLINGER, OF NEW YORK, AND AN INNOCENT YOUNG GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

He first emerged from obscurity at his father’s funeral. He was the only son and the heir to everything, and therefore, of course, the center of interest; but immediately and forever he destroyed all the tepid sympathy and good will of the assembled relatives by his curious air of immense carelessness, his foppish nonchalance.

He hadn’t even the decency to wear a dark suit, they observed. He was dressed in light gray, evidently quite new, and he kept his hands in his pockets. It never occurred to any of them that his indifference might be a clumsy effort to conceal an immeasurable embarrassment. Neither did any one else remember what he remembered--that his father had detested any sort of formal mourning. And it was Tommy’s destiny always to do a thing in the wrong way, always to antagonize, invariably to blunder.

It was not regret for the loss of his father, or any great regard for his opinions, that caused Tommy to remember and to respect his wishes. It was nothing more than a naïve and kindly sentimentality. His father had been a horrible bully to him, the great bogey of his childhood. His mother had died when he was very little, and he had been sent off to boarding school at once.

It seemed to the family that Tommy had always been at school, winter and summer. Once in a great while he had emerged at some cousin’s Christmas party, a rather silly blond boy in military uniform, always spoken of as “poor little Tommy Ellinger.” There were no family rumors or traditions about him, no reports of his behavior at school.

Now, however, that he had definitely come to life, it was necessary for the family to decide upon him, and they decided unfavorably. He got, then and there, the name of being “defiant” and “conceited.”

His father’s elder brother was to be his guardian until he was twenty-one--a task which disgusted and appalled Uncle James. He was an old bachelor lawyer, living in a hotel. Naturally his first thought for Tommy was college, which would remove the boy for all his minority, and even longer; but Tommy fought desperately against that. His hatred for books, for herding with other young males, for all the bullying and chaffing which terrified his awkward innocence, for the competition which dazed his lumbering mind, made him unusually resolute. Business, too, he summarily repudiated.

“Then what do you intend to do?” his uncle demanded, with false patience.

“Well,” said Tommy desperately, “why couldn’t I be a lawyer, like you?”

His uncle looked at him with a grim smile, and answered nothing. The subject was dropped for the time being, and Tommy went to live at his uncle’s hotel, to make up his mind about his very important future. He lived a wretched sort of life, forever hanging about the lobby, or sitting through vaudeville shows and musical comedies. He ate breakfast with his exasperated old uncle every morning, and dinner almost every evening.

There was something peculiarly and intolerably irritating about Tommy--some quality which, in spite of his invariable good temper and his ingratiating manners, infuriated his uncle. A perfect young ass, the old lawyer called him.

Why was it that the qualities which would have been so endearing in a girl of eighteen were so maddening in Tommy? Why was he, with his youth, his boundless good will, his plaintive innocence, really nothing on earth but a young ass?

He was a great lanky boy with a naïve, good-humored face and a preposterous foppish air, a man-of-the-world air; wearing clothes ostentatiously correct and an amazing eyeglass with a broad black ribbon. He imagined that he looked like a foreign diplomat, while at the bottom of his heart he was quite conscious of being and looking a puppy. He swaggered, but without any self-assurance.

He devoted great thought to his clothes, and he could not refrain from mentioning his sartorial inventions and improvements to his uncle.

“What do you think of the cut of this coat?” he would ask. “Do you notice this shoulder? Rather good, eh?”

“Beautiful!” his uncle would say. “I never saw such grace and elegance--a regular Beau Brummel! You’re fascinating. There’s nothing that interests me like the cut of your coats!”

Then Tommy would open the evening paper and laugh loudly and ostentatiously at something in it, to show how undisturbed he was.

“Why don’t you go out?” the old gentleman used to ask, often and often, when, their dinner finished, they went up together in the lift to the little sitting room they shared. “What’s the matter with you, Thomas? A boy of your age, sitting at home here with an old fellow like me, night after night! Why don’t you go out somewhere and enjoy yourself? Haven’t you any friends?”

Well, he hadn’t. All the boys he had known and liked in the military academy up the Hudson had come from the farthest ends of the country--from Texas, from California, from Maine. He had never been particularly popular, anyhow, and he was too shy and too ridiculous to make friends now.

His uncle attached great importance to this, for he himself had scores of friends. He wished Tommy to be a sort of creature the like of which is no longer to be found--the traditional, old-fashioned beau, the arbiter of elegance, welcomed everywhere, affable, agreeable, but forever unattached, the society man of a past generation. He supplied the boy with spending money, and introduced him to a few charming young married women and a great many old bachelors.

“Now go ahead!” he told him. “Make yourself popular! Make yourself liked! A young man of your age, of good family, with a little money in your pockets, with good prospects!”

He was invited to one or two sedate houses, for his uncle’s sake, but nothing came of it. The society life toward which his uncle urged him forever eluded him. In fact, he had no life of any sort. He was only waiting, hanging about in innocent and dreary idleness, unable to believe that life should so cheat him of every joy, every excitement.

It was spring when Tommy’s father died and he left the military academy. He spent a horrible summer with his uncle, in a hotel in town, or at other similar hotels in the mountains, on the coast, anywhere and everywhere. Then came a still worse winter, during which the old gentleman’s exasperation rose to a fury.

They would go now and then to a musical comedy of the liveliest sort, this being the Uncle James’s idea of what the boy ought to like. When the old man saw him sitting there not liking it, when he saw him not caring for or comprehending wines, a barbarian as to food, absolutely indifferent to the arts, and hopeless in regard to sport, he became almost homicidal.

“Go away!” he shouted at him. “Go and spend this summer by yourself! I won’t waste the money on taking you to a decent place. Go on a farm! Go to some cheap, miserable, damnable little country boarding house, where you can sit and gape all day, like the booby you are!”

Tommy felt that it would be paradise now to get away from his uncle, no matter where. The idea of going off alone, unbullied, unthwarted, quite dazzled him. He was only too ready to go anywhere his uncle suggested.

So Uncle James answered several newspaper advertisements, and at last found a place which he felt would be suitable. He wrote and made all arrangements, and then gave Tommy his directions, money that was to last him for a month, and the following advice:

“Don’t make a fool of yourself about any of the girls there. Remember, you haven’t a penny for the next three years except what I choose to allow you; and if you get yourself mixed up or compromised, I won’t help you. I won’t recognize any responsibility of that sort!”

Tommy turned scarlet.

“Not in my line, Uncle James!” he replied, with extreme jauntiness. And off he went.

II

His uncle almost forgot about Tommy for some time. He had a letter from the boy every week--a stupid, schoolboy letter which he hardly bothered to read. “The weather had been very hot. I guess you are glad not to be here, aren’t you? There is a lot of hay fever around now. It is certainly a lucky thing that you didn’t come”--and that sort of thing.

Then, while Uncle James was enjoying his little breakfast at the corner table in the grill room, which he had occupied for years and years, just as he was about to taste that invariable bowl of oatmeal with cream and powdered sugar, his eye was caught by a headline on the front page of his paper. He dropped his spoon on the floor.

FATHER SHOOTS GIRL’S BETRAYER--TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED AT THE HOTEL TRESSILLON--SON OF THE LATE THOMAS ELLINGER WOUNDED

He stared and stared at the thing. The paper crackled in his trembling hands, the letters swam before his eyes. Nonsense! “Son of the late Thomas Ellinger”--must be a mistake!

He read the story with a furious sort of incredulity. It was a nasty story of a young city man going out to a little country town for a vacation, boarding in the house of a decent farmer, and running off one night with the poor little sixteen-year-old daughter. He had taken her to a disreputable hotel and registered as man and wife, which they weren’t. And the decent farmer, the outraged, the desperate father, had tracked them, and, standing in the doorway of the crowded and noisy restaurant, had fired two shots at the girl’s betrayer--at Tommy! At the boy who a few months ago had been sitting opposite Uncle James at this very table!

“No! Nonsense!” he cried, crumpling up the paper and throwing it under the table. “One of those beastly newspaper stories! Damned lies, all of them!”

He went up to his room, got his hat and stick, and hurried out, furtive, terrified, afraid that every one was pointing him out as the uncle of that fellow. He wanted to telephone, where he would not be seen or heard, somewhere outside of his hotel. He went into a booth in a cigar store, and called for the Hotel Tressillon.

“Mr. Ellinger,” he demanded.

In a moment he heard that familiar young voice, with its exaggerated accent.

“This is Mr. Ellinger speaking.”

“Thomas!” cried the old gentleman.

The boy gave a sort of gasp. Then, with his unfailing genius for doing the wrong thing, he assumed an airy and offhand tone.

“Hello, Uncle James!” he said jauntily. “I didn’t know that you were back in town again.”

“See here!” shouted the old gentleman, in a tremendous voice. “Is it true--this abominable thing I saw in the papers? Is it you?”

“Yes,” replied Tommy.

“Yes?” repeated his uncle’s voice, incredulous. “Yes? You did a thing like that? Good God! Explain yourself, Thomas!”

“I can’t!” said Tommy.

There was a brief silence.

“You--you young cur!” The old man’s voice was trembling. “Don’t ever come near me again. Don’t let me see you. I’d like to shoot you! You miserable, dastardly cur! You’ve disgraced the whole family. You’ve disgraced your father’s name. I’d like to see you hanged--only hanging’s too good for you!”

III

Tommy’s face was scarlet, as if he had been struck. He went across the room, as far as he could get from the telephone, sat down, tried to smoke a cigarette, and tried to smile carelessly. He had to give it up. He hid his hot face in his arms, and sat there, amazed, confounded, utterly overwhelmed, at his own deed and at the awful consequences of it.

His uncle’s voice he recognized as the voice of the world in general. That was how he was to be regarded in the future--a cad, a cur, hanging too good for him. A pariah--he who so valued the good opinion of others! It was the sort of thing one couldn’t live down, ever. His life was blasted at its very beginning.

He knew that he could never justify himself. There were the facts in the newspapers, and he couldn’t deny any of them. How explain, even try to explain, what lay behind them? He himself didn’t comprehend it. He was more surprised, more shocked, than any one else could possibly have been.

He looked at his wrist watch, which lay on the table because it couldn’t be put on over his bandaged wrist, and saw with dismay that it was only ten o’clock in the morning. The thought of the hours he would have to pass, shut up there alone, overwhelmed him. He was ashamed to go out, even into the corridor. He had already had to face a doctor and the waiter who had brought up his breakfast, and his raw sensibilities had made each of these encounters an ordeal.

He imagined a quite preposterous hostility. He was already an outcast, he was deserted, no one would come or telephone; he had nothing whatever to do now, or in the future. He looked around the ugly little hotel bedroom, and he felt that he was in prison, judged and convicted by his fellow men, and already banished from them.

Nothing to do, but plenty to think of, to recollect, and to examine. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and tried his honest best to retrace all the steps of the affair and to discover the true measure of his guilt.

He remembered every minute detail. He saw himself getting on the train at the Grand Central, saw himself in the train reading magazines, hoping that the other passengers admired his clothes and his luggage, and fearing that they didn’t. He remembered the dust and the heat and the tedium.

It was late afternoon when he reached Millersburg, and he was gratified to see from the window that a fair proportion of the population was assembled to see the New York train arrive. He was confident that he was causing more or less of a sensation as he descended, with his irreproachable tweed suit, his imposing eyeglass, and the latest thing in traveling bags.

He walked leisurely over to a solitary old carriage, climbed in, and directed the driver to take him to Mr. Van Brink’s. Then he leaned back carelessly, prepared to review the landscape, when the jolting old vehicle stopped. They were not yet out of sight of the station, from whence the natives were still watching his progress.

“Well, what’s wrong?” he asked the old driver. “Horse given out already?”

“Here ye be!” the driver answered dryly. “Here’s Van Brink’s!”

Tommy knew very well that he was being laughed at by the loungers at the station, as well as by the old driver, and he liked it no better than any one else would have liked it; but he was a genuinely good-natured sort of devil, and he grinned, in spite of a very real chagrin at so unimposing an arrival.

Having paid the driver lavishly, he walked along the little garden path before him, and up some steps to a little veranda. The door opened at once, and a hand reached for his bag.

“Come right in!” entreated a gentle young voice. “This way, please!”

The little house was cool and very dark, every shade pulled down, every shutter closed. Tommy followed the white dress that was ascending the stairs, and was presently led into a dim, breezy room, smelling of verbena.

The white dress flitted over to the window and threw open the shutters.

“There!” she said, looking back over her shoulder and smiling.

That smile! Tommy looked at her, enchanted.

You could see that she was very young, although her figure was almost matronly--short, full, agreeably rounded. She had calm, clear gray eyes, fair hair neatly arranged, a rather pale, chubby face with blunt features, pretty enough; but what was she but a nice, ordinary little country girl in a calico dress? What was there, or could there be, in such a young person to arouse the faintest interest in a man of the world like Tommy?

Ah, it was something to which far more sophisticated souls than his must have succumbed--a lure so flamboyant, a charm so candidly voluptuous!

She was serenely aware of her carnal fascinations. She was ignorant, but not without a certain experience, and she had a fatal sort of instinct. She knew her power, and knew how to employ it.

She looked at Tommy with complete self-possession. She was not in any way awed by his clothes, his eyeglass, or his magnificent air. Indeed, it was he who grew red and confused before the calm gaze of the girl in the calico dress.

“Is there anything you’d like to have, Mr. Ellinger?” she asked politely. “There’s towels--”

“No, not at all!” protested Tommy, in his best manner. “Thanks awfully, but there’s nothing.”

The little thing in the white dress went out.

Tommy unpacked his bag, and then, restless and hungry, wandered about the room, looked out of the window, yawned, whistled, brushed his hair again, wondered what was expected of him. At last a knock at the door, and the gentle young voice said:

“Supper’s ready, Mr. Ellinger!”

She was waiting to show him the way to the dining room. She behaved, in fact, like a very nice little hostess, properly concerned with his comfort. He liked that, of course, and he liked the supper, too. It was a novel sort of meal to Tommy--cold meat, fried potatoes, little glass dishes of preserves and pickles, cakes, pies, strawberries, and coffee, all on the table together.

Old Van Brink and his wife made no impression on him at all. They were what he had expected--what they ought to be. He talked to them in his best manner, genial, very much at ease. He was ingenuously sure that they were kind and honest people, and that they admired him. All his interest centered on the calm little thing across the table.

Supper over, Van Brink retired to a rocking-chair with the newspaper, and his wife began to carry the dishes into the kitchen. The little thing looked at Tommy.

“Would you like to take a little walk?” she asked. “‘Most every one does--down to the village.”

“Charmed!” he assured her, with his inane magnificence. “Will you wait till I get my stick?”

So they set off together down the dark, tree-bordered street. It was cool and very quiet, with a wistful little breeze stirring in the leaves.

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” said Tommy contentedly.

“Oh, yes! I hope it will do you good,” the little thing answered benevolently.

Thanks, said Tommy, there wasn’t much wrong with him--he needed a rest, that was all.

“Well, you’ll get it, here!” said she, with a deep sigh.

“Why? Not much excitement?”

“Oh, you can’t imagine! Year after year!”

He was sorry for her.

“But you’ll be getting married one of these days,” he assured her gallantly.

“There’s no one here to marry,” she said.

They had come into the brightly lighted Main Street, and Tommy became somewhat distrait. He was wondering what sort of impression he was producing on the natives. They were observing him. He saw girls turn to stare after him, and a group of youths on a corner snickered as he passed.

All this pleased him. He swung his stick and strolled on with exquisite indifference. The little thing, he fancied, must be admiring him tremendously.

But she wasn’t. He was undoubtedly causing a sensation, this lofty stranger from the city with his remarkable clothes; but his smooth face was too innocent, his manner, for all its swagger, too ridiculously boyish. He was more or less stupid to this maiden accustomed to the loutish gallantries of the corner loafer, to facile caresses and furtive advances. He was insipid--“slow,” she called him to herself; but of course he could be taught.

Coming to Egbert’s Drug Store, they went in, at Tommy’s suggestion, and each of them had a glass of soda. She did feel a certain triumph then, at his manners and his handful of change.

It was dark when they returned to the house.

“Would you like to sit on the porch?” she asked. “All right! Let’s bring the hammock around.”

So they brought the hammock from the little back garden and slung it on the veranda. They were hidden from the street by a tangle of honeysuckle. The window behind them was unlighted, and there wasn’t a sound from the house. They might have been alone in the universe. No one disturbed them, no one came into sight. There they sat, in the sweet-scented dark, Tommy on the railing, the little white figure swaying in the hammock.

“Don’t you want to smoke?” she asked.

“Thanks!” he answered. “Yes, I will, if you don’t mind.”

“If it’s cigarettes, I’d like to have one, please.”

He was surprised and rather offended, because this wasn’t according to his idea of her.

“Sure it won’t make you sick?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” she answered pleasantly. “We used to smoke at boarding school, you know.”

He proffered a lighted match, and in its glare he caught a glimpse of her face, quietly smiling. Again he was fascinated, suddenly, unexpectedly.

They smoked for some time in silence. Tommy could see her curled up in the hammock, swinging just a little. All of a sudden she sighed.

“Oh, dear!”

“What is it?”

“Nothing much. For goodness’ sake, Mr. Ellinger, how old are you?”

He tried to laugh in an amused way, but he was chagrined and puzzled by her tone.

“Why do you want to know?” he inquired.

“Never mind, if you’d rather not say.”

“I’ve no objection to telling you, my--my dear young lady,” he answered, nettled. “I’m--eighteen.”

“Are you? I’m only sixteen. We’re only kids, aren’t we?”

He didn’t like that. Moreover, he perceived something sinister beneath the words.

“I suppose so,” he assented, in a tone of paternal indulgence.

“Call me ‘Esther,’” said she. “Don’t let’s be silly! What’s your name?”

He hesitated, and finally decided upon “Tom”; but she, like every one else, saw the inevitability of “Tommy.”

There was a long silence. Then out of the dark came her calm little voice.

“Tommy,” she said, “you’re a funny boy!”

“Am I?” he said, with an uneasy laugh.

The situation was quite out of hand now. He didn’t know what was expected of him as a man of the world. He did know, though, that he was failing.

“Tommy,” said she, again, “come and sit here, beside me.”

With a quite artificial alacrity he jumped up, went over to her, and sat down in the hammock, close to her. He called himself a fool, an imbecile, a contemptible ass.

“I ought to kiss her,” he said to himself, “or put my arm around her, or at least hold her hand!”

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even talk to her. He wanted, above everything else in the world, to run away. He was not flattered or in any way stirred or excited--only miserably ill at ease and instinctively alarmed. He dared not move, even to turn his head.

At last Esther got up with a sigh.

“Good night, Tommy,” she said. “I hope you’ll sleep well!”

“Thanks,” he answered, feeling utterly foolish and miserable.

IV

He did not sleep well. He lay in bed, his hands clasped under his head, looking out at the summer sky.

“She’s a queer girl,” he thought, with a sort of resentment. “She’s bold--runs after a fellow; and yet you can see she doesn’t care two straws for him.”

In long imaginary conversations with Esther he regained his lost advantage. He was affable but cool--very cool. He could see her round little face quite clearly before him, her serene eyes, her neat fair hair.

He awoke after his restless night to a hot, still morning. He could not find a bath tub. Dressing reluctantly, unrefreshed and a bit irritable, he went downstairs. It was a few minutes after eight by his watch--a very decent, early hour, he thought; but, looking into the dining room, he saw only one place laid on the long table.

Mrs. Van Brink hurried in from the kitchen, limp, hot, and painfully anxious.

“Set down to the table, Mr. Ellinger,” she cried in her shrill voice. “I’ll bring your breakfast right off. We’re all done. You won’t have to wait more’n a minute.”

He ate alone, a little resentful that Esther didn’t appear. Then he went out on the porch. No one there--the shady street was quiet and empty. He went around the house to the sun-baked little yard at the back, where he discovered Mrs. Van Brink hanging dish towels on a line in terrible haste. Her face became positively convulsed with worry at the sight of his listlessness.

“Now, then!” she cried. “You don’t know what to do with yourself, I’ll be bound! And I haven’t got a minute to spare, with the dinner I have to get up for Mr. Van Brink at noon. His farm’s four miles off, you know.”

She stared at him, frowning, until an inspiration came.

“Maybe you’d enjoy to play on the harmonium,” she suggested. “Esther’s got some real sweet music.”

Tommy did not know what a harmonium was; but she showed him a queer little organ in the parlor, and he sat before it all the rest of that intolerable morning, picking out tunes and experimenting with the stops.

At noon old Van Brink came driving home in his buggy, and his hot and anxious wife began hurrying back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing in an enormous hot dinner. The farmer had nothing to say to Tommy. He sat there with his napkin tucked in his collar, consuming one dish after the other as fast as his wife brought them in, absorbed and ravenous, like a feeding animal. Now and again Tommy caught the old man’s small blue eyes surveying him with an expression which he could not comprehend, but which he didn’t like.

Van Brink drove off directly after eating, and his wife withdrew to the kitchen again. With growing resentment, Tommy seized his hat and went out, followed the route of the night before, and reached the village. Entering the only hotel, the Gilbert House, he ordered a cocktail and bought a newspaper; but the drink was shockingly bad, and he couldn’t endure the stale dullness of the place long enough to read the paper there.

He had never before in his life suffered from such boredom. He went back to the house, determined to write at once to his uncle and say he couldn’t stand it any longer.

And there, rocking on the porch and enjoying the cool of the afternoon, sat Esther.

“Hello!” she said cheerfully.

“Good afternoon,” he replied stiffly.

“Well! What makes you look so cross?”

“I’ve had a rotten day.”

“I’m sorry; but it wasn’t my fault, was it? You needn’t be cross at me.”

“It was your fault, in a way. You might have told me what there is to do in this place.”

“Oh, but there isn’t anything! I’ll take you for a walk after supper, if you want.”

So after supper, when Mrs. Van Brink had gone back to the kitchen, and her husband, in stocking feet, sat reading his newspaper, Esther and Tommy set out again.

“Shall we go right out in the country?” Esther asked him. “Or would you rather go through the village and see some of the fine houses?”

Tommy preferred the country.

They turned north, followed the dark and quiet street past all the little houses, and into a road soft with dust, under the black shadow of great trees, with a sweet breeze blowing from the meadows.

“One day’s enough for you,” said Esther. “How would you like to spend years here?”

“By Jove! How do you stand it?”

“Well, I won’t, any longer than I can help!”

They were going uphill steadily. The fields were left behind, and the pine forest was closing in on them, dark and fragrant.

“This is my favorite walk,” said Esther. “I often come here by myself.”

“Rather lonely, isn’t it?”

“I’m never lonely.”

Again that vague alarm came over the boy. He felt defenseless, lost. He dreaded to go farther; but, chattering pleasantly, Esther went on and on, and he had to answer and to follow.

The road grew rougher, and his little comrade stumbled often.

“Hadn’t we better turn back?” suggested Tommy. “You’ll be tired.”

“Oh, no! I don’t call this far!”

“And it’s getting late. Your mother and father--”

She laughed.

“You needn’t worry about them! Let’s sit down and rest a few minutes, if you like.”

There was a great flat rock a little way up the bank from the roadway. Sitting there, they could catch a glimpse of an enormous orange-colored moon through the branches.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” said Esther. “And doesn’t my ring look pretty in the moonlight?”

She held up a plump little hand for him to see.

“Are you engaged?” he asked, for even he knew that the question was expected of him.

“Yes--to the young man you saw last night in the drug store. It’s a secret, though; mommer and popper don’t know.”

“I hope you’ll be happy,” said Tommy, after a pause.

“I don’t see how I can be,” she answered plaintively. “I don’t really like him; but oh, dear, what else can I do? Why, I’ve only seen one real refined man in all my life. He was a traveling salesman. He wanted to marry me and go and live in New York; but popper wouldn’t let me. He said I was too young.”

“Well, you know, you are, rather. You don’t want to be hasty, my dear young lady!”

She sighed.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this; but I’m so unhappy!”

He felt very sympathetic, but could think of nothing to say.

“I’m going to take off this ring now, while I’m with you,” Esther went on. “I want to forget all about Will for a while.” She slipped her warm little hand into his. “Oh, Tommy!” she said coaxingly. “Be nice, won’t you?”

The light of the moon shone clearly on her pretty upturned face, her white throat. He stared and stared at her. She leaned back, more and more, until her head was resting on his breast and her smooth hair brushed his lips.

The first wave of some immense and terrible emotion, something he had never before experienced, came rushing over him. He clenched his hands, struggling against a fierce desire to push her away.

“What are you doing to me?” he wanted to shout. “What’s happening to me? Go away! Get out!”

But she did not stir. She rested against him, contented as a kitten, soft, gentle, and still. Little by little his mood changed, his panic was allayed, and he bent over and kissed her. Then he wanted never to let her go again. He kissed her violently, time after time. He couldn’t stop.

A sort of madness possessed him. A terror greater than ever assailed him--a terror of himself. He knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He put her aside brusquely and got up.

“Come on!” he said. “It’s late. Let’s go back!”

V

He sat at the open window of his room that night, oppressed by guilt and dread.

“I shouldn’t have kissed her,” he said to himself. “Now she’ll think I’m in love with her.”

He knew well enough that he was not. He disliked her--almost loathed her; she was so soft and clinging, so irresistible and so inferior. He didn’t want to see her again.

He hadn’t yet been able to devise a suitable attitude when he met her the next morning. Seeing her so perfectly unmoved helped him, and they sat down to breakfast in friendly accord.

“It’s another hot day,” she said. “Mommer thought maybe you’d enjoy a picnic.”

“A picnic--just you and me?” he asked suspiciously.

She nodded, and waited for his reply, watching his face with candid eyes. He grew red and hot.

“Very nice idea,” he said loftily.

He was racking his brains for some means of avoiding the excursion.

“Not if I know it!” he said to himself. “She won’t get me alone again!”

But his reflection in a distant mirror caught his eye. What? Here he was, six feet tall, dressed in absolutely the latest fashion, a thorough man of the world, and yet uneasy in the presence of this sixteen-year-old country girl! “Dumpy,” he called her--stolid, ignorant, rustic, in a cheap cotton frock.

His good humor came back. He smiled down upon her kindly, all alarm gone. Let her make love to him if she liked--there was no harm in it.

They started directly after breakfast, walked mile after mile through the fields in the full glare of the hot August sun, up stony hills, through bramble-lined woodland paths, until Tommy, carrying the big lunch basket and a walking stick, and wearing a rather heavy Norfolk jacket--the only correct thing for picnics--was dazed and tired. Not Esther, though; she was as fresh and cheerful as ever.

In the course of time they reached the place predestined by her for lunching--a little clearing on the slope of the pine-covered mountain, a sort of sunny nest in the forest, where a brook ran by, rapid and cool.

When he had at last satisfied his appetite--a strangely hearty and indiscriminate one for such a man of the world--Tommy lay back against a sun-warmed stone, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the bright sky. It was nice to have Esther there, he admitted to himself. It was nice to see her, contented and blessedly quiet, sitting beside him.

He turned his head to see her better. What a round, pretty, white throat she had! And her lashes were almost dark against her cheeks. He was annoyed by a sudden great longing to kiss her again. He tried to put the thought out of his mind--tried desperately; but in some inexplicable way, even as she sat there with her eyes closed and her little face so tranquil, she conveyed the fact to him that she was waiting to be kissed.

He did it, with a violence surprising to them both. She struggled half-heartedly, then settled down, close to his side, with his arm about her, and said no more. He kissed her again and again, stroked her hair, looked at her in delight. Dear, gentle, ardent little soul! Truly it was an afternoon on Olympus!

Tommy was done for now. She had awakened his innocent, primitive manhood, had aroused in him a feeling which he was too immature to appraise. He believed that he was, that he must be, in love with her. How otherwise explain his joy in kissing her, his immeasurable admiration for her charms?

“By Jove!” he said to himself. “I’m in love!”

He said it with amazement, with pride, with profound distress, because his passion tormented him. He was ashamed of it. He knew very well that it was not spontaneous; Esther had forced its growth. He had not wooed and won her; he had been captured in a most obvious way. He was a slave, and he knew and resented it.

Not that Esther was at all a difficult lady to serve. She had no whims, no caprices. She was neither jealous nor exacting. Indeed, she required nothing at all of Tommy. She let him alone. She was very affectionate, whenever he was; but if he were moody or anxious, she was peacefully silent.

There was always an air of content about her. She might have been the personified ideal of the man of forty--the woman who is always responsive, and yet who exacts nothing. Very, very different from the ideal of generous eighteen!

Precious little joy did poor Tommy find in this his first love. He was perplexed and confused; he couldn’t imagine any sort of end to it. He couldn’t contemplate marrying Esther, and the idea of any other sort of arrangement never occurred to him. In his eyes she was simply a respectable young girl, under her father’s roof, not good enough, or not suitable, to be the wife of a man of the world, but far too good to be thought of in any improper way.

He didn’t even know what he wanted--whether he wanted to leave her, or whether he couldn’t live without her. He was weary beyond measure, those hot and sleepless August nights.

VI

At last, one evening, there came a sort of crisis. It was a sultry, rainy night, and they were in the little parlor, bored and constrained by the presence of old Van Brink in the next room, with the door open. Esther had been playing hymn tunes on the harmonium, and Tommy had been watching her, feverishly impatient to kiss her. She had stopped playing, and they sat in silence, listening to the squeak of the old man’s rocking-chair and the rustle of his newspaper.

The room irritated Tommy by its amazing tastelessness. Even Esther looked different in it, he thought. Outside, under the summer sky, alone with him, she was a goddess. In here, what was she more than the plump, phlegmatic Esther Van Brink?

A door opened, and Mrs. Van Brink came in to her husband, her work in the kitchen finished until the next sunrise. She looked exhausted. It occurred to Tommy, not for the first time, that Esther was not a remarkably kind daughter. He had never yet seen her do any sort of work for her mother.

Immediately, with artless tact, Mrs. Van Brink closed the door. Tommy sprang up and caught Esther in his arms.

“My!” she cried, laughing. “Aren’t you in a hurry, though?”

Tommy reddened, painfully aware of his disadvantage.

“I don’t know what you’ll do to-morrow evening,” Esther went on. “Will Egbert’s coming to see me.”

Tommy could scarcely grasp the idea. An evening without Esther! Another man! He was silent for some time. He realized then that he would rather marry Esther than lose her, than be supplanted by any Will Egbert.

“Look here, Esther!” he said at last. “I know I haven’t any right to complain. I’m not--anything to you; but I’d like you to know something. Before I came here, my uncle--”

He paused so long that Esther frowned.

“Yes?” she said. “What about your uncle, Tommy?”

“He warned me--told me I couldn’t get engaged, or anything of that sort. You understand, don’t you, Esther? You see, I haven’t any income. I depend on him, and I know, very well, that he’d never consent to--to anything.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ve thought it over a great deal,” he went on; “but I don’t know what to do exactly.”

To his chagrin and surprise, Esther got up and, going back to the harmonium, began to play loud, triumphant hymns. He could not guess her mood. He was afraid he had offended her; and with that a shade of the old magnificence returned.

“Esther darling, you’re not angry, are you?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she replied cheerfully; “but I want to think. Let’s sing.”

She had a book of “College Songs,” ugly and tasteless, like everything else in her life, and they sang them, one after the other, until bedtime. In the next room the mother and father listened, proud and pleased.

“Hark to sis!” said old Van Brink. “Sings and plays pretty good, hey, mother?”

“My, yes! It’s real sweet!”

“I’ll bet you that young man don’t see many girls like sis, city or country, hey, mother? He’s no call to turn up his nose at our gal, hey?”

“He don’t,” she answered thoughtfully.

The next morning, at breakfast, as soon as they were alone for a minute, Esther whispered:

“Tommy, I’ve got a plan! Let’s go out on the porch,” she suggested aloud, as her mother came in to clear the table.

“Well!” said Tommy, when they were alone again.

“Well!” she repeated. “Come on--sit down and listen. I want you to take me to the city to see your uncle.”

“No!” cried Tommy, startled. “No, my dear girl! That wouldn’t do at all!”

“It would! I’ll be so nice he’ll have to like me. I thought and thought about it last night. Please do, Tommy!”

“But, my dear child, don’t you see that you couldn’t go off with me that way? You’d--you’d compromise yourself!”

“Not if we got married right away.”

“But suppose Uncle James said no?”

“But he wouldn’t--especially when he sees how I trust you.”

Tommy put forward all the objections he could think of, but she was able to answer them all.

“I’ll manage him,” she insisted. “Only let me see him! And then, Tommy,” she went on, “it’s getting horrid for me here. Egbert is jealous. He says he won’t give me up, and won’t take back his old ring. And”--amazing invention!--“mommer and popper say that you’re just trifling with me, and they want me to take back Will. Every one says I’m a silly little fool to think so much of you!” Tears came into her gray eyes.

“Oh, do, Tommy, please, take me away! I’m so miserable here!”

And at last, because she wept, and because he could see no other way, he agreed to take her.

VII

Reluctant and harassed as he was, he couldn’t help a certain delight in the adventure. He hadn’t yet lost a boyish relish for running away; and this getting up after the others were asleep, stealing downstairs, bag in hand, and meeting Esther in the dark little hall, thrilled him to the marrow.

They hurried through the empty streets, black beneath the shadow of the old trees, and entered the station, where an oil lamp burned. The ticket office was closed; there wasn’t a soul in sight. They sat down side by side on a bench, to wait for the New York train.

In her usual way, Esther put her hand in Tommy’s. He turned to look down at her in the dim lamplight, and the sight of her flushed, excited little face, combined with the pressure of her hand, nearly brought tears to his eyes. How she trusted him, poor little girl! Leaving her home and her parents and going off with him this way! He swore to himself that she should never be sorry for it; that, even if she were not quite the wife he would have chosen, he would respect her forever for this generous, this noble trust in him.

He had, in short, never in his life been so overwhelmingly asinine. His fair, infantile face was pale from the intense seriousness of his resolutions and the weight of his responsibility. He would at that moment have been ready to assure you that it was he who had implored and persuaded Esther to run away with him--that it was his idea and his wish.

It was midnight when they arrived at the Grand Central. The moment they stepped off the train, a realization of his colossal folly rushed over the boy. The subtle excitement of the hurrying crowds, the sophistication of this environment, suddenly destroyed his rustic romance, and he grew cold with fright.

What was this that he had done? What was he to do with Esther? He couldn’t marry her without a license. He had thought of taking her at once to Uncle James, to convince him on the spot of Esther’s desirability as a wife. Uncle James might be asleep; or, if he were awake, he would surely need some preparation. He was courtly toward ladies--ladies with money; but one never knew--

“Oh, Lord!” he thought. “Oh, Lord! What can I do with her?”

They had eloped from the girl’s home. He was now and forever responsible for little Esther. There she sat, waiting for his wise decision.

They sat down on a bench in the immense hall, he with his latest thing in traveling bags, Esther with a shabby little wicker suit case. Forlorn, young, weary, they sat in silence--waiting, both of them, for Tommy to become a man.

“I know!” he cried suddenly. “Esther, you go into the ladies’ waiting room while I telephone. I have a cousin. I think she’d be willing to do something. At least she’ll put you up overnight.”

But in the telephone booth his courage fled. He couldn’t explain all this over the wire. He ran out and got a taxi, and at one o’clock he arrived at his cousin’s little flat uptown.

She was a charming, gracious, good-natured young widow. She got up, put on a dressing gown, and sat listening with angelic patience to Tommy’s story; but she could not conceal her horror.

“Oh, Tommy, my dear boy! You’re so young! Don’t be hasty! Oh, Tommy, don’t rush into--anything!”

“Now, look here!” said Tommy, sick with nervousness and alarm. “Don’t lecture me, Alison. It’s done. Just suggest something. She can’t go back now. I’ll have to see Uncle James about getting married; but what shall I do now? I can’t leave the poor kid sitting there in the Grand Central Station all night.”

“No, of course you can’t,” Alison agreed. “Bring her here, Tommy--and hurry: I’ll wait up for her.”

She set about making preparations for this most unwelcome guest, thinking and hoping all the time that Tommy might be saved--that this distressing thing might blow over without hurting him.

She pictured Esther as a poor innocent little rustic, as simple as Tommy. She never saw the girl, and so was never enlightened. She waited for two hours, but no one came. Then, worried, heavy-hearted, she went back to bed.

VIII

Tommy had hurried back to Esther, and found her just as he had left her--a model of patience and propriety, with her little bag beside her. Though she was pale and heavy-eyed with sleep, she was as neat and fresh as ever. He told her his plan.

“Come on,” he said. “Hurry up! Alison said she’d wait for you.”

“I’m not going there,” she said. “I can’t, Tommy.”

“You’ll have to, dear!”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I can’t! I can’t! I just couldn’t face a strange woman now. What would she think of me, running away with you like this?”

“But what can I do with you, Esther?”

She clasped his arm and looked up into his face with streaming eyes.

“Oh, Tommy! Please don’t leave me! I’m so frightened and so lonely! Don’t send me away!”

“But you must be reasonable, sweetheart,” he implored. He began to realize how terribly he had mismanaged this affair. He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he made plans? “You know we’ve got to consider your reputation,” he said.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” she cried. “No one’ll ever know about it. Only don’t go away from me, Tommy! I couldn’t bear it!”

He yielded. He was so distressed, so confused, so alarmed, that he had no moral strength to withstand her. He took her to the Tressillon, a quiet, dingy place where he had once or twice had dinner. He took two rooms for them, on different floors, and he registered as “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ellinger, Jr.” What else could he have done?

He slept soundly, although he hadn’t expected to close an eye. The first thing he thought of upon waking was to telephone to Esther’s room. He was told that she wasn’t there.

He dressed and hurried down to look for her everywhere--in the dining room, the grill, the lounge; but he couldn’t find her. He was seized with panic.

When he found that her bag was still in her room, he resigned himself to wait; but he was angry--more angry than he had ever been in his life.

She came back at lunch time, composed and smiling. He was sitting on the lounge when she entered. He got up, took her arm with a nervous grip, and led her into a quiet corner.

“Look here, Esther!” he said. “You mustn’t act like this! Where have you been?”

“Oh, nowhere special--just for a walk.”

“I’d planned for us to go to the City Hall and get the license this morning, and get married.”

“Oh, Tommy!” she said, with a pout. “I don’t want to get married. I’m too young!”

“Don’t be silly!” he said impatiently. “We’ll have a bite of lunch and then we’ll hurry down town.”

“I think it’s silly to get married. We’re too young. What could we live on?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” he said, wounded. “I dare say I can manage to take care of you.”

“I don’t think you could, Tommy. We’d only be miserable. No, let’s not be married.”

“Esther!” he cried, appalled. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I think we’ve made a mistake. Let’s not be silly and make it any worse. The best thing would be for us to part. I can look out for myself perfectly well. I know a man here in the city--I dropped in to see him this morning, and he said he’d get me an engagement to go on the stage. He’s an advance agent, or something. I met him out in Millersburg. He has lots of pull.”

“Don’t talk that way!” he thundered. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Haven’t you enough sense to see that you’re compromised?”

“No one knows anything about it, and there’s no harm done. I’ll write to mommer and tell her I ran away to go on the stage.”

“No, you won’t!” said Tommy. “I sent them a telegram this morning to say that we were married. I thought we would really be by the time they got the message.”

She looked at him in silence.

“Well!” she said at last. “You are a fool!”

“I suppose I am,” he replied bitterly. “However, it’s done now. They know you’re here with me, and they think you’re my wife, so you’ll have to see it through.”

“Not I!” she said cheerfully. “I’m not going to marry a kid like you!”

“For God’s sake, why did you come away with me?” he cried.

She smiled.

“I guess I liked you,” she said.

“Don’t you like me now?”

“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Of course I do; but I think we’re too young to think of marriage. It was a mistake.”

She was absolutely incomprehensible to him; but she could read him through and through, and the better she knew him, the greater grew her contempt.

“It was only a joke,” she said.

“Is that your idea of a joke? It’s a pretty dangerous one.”

She shook her head.

“No, it isn’t. I knew you were a nice boy. I knew I could trust you. I’ll always remember you, Tommy--always. You’re the nicest--”

“What do you propose to tell your parents? They’ll write to you here, or they may come.”

“They won’t find me. I’ll leave to-morrow morning. Mr. Syles told me of a nice boarding house. You’ll go back to your uncle. He’ll never know about it, and we’ll both forget the whole thing, won’t we?”

They went up into her room, and they argued all afternoon. Tommy tried to show her the enormity of her conduct, but she insisted upon regarding it as an escapade. She emphasized her sixteen years. She behaved with an airy childishness which she had never shown before, and which he knew to be false.

He had played the part she had determined he should play, and there was an end to him. Her modest little pocketbook was well stuffed with his money. She was in the city where she wished to be.

Sixteen? Esther sixteen? Preposterous idea! She was as old as the earth.

At last she said she was hungry, and reluctantly he took her downstairs to the dining room, crowded and noisy, with dancing going on to the music of a fiendish orchestra. Gone was his pride, gone was his kindly protectiveness. He was overwhelmed with shame; he saw himself a dupe, when he had fancied himself a hero.

He couldn’t eat. He sat there across the table, in sullen wretchedness, keeping his eyes off her detestable face, listening to her calm voice, telling him that it was “better for them both to part now.” She was affable, but she made no effort to be kind. She had nothing to say about love, about grief at parting. She placidly ignored their romance. She urged him to be “sensible,” and a “good boy.” And with every word she made a fresh wound in his quivering, childish soul--scars never to be healed.

He was sitting with his back to the door, and he hadn’t seen old Van Brink enter. He had looked up in alarm at a shriek from Esther, and there was that face, convulsed with hatred--hatred for him! Then the shot, the crowd, the atrocious sense of unreality, of insane confusion, the pain in his wrist.

Some one had hurried him off in a taxi. He had looked back blankly from the doorway at the brightly lighted room, at an old man held by force from following him. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be real!

Once again he picked up the newspaper and looked at that shameful headline:

TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED AT HOTEL TRESSILLON

It occurred to young Thomas Ellinger that perhaps the tragedy had not, after all, been averted.

IX

“Everything passes,” runs the old saying, and the contrary is also true. Nothing passes.

If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box, correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze, you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. He was there with an agreeable, well-bred wife and a pretty young daughter, and he was apparently enjoying the play with a temperate and sedate enjoyment--interested, but not very much interested, you know.

And yet he is none other than the black sheep of twenty years ago, the disgraced and abandoned Tommy. Moreover, the actress whom he is watching with so tepid an air is Esther herself, and he is very cunningly concealing a great confusion of feelings.

He had casually suggested going to see her act that evening, as he had done four or five times before, since he had by chance discovered that Esther and the celebrated Elinor Vaughn were one and the same person. He had no knowledge of the means by which she had risen, but he was by no means surprised to find her at the top. Why shouldn’t she be? Indeed, how could she not be? She was certainly born for victory.

Each time that he watched her magnificent outbursts of dramatic passion, her rages and her griefs, he felt a secret and delightful joy. Only imagine what he had escaped! Only think what such a woman, capable of moving the most cynical heart, could have done with him! He looked cautiously at the people about him, saw them stirred to horror, grief, or delight, and he felt himself superior to them all. They didn’t know that it was only Esther Van Brink!

He watched her to-night, at the end of her famous second act, winning by heartbreaking entreaties the mercy of a vindictive and obdurate husband. Never could he have withstood her. He would have been lost!

The curtain fell, rose again, fell, and she came out to stand for a moment before the footlights, bowing, smiling a little wearily; and then she saw him.

He drew back hastily, but it was too late. When she came before the curtain again, she looked at him and smiled. Before the third act began, a boy came to the box with a note:

Please, Tommy, come behind and see me for a moment.

ESTHER.

“It seems she’s some one I used to know,” he explained to his wife. She raised her eyebrows and smiled politely, but he knew she wasn’t satisfied. “I suppose I’ll have to go,” he said.

“Oh, by all means!” replied his wife. “Alice and I won’t wait.”

He was uneasy and annoyed. That was just like Esther--no consideration!

He found her in her dressing room, with a crowd of people, but she sent them all away.

“He’s an awfully old friend,” she explained, “and very shy. I’ll never be able to catch him again.”

The little country girl had certainly become a handsome woman, he reflected, and she had lost none of her impudent charm, her mocking tranquillity.

“Well, Tommy!” she said.

“Well!” he answered, and he had exactly his old air of a boy acting the man of the world.

“My, you’ve got on!” she said admiringly. “You’re really splendid, Tommy! Are you a millionaire?”

“No,” he answered, flushing, well aware that she was laughing at him. “I’m in business.”

“How did you do that?”

Naturally he didn’t care to talk about his heroic effort to rehabilitate himself--how he had actually found himself a job, and won his alarming uncle’s forgiveness for his one wickedness by patient industry and some years of complete self-effacement.

“And you’re married, if my eyes do not betray me.”

“Yes, I’m married,” he answered stiffly.

He wasn’t going to permit any Esther on earth to make light of that respectable and very happy union.

“Oh, Tommy!” she sighed. “I’m glad! I’m glad it’s all turned out so well for you--and for me, too. I don’t believe I would ever have become the actress I am if it hadn’t been for all I suffered through your desertion.”

“What?” he cried, astounded. “My desertion?”

And there were actually tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “You nearly broke my heart, but it made me.”

He could scarcely believe his ears.

“But--but--” he stammered, with a feeble effort to remind her of her own treachery.

“I only wanted to see you and tell you that I forgave you long ago, Tommy--forgave you frankly and freely. I owe my success to that suffering.”

She held out her hand. He grasped it, and hurriedly took his leave. She forgave him! She forgave him his desertion, which had nearly broken her heart!

He stopped in the street outside the theater, ready to denounce her to the silent sky; but in spite of himself began to smile, with reluctance, with an immense and grudging admiration.

“Upon my word!” he said aloud. “What a woman!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER. 1922 Vol. LXXVII NUMBER 2

Like a Leopard

HOW JOHNNY BRECKENBRIDGE RECEIVED A NEW LIGHT ON THE NATURE OF A GOOD WIFE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

It was a frightful night. Brecky turned up the collar of his overcoat, pulled his cap lower over his eyes, and left the shelter of the railway station for the open road. He heard the train that had brought him from the city pull out again and rush whistling through the fields and marshes. When it had gone, everything human had vanished, leaving him alone with the great and terrible wind and the cold rain.

He made what haste he could along the muddy road, his head down against the gale. The driving rain half blinded him, the tumult confused him, with the unceasing rush of the wind and the dull sound of the sea. His way lay through immeasurable desolation, past house after house empty and black, shops all closed and shuttered, streets in which there was not one human creature. It was a sort of Pompeii, a deserted village, a nightmare; but to the practical Brecky it was nothing more or less than Shorehaven, a summer resort, naturally deserted in midwinter.

He was not a man of imagination, this Johnny Breckenbridge. He was a wiry young chap with an impassive, weather-beaten face. He dressed very soberly, but he had an incorrigibly sporting air, and there was something rakish and jaunty about him. He was nimble, alert, and just a trifle bow-legged. He was never tired, never discouraged. He had all his wits about him, and knew his way in the world.

He had been, one might say, born a jockey, and he had been a good one, too, for years; but he had grown tired of the restrictions of a jockey’s life. He was fond of eating and drinking, and he liked to be his own master.

He had continued his activities on the race track in a less official capacity. He had done well as a bookie, too, for he was shrewd, cautious, and trustworthy; but he had suddenly fallen in love and married.

“And that’s no life for a married man,” he observed to his many friends. “Got to settle down now.”

Brecky was thorough in everything, and he wished to be a thoroughly married man. He took his new obligations with great seriousness. He intended to do well for his jolly little Kathleen. He knew that his duty in life was to make money for her.

He never thought of consulting her, however. She had been a waitress in a little restaurant in the city, and he had admired her brisk good humor and her common sense. She was a pretty kid, too--dark, small, vigorous. She had received a great deal of attention, but she was never silly or vain about it. She knew how to take care of herself. She liked a good time, but no monkey business. She was mighty independent, Kathleen was.

To Brecky’s uncomplex mind, the wedding ring was to transform her completely. She was to be no longer Kathleen, but a wife; and to him all good wives were alike. They were kind, gentle, contented, and very helpful. You made money gladly for them; but if you were a real man, you didn’t let them spend much of it.

He had looked about the world thoughtfully for a few months. Then he had taken nearly every penny he had saved and had bought a hotel at the seaside, with a heavy mortgage on it. To this place he had brought his Kathleen, that she might help and comfort him while he mastered his new business.

Extraordinary friends of his used to come down and give him advice. He listened and learned. He knew a number of men connected with hotels, night clerks, head waiters, and so on; and they were willing and anxious to help him, because every one liked him.

He had no iconoclastic ideas. He wished to run his hotel according to all the tried and tested rules of the business. He wore out his advisers. Those who came down to look over Brecky’s hotel went away exhausted and squeezed dry, leaving whatever valuable knowledge they owned in Brecky’s possession.

In midwinter, when the place lay like a frozen village on the shore of an inhuman sea, lights used to shine from the windows of Brecky’s immense hotel, and to flit from one floor to another. That meant Brecky and some consulting friend, muffled in sweaters and overcoats, inspecting the rows and rows of bedrooms, discussing the wall paper, the flimsy furniture, debating with breath that congealed in the frigid air, whether this or that room was going to be cool enough, shady enough, airy enough.

But however the lights might flit about the building in those winter nights, there was one that remained steady and constant as the beam from a lighthouse. It came from the kitchen window. It sprang up every evening when dusk began to close in, and it always burned until nine o’clock or so. Brecky saw it now, as he turned the corner and struggled down the street at the end of which his hotel stood.

This was the hardest stretch, in the teeth of the terrific wind blowing inshore. It was like leaving the world and plunging into chaos. He went at it, head down, his eyes fixed upon the cheerful light, an agreeable hunger rising within him. That light meant Kathleen and the excellent dinner she was sure to have ready for him.

II

Brecky stamped up the wooden steps and across the veranda, opened the front door with his latchkey, and entered the house. It was colder in there than it was outside. The place wasn’t designed for winter occupation, and there was no means for heating it. Moreover, its construction was flimsy, and a wind like that now blowing found its way in without trouble, and went moaning through the hall, rattling the doors and windows.

He passed through the dining room. It was entirely dark, but there was no fear of running into anything, for all the tables were drawn back against the walls and the chairs piled on them. He pushed open the swinging doors into the pantry, and another door, and was suddenly in a different world, warm, light, filled with delightful savors.

“Ah!” he said, with a sigh.

He slipped off his overcoat, cap, and rubbers, and went over to the stove, holding out his numb hands to its welcome heat. Then he turned and kissed his wife, absent-mindedly, almost without looking at her, in spite of the fact that she was well worth looking at.

“Did Mullins come about those sash cords?” he asked.

“No--no one came. I haven’t seen a soul all day,” she answered; but he missed the significance of her tone.

She hurried back and forth with steaming dishes, and at last informed him, rather curtly, that his dinner was ready. He sat down at once and ate with good appetite, but in silence and abstraction, because he had to think about those sash cords. At last he finished and leaned back in his chair, ready for the amenities of life.

“Well, Kathleen!” he said. “You’re one fine little wife!”

He was innocently oblivious of his wife’s state of mind. It hadn’t occurred to him that she kept on existing and thinking when he wasn’t there. His remark was a match to dry straw.

“A fine little cook, I guess you mean!” she said with sudden asperity. “That’s your idea of a wife!”

He laughed.

“Well!” he said. “They kind of go together, don’t they?”

“Looks like it,” she said; “only some cooks get paid.”

It was his habit to ignore remarks like that. Women, he considered, were often fanciful and “touchy.” It was better to leave them alone at such times. He lighted a big cigar, deliberately took his mind off his wife and all domestic concerns, and began to meditate on his business.

But the perverse creature continued to exist and to speak.

“I didn’t start out in life to be a cook,” she said, in an ominously calm and reasonable tone. “I’m glad enough to do it for your sake, Johnny; but I’d like you to remember that I’m not used to this kind of life.”

“Yes, yes!” he said soothingly, and continued to smoke and stare at the fire.

“You never even look at me!” she cried suddenly.

“Yes, but I do!” he protested. “Sure I do!”

He looked at her then, with a smile, and saw that she was crying.

“For the Lord’s sake, what’s the matter?” he asked, with despairing good nature. “I’ll look at you for an hour, if you like; only don’t cry, that’s a good girl!”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and went on crying. He swore under his breath, and, getting up, went around the table and put his arm about her.

“Come now!” he said. “You’re as pretty as a picture, and you know I love you.”

“Yes!” she said. “You want to make it up quickly and forget all about me!”

He couldn’t help laughing at the woman’s cleverness.

“Well!” he said. “If I do think such a lot about this business, who’s it for? Don’t be silly! It’s all for you.”

“It isn’t! It’s because you like it. You’d go on with it just the same if I was dead!”

He was a little in doubt what to do. Should he ignore her, and let her get over her inopportune temper alone? Or should he wheedle her?

He was really annoyed. He thought it all rather touching and feminine. They were all like that--wanted a man to spend his time making love and playing the fool; and yet, if he didn’t provide all they wanted, or thought they wanted, they’d nag him to death. He kissed her again.

“We’ll go in to the city some day next week,” he said. “We’ll take in a show, and all that. That’s what you need.”

“It isn’t! What I need is some one to talk to. You never want to listen to me. You never ask me what I’ve been doing.”

“But there’s nothing you could do,” he answered innocently, “except cooking and sewing and--”

He was really surprised at her outbreak, she was usually so cheerful and equable. He looked at her flushed and furious face, the tears still in her eyes, and an unpleasant conviction came to him that this was going to be serious--and lasting.

“You come in,” she went on, “and you sit down and eat your dinner, and the only thing you can find to say to me is to call me a cook!”

“I said you were a fine little cook,” he began ingratiatingly. “Nothing wrong in that, is there? Why, I’m proud of you, Kathleen! Only this afternoon I was telling Sawyer how you could cook.”

“Well, you’d just better find something else to praise me for!” she cried. “I’m something more than a cook, and the sooner you learn it the better!”

He was astounded and somewhat shocked at her violence--dismayed, too. He had an uneasy feeling that he couldn’t handle this situation adequately. So, according to his habit, he decided to go away, believing, as many other people believe, that if he weren’t in the situation, there would be no situation. But his cool deliberations were upset. Moreover, his cigar was out, and he didn’t like relighted cigars.

He got the books in which he was trying to work out a new idea of hotel bookkeeping, but he couldn’t do a thing. He couldn’t put out of his mind the image of that girl, that provoking and beloved girl, with her angry, rosy little face and her eyes full of tears.

“Women!” he thought savagely.

No denying, though, that she was a wonderful wife and companion. She had never complained before, she had never failed him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her get up and begin carrying the dishes over to the sink. He thought he would help her, and then he thought he wouldn’t. It would be weakness.

Still, it would do no harm to conciliate her. Perhaps, if he did, his working mood would return. He watched her for a few minutes longer, bending over the dish pan. Then he got up, went over to her, and, putting an arm about her, drew her close against him.

Then a devil entered into him.

“Why, you silly kid!” he said, kissing her. “You’re the best little cook!”

She turned and gave him a smart box on the ear.

He was so astounded that he couldn’t speak. He stared at her flushed and furious face, his own perfectly blank. Then, very slowly, the color began to rise in his lean cheeks.

He was a man slow to anger, a man of self-control and sang froid; but when his temper was aroused, it was a bad one. His wife was secretly horrified at what she had done. She hadn’t meant to do it. She knew he was only trying to be funny. She was ashamed and alarmed.

“What made you do that?” he asked slowly.

“Because I’m sick and tired of being called a cook, that’s why!” she answered valiantly.

“Well, you’d better apologize!” he said.

“Well, I won’t!” she answered promptly. “I’m glad I did it. I’m just sick and tired of--of all this--shut up here alone all day long!”

“All right!” said Brecky. “All right!”

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she began, very deliberately, to dry her hands. He turned away and walked back to his books, but she saw that his hands were clenched, and she knew that he was filled with fury. She was elated, and she was sorry.

He began figuring, but he grasped his pencil so fiercely that it broke, and he had to get up and look for another.

He saw Kathleen standing before the little mirror she had hung up on the wall, dressed in her fur coat and engaged in pinning on her hat.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Putting on my hat,” she answered calmly.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

He smiled.

“Well, good-by!” he said.

Taking the key out of the lock, he went out of the kitchen, slamming and locking the door behind him.

“She can stay in there and think it over!” he said to himself.

III

Brecky made an effort to be light, careless, superior. He whistled as he went upstairs to the two rooms they used on the floor above--one as a bedroom, the other as a sort of office, where Brecky “saw people.” He had plenty of material to occupy himself with here--letters and catalogues and estimates and so on. A little gas stove was burning in one corner, and the room was as neat, cheerful, and comfortable as it could be made by Kathleen’s benevolent genius.

He had scarcely set foot over the threshold before a pang of remorse assailed him. Wherever his glance fell, there was something to speak of Kathleen and her care for him. He was by no means imaginative, but he was suddenly able to imagine his young wife alone all day in this huge, cold place. He began to have some idea of what her life must be.

“By gosh!” he thought. “After all, I don’t know that I blame the poor girl for landing on me!”

And all at once the pathos of the thing overcame him--that poor little bit of a thing flying out at him like that--at him, who could have picked her up and shaken her like a kitten. He shouldn’t have teased her. After all, there was more to her than her cooking. He hadn’t fallen in love with her for that.

His impulse was to hurry downstairs and make it up; but he didn’t see how one could make up a quarrel with a woman without giving her a present. It wasn’t decent. Moreover, it would be too difficult. A present relieved a man from the necessity of making any sort of explanation, or of talking at all. You give the present, with a kiss, and it’s done.

He walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, haunted by the image of Kathleen angry and Kathleen gay. The more he reflected, the more mysterious and oppressive was his sense of guilt, the more contrite and tender his heart. In the end he came to a decision extraordinary in one so stiff-necked. He resolved to go downstairs and say, quite frankly, that he was sorry, and that he loved her and didn’t care whether she cooked or not.

The house seemed blacker and colder than ever as he descended the stairs. He wondered if she was crying in there, or scornfully washing the dishes. He unlocked the door, opened it, and entered.

He couldn’t see her at all. He stared about the huge kitchen, which was well lighted. There were the dishes, just as he had last seen them, but no human being. Kathleen had gone!

He couldn’t believe it at first. She couldn’t have got out by the windows, for the heavy shutters were locked on the outside. There was no possible means of egress from that room except an incredible one; and yet, as she wasn’t in the room, she must have got out that way. She must have gone down the flight of rickety wooden steps and through the cellar.

She had always been in mortal fear of the cellar, because there were rats in it. Brecky had always brought up the coal for her when she wanted some. In order to pass through it at night, she must have been in a desperate mood, he thought.

He was more disturbed than he cared to admit. Where could the girl go, alone, on a night like this, with a regular hurricane blowing? There was nothing for it but to put on his cap and overcoat and go in search of her.

The wrath of a woman had in it something peculiarly alarming and mysterious for Brecky. He felt that Kathleen was capable of the most amazing deeds, that she was not bound by any of his rules or scruples. He couldn’t imagine what she would do. He was completely lost.

He opened the front door and stepped out into the tumultuous night. Fortunately there was only one direction in which to go, unless one wished to walk into the sea, and he didn’t think that even an enraged wife would do that. There was nothing suicidal about Kathleen, anyhow. She was too sane, too solid, too honestly fond of life.

He was also aware that she was well able to withstand this weather. Where he could go, sturdy as he was, she could go, too. She was vigorous and resolute.

The wind was at his back now. He went with fierce impetus along the empty streets, and he went, inevitably, to the railway station. He entered the warm little waiting room, where a white-bearded agent dozed in his ticket booth.

The man looked up and nodded at Brecky.

“Too late!” he said. “She’s gone!”

This might mean either a train or a wife.

“Ten minutes ago,” the agent went on, full of the secret triumph he always felt at the spectacle of a thwarted traveler. “You’ll have to wait two hours, and mebbe more.”

Brecky sat down near the stove and set to work to frame a question which should in no way compromise his wife. He wished to seem aware of all her doings. He couldn’t ask whether she had been at the station; but the agent assisted him.

“Your missus would ’a’ lost the nine o’clock train herself, if it hadn’t ’a’ been near half an hour late.”

“I’m glad she caught it, anyway,” replied Brecky. “It’s a case of serious illness. I told her to hurry along, and I’d follow as soon as I could.”

“Your phone out of order?” asked the agent.

“Yes,” said the quick-witted Brecky. “Did she telephone here?”

“Yep--said to meet the train when it got to the station.”

“I wonder who she got on the phone!” said Brecky. “Probably her aunt or her cousin.”

Splendid improvisation, for Kathleen hadn’t a single relative in the city, to his knowledge!

“It just happens I heard the name,” said the agent. “‘Charley,’ she says, ‘I’m coming in unexpected, and you must come and meet me!’”

“I didn’t know Charley was in New York,” said Brecky thoughtfully.

“She didn’t phone New York,” said the agent. “I just happened to hear. It was New Chelsea.”

“I see!” said Brecky.

IV

He took a cigar out of his pocket and began to smoke, and to think. His impassive face showed no trace of emotion. He was simply waiting for a train; but within he was in a panic, torn with rage, fear, and a frantic desire for action.

Who the devil was Charley? After all, what did he know of Kathleen? What did he know of women, anyway? He had left her alone for days and days, while he looked after business matters in the city. He had left her alone, partly because he wanted to go into the city, because he disliked solitude and quiet. How did he know what she thought of when he was gone? Charley!

He could scarcely endure it. His lean body trembled, like that of a nervous horse held brutally in check. He wanted to bolt. Charley!

Unfortunately, Brecky did not find it difficult to believe evil. His experience of life had been hard and definite. He had as high an opinion of Kathleen as he had ever had of a human being, but he was not trustful. He knew too much, and it was a one-sided knowledge.

It was possible that Kathleen was merely a fool, and didn’t realize what she was doing; but this Charley wouldn’t be like that. If women were more or less a mystery to Brecky, men were not. He had a sudden and very clear picture of Kathleen, neat, rosy, pitifully self-assured, alighting from the train, to be met by Charley.

All at once he knew who Charley was--that fat, owlish fellow who used to sit so often at Kathleen’s table in the restaurant. Sands, his name was. He had money of his own, and used to bother Brecky for tips on the races. He used to sit for hours absorbed in the form sheets, trying to figure things out for himself--with the usual results. And Kathleen had turned from Brecky, the shrewd, the alert, the competent, to that fellow!

“I’ve got nearly an hour to wait, haven’t I?” he asked.

Brecky’s voice rang out sharply in the quiet little room. The agent opened his eyes, more startled than the words warranted. He fancied there was something in the other man’s tone. He stared at him, instantly wide awake.

“I guess I’ll have time to run home and get something,” Brecky went on.

“Don’t be late, though,” said the agent. “This’ll be the last train to-night.”

Brecky vanished, slamming the door behind him. He retraced his steps with dreamlike ease. He was not conscious of progressing until he found himself once more at the hotel. He was filled with emotions so violent, with such a confusion of hatred, jealousy, and pain, that he was truly overwhelmed. His inarticulate soul could find no other words for his anguish than--

“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”

He put his hand into his coat pocket for the key of the front door, but it wasn’t there. He was obliged to go around to the back of the house and enter through the cellar. He felt his way through the piercing cold of that black underground cavern, and ascended the shaking wooden steps to the kitchen.

The kitchen gave him a shock. It was exactly as he had left it, neat, quiet, warm, with the clock ticking, the kettle gently steaming, Kathleen’s apron across a chair. It was like the memory of a past irretrievably gone. Brecky’s heart contracted with pain. He stopped for a moment, to muster all the resolution he had.

He went upstairs into the bedroom, and from a drawer of the bureau he took what he wanted. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, saw his face strained and hard beneath his inevitable cap, and he thought he looked like a criminal in the movies. Well, why shouldn’t he?

He caught the train. He got in and settled himself comfortably in the smoking car, deserted except for two men playing pinochle.

The train ran on smoothly, stronger than the wind. Brecky could see very little from the window except the slanting rain and now and then a blurred light. The turmoil in his brain never ceased. He looked unpleasantly wide awake, staring, like a somnambulist. His gray eyes never seemed to blink, or his face to move a muscle.

And for all his grief and fury he had no other words than that pitifully inadequate refrain:

“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”

His cigar was out, but he did not notice it. He sat with a curiously alert air, like a pointing dog, immobile, but terribly ready. He was thinking.

He stopped the conductor as he passed through the car.

“Can you stop at New Chelsea?” he asked.

The conductor shook his head.

“It’s not an express stop,” he said. “You’ll have to go on to New York and then take a train back. You’ll have to wait till to-morrow morning, too. No more trains to-night!”

Brecky reflected. He took it for granted that if Kathleen had telephoned to the fellow at New Chelsea, that was where he lived, and where he was most likely to be found. He pulled at the conductor’s sleeve as the man was moving away.

“Do you slow down anywhere near there?”

“Not enough for--”

“Just you tell me when you’re going to slow down a bit,” said Brecky. “I’ve got to get there. You won’t be responsible.”

“I should be,” said the conductor sententiously. “Morally speaking, I should be responsible.”

Brecky knew every inch of that line. As they approached the desired destination, he got up and went out upon the platform. The pinochle players saw him standing there, in the wind and the rain. Then, suddenly, he vanished. He had climbed down the steps and jumped.

The fall stunned him, and he lay still for an instant. When he could breathe freely again, he rose, and mechanically tried to brush himself off. He was always a neat fellow.

The train had disappeared, and he was alone in the universe. He could still hear the sea, dull and menacing, and the demoniac wind still blew. He didn’t quite know where he was. His plan was to follow the tracks.

Wet to the skin, a sinister enough figure with his face nearly hidden by pulled down cap and turned up collar, he went doggedly forward toward the next station. He presented the appearance of a highwayman.

Before long he saw the feeble light of the New Chelsea station ahead of him, blurred through the rain. With a sigh of relief he mounted the wooden platform, where he was for the moment sheltered from the weather.

He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He looked in through the window, and saw the dimly lit room, quite empty, and the stove, without fire. Evidently the station master had gone for the night. This was a blow to Brecky, for he had counted upon making inquiries here.

He prowled around the platform, scowling, trying to plan his course. To his right he saw a few scattered lights, which must be, he thought, the village of New Chelsea; and he went toward them, along a muddy road. In due time he reached the main street. There was a drug store, closed and locked, with a ghostly green light in the window. There was also a protective light in the window of a well stocked grocery; but not a human being to be seen, not a sound to be heard, except the yelping of a dog somewhere in the hills that rose behind the town and partly sheltered it from the wind. Only a sudden cruel gust, from time to time, met him full in the face.

He turned a corner, and at the end of the street he saw a distant form, walking with a slow and deliberate step very familiar to him. It was a policeman, and Brecky hastened after him.

“I’ve lost my bearings,” he said. “Is Charley Sands’s place anywhere near here?”

The policeman hesitated for a moment, with rural caution.

“What do you want to go there for?” he asked.

“Well,” said Brecky, laughing, “I suppose because I don’t want to walk around New Chelsea all night in this weather. Three of us started here in a motor, but we broke down a little way up the line, and we couldn’t get our bearings. We each tried a different direction, and I guess I’m the lucky one. Charley will have to turn out with a lantern to find the other fellows.”

“Oh, they’ll be all right!” said the policeman, disarmed. “There’s houses and little settlements all around this part of the country.”

He directed Brecky to the house of Charley Sands. A good walk, about three miles, he should say--uphill, and mighty hard to find in the dark.

“Oh, I’ll find it all right!” said Brecky cheerfully.

V

He very nearly found something else that night. He lost his way entirely. He went on, as in a dream, along muddy roads, up hills so steep that he thought his weary heart would burst. He would not admit his intolerable fatigue, and the frightful ravages made by passion and bitterness. He wished to continue, inexorably, until he had accomplished his object.

The country was unfamiliar and hostile to this denizen of cities. When at last his strength was wholly gone, he did not know where to turn. He dared not wake any of the people in the dark farmhouses he passed. He crept up to a barn once, but a dog drove him away.

At last, at very last, he found an open shed behind a church, used as a shelter for the buggies and the Fords of the worshipers; and he crouched in there, relieved for a time from the unendurable confusion of the dark and the wind. His cigars and matches were dry and safe in an inside pocket, and he began to smoke. He hadn’t the slightest wish to sleep. He didn’t even feel tired. He only wanted to stop for a moment, to secure a pause in his superhuman exertions. He knew very well that if he hadn’t found this refuge, he would have been defeated.

Wide-eyed and reflective, he sat in his corner until he observed that the stormy dark was changing its aspect, that it was growing faintly and drearily gray. It surprised him. He had forgotten that morning was ever coming again. He got up and set out on his way once more.

An extraordinary thought occurred to him. It would have been better, he said to himself, if he had died. He had lost Kathleen; why was he to live? What had he left?

He had no longer any heart for revenge. He was sorry he had to see it through; but, according to his queer code, it was absolutely necessary to vindicate himself. Otherwise his self-respect would be gone, and he could neither live nor die in peace.

It was nearly eight o’clock when he approached the house of Charley Sands, which an early stirring laborer had pointed out to him. He had planned that hour. He had also looked up the time of the train he meant to take--when he had finished. It was due to his self-respect to make a valiant effort to escape, although he didn’t really care.

It was a trim white house surrounded by placid lawns. He went up to it with careless audacity, his hand grasping the revolver in his pocket. What did he care? Let Sands see him, let him ask what he wanted; he would soon find out!

Brecky had made himself neater, after his horrible night, than almost any other man could have done; but at best he looked haggard and menacing. He knew it, and was glad.

The weather had cleared, but he was still wet to the skin and cold, although he was not aware of it. He walked along the gravel path, which crunched under his firm tread. He was making no effort to conceal his presence. He wished to be observed, to bring this thing to its climax, to be done with it.

He ran up on the veranda, and, with one of those queer impulses of an abstracted mind, instead of ringing the bell, he knocked sharply on the door. He heard some one coming down the stairs, and he smiled. If it was Charley--

But it was not. It was an entirely strange young woman, who looked at him with distrust. He was so taken aback that he could not speak. He stared and stared at her.

“Well?” she demanded impatiently.

“Sands here?” he managed to ask.

“What do you want with him?”

Brecky hesitated. His tired brain, flung loose from the pivot of his fixed idea, spun round helplessly. He couldn’t really think at all. Another woman here!

He was roused by the sight of her preparing to shut the door in his face. He set his foot against it.

“I want to see him,” he said. “You call him!”

She was alarmed then, and began to call “Charley!” in a shrill voice.

Down the stairs came bounding the fat and owlish young man.

“Well!” he cried. “Brecky!”

The young woman frowned.

“He didn’t say who he was,” she said. “I didn’t know. Come in!”

Brecky entered, still dazed. They didn’t seem at all surprised to see him, even at that hour of the morning, and in the lamentable state he was in. He sat down uninvited, threw off his cap, and lighted a cigar.

“This is my wife, Brecky,” said Sands, in a tone of severe rebuke. “Kathleen’s second cousin, you know.”

“All right!” said Brecky.

His manners, usually punctilious, had deserted him entirely. What he wanted was for these people to clear out of their own room, and let him think for a moment; but the young woman sat down opposite him. She was rather nice-looking, in a shrewish way, but obviously hostile.

“She’s here,” she said.

Brecky sprang up.

“Let me see her!” he cried.

“I don’t think she wants to see you,” said the young woman. “I don’t blame her. If she takes my advice, she’ll never go back to you!”

Brecky looked at her steadily. He felt, however, that it was better not to say what he thought just then.

“You’re just making a drudge out of her,” the other went on. “It’s a shame--a pretty, lively young girl like Kathleen shut up in that awful place! All you care about is getting your meals cooked. I wouldn’t do it for any man. She’s sick and tired of it, I can tell you--being your cook. If she takes my advice, she’ll go back to her old job, where she’ll have a little money to spend and see a little life.”

“All right!” said Brecky again. “But maybe she doesn’t want to take your advice. Anyway, I’d like to ask her.”

“Well, I hope she won’t see you. I know what you’ll do--make all sorts of promises, till you get her back there again, and then she can go right on cooking!”

“Do I see her, or don’t I?” asked Brecky, still quite calm.

“I’ll see,” said the peppery young woman, and went off and left him alone.

He had a new idea to contend against, and one for which there was in his experience no precedent. He could comprehend an elopement, but any subtler reason for his wife’s leaving him was extremely hard for him to grasp. It was his habit, though, to face facts, and he tried now.

He tried to imagine Kathleen as a human being, and not as his wife; but he failed. What more could the girl want? He was filled with rage at her ingratitude, and at the humiliating position she had got him into. He was certainly being made a fool of, for the first time. He had done his best, had worked for her, had been sober, kind, loyal. What more could the girl want?

Whatever it was, she wouldn’t get it--that she wouldn’t! She had left him, and she could come back, if she wished; but he wasn’t going to ask her.

“That’s not my way!” he said to himself, with a grimace. “I won’t crawl for any one. I haven’t done anything. It’s all her fault!”

He was half inclined to walk out of the house then and there, but if by any chance Kathleen was going to be sorry, he didn’t want to miss it. He discovered that he was extremely anxious for her to be sorry, and that if she were, he might perhaps not be so very angry. She needn’t even say it. One nice smile, and the thing would be over.

“I don’t know,” he thought. “Maybe it has been hard for her. She’s only a kid. Of course, it doesn’t excuse her running away like that, and making such a fool of me, but--well, I don’t know. Maybe, later on, I’ll get a servant for her. I could afford it.”

VI

Brecky wheeled about, for some one had entered the room. It was the rebellious Kathleen herself. She seemed to him to have grown miraculously prettier overnight, and he was still less angry.

“Well, Johnny?” she demanded.

He resented that tone very much.

“Well!” he said affably.

There was a long silence.

“I’m taking the nine forty train home,” said Brecky. “Coming?”

“No,” said she.

Without another word, he picked up his cap and made for the door; but he was met by Charley Sands.

“Here! Here!” said he. “Stay and have some breakfast first, old son!”

“All right!” said Brecky.

He wanted breakfast badly. He also wanted to show Kathleen how unconcerned he was, that he was not hurt and bewildered and angry. He stood in the hall, talking to Charley. He was aware of Kathleen’s voice in a near-by room, talking to that vixenish young woman.

“Married life’s a great thing!” said Charley dismally.

“Sure is!” said Brecky.

He couldn’t imagine how any man could marry if he couldn’t marry Kathleen. He despised and hated Kathleen, but in common justice he had to acknowledge to himself that she was the prettiest and sweetest girl in the world, and utterly superior to all other women. She was--

Just then he heard her speaking. She had a clear voice that carried well.

“No,” she was saying. “I think I’ll make some pancakes for Johnny’s breakfast. But see here--you needn’t tell him I made ’em, Grace. I don’t want him to think--but he looks dead tired, and he does love pancakes!”

That did for Brecky. He ran down the hall and pushed open a door. It opened into the kitchen, and Kathleen, in an apron, stood at the table, before a large bowl. He paid no attention to the second cousin. He darted around the table and took Kathleen in his arms.

“Oh, come on home!” he said.

She began to cry at once, very comfortably, with her head buried in his coat.

“Don’t be silly!” he said anxiously. “See here, Kathleen! Listen! We’ll get a cook. We’ll go to the theater, and--”

His wife raised her head and kissed him vehemently.

“Oh, Johnny!” she began, but stopped short, dried her eyes, and went on with great dignity. “Johnny,” she said, “I wouldn’t mind cooking and all that, for you, if you didn’t--kind of expect it. That’s what made me mad last night. You just expect--”

“Well, I won’t any more,” he assured her. “You come home, and I’ll be darned surprised every time I get a meal!”

* * * * *

A few minutes later they all sat down to enjoy Kathleen’s matchless pancakes. Eating them, Brecky also partook of the fruit of knowledge.

“You’re one grand little cook, Kathleen,” he thought; “but this time I won’t say it!”

EDITORIAL NOTE--The short story entitled “The Strong Man,” published in the September number of this magazine, was the work of Robert T. Shannon, but by an unfortunate error the name of John D. Swain was given as the author. We apologize to both these popular writers for the accidental confusion of their names.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

MARCH, 1923 Vol. LXXVIII NUMBER 2

The Aforementioned Infant

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO LOVED HER BABY

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

The lawyer read the document aloud to her, but she did not understand.

“What was that?” she asked timidly. “Free--”

“‘Free access to the aforementioned infant,’” he repeated. “That means that you may see your child at any time--any reasonable time, of course,” he hastened to add.

It did not take Maisie long to discover that there was no reasonable time. No matter at what hour she came to the house, she had to wait in the hall, sitting in a high-backed chair against the wall, humble, patient, like a child herself. The servants passed and repassed as often as they could find pretexts, for the sake of staring at this creature who had trapped young Mr. Lester into a scandalous marriage. The fact that she had not been notably successful as an adventuress stirred no one to pity. They had married, and it must have been due to Heaven knows what beguilement on her part.

Maisie had little charm for the casual observer. She was small, fragile, with untidy black hair and gray eyes immense and sorrowful. She dressed like a schoolgirl in a blue sailor blouse and a short dark skirt. Her pale face had the rounded contour of extreme youth. If the reckless Mr. Lester had betrayed her, one might have felt compassion for her as a forlorn and lovely child; but the fact that he had married her proved her to be basely calculating.

After a long time she would be taken up to the nursery. If the baby was asleep, she would stand beside the crib, her hands clasped, tears raining down her face. She would wait patiently until it awoke. Then she would lift the sturdy little thing, strain it to her childish breast, kiss its faint, silky hair, and press her own cheek against its plump one. She scarcely dared to whisper her passionate endearments, for the trained nurse was always there, looking at her critically.

“I don’t like to see her pick up the baby,” the nurse said to Mrs. Tracy. “She doesn’t look healthy.”

“I dare say she’s not,” replied Mrs. Tracy, with a sigh; “and who knows what she’s been doing, or where she comes from? But I suppose it can’t be helped. She had a legal right to see the child, of course. My son is very strict about her rights, and so on--very generous.”

Her son himself was not always so sure of his generosity. He had moments when he thought himself little short of contemptible. Only moments, though; he was no rebel, and if his world was inclined to condone his offenses, or even to deny them, who was he to contradict it?

He was young himself--only twenty-two; a good-looking, silly, sweet-tempered boy. His life was one folly after another, always repaired by some one else. He did not imagine that he could do no wrong, but he felt pretty sure that any wrong that he might do could easily be undone by some one else.

He had found Maisie behind the counter of a candy shop, where he went to buy lavish presents for other girls. Her luminous and innocent eyes, her soft little English voice, had taken his fancy. She was quite alone in the world. She had come to America with her brother, a third-rate actor, a hard-working, ambitious fellow, for whom she was to keep house.

“But he died,” she said simply. “So I’m working here.”

She had been pitifully ready to love. She had taken all Lester Tracy’s extravagant speeches in perfect seriousness. She didn’t know how to conceal her sweet delight; and he had been very much touched by her artless affection. There was no one like little Maisie.

He often took her out to dinner, and to save his life he could see nothing in her to find fault with. She was always gentle, quiet, appealing. What if she was a shop girl? He knew plenty of girls of his own sort who might have learned much from Maisie. She was no gold digger, for she demanded nothing, expected nothing. She was happy if he took her out, but she was quite as happy if he stood in the vestibule of the wretched apartment house where she lived, and talked to her and kissed her.

She cared nothing at all for his money. He had tried to explain that, but no one would believe it.

He couldn’t explain his marriage very well. He had come into the candy shop, one day, on his way home from a wedding breakfast, where he had had a good deal too much to drink. He had leaned across the counter and said to Maisie:

“Come on, Maisie, darling! Let’s go and get married!”

She had got her shabby little hat and walked out of the shop with him, and they had gone down to the City Hall. He had been well aware of his condition, and a little afraid that he wouldn’t be granted a license; but he had made a great effort, and had carried it off splendidly.

He had been very happy with Maisie. He had run away. For a time no one knew where he was or what he had done, and they had lived in a big seaside hotel, undisturbed by any thought of the consequences of the thing. He did not like to remember how sweet Maisie had been. He tried to forget the innocent gayety of that fortnight.

Of course he had been discovered, and the monstrousness of the escapade had been shown to him. He had been hectored and wept over and bribed, and he had given in, as he always did.

Maisie was no less docile. She had been told that she must give him up, and she did as she was told.

Her docility was a sore temptation to the Tracys’ lawyer, who saw no reason why they should throw money away on a girl who didn’t want it. He advised them to waive the question of a divorce for the present, but to ask her to sign an informal--and infamous--separation agreement, to accept a very small cash settlement, and to vanish. She saw clearly that no one on earth--alas, not even Lester--cared where she went, or what happened to her.

To the lawyer she seemed to be a singularly insensitive creature. Even Lester was surprised that she gave him up so readily, without even a word of farewell. She would have got more sympathy--and more money--if she had made a scene; but that never occurred to her. She accepted whatever life offered with the blind resignation of a child. She felt herself entirely helpless and ineffectual, and took refuge in a strange inner life of her own, in the most piteous dreams and fancies.

II

Without energy, without bodily or mental vigor, Maisie had the immeasurable strength of fortitude. She could live one day at a time, endure each misery as it came; and in her baby she found a sublime compensation for every sorrow. Her money was exhausted when she left the hospital, but she was accustomed to the idea of a lifetime of work; and now that she had something to work for, a new ambition had awakened in her.

Her brother had taught her to dance. Indeed, they had once laboriously rehearsed a “turn” of his invention which was to thrill the music halls. She knew all the hackneyed steps, the conventional gestures, and performed them with a conscientious and touching grace.

The stage was out of the question--she knew that. She had no stage presence, no commercial value; but she could teach. Her naïve confidence in her ability to do so convinced the manager of the Palace Dancing Academy, and he engaged her as a “lady instructor.” The hours were irregular. She had to be on call from ten in the morning till ten at night, and was paid by the lesson.

She bought an evening dress from a secondhand dealer, an amazing affair of tarnished spangles and frowzy net, in which she looked incredibly dowdy. She could never learn to dress her hair. There were always silky threads waving as she moved, and one dark lock that insisted on falling across her forehead. One of her pupils said privately that dancing with her was like dancing with a rag doll. She seemed boneless and unsubstantial.

On the whole, however, she was well liked, for she took the greatest pains, was never impatient, never discouraged. Neither did she resent anything whatever. Some of her clients went far in their compliments, but her pale cheeks never flushed. She simply didn’t care. She had done with men, and all her steadfast and gentle heart was given to her baby. The Maisie who went dancing about in the Palace Academy was an automaton, whose soul was locked up at home.

She knew nothing at all about babies. She didn’t even know that there was anything to know. She read the label on a package of infant food, and followed the directions given. For the rest, she had vague ideas about keeping it swathed in flannel, giving it a daily bath, and taking it out in the fresh air whenever she could. She knew nothing of infant hygiene, and had never been told that the child should be let alone in order to develop naturally and healthily. She never let it alone, if she could avoid doing so; and still it developed mightily.

When she went out to give her lessons, she simply locked the room and left the baby in the crib. Sometimes she worried about fire, but she had no idea that what she did was wicked and shocking. On the contrary, she thought it inevitable.

She hadn’t told any one that there was a baby, but Mrs. Tracy found it out, and was very much agitated. Her grandchild! Try as she would to let well enough alone, the idea tormented her. It was an intolerable shame that her grandchild should be brought up in squalor and degradation by this girl!

She went again to her lawyer, and he gave her sage advice.

“I’ve no doubt she’d be willing to give up the child for a suitable consideration,” said he. “She seems to be a matter-of-fact young person.”

So he went with Mrs. Tracy to offer the suitable consideration. They found the miserable furnished room and knocked at the door. It was locked, but the baby inside began to cry.

“I guess Mrs. Tracy’s out,” said the landlady, who was interested in these imposing visitors.

“Does she leave the child locked in the room alone?” demanded the outraged grandmother.

“Well, what else can she do?” replied the landlady. “But she’s always home by quarter past ten.”

So they came again at that time. Maisie had brought in a sandwich and a piece of cake for her supper, and had spread them out on the table. The baby’s food was simmering over the gas jet, and the baby itself was propped up with pillows on the bed, jolly as a sandboy. Maisie had taken off her evening frock and put on a short, old-womanish sort of flannel dressing sack. Her short dark hair hung loose about her neck. She looked startled when she opened the door.

The senior Mrs. Tracy was an impressive woman, tall, slender, straight, with a high-bridged nose and pale, restless eyes. She had an arrogant spirit, but she came prepared to hold it in subjection, and to cajole, if necessary. She must and would have her grandchild.

Moreover, she fell in love with the baby at once. It was a vigorous, wild little thing, with rough dark hair and a glance farouche and bright. It was rather undersized, but perfectly formed and healthy.

“And she’s dressed it like a monkey!” she thought angrily. “The child is certainly ten months old, and still in those ridiculous long clothes, and that absurd jacket! And why a bonnet in the house?”

Mrs. Tracy considered all this as evidence of Maisie’s lack of maternal feeling, and she was astounded when the girl refused to sell her baby.

“Oh, no, thank you!” she persisted. “Oh, thank you very much, but I’d rather not. Thanks, but really I can’t!”

The lawyer and Mrs. Tracy pointed out to her how grossly selfish she was, and told her that she thought only of her own pleasure, and not of the child’s advantage. Maisie kept to herself certain ideas she had about these advantages. She was terrified, but resolute. She would not give up the baby.

III

Several times, after that, Maisie was summoned to the lawyer’s office to be bullied and cajoled. She came as promptly and obediently as if a letter from him were an order from the Inquisition, but she would not abjure.

One evening, when she came home, the baby was gone. She might have protested against the illegality of her locked room being forcibly entered; but, as the lawyer well knew, those who are not aware of their rights are little better off than those who have none.

She came to his office early the next morning. He had expected her to come. He had also expected her to be somewhat lacking in self-control, but she was worse than he had imagined. He was very reasonable. He explained that the child was now in the custody of its father, and she would have to show cause why it should be removed therefrom. He hinted that she would not find that easy to do.

“Now, then, my dear young woman,” said he, “you mustn’t be selfish. Your child will be brought up with every possible advantage, and you shall see her whenever you wish. Compare what her grandparents have to offer her with the life that she would have with you. Your--er--young Mr. Tracy has no money of his own, you know, and there is no way to force any sort of--”

He saw with alarm that she was likely to become troublesome. She no longer wept, but her mouth twitched and her eyes burned.

“Then let them give me the money to take care of the baby, instead of their nurses!” she cried. “I’d do it all alone! The baby was always well with me, and so happy you can’t think!”

It would have been convenient to expel this naughty child from school, but it could not be done. She would not consent to write a letter refusing to return to her husband. On the contrary, the mention of such a thing caused her a most ludicrous hope. Perhaps Lester really wanted to ask her, and these people were trying to stop him. She had strangely little affection for him left. She was, in fact, perfectly indifferent in regard to him; but if she got him, she would get the baby. That was all she wanted.

Mrs. Tracy went to see her again.

“Now, my dear child,” she said, “you’re very young. For your own sake, you don’t want to go on like this, married and yet not married. You want to be free, so that you can make another choice, and, I hope, a happier one.”

She went on to explain that if Maisie would only do as she was told, she would soon have a dazzling freedom. She might marry again; she could do exactly as she pleased.

Maisie had an ignorant fancy that she already possessed about as much freedom as she was ever likely to get, and she said she didn’t want to marry any one else.

“But I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll give me my baby,” she said.

She held firmly to that. Lester could have everything there was--freedom, money, as many wives as a Turk; she wanted nothing but the baby.

Mrs. Tracy desired and intended that her son should have everything desirable, and the baby as well; and she felt sure that in time this would come about. She had observed that everything comes to those who can afford to wait. If poor people were simply let alone, their own poverty would drown them.

IV

Lester Tracy was alone in the house, technically speaking. To be sure, there were four servants drawing the breath of life on the premises, but even they would have admitted unanimously that Mr. Lester was alone. He was dressing to go out, moving about in his room, and whistling cheerfully.

He was a lean, blond young fellow, his face already marked by dissipation; yet it was not a coarse or an evil face, only a frivolous one. He was little more than a tragic buffoon, and sometimes the poor devil was aware of it. Not now, however. Now he was happy, with his unfailing infantile zest for facile pleasures. He stopped whistling for a moment, to examine his closely shaved jaw; and then he heard a stealthy footstep in the hall.

Because nothing had ever happened to him, he was afraid of nothing. He had a vague belief that his person was sacred, that any evildoer would fall back abashed before Lester Tracy. He hoped it was a burglar; that would be something to tell his friends. He turned out the light and pushed open his door without a sound, very much excited.

But it was only Maisie, stock still, with her hand at her heart, and a white face. She wore a scanty rain coat over her tawdry, bespangled frock, and one of the big, floppy hats that she fancied. She had somehow the look of a masquerader, in clothes that didn’t belong to her, and she certainly did not belong there in the Tracys’ hall.

A very unpleasant emotion came over Lester at the sight of that little figure. He had grown accustomed to thinking of Maisie--when he thought of her at all--as one of his follies of which some one else was disposing. He had forgotten that she was real; but now that he saw her, she seemed more real than any one he had ever seen or imagined.

She was pale and motionless, and yet she seemed as startling as a blaze of light. Her forlorn and betrayed loneliness was like a halo about her young head.

Recovering from her momentary alarm, she went on toward the nursery. Lester was miserably irresolute. He wanted to go out and tell her to go boldly to her baby, to go arrogantly, proudly. He couldn’t endure her furtiveness.

“After all, it’s her baby,” he thought. “My God, what an awful thing we’ve done!”

He imagined her in the dimly lit nursery, standing beside the crib, and looking into that chubby little face. It suddenly occurred to him that the nurse might be about, and might send Maisie away. He decided to stop that.

He had come out into the hall on that errand when Maisie, too, came out from the other room. She had the baby in her arms, huddled in a blanket.

They faced each other for the first time since their honeymoon. In spite of all that they had forgotten, in spite of the gulf of injustice and suffering between them, some little spark of honest and beautiful good will was in their hearts. It was not love--that had been murdered--but loyalty to their past love.

“Maisie!” he said. “Oh, Maisie! I’m sorry!”

She bent her head in an attitude of sublime and humble resignation.

“Just let me have my baby!” she entreated softly.

V

Mrs. Tracy turned the world upside down. Not a soul in that house could sleep, could rest, could eat, during her reign of terror. It was not only her personal grief at the loss of the child that distracted her, but the monstrous affront to her pride.

She was informed that Maisie had called to see her, and had been told to wait in the hall until she returned from the theater.

“And the treacherous, wicked creature must have crept up the stairs and stolen the child!” she cried. “She must have taken the poor, helpless little thing while it slept! Didn’t you hear a sound, Lester?”

“Not a sound,” said he.

“If there is a law in the land, she shall be punished!” said Mrs. Tracy.

If she could have had her way, she would have made it a criminal offense for any one to harbor the treacherous Maisie, to give her a morsel of food or a roof to shelter her. Her haughty spirit brooded over the insult until she was ill from it. The lawyer dreaded the sight of her haggard face.

“It’s very difficult to trace so obscure and ordinary a person,” he protested.

“My grandchild is neither obscure nor ordinary,” she said. “Set your wits to work. The child must be found!”

As Mrs. Tracy had large resources and Maisie none at all, this was accomplished. The girl was discovered acting as general servant in a lonely country house--a wretched, ill paid position, with work beyond her young strength; but she could have her baby with her, and she fancied herself safe. From the kitchen window she could see her small idol staggering about in the grass. She could lie at night in her attic room with the child in her arms. They had food to eat, clean air to breathe, and a roof overhead.

Mrs. Tracy’s idea was to go out there by motor and simply take the child away, but the lawyer dissuaded her.

“No,” said he. “I shouldn’t like that done again. It’s apt to create prejudice against you if the case comes to court.”

“I fancy I should only need to inform the judge how the child is living--sleeping in a servant’s room--”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You never can tell how those things will go. I advise you to compromise with her--to leave the child in her custody six months--”

“With a servant? When she can have every possible advantage with her father? I will not do it. Let the case go to court. I fancy--”

“But you see,” he explained, “after all, the mother is supporting the child more or less decently; and as far as I can ascertain, there’s nothing against her character--no evidence to prove her an unfit guardian.”

“Something could be found,” said Mrs. Tracy.

The lawyer understood her very well, but he did not care to go so far. That sort of thing was done, of course, but not by him.

“I’m going to save the child,” said she. “If you don’t care to help me, I’ll do it alone!”

He quite believed that she would, and he felt a small twinge of pity for Maisie.

VI

Maisie accepted blessings as she did curses, patiently and incuriously. She was not startled when a young man came out to the country, told her that he had noticed her dancing at the Palace Academy, and made her an offer to be his dancing partner for two or three cabaret turns.

She was no analyst of character, either. She took people on their own valuation, which is generally a flattering one. She was pleased and a little touched by Mr. Denbigh’s friendly interest. It was a long time since she had talked freely with any one near her own age. She told him that she had studied stage dancing with her brother, and was sure she wouldn’t be shy in public. She told him how anxious she was to get on in the world, for the baby’s sake.

He offered her a loan as an advance, and she accepted it, agreeing to go back to the city at once and to sign the contracts he would bring her. She was so artless, so impersonal, so ignorant, that Mr. Denbigh went away a little disconcerted by the facility with which the first step had been accomplished.

“Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh,” his card read. That, however, was not his name, and though he spoke with the slurred, agreeable accent of the New Yorker, he was not one. He was a slender, supple young fellow, with the queer beauty of Heaven knows what mongrel blood. He had dark, narrow eyes, olive skin, high cheek bones, and a delicate jaw. He had sprung up from nowhere; he had no tradition, no background, no scruples, no country, no friends.

In the middle of the dancing craze he had come to the surface. With his adroitly acquired manner, he had some success as a professional dancer in hotels, because women liked him. Then, as his vogue fell off, his means of living became more and more unsavory. Through a new and unmentioned lawyer, Mrs. Tracy had got hold of him. It was to be his rôle to prove Maisie an unfit guardian for the baby, and the thing was to be done thoroughly. Mrs. Tracy intended it to appear natural, inevitable, without the faintest trace of her guiding hand. She couldn’t have found a better tool than Ainsworth Denbigh.

He had no trouble in teaching Maisie. She had a remarkable talent, a matchless grace, and she was docile. She learned the steps exactly as he wished. She was light in his arms as thistledown, but she was not passive. Her movement had a strange, exquisite quality; with all her supple body apparently at rest, she moved through space like a floating leaf, like a wind-blown flower.

She was utterly devoid of any sensuous allurement. Dancing to vulgar music, wearing the insolent dress he had advised her to buy, before gross eyes, the plaintive innocence of her beauty was unimpaired. Her gray eyes could meet any regard with the same clear wonder, her pale cheek never flushed.

Ainsworth Denbigh was decidedly overshadowed, but this didn’t trouble him. Maisie was welcome to all the credit provided he got the cash, and their partnership was very profitable. They were making a name for themselves in a second-rate sort of way--“Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh and Miss Maisie Kent in ballroom dances de luxe.” Better still, they were making money.

He often regretted that he had entered into an agreement to remove Maisie from the Tracys’ path--not because he was touched by her forlorn youth and sweetness, or had any scruples of honor, but because he was well satisfied with affairs as they were, and resented the effort required of him. He made no headway with Maisie, and he had the wit to see that he never would. She was polite enough, and very easily swindled out of her fair share of their profits. Apparently she had confidence in him: but that was not enough. She was expected to fall in love with him, and obviously she was not going to do so.

She had taken a small flat near Morningside Park, and had engaged a colored woman to look after the baby. When their last turn was over, she was so eager to get home that she couldn’t even attend to what Denbigh said to her. She refused to go out with him at any time, not from dislike or from caution, but because she had something so much better to do. She flew home to her baby as a white soul to heaven, and was divinely happy. She had no room for one thought of her dancing partner.

There used to be a proverb about the horse that was taken to the water and would not drink. Under modern conditions that horse would no doubt be forcibly watered and taught better. If Maisie refused to disgrace herself, then she must have disgrace forced upon her.

“See here, Maisie,” Denbigh said one evening. “Let me come home with you and see this wonderful kid.”

“Oh, I’d like you to!” she cried. “She’ll be asleep, but sometimes I think she’s prettier asleep than any other way. She gets a little paler, but that makes her lashes look so black!”

Mr. Denbigh was remarkably interested in her baby, but his entire behavior was remarkable that evening. He was terribly nervous, and seemed to be apprehensive about the time, consulting his wrist watch every few minutes.

VII

Lester Tracy was just leaving the house when he was called back to the telephone. He went petulantly. He wouldn’t have gone at all if it had not been an anonymous call, and therefore faintly interesting. The past six months had not improved him; he was jaded, irritable, restless.

Maisie’s quiet little voice had a singular effect upon him.

“Lester!” she said. “Will you please come? There’s a man here, and he won’t go away.”

It was the first time he had ever been directly appealed to, had ever been asked to play a man’s part. It steadied and fortified him miraculously.

“Of course I’ll come,” he answered. “What’s the trouble?”

“I don’t know. He said he wanted to see the baby, and when he got into the room he locked the door. He won’t open it. Maybe he’s been drinking. So I came here, to the telephone in the little dressing room--where I bathe the baby, you know,” she explained in her careful, patient way. “It hasn’t any door into the hall. I can’t get out. And--oh, I’m so afraid he might try to hurt the baby!”

Lester didn’t think that. He wrote down the address and ran headlong down the stairs and into the waiting car.

VIII

It was by this absolutely unexpected action of Maisie’s that Mrs. Tracy was defeated. Two detectives, who believed--because they had been so informed--that they were employed by Mr. Lester Tracy to collect evidence against his wife, arrived precisely at the time when they had been told to arrive, and entered the flat. They found Maisie there, with a man who brazenly insisted that he was Mr. Lester Tracy. He didn’t look it. He was disheveled, his coat was torn, he had a bad bruise on his cheek bone and a cut over one eyebrow, and he was incoherent with rage.

The detectives had reason to believe that the fellow was a Mr. Ainsworth Denbigh, and they said so. He told them that they would very likely find Mr. Denbigh in a hospital, although jail was where he belonged. He showed a marked inclination to make a row, which was not what they had been led to expect. In fact, he was so vigorous in his methods that the detectives were at a loss.

“Telephone to Mrs. Tracy,” said he. “She’ll come and identify me. Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing who it is that kicks you out!”

They agreed to this, and sat down to wait. It was an odd enough group--the two detectives, both burly and severe, their hats on their knees, while up and down the room walked the disordered and vehement young man. All three were somehow overshadowed by the quiet and downcast Maisie, sitting with her feet crossed, her hands clasped, in that patient, meek attitude of hers. The light of a shaded lamp fell upon her shining dark hair, untidy as always. Just once she raised her clear, honest eyes to the young man’s face, and he stopped short.

“Don’t worry, Maisie!” he said. “I’ll--I’ll look after you!”

Mrs. Tracy had had to be fetched from a bridge party, and she was in no good humor. She was astounded, too, by the maladroitness of that man Denbigh in thus dragging her into an affair which she had strongly desired to avoid.

“I suppose something went wrong,” she thought, “and he wants me to prove that he’s not Lester. It’s incredibly clumsy of him. Oh, I’ll be so thankful when the wretched anxiety of this thing is over, and I have the poor little baby again! If it wasn’t for the baby, I couldn’t go through with it, but I’d do anything in the world to save the child from that outrageous girl!”

She rang the bell of the apartment, and one of the detectives let her in. He was impressed by her frigid magnificence, her crown of white hair, her penetrating eye.

“Sorry to trouble you, ma’am,” he said. “Won’t take you a minute to clear this thing up. This fellow here claims he’s Mr. Tracy, and--”

She smiled scornfully. The detective stood aside, and she preceded him down the hall to the living room.

“Where is this--” she began, but stopped short.

Her face blanched. She flung out her hand in a curiously helpless gesture, and it rested upon the detective’s shoulder. She needed his support.

“Lester!” she said faintly. “Oh, Lester! It can’t be--”

He had been filled with a terrible anger against his mother for this brutal and shameful ruse. He had thought he could never bear to see her face again, could never speak to her with common humanity; but when he did see her, in the anguish of her defeat, all that passed.

“Tell these men who I am,” he said, “and send them away.”

Her dry lips could scarcely frame the words.

“It’s my son. Please go!”

With the resignation acquired in their profession, they went off, and the door closed behind them. Lester brought forward a chair, but Mrs. Tracy would not sit down. She had recovered something of her poise, and looked at him steadily.

“What does this mean?” she asked.

He did not find it easy to answer without reproaching her too cruelly.

“I’m glad it has happened,” he said aloud. “I needed something like this to show me where I was drifting. If I hadn’t known--if I hadn’t come here--this--this crime would have been done, and very likely I’d have taken it all for granted. I’ve let this thing go on, I’ve let little Maisie be tormented and persecuted, and I’ve never lifted a finger to help her. It has been no one’s fault but mine, because she’s my responsibility. It’s no use saying I didn’t realize; it was my business to realize. But it’s ended now. She’s going to keep her baby!”

“Lester! My son! You don’t know what you’re saying! Simply because you’ve seen this girl again, and perhaps felt a little of your old, tragic infatuation--”

“I don’t know whether it’s that,” he said slowly; “but whatever it was I felt for Maisie, there’s never been anything else half so fine in all my life. I always knew that, but I hadn’t the sense--or the manliness--to understand what it meant. I thought I’d get over it. I should have, in the course of time, and I should have been getting over the only thing in me that’s good!”

He turned to Maisie.

“You’re free, you know, Maisie,” he said. “You can do exactly as you please. I give you my word you won’t be disturbed again. You’re to have the baby, and I’ll see that there’s a proper provision made.”

“Lester!” cried his mother. “You cannot put me aside entirely--”

“I do put you aside,” he said sternly. “It’s Maisie’s child, and she’s going to have it. I wish to Heaven she’d take me, too!”

Maisie had not stirred or spoken a word. She got up now and went out of the room.

They looked after her with amazement. Mrs. Tracy came close to her son.

“Oh, try to realize!” she whispered. “It’s your child, too. It’s a Tracy. You can’t abandon your own child to that ignorant, common girl!”

“Common!” said he. “I’ve never seen one like her!”

“She’s--” Mrs. Tracy began.

Maisie reëntered with the baby in her arms. It was asleep, lying limp and flushed against her frail shoulder. Over its dark, rough head, her eyes, misty with tears, met Mrs. Tracy’s.

“I know it’s my baby,” she said in an unsteady voice. “My very own! It’s wrong of any one to take her away from me, for one minute; but I know you love her. I wanted to say--” Maisie’s voice broke entirely. “I couldn’t be--cruel,” she sobbed; “not now when I have her safe. I’ll go to-morrow--I will indeed--to sign a paper--”

“What paper?” Lester demanded.

He came up beside her and put his arm about her. She looked up into his face with her old trust and candor.

“You don’t need to sign any papers, Maisie, darling!”

“But I want to,” she said. “I mean a paper to say that Mrs. Tracy is to have--” She paused for a moment, struggling with her tears. “I remember just how it goes. I want it to say that Mrs. Tracy is to have free access to the aforementioned infant at any reasonable hour. And any hour’ll be reasonable--really it will. Even if the baby’s in her bath, she’ll be welcome to come in.”

“Don’t, Maisie!” cried Mrs. Tracy sharply.

“I mean it! I mean it with all my heart!” cried Maisie. “I know you love the baby. I know what it is to long to see her, and not be able to. I thought you’d like to hold her for a minute, now before you go home. It just makes the whole night different, when you’ve done that!”

* * * * *

On the way home in her car, Mrs. Tracy reflected upon the incredible thing that had happened. Of all wildly improbable things, the most improbable was that she should ever beseech and entreat Maisie to come home with her to live; yet she had done that.

Lester sat on one side of her, very silent, but she was not troubled by his silence. The sleeping baby lay against her heart, and one of her hands held Maisie’s in a firm clasp.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1923 Vol. LXXVIII NUMBER 3

It Seemed Reasonable

FAR BETTER TO DO IT YOURSELF, OR HAVE IT DONE BADLY--BY SOME ONE ELSE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Christine and Paul were peaceably reading that evening in their model sitting room. The room was properly ventilated, the air was kept at the correct degree of humidity, the lighting was restful and hygienic, the furnishings were all in the best of taste.

They were a serious young couple. Paul was reading “Post-War Conditions in Beluchistan,” Christine was reading “Civilization’s Last Sigh,” and they concentrated their attention upon the books. Beside Paul, on the table, lay the three cigarettes which he allowed himself every evening, while Christine had three ounces of milk chocolate. There was not a sound from either of them, because the correct hygienic temperature, the bland light, and their own well balanced temperaments, prevented them from being fidgety. They had made up their minds that marriage should not make them frivolous, narrow, or dull, and it had not.

It was a January night of cruel, silent cold, black as the pit. It was nearly ten o’clock, and they certainly expected no intruders upon their serious quiet. Once, when Paul found that he had not exactly grasped the meaning of a paragraph, and had to turn back, he glanced up. By chance Christine also looked up, so that he met her eyes--her clear, honest blue eyes, so soft as they rested upon his face that he grew a little dizzy with the joy of it.

He could not take Christine quite sensibly yet. He knew that she was nothing but a human being, with many faults; yet very often he had wild hallucinations that she was an angel, a goddess, a mystery. She may have been subject to similar delusions, for she continued to look at her Paul, half smiling, as if lost in the contemplation of a miracle.

But suddenly their peace was destroyed--and for a good long time, too, as it happened--by the sound of the doorbell and the entrance of a glowing, dark-eyed girl with a tam-o’-shanter and a scarf of violent green. She brought an icy breath of air with her, but she herself seemed warm, almost fiery, with her rosy cheeks, her red hair, her gay and confident manner.

“Excuse me, people!” she said. “I know it’s an awfully unconventional time to burst in on you, but I’ve locked myself out of my poor little house, and I’d rather be a little unmannerly than freeze!”

Paul drew forward a chair, and down she sat, drawing off woolen gloves from a pair of very pretty little hands. She was very pretty, altogether, in a startling sort of way, and she had an incomparable self-possession.

“My name’s Lucille Banks,” she remarked. “I’ve taken that little cottage down at the crossroads. I moved in this morning, and I was so busy getting settled that I forgot about dinner until awfully late. Then I went out to buy something to eat, and I forgot my key.”

“But you’re not alone in the cottage?” said Christine.

“Lord, yes!” replied the other cheerfully. “I don’t mind that. I’m used to being alone. I like it.” She laughed. “I look like a kid, but I’m not,” she said. “I’m twenty-four. I was with the Red Cross in Italy. I’ve lived in Paris and London. I did a thousand miles by airplane. I’ve written a book. So you see!”

The serious couple were astounded and greatly interested.

“But where could you get anything to eat at this hour in this place?” asked Christine.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t; but that doesn’t bother me. I’ve never pampered myself by eating a certain amount of food at certain intervals. If I could possibly beg a cigarette?”

“Oh, by all means!” said Paul hastily, and brought out his case.

Christine protested.

“Let me get you something to eat, instead,” she said. “It’s so bad for you to--”

“Nothing hurts me,” Miss Banks coolly interrupted. “Even if it did hurt me, I shouldn’t care. I’m going to do all the things I like to do, and hang the consequences!”

This speech did not please Christine very much. She glanced at Paul. Somewhat to her surprise, she found him with a faint smile on his lips.

“Every one who says ‘hang the consequences’ thinks there won’t really be any,” he said.

“Consequences fall alike upon the just and the unjust,” remarked Miss Banks, through a cloud of smoke.

She, too, was smiling now, with her strong little white teeth gleaming, her dark eyes alight. She went on to express her audacious theories of life, and her energetic and reckless views about everything else, at some length.

Christine liked it less and less. She admitted freely that this Miss Banks was extraordinarily pretty, and had a debonair charm of her own, but she imagined that the girl was not to be trusted very far. She felt sure that Paul would think as she did, for they always agreed; so she looked at him, and the expression on his face surprised her. He was regarding Miss Banks with a sort of indulgence, almost compassionate, as if she were a rash and silly child, and he a man of the world.

Until this moment, Christine had looked upon Paul as a comrade, a friend, whose heart she knew as she knew her own; but now it suddenly occurred to her that Paul had been alive for twenty-six years before she had seen him, existing and thriving by himself. For some reason this idea hurt and dismayed her. She no longer listened to the lively dialogue between him and Miss Banks. She wasn’t good at talking; what she liked was to listen to Paul--but to Paul when he was talking to herself, not to Miss Banks.

“Of course I’m not interesting,” she thought. “I’ve never done anything but grow up and go to college and get married. I’ve never seen Paul so interested!”

Her far from pleasant reverie was disturbed by Miss Banks springing up.

“Well!” she said. “If you can get me into my little house, please do. I’ve got to be up early to-morrow morning, to cover the Industrial Women’s Peace Convention for my paper.”

“Are you--” began Christine.

“I’m a free lance journalist,” said Miss Banks. “I suppose they picked me for this job because I don’t know anything about industry, and hate peace and women!”

Paul had risen.

“Do you hate women?” he asked in that same amused, indulgent tone.

“As much as Nietzsche did,” Miss Banks assured him. “Only in general, of course. There are exceptions.”

She smiled at Christine and held out her hand--which Christine had to take, and from which she received a fierce grasp that tingled through her arm and positively made the color rise in her face.

“You little beast!” she murmured, with energy, as Paul and Miss Banks went out of the front door.

II

As they stepped out of the tranquil, bright house, the cold sprang like a wolf at Paul’s throat and made him gasp. The blackness and the stillness of that night!

“We’ll make a dash for it,” he said, taking Miss Banks’s arm--a very solid little arm it was, too.

“No hurry,” said she. “I like this kind of weather, and I like this awful, dismal little place. At night it doesn’t look like a suburban residential park. It might be Siberia!”

Paul, being a man, was therefore obliged to conceal his extreme discomfort, and to stroll along at the girl’s side, though the cold bit him to the bone and made his throat ache, though his numbed feet struck against stones and caused him anguish. He had to talk, too, and even to laugh, as they went down the long, lonely road.

Then they reached the corner, and turned off down a lane, not yet improved, but full of ruts and ridges of frozen mud. Paul had heard of the good old-fashioned punishment in which the culprit had to walk over red-hot plowshares. He thought that it could not have been much more painful than traversing this lane. The friendly interest he had felt in Miss Banks was greatly chilled. He thought she was an inhuman little monster.

They came in time to her cottage, all dark and silent, with a low, white fence faintly visible, like a necklace of bones round the stark garden. There wasn’t another house within sight. No one but an inhuman little monster could have endured to live here.

“Now!” said she. “Let’s see you get in!”

She perched herself on the fence, quite blithe and unconcerned. She even whistled.

Paul and Christine had always agreed that woman should be man’s comrade and helper. When woman, however, was not a helper and comrade, but sat upon a fence, whistling, and simply waiting, man was conscious of a new and not displeasing sense of obligation. He felt that he must display the primitive manly qualities of strength and cunning, that he must be practical, energetic, and so on.

Christine would have wanted to help and advise him. If he had insisted upon doing it alone, she would have thought he was “showing off.” Well, perhaps he was. He deserved that privilege, set down as he was on a bitter night before a strange house and told to get into it.

He did get into it. After finding everything locked, he broke a window pane with a stone, inserted his hand, and turned the catch. The window then lifted readily enough, so that he could crawl through. Ingenuity, always ingenuity!

Nothing for him to stumble about in that musty, cold, strange blackness, find a lamp and light it, and open the front door. Nothing for him to light a fire on the hearth of the sitting room and another in the kitchen stove. Nothing to him that his hand and wrist were cut and bleeding. He pretended not to notice that, and Miss Banks really didn’t.

Then he stuffed up the broken window pane with rags, and then Miss Banks had plenty of other little things for him to do--boxes to open, furniture to move, and so on.

“I can’t do a blessed thing for myself,” she observed.

Now Paul was grimy and very weary, and those cuts were painful. The sight of Miss Banks sitting comfortably in an armchair by the fire did not give him the unselfish pleasure it should have given.

“How did you manage to get on, then, in Siberia, or wherever it was?” he demanded.

“I’ve never been in Siberia,” said she, “but I’d get on there--or anywhere. I know how to get things done!”

This struck Paul as a very tactless remark. Such knowledge was not a thing to boast of; but he happened to look at her, and she was looking at him, and his serious face broke reluctantly into a grin.

“Don’t you know,” said she, “that Adam delved while Eve spun? I’m perfectly willing to sit comfortably by the fire and spin, as long as there’s a man to go out in the cold and delve; and there always is!”

Now Paul did not like this attitude. He thought Miss Banks a selfish, unscrupulous, and domineering creature--but challenging. She was quick and clever and audacious, besides being very pretty; and it was necessary to show her that he was not a cat’s-paw.

Of course, he could not very well refuse any of her requests. He had to chop wood, to break open a cupboard door, and to nail up rows and rows of hooks; but he did all this with a bland and superior air. Being unused to such work, it took him a long time. When at last he had done, and had put on his overcoat, instead of thanking him, Miss Banks remarked:

“They say that if you want a thing done well, you must do it yourself: but for my part I’d rather have things done badly--by some one else!”

“Thanks!” said Paul frigidly.

Miss Banks was standing quite close to him, staring at him with candid interest.

“The trouble with you is,” she said, “that you’re spoiled!”

Paul was hard put to it to find a superior smile.

“Thanks!” he said again. “And now, if there’s nothing more you want done I may as--”

“There’ll be lots more things to-morrow,” she interrupted; “but you’ve had enough, haven’t you?”

This was too much for Paul. He saw by her self-satisfied smile that she fancied she had exploited him and made an idiot of him, and was laughing at him.

“No,” he said, in a calm, reasonable tone. “If you want me to help you, I’ll come again to-morrow.”

Then he went off, scarcely feeling the cold now, because of the wrath and resentment that burned in him.

III

Paul found Christine just beginning to grow alarmed.

“It’s nearly one o’clock,” she said. “I thought--”

Her husband sat down and lit a cigarette.

“The silly girl has things in such a mess,” he said, “I thought it would only be decent to stay and help her a little.”

“Of course,” Christine agreed.

She was uneasy at Paul’s appearance. He looked pale and tired and severe. There were smudges on his face and on his collar; and then she caught sight of a grimy handkerchief tied around his wrist.

“Have you hurt yourself, Paul, darling?” she asked anxiously. “Do let me see--”

“Certainly not!” he answered, frowning. “I’m not one of those clumsy imbeciles who are always getting hurt!”

This was the first time that Paul had ever behaved quite so much like a married man; but Christine was prepared for it, and was tactful.

“She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she?” she asked.

“She may be pretty,” Paul answered judiciously; “but she’s not the type that appeals to me. Personally, I think she’s the very worst type of modern woman. She’s--there’s nothing feminine about her. She’s an egotist.” He paused. “After all,” he went on, “what a woman should be is a man’s comrade and companion. They should share their work and their play. This idea of a woman having all sorts of absurd privileges, and behaving like an empress, simply because she’s a woman, is monstrous!”

Christine made a heroic effort not to cry. She knew Paul was not speaking of herself. Never had she behaved like an empress, or wished to do so, and she did share the work loyally. Of course it wasn’t his fault if her share was composed of very monotonous, dusty, dull little tasks, and of course it wasn’t his fault that there was mighty little play to be shared.

He went on, in that severe tone, talking about women, and she was certainly one of them. Indeed, she had a guilty consciousness that she was more of a woman than Paul suspected. She tried to stifle her shameful, ignoble feelings, and when she couldn’t stifle them, she hid them. Never should Paul know how she felt about Miss Banks. He expected his wife to be a comrade, and a comrade she would be, at any cost.

Thus it was that a curious situation arose. Paul would denounce Miss Banks with great energy, while continuing to go and see her and to assist her; but Christine, who avoided the girl as far as possible, defended her chivalrously.

Miss Banks now had a telephone, and knew how to use it. Suddenly, in the middle of a calm, sensible evening, her voice would come over the wire, asking Paul to come and mend a leak, or kill a rat, or investigate a mysterious noise. Paul always said no, he wouldn’t go, but Christine always persuaded him to go--and generally cried after he had gone, because he so obviously wished to be persuaded.

He never suggested that Christine should accompany him. Neither did Miss Banks. Indeed, she said things about tame husbands that prevented Paul from even considering such an idea.

Why he liked to see the girl he couldn’t understand. She was as rude, as impertinent, as mocking, as she chose to be. She frankly admitted that she liked to “take him down a peg.” She made fun of him, she kept him busy at arduous and humiliating tasks. And all this, instead of crushing him, had the odd effect of making him--well, Christine’s private word for it was “bumptious.”

He really was bumptious. He was bumptious while he killed rats for Miss Banks, and still more bumptious when he got home and told Christine about it.

Generally, when he went down to the cottage, he stayed there a long time. After he had finished the work she set for him, Miss Banks would graciously let him sit before her fire, and smoke, and be baited. One night, however, he came home so promptly that he almost caught Christine in tears. Although he was so much upset, he probably would not have noticed.

“That girl’s a little too much!” he said. “Of course, I make allowances for her being so silly and spoiled, but--”

“Who spoils her?” inquired Christine unexpectedly.

“Who? Why, every one, I suppose,” he answered, a little taken aback.

“Why?” asked Christine.

Well, Paul didn’t know. He said it didn’t matter; that wasn’t the point. The point was, apparently, that Miss Banks didn’t understand what a man would put up with and what he would not put up with. Paul said he had already done too much for her, and would no longer submit to her outrageous claims.

“If she’s so blamed independent,” he said, “then let her be independent, and shift for herself!”

And their peaceful evenings began again. Christine was delighted. She didn’t mind Paul’s being bumptious and talking so sternly about women. In her heart she thought it was rather pathetic and sweet and young. She was very sorry that Miss Banks had hurt him, for he was hurt, though he called it disgust. He had firmly believed that the girl couldn’t get on without him, couldn’t light a fire or open a reluctant door; yet he hadn’t been near the cottage for a week, and she still lived.

Now, in his heart, Paul didn’t care two straws for Miss Banks. He believed that there never had been, and probably never would be, a woman in any way comparable to his own Christine. Christine was beautiful, good, kind, sensible, and brave; only Christine admired him and Miss Banks didn’t, and by some diabolic art Miss Banks had aroused in him a violent desire to be admired by her.

Paul was almost ashamed to remember how boastful he had sometimes been, with what an air of unconcern he had done things frightfully difficult for him to do; but not once had Miss Banks praised or thanked him, or even been agreeable to him. Nevertheless he was obliged to go on and on.

He missed all that when it ceased. He felt like a warrior tamely at home after the war. He didn’t miss the outrageous girl, but he greatly missed the inspiration she had given him to exert himself mightily. He found it irksome to sit still and read in the evening, without the least chance of an emergency arising in which he could distinguish himself. He became restless and sometimes a little irritable.

Christine, seeing this, believed that he was unhappy because he had quarreled with Miss Banks. That made Christine bitterly unhappy herself.

She set to work with all her heart, then, to win back her hero. She kept the most miraculous order in the house, and cooked the most appetizing meals. She worked out a number of ways in which to save more money. She read “Post-War Conditions in Beluchistan” and other such books, in order to discuss them with Paul. She dressed her hair in a new way. She did all she could think of to make herself and her home delightful to him.

He noticed everything, or almost everything, and he praised her; yet his praise lacked something for which she longed. It was sincere, but it had no enthusiasm. In some way she failed.

She had always accepted Paul’s theories without reservation. It seemed reasonable to her that Paul should wish to find a helpmeet and comrade in his wife, and it also seemed reasonable to believe that Paul really knew what he wanted. When she made of herself exactly what he said he wanted, it seemed reasonable to expect that he would be satisfied; and yet he wasn’t. He tried not to show it, but he wasn’t.

IV

One evening Christine decided to make apple fritters. Not that she so little understood Paul as to imagine that fritters, even if made with apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, would move him to tenderness, or that she was so stupid and so gross as to think any sort of cooking a solution for spiritual problems; but he liked the things, and she liked to please him, even in the smallest way.

When he came home, she met him at the door, with the smile and the casual air she knew best suited him. She didn’t ask him to hurry with his interminable routine of washing and changing his clothes, because it did not agree with him to hurry, and he could not, even when he tried. Instead, she wisely made due allowance for that time, and when at last she heard him coming down the stairs, she dropped the first spoonful of batter into the frying pan--

Paul heard her scream, and flew to her, but she had already flung a box of salt into the blazing fat, and she turned toward him, smiling again; only it was a distorted and piteous smile.

“What’s the matter?” he cried. “What happened, Christy, darling?”

“Nothing,” she answered, struggling with an anguish nearly intolerable. “The fat blazed up, and I burned myself a little--that’s all.”

“Let me see!” he demanded.

She held out her pretty arm, cruelly scalded. Paul was beside himself. He telephoned for the doctor and then set to work to assuage her pain, with the best intentions in the world, but without much skill. He spilled a great deal of linseed oil on Christine’s frock and on the rug, he put a frightfully thick and clumsy bandage about her arm, and he got cologne into her eyes, while trying to relieve a headache which did not exist.

All the doctors in the world could not have done Christine so much good. She lay on the sofa, and Paul sat beside her, looking into her face with miserable anxiety; and so great was her delight in his awkward tenderness, his terrible concern, that it needed no effort to smile.

“Don’t worry so, Paul, dear,” she entreated.

“I can’t help it, my dearest girl. If we love each other, and share our work and our play, we can’t help sharing each other’s pain. And you know, don’t you, little Christy--”

She could have wept when the telephone rang, because she wanted so dreadfully to hear the rest of that last sentence. She watched Paul cross the room and take down the receiver. Then he turned and dashed toward the hall.

“Miss Banks’s house is on fire!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave the door unlatched for the doctor!”

Off he went. Christine sat up.

“You beast!” she sobbed. “You horrid little beast! You’ve spoiled everything! You did it on purpose--I know you did!”

This was manifestly unjust. Miss Banks might have been capable of burning down a house to attract attention, but she couldn’t have known just the right moment in which to do it. She might have been glad enough to interrupt Paul’s speech, but she couldn’t have managed it so well unless chance had favored her.

Christine, suffering as she was, may well be excused for being unreasonable. Perhaps it would be kinder not to tell you all the things she thought about Miss Banks.

The village fire apparatus went tearing down the road with a noble uproar. Surely that should have released Paul, but still he didn’t come, or the doctor, either, and Christine began to grow alarmed.

“He’ll be hurt!” she thought. “She’ll urge him to do all sorts of dangerous things! He’ll be killed! He’ll be killed, showing off!”

In another instant, regardless of the pain that made her sick and faint, Christine would have run out of the house and down the road, if she hadn’t heard Paul’s voice outside.

“Now, then!” he was saying. “Only a step more! That’s a brave girl!”

Christine threw open the front door, and there he was, supporting a partially collapsed Miss Banks up the steps. Christine forgot all her resentment at the sight of that limp, helpless figure. She forgot her own bandaged arm, forgot everything except the honest sympathy and kindness that made her what she was.

“Oh, you poor child!” she cried. “Is she badly hurt, Paul?”

Paul half carried Miss Banks in, and she dropped face downward on the sofa--a pitiful little figure, with her bright, disheveled hair and her slender body.

“The house,” he said solemnly, “is burned to ashes!”

“But Miss Banks--is she badly hurt?”

“She’s not exactly hurt,” said he, still solemn. “It’s more a nervous shock, I think.”

All sorts of curious things took place in Christine’s mind, but she said not a word. She watched Paul ministering to the nervously shocked one. She watched Miss Banks growing a little better, so that she was able to sob forth a catalogue of the marvelous things she had lost; but never a word did Christine say--not even when Paul sat down on a near-by chair, and wrote lists for the insurance company, dictated by Miss Banks with many sobs.

Suddenly she started up.

“Oh! My photograph of Deccabroni!”

“What’s Deccabroni?” inquired Paul.

“He’s a wonderful patriot--from one of those wonderful, brave little countries--I forgot which. It’s a signed photograph. Oh, I can’t bear to lose it! Not that! Anything but Deccabroni!”

She became hysterical about the lost Deccabroni. When the doctor came, she was in an alarming condition, and was making quite a disturbance. Taking it for granted that this was the patient, and with only a bow for the silent Christine, the doctor advanced to the sofa, and calmly and competently set about tranquillizing her.

He showed little enthusiasm for the task, and perhaps Miss Banks noticed this, for quite suddenly she became tranquil, and explained that the cause of her agitation was the loss of an invaluable photograph. She even began to relate some of the exploits of Deccabroni, in so interesting a way that the doctor sat down to listen more comfortably. He might have sat there for a long time, if Christine had not fainted.

V

Paul had not needed the doctor’s blunt words to awaken his violent remorse. He walked up and down the sitting room for the better part of the night, hating himself, blaming himself beyond all measure or reason. He had neglected his own Christine, forgotten her suffering, in his shameful preoccupation with Miss Banks and Deccabroni. He wasn’t fit to live!

As is often the way with human beings, he wanted very much to blame Miss Banks for everything; but he was, after all, a just and logical young man, and he refused to do that.

After Christine’s arm had been dressed, and she had gone to bed, he had politely conducted Miss Banks to the door of the guest room. At intervals she had called down the stairs for towels, for cigarettes, for matches, for a glass of milk, for a book to read, and for the exact time. He had responded politely to each summons; but never in his life had he felt less chivalrous.

Toward morning he lay down on the sofa and dropped asleep. It was late when he awoke, with stiff limbs, heavy eyes, and the frowzy discomfort that comes from having slept in one’s clothes. He ran up to see Christine, but she was sleeping.

His next idea was to take a warm bath; but Miss Banks had forestalled him. She required one hour and four minutes, and she took every drop of hot water.

When he came downstairs, she was waiting impatiently.

“Oh, do make some coffee!” she cried. “I’m worn out!”

“I don’t know how to make coffee,” he told her.

“You can try,” said she.

“So can you,” he retorted.

Christine had got up, and was just then at the head of the stairs, prepared to make coffee; but when she heard this dialogue, she stopped where she was, and listened.

“Not in my line,” said Miss Banks. “I’m not domestic.”

“It’s got nothing to do with being domestic,” said Paul. “You might simply be fair. You don’t understand the rudiments of fair play. You want--”

“I want a cup of coffee, and I’m going to have it!” said she. “Fair play doesn’t interest me. Women aren’t expected to play fair.”

“On the contrary,” said Paul, “a man has no respect for the type of woman that--”

And so on, about sharing work and play and being comrades. Christine listened with great delight. So severely eloquent was Paul, so reasonable did his arguments seem, that she expected Miss Banks to be abashed. But--in the end, Paul made the coffee.

Christine went quietly back into her room, with an odd smile on her lips.

“Very well!” she said to herself. “I’m not too old to learn!”

* * * * *

When Paul came home that evening, the door was opened by a trained nurse.

“Is she--worse?” he cried.

“Oh, no!” said the nurse pleasantly. “Your wife’s resting comfortably; but she’s suffering from nervous shock, and the doctor thinks she’d better take a good, long rest.”

He found Christine resting comfortably, to be sure, and not much inclined to talk; so he left her, saying that he would come up again after dinner. He went into the sitting room, where Miss Banks was reading and eating some fudge that she had made.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Good evening,” she replied.

Paul took up a book, to read while he waited.

He waited.

The nurse was moving about upstairs, but no sounds came from the kitchen. Still, with three women in the house, he could not credit the monstrous suspicion that was dawning upon him.

At seven o’clock the nurse came downstairs, in hat and coat.

“Good night,” she said. “I’ll be here at seven in the morning. Just give your wife her medicine at nine, and I think she’ll sleep all night.”

And off she went. Miss Banks continued to read and to eat her candy. Paul saw now that there was no dinner, that there would not be any dinner that evening.

At nine o’clock he went up to give Christine her medicine. He was as gentle and affectionate as he knew how to be. He knew she mustn’t be worried; yet he couldn’t help asking, in a somewhat plaintive voice:

“Did you have any supper, Christy?”

“Oh, yes,” said she. “The nurse made me some delicious soup and some nice, crisp toast. I think you’d better see about getting a servant to cook your meals, Paul.”

Then she closed her eyes, and he didn’t dare to disturb her repose by asking questions.

He was not afraid of Miss Banks, however.

“Can’t you help me?” he demanded. “Just tell me what to do, if you’re too high and mighty to do anything yourself. I’m hungry. I don’t know how to cook anything.”

“I always said you were spoiled,” said Miss Banks. “You’re a perfect baby. You can’t even feed yourself!”

“My share is to provide the money,” Paul began, when a horrible idea came to him.

It was one thing to provide money for the thrifty and ingenious Christine, but a trained nurse, a servant, and doctors’ bills! He didn’t care so much about dinner now. He ate some bread and butter, while he did some constructive and intensive thinking.

He came home the next evening, earlier than usual, bringing with him a cook--a masterful and unscrupulous woman who saw his deplorable plight and intended to take the fullest advantage of it. Still, she did go to market, and she did cook dinner; and if he paid an exorbitant price for the privilege of eating a collection of the dishes he most disliked, he was nevertheless grateful.

He sat down at the table with the nurse and Miss Banks, and he was in a better humor than he had been for weeks. Christine, upstairs, heard his cheerful voice and his laugh, and tears came into her eyes, although she smiled.

He came up later to sit beside her, and he was so affectionate, so genuinely concerned on her behalf, that her heart smote her.

“All this is a horribly heavy burden for you, Paul,” she said.

“See here! You’re not to worry, you know,” he said. “I can manage very well, Christy. All you have to do is to rest. I want you to rest, my dearest girl, and to enjoy it as much as you can.”

“But the expense!”

“I’ve arranged for that,” he said magnificently. “I’ve got some extra work to do in the evening, and next month I’m going to a new firm, at almost double my present salary.”

She knew he wouldn’t like her to appear surprised or too much delighted, so she merely said:

“That’s very nice, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes--nice enough,” he replied casually; “but I shouldn’t be much of a man if I weren’t able to get you whatever you needed.”

“And the more I need, the more you’ll get,” she reflected. “Oh, you dear, splendid, silly boy!”

She found it hard not to hug him violently.

“But isn’t Miss Banks rather a superfluous burden, when you have so much on your shoulders?” she asked, after a long silence.

“Well, you see, Christy,” he answered seriously, “now that her little fool house is burned down, she hasn’t anywhere to go. We can’t very well turn her out, can we? Shell be gone in a few weeks, anyhow. She’s going to take charge of Deccabroni’s publicity campaign, and she’ll have to live in the city.”

“Who’s Deccabroni?” asked Christine.

“Didn’t she have a picture of him that was burned?” said Paul. “I don’t remember who he is; but Heaven help him!”

Paul rose.

“I’ve got to get at my work now, Christy, darling,” he said. “You won’t worry any more now, will you? You see that I can handle things fairly well.”

Modest words, and a modest enough expression upon his face, but in his heart the fellow was shamelessly exultant. Certainly he could handle things, all things, and not fairly well, but wonderfully well. Wives, cooks, trained nurses, and Miss Bankses could all be borne upon his capable shoulders.

So full was the house of dependent females that he had no place to work except a cold and dismal little sewing room; but what did he care? His little world was revolving, and he was its axis. Everything depended upon him and him alone. He put on an overcoat, lighted a cigarette, and set to work on a pile of documents with zest and good humor. He didn’t care any longer whether he had eight hours’ sleep or a temperature of the correct humidity, or how much he smoked. Nor was he much interested in post-war Beluchistan. He had a man’s work to do!

He didn’t hear Christine as she came down the hall and stood in the doorway. He was absorbed in his work, his black hair wildly ruffled, his overcoat collar turned up, and his feet wrapped in a quilt.

“Paul,” said she, “I’ve brought you some hot soup.”

He disentangled his feet as quickly as he could, and sprang up.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” he cried, with a frown. “You’re supposed to be resting, Christy.”

She was ready then to tell him that she was a fraud, and her need of rest a deception; but she valiantly resisted the impulse.

“But I like to do something for you, Paul,” she said. “I want to help you.”

“I don’t want help,” he said proudly. “I don’t need it.”

She put down the bowl of soup on the table and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Paul!” she cried. “You’re wonderful!”

“Nonsense!” said he, grinning in spite of himself. “Now you run along and rest.”

And she did. She had said that Paul was wonderful, and she knew, and he knew, that it was true. That was what he needed.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

MAY, 1923 Vol. LXXVIII NUMBER 4

Old Dog Tray

SHOWING HOW A LONG COURTSHIP CAME TO AN UNEXPECTED ENDING

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Murchison ascended the hill to the house that Saturday afternoon as usual, his pockets filled with presents for the children, and under his arm a box of Scotch kisses for Gina. His obstinate, lantern-jawed face showed all the satisfaction possible to it. This was always one of his happy moments, when he could fancy that he was coming home.

He had nothing else but Gina and Gina’s children. It would not be true to say that he could not have lived without them, for he was not that sort. He would tenaciously have gone on living if he were translated among savages.

But the welcome he got at Gina’s house was ineffably dear to him. From a distance he saw them all on the lawn. His face would have brightened, had that been possible to his dour visage, and he would have hastened his step, if he had not been already striding as fast as he could. Then one of the small boys saw him, and came rushing out of the gate.

“Here’s Old Dog Tray!” he shouted joyously.

Gina called him back sharply, and came herself to welcome Murchison; but let her be ever so sweet and friendly, it was obvious by her overanxious manner and her flushed cheeks that she knew he had heard, and that she felt guilty.

Murchison was by no means delighted with the name. Quite the contrary--he was deeply affronted. He distributed the presents, but instead of handing the invariable box to one of the children, with the invariable joke--“Here are some Scotch kisses for your mother. You’d better give them to her”--he merely set down the box on the bench. He would have been glad to destroy the offensively arch object. He made up his mind never to bring another such box; and his mind, when made up, was an imposing thing.

“Old Dog Tray!” he thought. “That’s how she sees it, eh?”

It rankled; it galled.

He conducted himself as usual. He played “red rover” with the children, dodging miraculously, lean, solemn, dignified even in his agility. He sat down to tea on the veranda, and when offered a slice of lemon he asked little Rose, according to precedent:

“Now do you think it would do more good to my complexion than harm to my disposition?”

There was his customary plate of buttered toast, and he ate three slices, as usual. No one but Gina, who knew him so well, would have suspected that he was hurt and angry.

She knew, though, that the only way to deal with Murchison was by rough outspokenness. He both dreaded and adored plain speaking. He was never happy until a thing was made clear and explicit, yet he shied away from any attempt at intimacy. He had, so to speak, to be seized by the neck and forced to listen.

She waited until the children were all in bed, and they had the sitting room to themselves, before she tackled him.

“Robert,” she said, “I suppose you heard the silly thing Roddy said?”

“Aye!” said he, and at once began to sheer off. “Roddy’s getting to be--”

“I’m sorry you heard it,” she said gently. “It was just my own little name for you, and I wanted to keep it to myself.”

There was magic in the woman, sewing in the lamplight. Even the few gray hairs in the shining flood of brown were dear to him, and so was the uncertain quality of her voice.

“Never mind it,” he said.

“But I do mind it, Robert,” she protested. “I’m sure you don’t understand.”

He looked nothing less than mulish, and she saw with despair that he intended not to understand. This must not be. The unclouded admiration of her faithful Robert was the breath of life to her. She looked long at him, but he smoked his pipe, refusing to raise his eyes, and at last she rose.

He glanced up quickly enough when he heard the piano. He liked nothing better than a song. Never did Gina touch his heart more surely than by her music. She was a slender, gracious little woman, still pretty. She often fancied that it was Robert who kept her young, that his sturdy refusal to admit any change in her arrested the course of time. She smiled over her shoulder at him, and began:

“Old Dog Tray, he is faithful; Grief cannot drive him away. He is gentle, he is kind, And you’ll never, never find A better friend than Old Dog Tray.”

She sang it touchingly.

“Don’t you see, Robert,” she said, “that it’s really a beautiful thing to think of you?”

“Yes, Gina, I’ve no doubt it’s as you say,” he answered, and she was satisfied.

She didn’t know that she had made a terrible mistake, that she had done irrevocable harm. All the time she sang, he had endured torments. Suppose the children heard, or the servants? He was not Old Dog Tray! He would not be!

II

All the way over on the ferry Murchison deliberated the matter, and his slow wrath mounted high. He was not angry at Gina, for he could not be; what enraged him was his own position. He firmly believed that he possessed a fine Scotch sense of humor, but he was utterly incapable of laughing at himself. The idea of being sweetly sung to as Old Dog Tray had for him no comic appeal. On the contrary, he was obliged to admit that to some extent he was Old Dog Tray, and it was intolerable. “Kind” he was pleased to be, but “gentle” he was not, and “faithful” was no word to apply to a man.

He looked back over this affair. He had met Gina when she was a young girl, a lively, witty young thing. He had fallen in love with her, and had set to work in a decorous way to court her. He had come over to Staten Island twice a week. This had seemed to him sufficient evidence of devotion, but when he observed that other young men brought her presents, he did likewise. Books and music were what he preferred, and he was willing to go as far as candy, but he would rather have died than be seen carrying flowers.

Privately he thought this American lavishness very foolish. His idea was to save up to get married; but he realized that if he wished to marry Gina, he must please her. So he tried, but while he was engaged in the process, she married Wigmore.

It was then necessary for Murchison to show that he didn’t mind that in the least, for he was horribly proud and sensitive. Obstinately he kept on coming twice a week with books and sweets, and Wigmore became attached to him. He was really more interested in Wigmore’s conversation, and in the children, than he was in Gina, although he didn’t know it.

Gina had changed astoundingly. She had ceased to be lively and witty, and had grown sweet and a little vague. Murchison was too obstinate to admit any change in her, however--or in himself, either. He refused to think at all.

When Wigmore died, and poor Gina had so much trouble about money, and was so ill and grief-stricken, she became real for Murchison again. He had felt a passionate tenderness for her. He had done everything in the world for her, though well knowing that such disinterested devotion might make him appear ridiculous.

After a seemly interval of three years he had suggested marriage. Gina asked for time to make up her mind. He thought that quite reasonable and proper, but it occurred to him this evening that five years was longer than necessary, even to the most cautious woman. It wasn’t as if he were a stranger. She had seen him twice a week for nearly twelve years.

He was suddenly convinced that he was a fool. Other men came to see Gina when he wasn’t there. He heard the children speak of Dr. Walters, for instance, as if he were a familiar friend. The same thing would happen again.

No, it wouldn’t. Perhaps grief could not drive him away, but other things could.

When he returned to his boarding house, he wrote a grim letter to Gina, in which he said that she must make up her mind at once either to take him or leave him. At once, mind you; he refused to wait for an answer longer than six months.

He appeared again on his usual evening, and didn’t mention the letter. Gina knew that he never would mention it until exactly six months had passed. He was quite as usual, and only one small incident perturbed her. After dinner, when they were alone, he said:

“Will you not sing ‘Old Dog Tray’ for me, Gina?”

“But--” she said.

“I’m thinking it does me good,” said he.

While she sang, he sat there in wooden silence, smoking his pipe.

“Well!” he thought. “It’s a queer world, to be sure! Who’d think that at my age I’d come courting, and the object of my affections a woman thirty-eight years of age? I’m forty-one, and here I come courting like a lad!”

This made him grin. It seemed to him a very humorous idea, and when, later in the evening, it recurred to him, he was obliged to grin again.

“Why do you smile, Robert?” asked Gina softly.

“Well--well, it’s nothing, as you might say.” But he could not banish the grin.

“Do tell me!” she implored. “It’s so seldom you find anything funny. Please share it with me, Robert!”

“I’m thinking you might not like it,” he said, with a chuckle.

“Oh, but I shall, Robert! Tell me!”

He burst into a shout of laughter, so that his lean face was creased with long lines.

“What will you say, Gina,” he said, with difficulty, “to Old Dog Tray going courting, and you a woman of thirty-eight?”

She sprang to her feet.

“Robert!” she cried, quite pale with anger.

“It’s the funniest thing--that’s come to my mind--this long time,” he said, almost helpless with laughter. “Think of it!”

“How dare you?” she said. “How dare you insult me like this?”

His jaw dropped.

“Insult you!” he repeated. “What’s this, Gina? Insult you! Why, my dear--”

“You think--” she began, but sobs choked her. “You’re laughing at me because I’m thirty-eight!”

“But I was not, Gina, my dear! Only it struck me comical for two old bodies like us to be courting.”

“I’m not courting!” she cried. “Don’t dare to say it! And I’m not old!”

“Of course, properly speaking, we’re not old,” said he. “But--”

“Every one else thinks I’m a young woman!” she sobbed.

“Don’t you believe it, my dear,” he said earnestly. “They may say so to your face, but behind your back no one would call a woman of thirty-eight--”

“Stop!” she cried hysterically. “Don’t call me a woman of thirty-eight again!”

He was very much distressed.

“Don’t be thinking I mean anything against your--your personal attractions,” he said. “You’re one of the neatest, best-looking women of your age--”

“I hate you!” said Gina.

“That’s an ill-considered remark,” replied Murchison, growing red, “to a man who’s been your true friend for twelve years and ten months. I was only trying to tell you that I think as much of you to-day as I did when you were young and pretty.”

“You needn’t go on, Robert,” she said, frigidly. “I appreciate your friendship, but I have never known a man so lacking in tact.”

“I don’t doubt you’re right, Gina,” he observed, also frigidly. “It didn’t occur to me that a mature and sensible woman couldn’t endure to hear her age mentioned.”

“It’s the way you did it--laughing like that.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you--only at myself, for courting you.”

“Please say nothing more,” she interrupted sharply. “There are other--other people who don’t think it’s so absurd to--to like me.”

Now, well as Gina knew him, there were certain traits in her Robert which had eluded her. She never knew that by this simple remark she had mortally insulted him. She was comparing his twelve years and ten months of devotion to the false flattery of that Dr. Walters.

“Aye!” said he. “I’ve no doubt it’s as you say.”

And with that he took his leave.

III

On the last day of the six months Murchison presented himself before Gina, and without embarrassment, and also without fervor, requested to know his fate. He was greatly displeased with Gina’s conduct on this occasion. She wished to be indefinite; she wished neither to take him nor to leave him, but to keep him in reserve.

“You know how fond I am of you, Robert,” she said.

“No,” he replied, “I don’t. My question was just, as you might say, to determine that point.”

“Sometimes I think that, on account of the children, I shouldn’t marry again,” she said tentatively.

“That’s for you to say. You ought to know,” he remarked.

“I suppose at my age, I ought!”

He bowed stiffly. There came to Gina the recollection of what Dr. Walters had said. He had assured her that she was like a young girl.

“You’ve never grown up,” he had told her. “You never will.”

“I’m afraid, Robert,” she said, “that I never could make you happy.”

He turned away, and was silent for some time.

“That’s for you to say,” he repeated. “You ought to know your own mind.”

His chief purpose was to avoid showing how horribly wounded and bereft he was. So valiantly did he conceal his hurt that Gina herself was offended and angered by his high spirits.

“I believe he’s glad!” she thought. “He’s delighted to get out of it!”

She forgot entirely how she had lain awake at night, planning some way to tell Robert that she couldn’t marry him. On that night she lay awake marveling at his treachery. She had decided that he didn’t really care.

On the evening of his next visit she had Dr. Walters there. She had the doctor’s superior devotion on exhibition, and encouraged him to be incredibly gallant and tender. He did his part admirably, but Murchison failed her. He was pleasant, unusually pleasant and talkative, and he gave no more sign of being a disappointed suitor than if he were her grandfather. He made a most favorable impression upon Dr. Walters.

Before he left, he did something which enraged Gina.

“Will you not sing ‘Old Dog Tray’?” he asked blandly. “It is a great favorite with me.”

She refused, but Dr. Walters joined his entreaties to Murchison’s, and she had to yield. So she sang the simple old ballad with burning cheeks; and while she sang it, there sat Robert, smoking his pipe in wooden silence.

IV

He went home that night in a queer mood. He was hurt and he was angry, but depressed he was not. He went up to the room he had occupied for years and years--a room which, like his face, showed no trace of the spirit that possessed it. He sat down to unlace his boots and put on his slippers. When that was done, he filled another pipe.

“Perhaps it’s just as well,” he reflected, with a philosophy Gina would not have appreciated. “A wife’s a very unsettling thing. Now I’ll go on just the same!”

And, if you will believe it, the next Saturday afternoon he bought a box of blocks, and a doll’s cradle, and the familiar package of Scotch kisses, and with perfect composure set off for Staten Island.

“There’s no reason at all for a quarrel,” he thought. “To be sure, I’ve nothing against the poor woman. I’m not one to change.”

There was a heavy fog, and the boat was late. He stood downstairs, close to the gates. He was in no sort of hurry. Indeed, he rather enjoyed the little stir of excitement caused by the fog.

He heard people about him saying it was the worst they had seen in years, that a small boat had been run down a few hours before, that steamers were held up. He liked the din from the bay, the whistles low or shrill, the clamor of the bells, the blasting wail of a great foghorn.

There was, unfortunately, no way in which he could verbally express his scorn for this excitement, and his own miraculous coolness and detachment. He could look it, however, and more than ever he assumed the aspect of a wooden image. For some reason this inspired the confidence of a fellow traveler.

“Do you think there’s any danger?” asked an anxious voice.

He turned, intending to answer somewhat loftily, but he was utterly disarmed at sight of the questioner. Indeed, he at once felt that there might well be danger. He removed his hat with ceremony.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assured her gravely.

She was a tall and rather thin girl, very dark, with a wonderful rich color in her cheeks and great, serious eyes. That seriousness was the thing which first attracted him--that, with her sober dress. It took a second glance to reveal that her dress was shabby and her seriousness tinged with something forlorn; to say nothing of her being very young and very pretty.

Now Murchison was a cautious and practical fellow, by no means given to talking to strangers; and he decided that he would not look at the girl again. A boat had just come in, so that he really had something justifiable to stare at.

There came first the inexplicable persons who run and sometimes shout; then motor cars, and streams of people, and drays and trucks with vociferous teamsters. It was what happened every half hour or so, all day long, yet it had the thrill there always is at the end of a journey, no matter how short. And now, belated and fog-haunted, the incoming ferryboat might have returned from the Antipodes.

The traffic, the shouts, the procession of people, ended abruptly. Then the gates were pushed open, and the new swarm crowded forward, as eager to be carried south as the others had been to rush northward. Murchison was perfectly aware that the girl kept beside him, although he didn’t turn his head. He could lose her easily enough by crossing over to the smoking cabin; but he had to let a truck go by before he could do so, and, without quite turning his head, he saw her, hesitant and dismayed, looking after him.

Long after he was settled with his pipe he remembered her dark face, her troubled eyes, something alien and tragic in her, and he felt uneasy, almost guilty. He knew it was nonsense, the particular sort of nonsense that he most disliked. He was sorry he had not bought a newspaper to distract his mind.

A bell clanged; the boat slowed down, and the throb and jar of the engines stopped. A great many people rushed to the windows, as always happens, and this gave Murchison the chance for being most notably Scotch, and not stirring. His sharp ears caught all the wild and confused rumors and surmises of those about him. He felt incipient panic in the atmosphere. He was grimly amused, until it suddenly occurred to him how silly women were--how very, very silly a young girl would be, with no Scotsman beside her!

He got up and crossed to the other cabin. That was not ridiculous; it committed him to nothing. He entered the cabin and sauntered through it, looking with an eye casual but very keen at the backs of the people crowded two deep at the windows.

That girl wasn’t there. Perhaps she had rushed upstairs. If so, she might stay there, for he had gone quite far enough.

He pushed open the door, and stepped out upon the forward deck. No denying that the fog was unpleasantly thick, and that ominous and immense shapes appeared half hidden behind it. The bells and whistles on every side made a diabolic clamor. The boat was drifting silently, and the fog concealed even the water on which it floated; and yet, with nothing visible, he was in a crowded and noisy world, menacing, incomprehensible.

He saw her out there, one hand on the railing, her young face in profile. She had, he thought, such a forsaken air! She was so lovely and young! She put him in mind of the beloved and half forgotten creatures in the romances he had read in his young days--heroines brave, gentle, and beautiful, for whom a man could die gladly. She was shabby, she was frightened, she was alone, as a heroine should be. There was a halo of romance about her dark head.

But still Murchison was entirely Murchison. He could have leaped overboard and saved her from the sea more easily than he could address one single word to her. He was eager to speak to her, to reassure her, but it was not possible.

Her anxious glance, turning in his direction, fell full upon his face.

“Do you think anything’s going to happen?” she asked, as promptly and simply as if he were an old friend.

“No, no!” said he. “But with these crowded ferries they’re very cautious.”

He came over to the rail and stood near her. He had an absurd desire to remove his hat and to stand bareheaded before her innocent youth; but he resisted this preposterous impulse, and spoke in his driest way. He gave her facts about the shipping in this stupendous harbor, quoting figures, reports. He had an uneasy feeling that he was tiresome, and probably making mistakes in his statistics, but he was so desperately occupied in not looking at her that it distracted his mind.

“I find it an agreeable trip,” he ended abruptly.

He was obliged to look at her then, to see if his talk had wearied her, and he observed a strange expression upon her downcast face.

“I’m so afraid of the sea!” she said faintly.

“But this is only a bay--” he began.

She glanced up.

“My father was a captain,” she said. “He was drowned when I was a baby; and my brother was drowned in the war. So--you see--”

“Yes,” he answered gravely. “I see!”

He did not try to express sympathy, he did not speak one reassuring or consolatory word. He stood silently beside her, neither seeking nor evading her attention, simply being his own uncompromising self. Never in life had he tried, never in life would he try, to make a favorable impression upon any one. He took it for granted that she knew all the compassion, interest, and respect he felt; and she, on her part, accepted him without question.

“Do you think we’ll be kept here long like this?” she asked.

“It’s impossible to say; but there’s nothing to be alarmed about.”

“I’m late,” she said anxiously. “You see, I’ve come all the way from Philadelphia this morning, and I got a little mixed up. I was expected for lunch, but it’s much too late now.”

“Won’t the people--your friends--wait?” asked Robert indignantly.

“They’re strangers,” she said. “I’ve never seen them. I’m going as a governess. I was recommended to Mrs. Wigmore--”

“Mrs. Wigmore!”

“Oh, do you know her?” the girl asked.

“I am acquainted with the lady,” said Robert, in so curt a manner that she was abashed.

She fancied that he regretted having been drawn into conversation with the governess of some one whom he knew. She flushed a little, and turned away her head. She expected him to make some excuse and to leave her; but he did not. He stood where he was, filled with the most unaccountable chagrin and disappointment.

She was going to Gina! She would see him there, see him as Old Dog Tray! He felt as if some ineffable happiness had been snatched from him. He felt suddenly middle-aged and preposterously unpleasing.

An instant ago he had really believed that this marvelous girl was interested in him, friendly toward him, even glad of his company. Well, only let her see him climbing the hill with his arms full of bundles, only let her see him playing with the children, being treated with slightly condescending affection by Gina, only let her see Old Dog Tray in his natural habitat, and he would never again be anything but that in her eyes!

“I’ll not go,” he decided. “I don’t doubt they’ll do well enough without me.”

But, thought he, what good would that do? He knew so well Gina’s fatal lack of discretion, her shocking habit of confiding in every one. It was impossible to believe that she could have a governess in the house twenty-four hours without telling--even boasting--about her Old Dog Tray.

“The devil!” he said, dismayed at the prospect.

Then he realized that he had spoken aloud, and he apologized earnestly to his companion. He was surprised and relieved to see her smile--not plaintively and sweetly, like Gina, but with a wide, youthful smile that was almost a grin. With a faint shock he realized that while she was undoubtedly an angel, she was also a delightful human being.

They were suddenly upon a new footing. They began to talk with miraculous ease. They exchanged names. She said she was Anne Kittridge, and instead of being, as he had half imagined, an isolated phenomenon, she had a mother and a home in Philadelphia.

“I’ve never been a governess before,” she said. “I’ve never even been away from mother. I hope--do you think I’ll get on with Mrs. Wigmore’s children?”

“Aye,” said he, “I’ve no doubt you will.”

“But I’m not beginning very well,” she said, “being late like this.”

“And no lunch!” said he. “I’d forgotten that. It’s--let’s see--it’s nearly three o’clock.”

“I don’t care,” she said stoutly.

He did, though. He was greatly worried.

“Well,” he said, after much thought, “I’ve a box of sweets here. Very poor things they are for the teeth and the digestion, but I dare say they’re better than nothing.”

He set to work to unwrap his neat package. As he did so, the box of blocks fell out upside down, and the contents scattered over the deck.

“Oh!” said she. “Were they for your little boy?”

He did not answer until he had picked all the blocks up. Then he straightened himself, with a slight frown.

“I’m a bachelor,” he said. “They were for the child of an old friend.” And he added resolutely: “A very respectable, middle-aged body.”

The boat had started again, but they didn’t notice it. Miss Kittridge was steadily and happily consuming Gina’s Scotch kisses.

V

It would be impossible to any chronicler to describe all that took place in Murchison’s soul during that brief trip. The easiest way is to say bluntly that he fell in love, and for most readers that will go a long way toward an explanation; but one must bear in mind the character of the man, his frightful obstinacy, his outrageous pride, and the matter-of-fact romanticism of his secret heart.

He was amazed, delighted, awed. He knew that he was in love; he knew that this was the real thing, for which he had always been waiting. Lack of self-confidence was not among his faults. He hoped, he believed, that if he could have a clear field, he would have a fair chance with this matchless girl. She liked him, she trusted him, she was amused by his jokes, interested in all the information he had to give. If he could keep her from seeing him as Old Dog Tray!

“I won’t have it!” he thought fiercely. “I won’t have this spoiled by such a thing!”

The boat bumped its way into the slip, and a lurching procession of people came up to the gates. Miss Kittridge wished to join them. She glanced anxiously at Murchison, but he didn’t stir. The gates opened, and the crowd began to hurry off.

“Hadn’t we better go?” she said.

“Very well,” he answered absently, and off they went.

“Mrs. Wigmore told me to take the North Shore train,” she began, but Murchison grasped her arm firmly and led her to the waiting room.

“Miss Kittridge,” he said, in a peculiar voice, “you’d better not go there.”

“But why?” cried the startled girl.

“Well,” he replied, “well--mind you, I’ve nothing to say against Mrs. Wigmore. I’ve a very high opinion of her. She’s a very pleasant, respectable woman; but I advise you not to go there.”

“But I must! She’s expecting me; and where else can I go?”

“Go back to your mother in Philadelphia,” said he.

“I can’t, Mr. Murchison. It was my own idea to go out and earn my own living, and I’m certainly not going home before I’ve even tried.”

“There’s a train every hour,” said he. “I’ll go with you, and I’ll explain to your mother.”

“Explain what?” she protested, overwhelmed with astonishment.

“It’ll be better explained to your mother,” he told her. “You’re too young.”

The doors were opened, and a new crowd was pressing through them. Murchison joined the stream of people, leading his reluctant and protesting companion back on board the ferryboat.

VI

Gina was shocked and hurt beyond measure. She had thought it very strange of Murchison to write to her from Philadelphia, to say, without explanation, that he would be there for a week or two on private business. How unfriendly of him to have private business after all these years!

After that he didn’t come near her for three months. He telephoned now and then, and said he was very busy; apparently he did not notice how grieved was her manner.

And then, after all this, what happened? A thing incredible--he telephoned to her one afternoon and told her that he had been married that morning. She could never, never forgive such brutality. He might at least have given her a chance to marry Dr. Walters first!

“Where are you now, Robert?” she inquired sternly.

“We’re in New York for--”

“Then you must come to dinner to-night with your--bride,” she said.

“But--” he began.

“It seems to me that is the least you can do,” said Gina, and he was defeated.

Naturally she had Dr. Walters there for dinner, and naturally she was charmingly gracious and kind. No denying that she was impressed by the youth and prettiness of Robert’s wife. The fact that a well bred, lovely creature certainly not more than twenty-one or twenty-two had been willing to marry him forced her to admit that she had not appreciated him.

“You have a wonderful man in Robert,” she gravely assured his wife.

“Isn’t he?” said Anne. “There’s no one like him!”

Then, of course, she had to look at him, to see if he was still there and still as wonderful. He was. He met her glance, and they smiled at each other with sublime confidence and understanding. Gina found it a little hard to go on talking.

“Do you know,” she said brightly, “such a curious thing happened! A friend of mine wrote me about a girl in Philadelphia, and I sent for her to come as governess for the children. She told me that she’d arrive on a certain day, but she didn’t come, and I never heard another word from her. I wonder if you know the name--Kittridge?”

“Philadelphia’s quite a large place,” said Anne hastily.

“Of course,” Gina assented. “Now do tell me about yourself and Robert. Was it romantic?”

“Oh, very romantic!” said Anne, in no little confusion. “It was--I think it was--unique!”

There was a pause, and Robert came directly toward them.

“Will you not sing, Gina?” he asked blandly.

“No, thank you, Robert,” said she.

But Dr. Walters came to entreat also.

“Please do, Gina!” he said, with all his honest admiration reflected in his beaming face.

“Sing ‘Old--’”

“No!” said she, so vigorously that he was startled.

He turned to Anne.

“You should hear her sing ‘Old--’”

“Please don’t ask me!” she cried.

“Of course not, if you don’t wish to,” he said gently; “but upon my word, Mrs. Wigmore’s rending of ‘Old Black Joe’ is--”

“It was ‘Old Dog Tray’ I had in mind,” observed Robert.

“That’s a hateful, silly song!” said Gina. “I can’t endure it. It’s--the whole sentiment is false. There are no Old Dog Trays!”

Robert’s hand fell lightly on her shoulder, and she turned to look at him. Something that she saw in his face brought the tears to her eyes.

“There are old friends, though, Gina,” he said, “and nothing drives them away!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JUNE, 1923 Vol. LXXIX NUMBER 1

The Matador

A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE IN THE CAREER OF GRAVES, THE HARD-HEARTED OFFICE MANAGER

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Technically Graves was the personnel manager, but we called him “the matador” because it was his job to deal the death blow, to give the fatal thrust. He had, in other words, to do the “firing.”

He had developed a beautiful technique, and, like all good workmen, he enjoyed his work. He was really a very kind-hearted fellow. His idea was that it did people any amount of good to be discharged, if it were done in the right way--if, for instance, you told the departing one exactly why he or she was no longer wanted.

It was necessary, he said, to keep the nicest balance between candor and brutality. What you wanted was to destroy conceit without injuring self-respect. He added proudly that all the people whom he had fired remained his firm friends.

I asked him how he knew this, and I refused to believe it a proof of friendliness that these victims had never yet waylaid and assaulted him. He said, however, that he could always tell--that no one could deceive him. I denied that any man could know he had never been deceived. Such a negative statement was impossible to prove.

He brushed all this aside, and continued to explain his technique.

“I never tell a man that we’re laying him off because business is bad,” he said. “I try to show him what defects in himself make him the kind of man who’s always laid off as soon as business drops. And as for those printed slips in a pay envelope--‘Your services will not be required after such and such a date’--inhuman, I call that. No, sir! I’ll call the fellow, or the girl, as the case may be, into my office, and I’ll say something like this:

“‘Now see here, So-and-So,’ I’ll say, ‘I’m going to give you the gate; and if you’ll listen to me fair-mindedly, it’ll be the gate to something a whole lot better.’”

“Always?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” said he.

“Of course,” I continued, “you’ve kept a record of the subsequent careers of all the poor devils you’ve fired, so that you know exactly how much they’ve benefited by your valediction?”

“Well,” said Graves; “well--”

“Of course,” I went on, “you keep a card index? You write down the fault for which you discharge the fellow, and you keep track of the length of time it takes him to overcome that fault?”

“Well--”

“What, Graves?” said I sternly. “You make me a positive statement, you tell me it benefits people to be discharged by you, and you have not one fact by which to substantiate your statement. I demand to be shown one of these alleged persons!”

“Well--” he said again.

He was so much perturbed that I hadn’t the heart to perturb him further. He was such an honest, artless, enthusiastic fellow, and altogether so likable, that I can’t for the life of me explain why it was so natural to worry and badger him; but everybody did. When some especially woeful-looking derelict passed by, some one was sure to call Graves to the window and say something like--

“See here, Graves! Isn’t that the shipping clerk you discharged for not keeping his nails manicured?”

Rather gruesomely, we used to read aloud from the newspapers various reports of suicides.

Unknown man found in the river--nothing to identify him but a scrap of paper in his pocket, on which was written “Graves drove me to this.”

These fictitious papers varied. Sometimes they said:

And after Graves had turned me down, What could I do but go and drown? Graves told me all I didn’t oughter, Despair then drove me to the water.

We kept up a fiction that twelve desperate men were banded together to take vengeance on him, and that their motto was “Give Graves the final discharge.” I dare say we were pretty tiresome about it, and sometimes I am afraid we hurt the poor devil more than we intended.

Of course “firing” was not all that Graves had to do. There was also the hiring, but he wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic about that--or at least he was warier, for his mistakes in character analysis could be too readily checked up. He pretended that he took every one on trial, and withheld even mental opinions until he had observed the applicant.

That, however, wasn’t true. Many and many a time he was tremendously hopeful about some fellow who turned out to be quite worthless. I say “fellow,” because he was notably reticent about the girls, and never hopeful.

He objected to girls in an office. He said that the principle of the thing was wrong, and so on; but the real reason was that he was afraid of them. They knew this very well. Once he had had a booklet of “Suggestions” printed and circulated among them. He wrote it in a chatty and reasonable style, as for instance:

It isn’t a question of morals, but one of tone. We can’t have quite the tone I’m sure we should all like to have in this office while some of our young ladies wear peekaboo waists and openwork stockings, and put paint and powder on their faces. In a ballroom these things are all well enough, but--

The next morning he received a visit from the severe and efficient Miss Kelly.

“Mr. Graves,” said she, “about your ‘Suggestions’--I have been in this office six years, and have never seen a peekaboo waist. I have not observed that openwork hosiery has been worn. My department has asked me to mention this to you, as we feel it an unmerited slight. Incidentally, Mr. Graves,” she added, “girls don’t as a rule wear waists in a ballroom. Even stenographers have some knowledge of etiquette!”

The conscientious Graves bought a household periodical, and found no mention of peekaboo blouses and openwork stockings. Unfortunately he was discovered reading this magazine, and he had to explain. He became a little annoyed at hearing so much laughter.

“Oh, shut up!” he exclaimed. “I know I’ve heard of those things. Read articles about ’em in the newspapers.”

“But when?” somebody wished to know. “When did you last cast a glance at a girl, oh, innocent and artless Graves?”

“Well,” he said, scowling, “the difference is so small that no one but an idiot would laugh. I might have said ‘sheer hosiery’ and ‘chiffon blouses.’”

Graves talking about chiffon blouses was too much. He regretted those “Suggestions,” and made no more. We subscribed to a fashion magazine for him, and by a most pleasing error it came addressed to “Miss F. Graves.” This was even better than we had planned.

II

One day Graves came to me with a beaming face.

“You know I don’t often express an opinion on an untried worker,” he said; “but this time I’ve made a find. I’ve got just the sort of girl I want in the office. She’s a college graduate; comes of an old Southern family--”

“And her father died, and she was obliged to go out into the world and earn a living,” I said.

He was amazed.

“How did you find out about that?” he demanded.

“She hasn’t had any experience,” I continued; “but ah, what class!”

“Now see here,” said Graves. “You’ve been talking to Miss Clare!”

“I know Miss Clare like my own sister,” I told him. “I’ve met her a thousand times. I’ve read her in books and seen her in movies--”

“Oh, that!” said Graves. “Well, you’re entirely wrong, you chump. She’s absolutely original.”

“I knew that,” said I. “She makes the most wonderful clothes for herself out of old quilts, and she can get up the most delicious little suppers for two for thirty cents--”

He laughed, with that disarming good humor of his.

“Well, I haven’t got as far as that yet,” he said. “I don’t know what she eats or makes her clothes out of, but I can tell you this--she’s the neatest, most sensible-looking girl in the place!”

When I saw Miss Clare, I had to admit that in some ways she deviated from the usual type. She was what you might call a tall, willowy blonde. She had fine eyes, and knew it; but she was not kittenish, or pathetic, or appealing. She was doggedly in earnest. I liked her for that.

When I knew her better, I liked her for many other things, too. She was as honest and candid as daylight, and she left her fine old Southern family and her college and all her past glories where they belonged. She was there to work.

I was really sorry when the efficient Miss Kelly spoke about her.

“She’s stupid!” she told me, with fierce exasperation. “I’ve told Mr. Graves several times that she doesn’t measure up to our standard of efficiency. I don’t see why he keeps her on!”

“Beauty in daily life,” said I. “It’s what Morris recommended. She’s an ornament to the office, Miss Kelly. She has artistic value.”

“Superfluous ornaments have no value anywhere,” said Miss Kelly. “I worked once for an interior decorator, and I learned that. A thing must not only be beautiful in itself, but in harmony with its surroundings, and serving some definite purpose. She isn’t and doesn’t, and she ought to be scrapped!”

Now not only was Miss Kelly a notably good-looking young woman, and intelligent and alert and sensible, but she was infallible. Graves knew it. He had had other disagreements with her, and had always been worsted. Still, for a time, he defied her in regard to Miss Clare.

“D’you know,” he said to me, “I hate like poison to discharge that poor girl! You see, this is her first job, and it’ll be hard for her to get another, with only a four weeks’ record here.”

“Oh, no, Graves,” said I. “Not at all! After you’ve talked to her and pointed out her faults, she--well, she’ll get rid of her faults, don’t you see? And after that--”

Then Graves declared, with a sort of magnificence:

“She hasn’t any faults, exactly. It’s lack of training that’s the trouble. If she could stay on here a little longer, she’d do as well as the others--and better. She has brains!”

“Why can’t she stay?” I asked.

“Her output’s below the average,” he said dismally. “Miss Kelly keeps charts and so on.” He scowled. “Miss Kelly’s worth her weight in gold, and all that,” he said, “but she’s pig-headed. I’ve tried to explain to her that it’s actually more efficient to keep and train an employee, even if you have to shift him to another department, than to break in a new one. I’ve shown her in black and white what the actual cost of this eternal hiring and firing is; but no! She jumps down my throat with a lot of her own figures about what this Miss Clare costs the department every day. Hair-splitting, that’s all it is!”

Graves should have been warned, each time he opened his mouth, that what he said would be used against him. Of course this was. Each time he dealt the death blow, we reminded him of the cost of this eternal hiring and firing, and how much more efficient it was, and so on.

Miss Clare was shifted out of Miss Kelly’s department into another, which had a human man, young Allen, at its head; but he, too, rebelled.

“She won’t do,” he said to Graves. “She tries, but she’s--well, I don’t know just what the trouble is. She’s simply not on the job.”

“I’ll have a talk with her,” said Graves. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s wrong.”

III

I saw Miss Clare going into Graves’s office, and I felt sorry for him. I shouldn’t have enjoyed pointing out her faults to her. She was very young and quite without affectation, but she had a natural and altogether charming dignity about her. You couldn’t think of her as an office worker; you were obliged to remember all the time that she was a woman.

She came out after half an hour, looking downcast and grave. She smiled at me, as she passed, with the air of a lady who never neglects her social obligations, but I fancied her lips quivered a trifle.

“Poor girl!” I thought. “She’s out of place here. She hasn’t the stuff in her for a competitive worker. She’ll never get on!”

I was so sympathetic to Graves that he told me the story of the interview.

“The poor girl’s worried sick,” he said. “It seems she’s trying to support her mother, and she’s so desperately afraid she won’t make good that she can’t do her work. She does try, you know, and she’s fairly accurate, but she’s slow, and she knows it. She said she’d never tried to hurry before, and when she does, she gets nervous.” He paused, and frowned a little. “Well,” he said, “it’s irregular, but I think it’ll work. I’m going to let her come half an hour earlier than the other girls and stay an hour later, so that she can finish her share of the work.”

“That’s hard on her, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not so hard as getting fired,” he answered. “She’s got a queer point of view about that. She says that if she were discharged, she’d be so discouraged that she’d--I think she said she’d go to pieces.”

“Lacks stamina,” I observed.

“Well,” said Graves, “there’s more than one sort of stamina. It takes some grit for a girl brought up as she’s been to tackle the job of supporting herself and her mother, I can tell you!”

I agreed with him, and said so, and he was delighted; but he paid heavily for his kind-heartedness. Miss Kelly let the thing go on for one week. Then, on Saturday morning, she appeared before him.

“Mr. Graves,” she said, “after due consideration, I have decided that the only course for me is to leave this office. I shall remain, of course, until you have filled my position to your satisfaction.”

She knew perfectly well how invaluable, how irreplaceable she was.

“Now, see here, Miss Kelly,” said Graves, as man to man. “This wants talking about. Sit down and let’s discuss it frankly.”

She did sit down, and I thought she looked alarmingly frank.

“Certainly, Mr. Graves,” she said very pleasantly.

“Now, then, what’s the trouble? Not enough salary?”

“My salary is quite as much as the overhead permits,” said she. “In proportion to the calculated profits, it is perfectly fair and adequate. No, Mr. Graves--it’s a question of prestige and morale.”

Graves looked serious.

“My girls are constantly coming to me now with requests to be allowed to finish their work at irregular and unauthorized hours, instead of keeping up to the standard output required by my department. They assert that a girl in Mr. Allen’s department was allowed to do this, and they had never understood that employment in his department carried any special privileges. I went to Mr. Allen about this. I pointed out to him that it affected the morale of my girls to see one of his people favored, but he told me he could do nothing. He said it was not his idea, and--”

“All right!” said Graves, suddenly getting up, with a flushed face and a constrained smile. “I--very likely you’re right, Miss Kelly. I’ll--I’ll make some adjustment that’ll suit you.”

“Please don’t consider suiting me,” said Miss Kelly. “It’s the morale of the office, Mr. Graves.”

And she went away like Pallas Athene from a battleground.

I honestly pitied Graves, he was so wretched.

“Well, you know,” he said, “she’s right. It does upset the routine, and so on; but, hang it all, that girl simply couldn’t stand being discharged! She has pluck enough, and all that, but she’s sensitive. She’s too darned sensitive entirely. I wish to Heaven she’d picked out some other office to start in! She’s got some fool idea in her head that it’s the first job that makes or breaks you. It’s no use pointing out her faults to her; she knows ’em. She’s trying to overcome them; but she’s just naturally slow.”

He tried her at filing. Not for long, though; the tumult was too great. He tried her at bookkeeping; but she herself admitted that figures were not her forte.

“There must be something that girl can do, or can be taught to do!” he cried in despair. “Everybody has some aptitude, and she’s not stupid. She can talk well about books and so on.”

“Do you talk to her, Graves?” I asked. “Much?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered innocently. “I talk to her a lot. I try to find out what she’s adapted for; but I can’t, for the life of me. And yet I can’t fire her. I simply can’t do it. She says no one else would give her the same chance I do; and that’s no lie. She wouldn’t last a week in any other office!”

“Unless--” said I, and hesitated.

“Unless what?” asked Graves.

“Unless there were another personnel manager as--as conscientious as you.”

“Well,” said Graves, “it’s this way--there’s a big responsibility attached to my job. I shouldn’t like to think I’d destroyed the self-confidence of a girl like Miss Clare.”

“Anything would be better than that,” I said.

Graves looked at me with dawning suspicion.

“Well, you’re all wrong,” he said severely, “if you think there’s any--any personal element in this. It’s simply that I’ve got a heavy responsibility--”

“You bet you have!” said I, and left him with that.

IV

The thing began to assume a dramatic aspect. Graves was a haunted man. He was obliged, or he felt himself obliged, to find a place for Miss Clare in our organization, and the task was a hideous one.

He changed. His brisk self-assurance gave place to a harassed air, and he acquired a new and rather touching way of appealing to the rest of us. In fact, we were all deeply concerned about Miss Clare. We would go joyously to Graves, to tell him we thought something had turned up that would suit her. We always phrased it that way; but it never did suit her.

In the final analysis this was Graves’s fault, because it was he who had made the office so brutally efficient. To be more frank than modest, it was not so much that Miss Clare was very bad as that the rest of us were so good. She failed to come up to our standard. Graves was the Frankenstein who had created this monster, and now he had to suffer for it.

One morning he arrived with a grim and desperate expression.

“An execution?” I asked.

I had become very friendly with Graves during this little complication. He seemed to me less amusing than before, and much more human and engaging.

“Yes,” said he. “She’s got to go. I’ve been thinking it over pretty seriously. I’m afraid I’ve wasted the firm’s time and money in this instance; but you don’t know how hard--”

“Graves,” I said, “you’re inconsistent. You’ll destroy any number of harmless lives, and boast of it, and then you’ll apologize for having been kindly and generous and altogether admirable.”

He turned red.

“Oh, get out!” he said, like a small boy, but the sympathy pleased him. “Well, you see, it’s--well, she tries hard.”

No one denied that. Indeed, the unfortunate Miss Clare looked exhausted and wan from her terrific efforts. She came early in the morning, before there was any work given out, and she was always contriving plans for working through her lunch hour. She was always thwarted in this, however. We were too efficient to allow people not to eat; neither was she allowed to stay after five o’clock.

This day, as on so many others, she was still typing frantically at half past twelve, hoping to escape detection; but Miss Kelly espied her.

“You ought to be out for lunch, Miss Clare,” she said, in a human, decent, kindly way. “Run along now. You’ll do all the better when you come back.”

This was painful to me, because I knew that the poor girl was going to be fired when she came back; but she didn’t suspect. She raised her weary, anxious eyes to Miss Kelly’s face.

“Please let me stay!” she entreated. “I’ve fallen behind, and this hour will help me to catch up.”

“No, Miss Clare, it won’t. You’ll be ill, and--” Miss Kelly began.

She was interrupted by the suave and mellow voice of Mr. Reddiman, our great president.

“What’s this?” said he. “What’s this? One of our young women making herself ill, eh? Working too hard?”

Every newcomer in our office marveled at Mr. Reddiman, and resented him, and was convinced that he had no ability, no force, no possible qualifications for being president of the company; but that never lasted. Mr. Reddiman grew on you little by little until, after a few months, you were willing to admit that you could scarcely have done better yourself.

He had a mild, slow way. He put me in mind of an old gardener pottering about in a greenhouse, when, with his hands clasped behind him, he walked through the various rooms, stopping here and there. He was a notably successful gardener, however. He made the business grow; and--he got things done.

“I’m not working too hard!” said Miss Clare, perilously close to tears. “I don’t want any lunch. I want to finish these letters.”

“No, no, no, no!” said he pleasantly. “That won’t do. We can’t have that!”

The poor creature was blandly hustled out of the office, well knowing that Miss Kelly would be questioned about her, and that Miss Kelly would answer with complete frankness.

But neither Miss Clare nor any other person could have imagined what actually took place. Personally, while giving due credit to Mr. Reddiman’s kind heart, acumen, and wisdom, I am inclined to give still more credit to Miss Clare’s eyes; for I assure you that those eyes, when filled with tears and raised to your face, were terribly potent. As I said before, they were blue, but only the advertising department could adequately describe the sort of blue.

Listen to the sequel, and bear in mind that I saw her look up at Mr. Reddiman. I know that if I had been Mr. Reddiman, I, too--

Well, he went in to see Mr. Graves, whom he greatly admired and valued.

“In regard to this--er--Miss Clare,” he said. “I hear from Miss Kelly--”

“Yes, I know,” Graves answered miserably. “I’m going to discharge her this afternoon.”

“You would be doing very wrong,” said Mr. Reddiman severely.

Graves was naturally astounded.

“I’ve done all I can to place her--” he began, but Mr. Reddiman interrupted.

“Graves,” said he, “I’m afraid you are just a little inclined to overlook the human element. After all, Graves, what is more valuable in an employee than zeal? A--er--person who works with zeal and loyalty is, to my mind, very much more desirable than one of your efficient, soulless machines. The human element, Graves, the human element! This--er--Miss Clare seems to be most earnest. I learn that she comes early and remains late. To my personal knowledge, she wished to-day to forego her lunch in order to complete her work. I shall not interfere in your province, of course, but I hope--I hope strongly--that you will reconsider your decision.”

It was Graves himself who told me about the interview.

“Well,” he said, “what could I do? Heaven knows I didn’t want to say a word against the poor girl; but in duty to the company I had to tell him what I’d done. He listened, and then he said again that I overlooked the human element. He said that what she needed was encouragement, and that she could start to-morrow morning as his secretary!”

“Aren’t you pleased?” I asked.

“Pleased?” he exclaimed. “I’m--I’m horrified! I’m--it’s outrageous! It’s cruel! I can’t bear to think of it!” He paused. “It’s the end of her,” he said tragically. “She’s about as well fitted to be his secretary as she is to be president of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s bound to end in a big row!”

I didn’t agree with him.

V

Miss Clare arrived the next morning a little pale and nervous, but wonderfully happy. She was always neat and dainty, but this morning she had a sort of festive air, produced, as well as I can tell you, by little extra ruffles and by magic.

Looking into Mr. Reddiman’s private room, and seeing her there, with her fair head bent and her fragile hands so busy, in all her gallant and touching youth, I entertained serious thoughts about the human element. I understood the ancient institution of chivalry. I fancied I knew exactly how knights used to feel about forlorn damosels. It seemed idiotic to estimate a creature as valiant and sweet as she by the number of words she could turn out per minute. Indeed, I forgot all about the economic system for a time, in a long meditation upon a system considerably older.

I rejoiced in her innocent and happy triumph. I delighted in seeing her walk past Miss Kelly and smile at her before entering the august private room.

Graves was decidedly under a cloud now. We were all a little hard on him. We forgot his kindly efforts on her behalf, and remembered only that he had been on the point of discharging one who now worthily occupied an important post.

“You see, Graves, I was right,” said Mr. Reddiman.

The rest of us agreed in condemning Graves for a sort of inhuman severity.

Three days passed. Then Graves heard from Mr. Reddiman once more.

“It was naturally a--a tentative arrangement--something in the nature of an experiment,” the president said. “I am well satisfied with Miss Clare’s zeal and industry, but she lacks experience. I have no doubt she can work up to some superior position; but in the meantime, Graves, wouldn’t it be possible to find her some work that carries less responsibility? She’s very young, you know.”

The implication was that Graves had thrust monstrous responsibilities upon her young shoulders, that he was a sort of Simon Legree.

“She’s a young woman of education and refinement,” Mr. Reddiman continued. “I should imagine it would not be difficult to find a place for her in an organization of this size and scope. I don’t mind saying, Graves, that I am very favorably impressed with Miss Clare. Of course, if you’re convinced that she’s not useful--”

“Very well!” said Graves brusquely. “I’ll try.”

And there he was, with the whole thing to begin over again, and with the wind of public opinion dead against him. I observed him sitting at his desk, with his stubby hair ruffled, his sturdy shoulders hunched, and a look of unassuageable despair upon his not very mobile face. He looked up as I approached.

“Go on!” said he. “Tell me I’m a brute! Of course, I know that what I’m really paid a good salary for is to run a charitable institution here. I know--”

“Look here. Graves!” said I. “I’ll try your Miss Clare in my department--”

“She’s not my Miss Clare,” he returned, with vigor. “She’s--” He got up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “She’s an albatross! You know the story about the fellow who had one tied round his neck, and couldn’t get rid of it.”

“That’s not very chivalrous,” said I.

“Well, I’m not paid to be chivalrous,” he said. “I know she’s a fine girl--a--a lovely girl; but she’s out of place here. She can’t do one darned thing well enough to deserve a salary for it. If old Reddiman wants me to start a training school, very well, I’ll do it; but if he wants me to keep up the standard of efficiency I’ve set, then he’s got to give me a free hand--that’s all!”

“She can start in with me to-morrow,” I said rather stiffly.

VI

I had my own ideas about office management. No private room for me! I sat out with all the others, in a little railed off pen. I contended that the moral effect of my being always visible, and always busy, was admirable. Graves, on the contrary, upheld the principle of remaining invisible and popping out suddenly.

I said that my department was a little democracy.

“And you were elected the head of it by popular vote, weren’t you?” inquired Graves, with irony. “Bet you wouldn’t be willing to put it to the vote now. All bunk! Humbug! You’re an autocrat, and so am I!”

I remembered this the next morning, when Miss Clare started to work for me, and I resolved to be a benevolent autocrat. The poor girl had lost her triumphant air. She was crestfallen, anxious, apprehensive.

“I’ll let her see that I have confidence in her,” I thought.

I gave her some letters to answer herself, without my dictating. They certainly were not letters of importance. In fact, it would make small difference to the business whether they were ever answered or not.

Hypocritically, I told myself I ought to keep an eye on her. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have helped it, because she was the most incredibly lovely creature.

Her concentration was distressing. I felt inclined to tell her that the letters weren’t worth all her trouble--that no letters could be. She was very nervous. I saw her put sheet after sheet into the typewriter, only to take it out and crumple it up.

Naturally, she knew our excessive dislike for paper being wasted; and after a while I saw her stealthily stuffing those crumpled sheets into a drawer, where they wouldn’t be noticed. Then, suddenly, she straightened her shoulders, gave a despairing glance round the office, pulled all the paper out of the drawer, and put it into the wastebasket. It was a small thing, but it touched me. Whenever I looked at her, and saw that incriminating mass in the basket beside her, in full light of day, I mentally saluted her as an honorable soul.

There had come in the morning mail a letter from a rather doubtful customer, inclosing a check for his last bill and a new order. I felt pretty sure he was ordering a bit more than the traffic would stand, yet he seemed to have substantial backing, and it wouldn’t do to risk offending him. It was Saturday, and I had meant to talk the thing over with Mr. Reddiman before putting through the order on Monday, when a telegram came:

Ship goods to-day. Wire, if impossible, and cancel order.

This was very awkward. We were somewhat overstocked just then, and not particularly busy, so that it would have been easy enough to ship the stuff; but I was reluctant to take the responsibility. At the same time I didn’t want to cancel an order of that size.

There wasn’t much time for thought. I sent for my assistant. I told him to take the check down to the bank it was drawn on and get it cashed. I also suggested his seeing the manager.

“What bank is it?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” said I; “but you’ll see by the check.”

And then I couldn’t find the check. It was nearly eleven already, and there wasn’t a minute to waste. I turned over every paper on my desk; I made every one else do the same. Check and letter were absolutely gone.

Nothing like this had ever happened before during my régime. I couldn’t believe it. Now that it’s well in the past, I will admit that perhaps I didn’t take it very tranquilly; but, after all, it was not soothing, when I knew some one must be to blame, to have people make idiotic suggestions about my looking in my pocket. Was I in the habit of putting the mail into my pocket?

“The thing’s going to be found,” said I, “and found now. Empty the wastebaskets, and see if it’s been thrown away by mistake.”

The office boy appeared to enjoy doing this, but the rest of them failed in loyalty. No one looked worried or distressed.

“It’s sure to turn up,” said one.

Another almost suggested that such a letter had never existed.

Attracted by the excitement, Miss Kelly appeared, followed by others who had no business to come. How cool and reasonable they all were!

“Mercy!” observed Miss Kelly. “What a quantity of paper thrown away!”

She spoke, of course, of the contents of poor Miss Clare’s basket, now turned out upon a newspaper. She approached it, and picked up one or two sheets.

“It seems to me scarcely justifiable to waste a sheet merely for writing ‘Dear Bir,’” said she, “or a wrong figure in the date. Errors like that can easily be--is this the missing letter, by any chance?”

It was the letter, and the check as well, torn into fragments.

“Oh, I didn’t know!” cried Miss Clare. “I’m so awfully sorry! I must have taken it by accident and torn it up with--with some other things. I’m so sorry!”

But my exasperation was too great to be melted even by tears in those incomparable eyes.

“You ought to be sorry!” I said, and so on.

No use recounting the rest of my bad-tempered outburst. I paid for it later in very genuine regret.

VII

It was probably due to ill temper, but it was attributed to my wonderful business foresight that I did not ship those goods. Mr. Reddiman sent for me on Monday morning and praised my wisdom, good sense, and judgment. That customer was to be dropped.

This praise did not make me happy, but quite the contrary. I knew I didn’t deserve it--in this instance, that is. I was already very remorseful on the score of Miss Clare. I remembered things of which I hadn’t been aware at the time--her white face, her quivering lip, her wide, tearful eyes. She had gone away, after listening to every word I said, and she had not returned.

It would be hard to describe how startling, how conspicuous, was her absence. I missed her from rooms, from desks, where she had certainly never been. The wan sunshine made phantoms of her bright head in dim corners. Other and very different voices took on fleeting resemblances to hers. Once I saw the neat, spare form of Miss Kelly taking a drink at the water cooler, and she seemed to melt into the gracious outlines of that lost one.

My conscience troubled me. My heart was heavy. Very long was the day; and at the end of it I secured her address and went off to see her.

Never mind the eloquent speech I had prepared, for I never uttered one word of it. Suffice it to say that I intended to offer Miss Clare a permanent position, with no possibility of being fired.

She lived in an apartment house on a side street uptown on the West Side--a street that was just on the border of a slum--a street of woeful and dismal gentility. I rang the bell, blundered down a black, narrow hall, and would have gone upstairs if a voice behind me hadn’t murmured:

“Clare?”

Turning, I asserted that a Clare was what I sought, and I was bidden to step through an open door and into a prim little sitting room. It was dismal there, too, but light enough for me to see that I was confronted by a mother out of a book--a gray-haired, delicate little creature with a smile of invincible innocence and good will.

I said that I came from the office to see Miss Clare. Strictly speaking, this was true; but the implication was not, for my business had nothing to do with the office.

“Am sorry ma daughter’s not in,” said Mrs. Clare, in her slurred Southern accent. “If you’d care to wait, Ah don’t think she’ll be long.”

So I sat down, and was instantly fed with tea and cake.

“Rosemary made the cake,” Mrs. Clare explained. “She’s wonderful at baking!”

She was; nothing could have been more delectable. Naturally I praised it, and naturally Mrs. Clare rose to the praise like a trout to a fly. There was something very touching in her artless talk about her child, and something still more touching in the picture she created for me of their gracious and gentle life together.

“Ah’ve never heard a sharp word from Rosemary,” she assured me. “Ah don’t think you could say the same of many other girls in the same circumstances. There’s not only her business career that she’s so interested in, but she does almost all of the housekeeping as well. She’s a wonderful manager, and so clever with her needle! Ah never saw a girl so handy in the house. Of co’se Ah know a girl with her brains and education is just naturally adapted for business, but--” She stopped, with a smile. “Ah’m an old-fashioned woman, Ah reckon. Ah’m glad Rosemary’s going to give it up.”

“Going to give up business?” said I, astounded.

“She’s been engaged for two years,” said she. “That’s long enough. Of co’se, dear Denby understood how she felt about proving her ability befo’ she settled down, but Ah’m glad it’s over. He came up from No’folk yesterday, and he persuaded her to give up her position.”

I was suddenly aware that it was late, and that I couldn’t wait another minute.

“Ah’m sorry,” said she. “Rosemary’ll be back sho’tly. She just took Denby to see the Woolworth Building. Ah wish you could have stayed to see Denby.”

I said how remarkably sorry I was not to see this Denby, but go I would and did.

As I left the house, I ran into Graves, about to enter.

“Old man,” said I, “come along with me. I want to talk to you.”

I believe I took his arm. Anyhow, I felt like doing so.

“Graves,” I said, “I hope you won’t thing I’ve been underhand or treacherous about this. I’d have told you, only that it came on pretty suddenly. I didn’t really know until this morning, and then it put everything else out of my head. I acted upon impulse, Graves--upon my word I did! I missed her so much in the office to-day--”

“Yes,” said he, with a sigh. “It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

“And I just hurried off, you know--to call upon her. Graves, old man, it’s--in fact, there’s nothing doing. She’s engaged--she’s been engaged for two years to some young--”

“Oh, I knew that,” said Graves.

“What?” I cried.

“She told me in the very beginning,” said Graves. “Naturally she didn’t want it talked about, but she explained it to me. It seems this fellow didn’t take her seriously enough. He had plenty of money, but he expected her to settle down there in Norfolk and just be his wife. She didn’t say so, but I gathered that he’s a domineering sort of young chap. She said that if they started in that way, they’d never be happy. She had to show him that she amounted to something on her own account; and he was impressed when she got a job here with us. She showed me a letter, or a part of a letter, from him about it. He got down from his high horse, I can tell you--said he knew she’d be making a sacrifice to give up her career and marry him, but he’d do his best to make it up to her, and so on.”

He paused.

“So you see,” he said, “it would have been a very bad thing for her--a very serious thing--if she’d been fired. Might have spoiled her whole future life. After she told me that, and appealed to me, why, I had to--don’t you see?”

“But, Graves,” said I, “didn’t you--weren’t you--personally--”

“Pshaw!” said Graves, turning red. “D’you know, my boy, I read a story once about a hangman who was a pretty good sort of fellow when he was at home. Ever occur to you that even the matador mayn’t be as black as he’s painted?”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JULY, 1923 Vol. LXXIX NUMBER 2

A Hesitating Cinderella

THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF MADELINE, THE PRETTY WAITRESS AT COMPSON’S CHOPHOUSE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“I’m no jazz baby,” Madeline declared indignantly.

“Well, I never said you were, did I?” demanded Mr. Ritchie.

“Well, you think so,” she replied.

“Well, if you can read my mind, it’s no use me trying to talk,” said he.

“I never asked you to talk!”

They were both aware that their badinage had lost its fine edge.

“Well, I never asked you to listen,” Mr. Ritchie said valiantly, but he knew very well that this was not a clever retort.

At that moment he was greatly dissatisfied both with his wit and his person. He thought it brutal on the part of fate that a young man as passionate and resolute as himself should have so frail a form, and that after having taken a correspondence course in rhetoric and oratory he should still be so tongue-tied--especially with Madeline.

He could see himself in the mirror opposite. He sat so straight that he leaned over backward a little, but this did not disguise the fact that his shoulders were narrow and not quite even, and his chest somewhat hollow. Neither had his studies or his burning thoughts left any visible impress on his sallow, rather ratlike face; and all this hurt his terribly sensitive soul.

“I never said you were a jazz baby,” he insisted. “I only said lots of girls were--and that’s a fact. Why, a lot of those girls wouldn’t spend a cent to get a decent, well balanced meal! All they care about is clothes and--”

“I don’t guess you know such a lot about girls,” Madeline interrupted.

Her tone was scornful, and the outrageously sensitive Mr. Ritchie at once saw all sorts of implications. She meant that girls wouldn’t bother with him. She meant that he was nothing but a mechanic. She meant that his clothes were shabby, and that he was small and slight. She meant everything that could affront his manly pride.

His face grew crimson.

“All right!” he said loftily. “Have it your own way!”

He turned away his head, though he was a little alarmed as he did so. He had always felt that chivalry required him to keep his head turned rigidly toward Madeline, to atone for the fact that she stood while he sat. Of course, that was not his fault. Madeline being a waitress, and he a customer, anything more gallant was impossible.

He certainly did not enjoy being waited on by this splendid girl. In fact, he so bitterly disliked it that he would have ceased coming to Compson’s Chophouse, if he had not realized that in his absence she would very likely be waiting on some other man, possibly not so chivalrous.

It was altogether a sacrifice on his part, because the food did not conform to his standards. He could not get here the well balanced rations necessary for building up his physique. Of what use to work night and morning with a patent exerciser, if he did not get the proper muscle-building foods? This worried him very much, for he desired a fine physique as greatly as he desired a master mind.

Then, too, he often had to wait a long while for Madeline to be free to attend to him, and he fretted at the waste of time. He couldn’t light a cigarette to beguile his tedium, for he knew that the smoker cannot have a fine physique. If he saw a smoker who looked as if he had one, Ritchie knew him to be a whited sepulcher, with a failing heart, exhausted lungs, and no will power.

To be sure, he might have passed the time with some improving book. He always carried in his pocket a volume of a set he had bought--a set guaranteed to broaden his mind, and to contain all that he ought to read; but he couldn’t keep his mind on a book when Madeline was about.

“Have it your own way,” he repeated.

This time he said it with a new significance. He meant that, as far as he was concerned, Madeline might have everything her own way forever.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to hear him. She was waiting on a man at another table. She never so much as glanced at Ritchie. He knew she wouldn’t look at him, and he took a gloomy pleasure in staring at her.

She was worth looking at, was Madeline. Tall, spare, straight, in an austere white uniform and a sleek coiffure, she was a miracle to irradiate any chophouse. Her features were subtle--a delicate nose, a rounded chin, a mouth very red in her pale face. Her black brows made an incomparable line above her dark, steady eyes.

In spite of her thinness and her pallor, in spite of twenty years of bad air and wretched food, she was strong and tireless, with muscles like steel--a heritage from ancestors of Slavic peasant stock. She had a cool, careless manner, inclined to sudden hauteur when she thought it necessary, but she could also chat with the greatest affability--as she was doing now.

“Trying to make me jealous!” thought Ritchie. “What do I care?”

He had merely invited her, very politely, to a dance to be given by the Coyote Club that evening. He worked very hard all day as a mechanic in a garage. In addition to building up a fine physique and broadening his mind by reading, he was taking a correspondence course in mechanical draftsmanship; and the Coyote Club, of which he was treasurer, was his one frivolity.

Every week they engaged a pianist, a saxophonist, and a drummer, and had a dance in a hall over a restaurant on Eighth Avenue. There was no “rough stuff.” It was a seemly and refined entertainment--Madeline ought to have known that. Ritchie only meant that some of the girls brought by some of the Coyotes were jazz babies. The remark was not intended as personal, and she shouldn’t have taken it as such.

“Don’t know much about girls, don’t I?” he reflected angrily.

Nothing could have been more galling, especially as it was true. Ritchie had noble ideas about girls, though. He was not exactly in a position to marry at the present moment; but later on, when his heroic efforts began to show results, he intended to have a home, a garden, and a wife whom he would venerate and take to lectures and concerts.

He did not care to admit that that wife must be Madeline or no one. He was far too proud to acknowledge how much he cared for a girl with her silly ideas; but unhappily he was not clever enough to conceal it, and Madeline knew only too well.

These were her silly ideas. Knowing herself to be rare and seductive, she intended to marry a millionaire. She was weary and disgusted with her present condition. She wanted a life of exquisite refinement and languor. She hated the restaurant, she hated her home, her uniform. She turned up her delicate nose at everything about her, including Ritchie. Not that he wasn’t “refined,” for he surely was, and she secretly admired him; but it was not the right, the princely, sort of “refinement,” and she would have none of him.

Still, she felt a pang of regret when he went out. A girl as attractive as she, alone in the world, could not well help learning to appreciate the chivalry and restraint of Mr. Ritchie. He never “said anything,” and never would, until encouraged. He came every night to Compson’s for his dinner, and of late he had fallen into the habit of being on the corner when she came out, at ten o’clock. He never said that he was waiting for her, and she had manners enough to be surprised every time. He walked home with her, both of them conversing with the utmost formality.

He had never invited her anywhere, except to this dance at the Coyote Club. He had never so much as shaken hands with her. She knew very well that the reason for this was his severe sense of respect for her. While she admired this, she would have been better pleased with a little more impetuosity.

Still, it was no use denying that he left a gap. Madeline missed him. Even when she was busy, she had found comfort in the sight of his head bent over one of his little books.

“Now he’s mad,” she reflected. “He won’t come back. All right! I don’t care! Let him go to his old dance and have a good time with the jazz babies!”

She consoled herself by imagining the balls she would go to in the future, when the millionaire arrived--balls like those she saw in the movies. She herself would wear a long, swathed dress and carry a feathered fan. She would be languid and scornful, and would flirt in a refined manner impossible to one who was at present a waitress in Compson’s Chophouse.

II

By eight o’clock the room was growing empty. As a hint to possible intruders, each time a table was left vacant the lights near it were turned out. A few solitary men still ate, in bright oases, but they had a hasty and guilty air; they knew that their tardiness was resented.

One by one the waitresses disappeared into the little back room where they changed into their street clothes, and returned, crossing the restaurant with eager steps, until there remained only Madeline and Miss Sullivan. Miss Sullivan remained because her customer was a pig-headed old gentleman and refused to hurry; but Madeline was there because Mr. Compson had great confidence in her, and allowed her the privilege of turning out the lights and locking the door.

The proprietor himself had gone, with the cash box. Madeline would have the responsibility of guarding, until morning, whatever sum the pig-headed old gentleman might pay.

“Gosh, I could stick a pin in him!” murmured Miss Sullivan. “Twenty past! There goes that dishwasher, even!”

“I’ll look after him,” said Madeline. “You can go, if you like.”

Toward her own sex Madeline was not haughty, but quite good-natured.

“I’ll do as much for you some day,” declared Miss Sullivan, like a creature in a fable, and off she went.

The room was very still. At intervals the elevated trains went by with a thundering roar, leaving behind a sort of vacuum of quietness. The old gentleman looked up.

“Piece lemon meringue pie,” he said briefly.

“Kitchen’s closed,” Madeline replied, with equal brevity.

This annoyed him very much; but in view of the fact that he was known never to leave more than a nickel for a tip, his annoyance never caused much concern in Compson’s. He got up, folded his newspaper, felt in all his pockets, and very slowly took down his overcoat.

Madeline, leaning against the wall in a careless attitude, refused to show signs of impatience. Indeed, when she saw him struggling into the tight sleeves of his shabby old coat, she felt an impulse of scornful pity, and came to his aid. He didn’t thank her. Apparently he preferred to consider it her fault that he was old and slow and stiff, and couldn’t enjoy his dinner.

After he had gone, she began turning off the few remaining lights. The place was nearly in darkness when the door opened and two men came in.

“Closed!” said Madeline.

But the taller of the two led his companion to a table and pushed him into a chair.

“Can’t you manage a cup of coffee?” he entreated. “My friend’s ill.”

Madeline was not very credulous. She snapped on the nearest light, so that she might look at the alleged invalid.

One look was enough. She hadn’t lived twenty years without learning something, and she knew at once what ailed the fellow; but she didn’t care. She felt instinctively that he was a victim. He had been led astray, very likely by this burly ruffian with him.

“Poor feller!” she said softly.

His curly head was thrown back, his eyes were closed, and he seemed sunk in innocent slumber. Not only was he singularly handsome and engaging, but he wore a dinner jacket. Never had Madeline seen one so close at hand before. It invested the suffering hero with a high, romantic interest. It thrilled her. He was a creature strayed from another world. He was helpless and abandoned, and not for anything on earth would she have forsaken him.

“I’ll get him some coffee,” she said.

She said it rudely, because she hated the other man, and knew it was all his fault.

There was a little left in the coffee urn, and it was still warm. She brought it promptly, but the sufferer could not be roused to drink.

“Good Lord!” said the other impatiently. “I don’t know what to do with the young idiot! Pour water on him.”

“I never!” cried Madeline, with passionate indignation. “And get his nice clothes all wet?”

“Well, do something with him,” said the other. He showed an alarming tendency to shift the responsibility for his unconscious companion to Madeline’s shoulders. “I can’t take him home with me. Lock him in here till the morning, and let him sleep it off!”

“I never!” she said again. “Just suppose he waked up all alone in the dark, and couldn’t get out! Don’t you know where he lives?”

“Of course I know, but he wouldn’t thank any one for sending him home in this state. He’s the only son of wealthy and respectable parents,” the other answered, in a flippant tone that was obnoxious to Madeline. “It would bring their gray--or dyed--hair to the grave in one swoop. This fellow, my dear girl, is young Benny Bradley!”

“I don’t care who he is, he’d ought to be took care of. He’s got to be!” Madeline said sternly.

“Not by me,” returned the other. He rose, and looked at Madeline with a smile. “It’s time for me to clear out.”

“You can’t!” the girl protested.

“I shall,” said the man. “I make you a present of Benny Bradley.”

He was actually going, but she caught him by the sleeve.

“Oh!” she cried. “You ought to be ashamed! What ever can I do?”

“I don’t know. Why not call the police?” said he.

He unclasped her fingers, and, raising his hat gallantly, went out.

“Oh, my!” cried Madeline, in despair. “Oh, my! What ever will I do with the poor feller?”

She dipped a folded napkin in water, and laid it on his forehead. A glance in the mirror startled her. In her white uniform, wasn’t she just like a trained nurse with a wounded hero? The vision inspired her. She felt that she must be calm, brave, resourceful.

Somewhat timidly she lifted his limp, white hand, to feel his pulse; but, having little idea how a pulse should behave, she gained no reassurance.

“Poor feller!” she repeated. “Anyway, I’m not going to leave you, if I have to sit here the whole night!”

She would have done that, and would have faced Mr. Compson and her sister workers the next morning undaunted, if she had not been saved by the entrance of Mr. Ritchie.

III

To the casual observer there was nothing heroic in Ritchie’s coming, but truly it was heroic. It had cost him a horrible effort to subdue his outrageous pride, to forego the Coyotes’ dance, and to return here for the ungracious Madeline. And how did he find her? Bending over a strange man in evening dress, all alone, long after the place should have been closed!

“Well!” he said. “What’s all this?”

With vehement indignation Madeline told him the story of the base desertion of the helpless sufferer.

“And what am I going to do with him?” she ended. “It’s the worst I ever heard--going off and leaving him like this!”

“Well, send for the police,” said Mr. Ritchie, but he regretted his words when he saw her eyes blaze.

“Shame on you!” she cried. “The state he’s in!”

“Well, now, see here,” said Ritchie. “I guess you don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s not sick; he’s just--”

“Hush up!” she interrupted fiercely. “I guess I do know! It isn’t his fault--he got in with bad comp’ny.”

“How do you know?” he inquired.

“I do know,” she replied firmly. “Never you mind how! And I’m going to see he gets taken care of till he’s all well again.”

All this did not contribute to Mr. Ritchie’s happiness. Wasn’t it just like a woman, he thought, to be captious and haughty to a devoted young man of blameless life, and an angel of compassion to this unknown profligate?

Nevertheless, in spite of his jealous alarm and his pain and his distrust, it was Ritchie’s sure instinct to behave generously. Heaven knows where he got his magnanimity. He hadn’t learned it in the mean and sordid little home of his childhood. He hadn’t been taught it in school, and it had been a part of his nature long before he had read a line of those improving little books.

His sallow face flushed.

“Well!” he said. “I’ll take him home with me.”

Madeline didn’t know how to be gracious, but she appreciated this.

“He can’t walk,” was all she said.

“All right!” said Ritchie grandly. “I’ll call a taxi.”

He had never done this before. He hastened to a cab stand on Fifth Avenue, and it seemed to his proud soul that all the chauffeurs knew he had never used a taxi, and despised him. He was very truculent about it.

An infinitely greater humiliation was in store for him. When he returned to the restaurant, he couldn’t lift, or even move, the helpless young man. All those hours with the exerciser availed him nothing. His physique was shamefully deficient.

“Let me,” said Madeline. “I’m real strong.”

Without much trouble, she took the fellow under his arms and got him to his feet. He opened his eyes, then, and smiled a dreamy, innocent smile. Supported by Madeline and pushed by Ritchie, he made a sort of attempt at walking to the cab.

“I’d better go with you,” said she, “or you’ll never get him up the stairs.”

Sick with shame, Ritchie was obliged to consent. Neither of them for an instant contemplated asking the chauffeur’s assistance; and the chauffeur, being class conscious, did not volunteer it.

Ritchie had the worst fifteen minutes of his life during his first ride in a taxi. He felt himself a mean, contemptible, worthless thing, with his lack of bodily strength. He contrasted his worn, shabby suit with the stranger’s expensive clothes. He knew that Madeline must despise him. She would despise him far more when she saw his room, yet he could devise no way for preventing that.

When the cab stopped before his door, he paid the fare, torn between a certainty that his natural enemy, the chauffeur, was cheating him, and his desire to appear lordly before Madeline. Then, together, they began to get the stranger up the stairs.

The noise of the operation made Ritchie’s blood run cold. Suppose some one saw him with a drunken man and a girl? He hauled at the fellow’s arm in no very gentle manner.

At last, at the top of the house, he unlocked a door, and, supporting the stranger against the wall of the corridor, he brusquely said to Madeline:

“All right! You might as well go now.”

“I’d like to see him settled,” said she.

So Ritchie had to light the gas and had to let her in.

The room was a bleak, bare, cold little cell, with the exerciser fastened to the wall, and the window nailed open, to admit all the hygienically fresh air possible. On the bureau, instead of the little accessories of a fastidious gentleman, were a pair of military brushes, the vital library, all in a row, and a bottle of ink. On the table were an alarm clock and the apparatus of the correspondence course. There were no other visible articles personal to Ritchie, except a razor strop and six cakes of carbolic soap, economically unwrapped to dry.

He pushed the stranger down on his cot.

“All right!” he thought defiantly. “Now you can see just how I live--and I hope you’ll like it! Go on--laugh, if you want to!”

But she was not laughing.

“Oh, my, what a dusty towel!” she was thinking, in distress. “And no curtains. The woman that runs this house ought to be ashamed of herself!”

She turned to Ritchie without the least trace of haughtiness.

“Well, good night, Everard,” she said.

It was the first time she had used his name. He needed that assuagement to compensate for the lingering glance she gave to the prostrate unknown.

IV

Ritchie came home in a somewhat bitter humor, partly due to his having spent the night on a hard chair, and partly to other and finer causes. He hoped that drunken fellow would be gone. He wished never to see him again; but when Ritchie opened the door, there he was, lying on the bed and reading one of the little books.

“Hello!” he said, as joyously as if Ritchie were his heart’s dearest friend.

“Are you feeling better?” Ritchie curtly inquired.

Without waiting for a reply, he began to take off his grimy work clothes.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the other went on. “Absolutely the whitest thing I ever heard of! I must have been pretty far gone last night--can’t remember a blamed thing.”

He was not discouraged by his host’s silence.

“I shan’t forget this, you know,” he continued. “You darned nearly saved my life. Can’t imagine what my people would have said, if I’d come home like that. You know how it is--”

“No, I don’t,” interrupted Ritchie. “I’m a teetotaler.”

“Shows sense,” said the other warmly. “I think I’ll have to be one myself. My name’s Bradley.” He waited. “What’s yours?” he asked.

“Ritchie,” responded the other. “And as good as Bradley any day,” he added mentally.

In some respects, however, honesty obliged him to admit that he was not so good as Bradley.

Bradley, after stretching, got up. He was in his shirt sleeves, and Ritchie surveyed his tall, slender figure with the eye of a connoisseur in physiques. The fellow was young yet, not fully developed, but certainly those shoulders, that solid neck, that broad chest, were promising--very promising.

“Well, he probably eats too much meat,” thought Ritchie, with dejection. “Living like he does, he won’t last!”

In order to show his perfect ease and indifference, he began to wash, whistling when the process permitted.

“I must be badly in your way,” said the other, in his good-humored manner. “I’ll clear out, I think. Got a spare overcoat? I don’t like to go out like this.”

Ritchie grew scarlet. His overcoat--certainly spare enough--was in that place where winter overcoats naturally go in the spring.

“No,” he said sullenly.

“Then I--” began Bradley.

There was a knock at the door. Ritchie flung it wide open, with the air of one who has nothing to conceal. In the hall stood two resplendent young heroes, broadly smiling.

“Still alive, Bradley?” said the taller and older of the two.

They both came into the room as if Ritchie did not exist. Trembling with resentment, he stood aside, collarless, in his cheap striped shirt, with his black hair still wet on his forehead. These three well fed, well clothed creatures, with their vigorous voices, completely filled the room--filled, he thought, the whole world, squeezing him out of it.

In an affectionate and blasphemous manner Bradley reproached his friend for deserting him the night before.

“You ought to thank me,” said his friend, “for leaving you in the care of that peach of a girl!”

“What peach of a girl?” asked Bradley, pleasantly surprised.

The friend recounted the circumstances. No one observed Mr. Ritchie’s rage and dismay.

“I went there just now to make inquiries,” the friend went on, “and she told me where I’d find you. Bradley, old son, if you’re a man and a brother, you’ll go there at once and thank her! She’s a beautiful girl, and--”

“Here!” interrupted Ritchie. His voice was so strange that they all turned to look at him. “Leave her out!” he cried. “You can thank me!”

Bradley was smitten with compunction. He began thanking Ritchie with energy, introduced his friends, and invited him to dinner.

“No!” said Ritchie. Like many teetotalers, he had acquired the habit of saying “no” somewhat ungraciously. “No! But you can just leave her out!”

Again he was thanked by all of them, and at last they left his room; but he knew that Madeline would not be left out. He felt certain that they would go at once to Compson’s Chophouse. He could see them talking to Madeline. He knew how she would admire their dress, and their silly language, and their frivolous and disgusting manners.

“All right!” he said to himself. “You’re welcome to ’em; but you don’t catch me going there any more, to be made a fool of. Not much!”

Suddenly he decided that he wanted no dinner--not at Compson’s, or at any other place. He threw himself down on his cot, with a scornful laugh that sounded like a sob. Fellows like that always got everything. They thought they owned the earth--and very likely they did.

V

Young Bradley was not subtle or astoundingly clever, but he did know better than to go to thank a beautiful girl in the company of his two friends. He went alone.

He was instantly struck down, completely conquered, by Madeline’s haughty glance. It was the first time he had met a haughty girl. He found most girls very much otherwise. He was accustomed to the ardent pursuit of mothers and aunts, and not much coyness on the part of their protégées. He had no conception of Madeline’s idea of man as a dangerous and persistent hunter, with woman as his prey. In his circle the girls did the hunting and he the evading.

He was captivated by her severity. She refused to go out with him that evening; so he came again the next evening.

“Please come!” he entreated. “I’ve got the car outside. I’ll wait for you as long as you like, and then we’ll run up to a little place on the Post Road.”

“No, thank you,” said Madeline. “I never go out with strange gentlemen.”

“How am I going to stop being a strange gentleman if you’ll never go out with me?” he complained.

Madeline didn’t know, and didn’t care to encourage strange young men by trying to explain. She knew perfectly well that he would come back.

To be sure, he did, and this time he was dreadfully insistent. Now perhaps the cause of Madeline’s hauteur was the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the men she knew. Certainly she had never before encountered a persistent suitor, or one who was not offended by rebuffs. Customers inclined to gallantry were very much annoyed if not encouraged. Even Mr. Ritchie was fatally ready to be insulted; but this young fellow didn’t care in the least. Let her be haughty, captious, even cruel, still he was charmed and delighted.

Though she did not think this quite manly, Madeline could not withstand the cajolery of the handsome and good-natured boy. She was thrilled with pride that this splendid creature should come to seek her in Compson’s lowly chophouse. She was secretly overwhelmed when he brought her orchids. She didn’t really resent the innuendoes of the other girls. They were simply jealous because no such hero ever had or ever would come to seek them.

In her heart she was grateful, almost humble. She regarded her incomparable Bradley with something very like awe. To placate Compson, he would order coffee and pie while he waited to talk to her; and his manner of eating and drinking, the way he rose and remained standing when she approached, all the careless ease and grace of him, were a marvel and a joy. Moreover, even in her most fervent admiration, she had never lost the protective tenderness she had felt the first time she had seen him. She worried about him, about his health and his morals.

This was really the reason why she finally consented to go out with him--so that she could talk seriously and firmly, and perhaps reclaim him.

“Well, you can be waiting for me to-morrow at nine o’clock,” she said. “You’d better go along now.”

As he was leaving--a notable figure in a suit such as never entered Compson’s, and a straw hat, and a walking stick--he was met by Ritchie coming in. Ritchie was dressed in threadbare serge, and wore brown shoes, which he had attempted to make black. Bradley went by without a sign--not by intention, for he would have saluted his benefactor joyously if he had known him; but Ritchie, to him, was exactly like countless others, and quite indistinguishable.

Of course Ritchie took this apparent neglect as a personal insult. He sat down at his usual table, burning with shame and fury. When Madeline approached, he said truculently:

“I suppose you don’t want to go to the movies to-morrow night?”

It was an announcement, rather than a question.

“Well, I’m sorry,” replied Madeline, “only I got a date.”

“Him, isn’t it? All right! Go ahead! That’s just like a woman,” said Ritchie. “If a feller has good clothes and a fine physique, what do they care if he drinks, or anything?”

“I wasn’t aware I was requesting your valuable advice, Mr. Ritchie,” observed Madeline frigidly.

“I wasn’t giving it,” said he. “All I was saying was, women are all for show. They never see below the surface. Anyway, I’m going to Chicago the end of this week. I’m sick of New York!”

“My! Poor New York!” murmured she.

“I’m sick of the girls here,” he went on vehemently. “Just a lot of jazz babies--that’s what they are!”

“Here, now!” she cried.

“Jazz babies,” he repeated. “There isn’t one of them with--with any brains or any feelings.”

Madeline had turned pale.

“I’m not paid to be insulted by customers,” said she. “I’ll send some one else to wait on you. I’m sure I hope you’ll find some one in Chicago that’s good enough for you, if such a thing is possible!”

And thus terminated their acquaintance. They were now complete strangers.

VI

In the course of her twenty years Madeline had not shed so many tears as during this one night. There was time for a deluge, for it was surely the longest night that had ever covered the earth. It had the interminable confusion of a dream; and, like a dream, it was made up of vivid and apparently unconnected flashes.

First there was herself leaving Compson’s with a not very genuine air of composure, entering Bradley’s car, and settling herself by his side, determined not to be impressed or perturbed either by his magnificence or by the rakishness of the small car.

Then there was the flight through the bejeweled and marvelous city--a delight seriously marred by her companion’s sinister silence. Not being a driver herself, she had mistaken his preoccupation with traffic signals and so on for a grim and alarming determination. She had, as etiquette required, tried to talk, but he scarcely answered.

Then they shot out into the country--a world dark and unfamiliar to her. Almost the first thing Bradley did was to draw up the car by the roadside and produce a pocket flask. He had been surprised and amused at her indignation, and not overawed by her firm principles. She had said that she wished to go home, but he had been so very persuasive about the supper agreed upon that she had yielded.

She had regretted her weakness. The road house was an awful place. It was like the “haunts of vice” that she had read about in the Sunday newspapers. The prices on the menu appalled her, and the dancing was beyond imagining. Bradley knew some of those people, and had danced with a girl, leaving Madeline alone and unprotected at their table.

He said that what he had to drink was ginger ale, but she didn’t believe it. Ginger ale couldn’t have made him so flushed and silly; and when at last, after he had sat there smoking cigarettes and dawdling, they rose to go, she had noticed that his gait was unsteady. He had grown talkative, too, and never had she heard such silly conversation.

And now here they stood, on the brow of a hill. It was dark, but the dawn was already tingeing the sky. The birds were awake all about them, each one giving his own note--a reedy quaver, a chirp, a clear, exultant carol, each one indifferent and independent, but part of a glorious orchestral symphony. It was dawn, and here they were, for the graceless Bradley had lost his way in the dark.

They had gone jolting up lanes that ended in walls and fences, they had rushed across bridges, they had turned this way and that. Bradley made inquiries, but was not quite capable of profiting by them. Moreover, Madeline’s tears and reproaches had made him frantic. Dawn, and here they were! So fair and tranquil a dawn, it might have inspired to poetry the most insensitive soul; but to poor Madeline it meant only another working day. It made her think of Compson’s.

“Oh, my!” she cried. “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, how could you do such a thing?”

“I’m very sorry,” was all that the sobered young man could say. “I didn’t mean to.”

“My aunt’ll never let me in the house again!” she lamented. “Somebody’s sure to come from Compson’s and ask where I am, and my aunt’ll say she don’t know. I wish I was dead!”

“But can’t you explain?” Bradley asked patiently.

She was amazed at his stupidity, but the poor chap was quite unaware of the villainous aspect he had in the eyes of Compson’s staff. He had never considered himself a villain--certainly not where Madeline was concerned. He was very grateful to her, and he had tried to show his gratitude. That had not been at all difficult, because she was so pretty; but, thought he, what an awful temper!

Bradley was used to girls who concealed the most fiendish rages when in his company, and he believed that all girls were amiable. Ritchie would have understood Madeline’s outbreak. He might perhaps have quarreled with her, but all the time he quarreled he would have been terribly moved by her plight. Bradley couldn’t see that there was any plight. If she hadn’t been so terribly upset, he would have thought the thing a joke.

“Explain!” she cried. “Who do you think would believe me?”

He was about to speak, but when he looked at her, he could not. Some faint comprehension of her point of view came to him. The more he looked, the better he understood.

Grief had dignified her. Her tear-stained face, her brimming eyes, her trembling lip, distressed him beyond measure. He was an honest and kind-hearted fellow, and even something more than that. In his way, he was chivalrous. He felt deeply ashamed just then to remember that only a few hours before he had thought it rather comic to be taking out a waitress. He regretted the harmless but not very decorous jokes that he and his friends had made about the episode. He wished he had shown his gratitude in some other way. She wasn’t a waitress--she was a forlorn and miserable girl whom his ill-behavior had got into a situation which she regarded as serious.

“I’ll make it all right,” he said earnestly, wondering how this might be done.

“Well, you ought to!” she replied.

She didn’t mean to be ungracious or unkind, but she was in anguish. Neither she nor any of the people she knew could take such things lightly. She saw herself irretrievably disgraced, her haughty respectability forever tarnished. She knew so well what the girls at Compson’s would say!

She had been so proud of her discretion, of her superiority! She had been so very cautious about “strange gentlemen”! And to be away from home all night! She couldn’t bear it. Grief and resentment drove her to tears again.

“Don’t!” entreated Bradley. “Please don’t! I’ll make it all right, somehow--I give you my word I will!”

What he meant was that he would fly to some sympathetic feminine spirit, who could and would make it right for him.

VII

Madeline’s aunt didn’t believe one word of her niece’s story. Madeline quarreled haughtily and scornfully with her, but in her own heart she couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t have believed it herself. Getting lost in a motor car with a millionaire! That was simply nonsense.

She lay down on the bed in her dismal little room, as close to despair as she was ever likely to be. One of the girls had come from Compson’s, and her aunt had said she didn’t know where Madeline was.

“I can never go back there!” she thought. “Never, never!”

She might have been mourning for a lost paradise. After all, it was as hard for her to lose her standing among her peers at the chophouse as for a duchess to lose prestige in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. She had nothing else.

She neither expected nor wished to see Bradley again. He was a sinister mystery to her; she couldn’t understand him at all. She was convinced that he had got lost on purpose. The very fact of his not having tried to make love to her made the case all the more perturbing. He must have some deep design which she could not yet fathom.

He was bad. He drank. He went gladly to road houses where every one was bad, and drank, and danced improperly. His fascination was the fascination of a villain. His whole life must be a phantasmagoria of splendid evil.

As the room grew dark, she shuddered at the very thought of him. She dozed, and dreamed nightmares, and woke and cried and slept again. The blessed security of her honest, hard-working life was gone. She would have to give up her job. She couldn’t face the other girls again. Perhaps she was caught in one of those awful snares elaborately laid by millionaires for the daughters of the poor. Perhaps it was Bradley’s purpose to see that she never got another job--to hound her to the brink of starvation, that she might be obliged to listen to his evil proposals.

“I’d rather die!” she cried to herself with a sob.

There was not a soul in the world to assuage the heartsick young creature, no one to speak a word of common sense or solace. Her preposterous fears were terribly real to her. She had eaten nothing all day. She was exhausted, frightened, inimitably wretched.

She heard her aunt moving about in the kitchen. She knew that nothing on earth could induce the older woman to bring her even a cup of tea, and nothing could persuade her to ask for it.

“Not after what she said!” thought Madeline. “It would choke me!”

She fell asleep again, and was awakened by her aunt’s hand on her shoulder.

“Here’s that Mr. Ritchie,” the aunt announced.

“Well, tell him to go away!” replied Madeline.

“Tell him yourself,” said her aunt promptly. “I guess I got something better to do than carry messages for you!”

Her aunt was a severe, stout, bespectacled creature of fifty, a woman of invincible propriety, and Madeline’s conduct had stricken her to the heart. She was as glad to see Ritchie as if he were an angel, because obviously he could remedy all that was wrong; but she had no other way of expressing gratification, affection, or the most profound grief, than by her habitual disagreeableness.

“That’s just like you,” said Madeline.

She rose, too wretched to care how she looked, and went into the lugubrious little parlor where Ritchie waited.

“Well! I thought maybe you were sick,” said he.

“Well, I’m not,” she replied.

There was an awkward silence.

“Well!” he said at last. “Then what about going to the movies?”

Although he refused, as always, to look squarely at her, he had none the less observed her wan and tear-stained face, her untidy hair, her piteous dejection. Something which he imagined to be anger came over him.

“You been out with that feller?” he demanded.

“That’s my business!” returned Madeline valiantly.

“Well, if you--if you had more sense,” he said, and paused. He could not well have been more miserable than he was at that moment, nor could he have concealed it better. “Well!” he said again, with a sort of fury. “All right! It’s nothing to do with me. Go ahead! Suit yourself!”

He drew one of his books from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her in a shaking hand.

“You can just look at this, if you like,” he said. “I’m going away to-morrow--that’s all I’ve got to say!”

She did look. Heavily underscored were two lines unfamiliar to her, and of striking beauty and significance:

’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Mr. Ritchie flung the book down on the table and walked out.

VIII

The very next evening, when he should have been on his way to Chicago, he was ringing the door bell of Madeline’s flat. His presence brought ineffable consolation to the aunt, and was not displeasing to the girl herself.

“My!” she said loftily. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d come back!”

“Well, I did,” said he. “Aren’t you going back to Compson’s any more?”

“That’s my business!” she answered, but she let him in, and he did not appear rebuffed.

“Well, I guess they miss you there,” he observed.

“Let ’em!” she retorted with spirit. They were both too polite, too formal, to take any notice of the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I went out with that Mr. Bradley, and we got lost in his car. We never got back here until near noon. There’s no use telling those girls that. They’re awful spiteful, and they’d never believe me.”

“Well, I do,” said Ritchie.

“I should think you ought to!” said Madeline, with a sternness that concealed a very warm gratitude.

“Well, I said I did, didn’t I?” pursued Ritchie.

There was a pause.

“He was here to-day,” said Madeline; “him and his sister. I must say I didn’t think much of her--all painted and everything. She wants to get me a job with one of those Fifth Avenue dressmakers, as a model, to show off the dresses.”

There was calm triumph in her tone, but despair seized Ritchie’s heart.

“She says I’d be an elegant model,” observed Madeline.

“All right!” said Ritchie. “Go ahead! Be one! Suit yourself!”

Another pause.

“That po’try you showed me,” said Madeline. “I thought it was sweet.”

“It’s not meant to be sweet,” replied Ritchie severely. “It’s more like, now, tragic. If you’d read more--”

“I always admired the way you read such a lot,” said Madeline.

In spite of himself, he was mollified. He glanced at her covertly. She was quite as lovely and disturbing as ever.

“Well,” he said, “of course I got to read. I want to get on. I’m making twenty-seven a week now, and more when there’s overtime. I spend a good lot on those correspondence courses, and the Coyote Club and all; but I guess I could do without them, if I felt like it.”

“I’m not going to take that job,” said Madeline suddenly. “I wouldn’t--not for anything. I guess I’ve had enough of that kind of people--all that drinking and all. I’d never get on with that kind!”

“Well, twenty-seven a week, clear--” said Ritchie.

The collapse of castles in the air doesn’t make a sound. Down came the magnificent edifice of Everard Ritchie’s ambitions, and the airy palace of Madeline’s dreams. In their place was instantaneously erected a three-room flat in a respectable quarter.

Their hands met, but not their eyes. They were timid lovers; but by that handclasp they could say all they wished.

“Those people just make me sick,” said Madeline. “You ought to have seen them dancing out at that place!”

Then their eyes did meet, full of profound confidence and understanding. His arm went round her shoulders, and she drew close to him.

“I know!” said he. “Fellers like that are no good at all; and those girls!” He looked at his haughty and incorruptible Madeline. “Those girls,” said he, from the depths of his vast worldly knowledge, “are nothing but a bunch of jazz babies!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

AUGUST, 1923 Vol. LXXIX NUMBER 3

The Postponed Wedding

IN WHICH THE PRINCIPALS WERE A TEARFUL BRIDE AND A SUBSTITUTE BRIDEGROOM

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Mildred stood like a statue--a trite figure of speech, but in this case an apt one. With the white satin draped about her bare shoulders, immobile in her cool and tranquil loveliness, she was truly like a statue, and an admirable one.

The dressmaker knelt at her feet as if before an idol, gathered the gleaming material into folds here and there, and put in pins, serious and happy in this congenial work. She admired Mildred immeasurably, because Miss Henaberry was polite and kind and beautiful, and did justice to a dressmaker’s art.

Mildred was not the first idol to be obliged to stand still and look lovely while the keenest anguish racked her. Not by the flicker of an eyelash would she betray what she suffered. She had read the letter calmly; she held it now in fingers that trembled not at all. Obediently she turned, or lifted an arm, and did everything necessary, so that the dress might be perfect.

It was her wedding dress, and her wedding had been announced for the first day of June--and for the past fifteen minutes she had known that there would be no wedding then.

The dressmaker rose and stood back a few feet, to look at the tall, straight young creature, with her proud little dark head, so nobly set off by the lustrous satin.

“My!” said she. “You’ll be a perfect vision, Miss Henaberry!”

Mildred smiled then, somewhat faintly. She was able, even willing, to endure the worst that fate could inflict upon her; but she very much wanted one hour alone, to endure the first shock. She did not want to cry, or even to think; all that she needed was a little space of time to steady and fortify that pride so horribly shaken.

Pride was at once the girl’s finest quality, and her worst. It was a splendid pride that had made her come out so bravely after her father’s bankruptcy and death, and, after twenty years of easy and luxurious living, had set to work to earn her bread as a teacher in a private school. It was a pride diabolic that made her stand so aloof, and refuse friendship, because of her morbid fear that some one might pity her.

You could read all that in her face; for though she had the profile, the wide, low brow, and the fine, grave eyes of Minerva, there was that about her mouth and chin which was simply mulish obstinacy. She never had listened, she never would listen, to any warning or advice. Any number of people had wanted to warn and advise her about Will Mallet.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Terhune, an old friend of her mother’s, “Will can’t support a wife.”

“He’s never tried,” answered Mildred. “He’s never had a wife.”

“But Will is--” Mrs. Terhune began, and had to stop.

Impossible to describe just what was wrong with Will Mallet. He came of a good family, and, though he hadn’t a penny, he had influential connections. He wasn’t lazy, he hadn’t a vice in the world, he was intelligent, almost scholarly, and altogether a handsome and endearing boy. Even the fact that at twenty-four he was still at loose ends, and still looking for his appointed work in the world, couldn’t justify what Mrs. Terhune said.

She declared that as a husband Will was impossible. He couldn’t be taken seriously. It was nice to dance with him, play tennis with him, hear him recite his poems--but marry him!

He had seldom been seen in the little town on the Hudson where he had been born. Now and then he came to visit an indulgent relative, and to get assistance moral and material, after which he would go off to try his luck once more. Every one liked him and no one respected him.

On this last visit he had surprised them all by deciding to stay. He said he intended to open a florist’s shop and greenhouses. He had looked about for a likely site, and had asked for advice--which he got in generous measure. His relations were pleased and rather touched by this venture, which seemed at once practical and poetic, and he had received more attention and encouragement than was good for him; but when his engagement to Mildred was made known, he lost all favor. He was severely condemned, and remonstrated with, and still further advised.

Will was a young man of no great vanity or self-assurance. He was fatally inclined to agree with people. He listened, downcast and wretched, to the admonitions of friends and relatives, and hastened off to tell Mildred that he was no good, and that she would be better off without him.

She thought otherwise. She had few illusions about her Will, but she thought that with help and encouragement he might be improved. She had for him a maternal sort of love, exacting and yet very tender. She didn’t wish to spoil him. She meant to inspire him with greater energy and self-reliance. She told him that he was capable of great things, for she really thought so. She was kind, indulgent, and yet firm with him--and she never suspected how she terrified him.

She had all the virtues. She worked hard and earnestly, she saved money, she read, she studied, she was intelligent, tender-hearted, modest, reserved, and matchlessly polite. She was beautiful, she knew how to dress and how to carry herself, and socially she was perfect; but there is one little truth which Mildred had never been taught. A good example must not be too good, or, instead of producing a desire for imitation, the beholders feel only despair and hopeless inferiority.

The bell rang for lunch, and Mildred had difficulty in suppressing a sob of relief. The dressmaker had the pleasure of going downstairs and eating at the same table with her idol. She looked about the dismal dining room of the boarding house with a happy smile.

“Well, you won’t be here much longer, Miss Henaberry,” she said.

Mildred agreed with that. She knew what she could endure, and she knew also what would be too much for her. She could not endure to remain there, among those friendly, interested people--not after this!

II

Mrs. Terhune read the letter, read it again with a distressed frown, and passed it to her husband.

DEAR MRS. TERHUNE:

Please believe that I am very sorry to go away without seeing you and thanking you for all your many, many kindnesses. Will and I have been obliged to change our plans, however, and to postpone our wedding for a time; so in order to avoid all the awkward and tiresome explaining, and so on, I thought it better to go for a visit to some old friends in the country, until our arrangements were complete. Of course I shall let you know all about it at the earliest possible moment.

Please, dear Mrs. Terhune, don’t think me ungrateful or lacking in affection for running off this way. As you know, I have an almost morbid horror of gossip, and I couldn’t bear to stay and explain a hundred times that the wedding was postponed until Will had improved his position. He is inclined to be far too sensitive about his earning powers, but I am sure you agree with me that a man is not to be judged by his financial success. I have perfect faith in Will.

Mr. Terhune shook his gray head.

“Too bad!” he said. “Well, I’m not surprised.”

And then and there, over the breakfast table, floated the word from which poor Mildred had run away--that word bitter as death, which she could not tolerate the thought of hearing. It passed between Mr. and Mrs. Terhune, it went out to the servants in the kitchen, it found its way into many other houses--the word “jilted.”

The Terhunes were very fond of Mildred, and were really perturbed by her disappearance. They knew she had no money and no friends elsewhere. They consoled themselves, however, by their knowledge of her remarkable dignity, self-possession, and determination. A girl like Mildred, they said, would be sure to get on, wherever she went.

“And, in a way, it was the best thing she could have done,” Mrs. Terhune said, after a week or so. “There’s so much spiteful gossip about the affair. Poor Mildred!”

Even Mrs. Terhune’s genuine affection was tinged by a faint hue of complacency.

“Of course I knew how it would be,” she remarked. “I knew Will was absolutely worthless. Poor Mildred!”

Now, in order to comprehend the case of Mildred Henaberry, one thing must be admitted. She had a thousand good qualities, the best manners in the world, and a rare type of beauty, but she was not lovable. You were obliged to respect and to admire her, and sometimes you resented the obligation.

As a result, the gossip about her had a decidedly malicious flavor. Any number of people were delighted at being able to laugh at perfection brought low. All the malice was toward Mildred--none for Will. Perhaps, if she had stayed for pity, she would have been pitied, but in running away she forfeited all claim to generosity.

So that when Robert Dacier arrived, a few months later, he heard Mildred spoken of as a jilted spinster, who had vanished in order to hide her hideous disappointment. He heard that she had been a school-teacher, that she had been “dignified” and “fastidious.” This conveyed to his mind the picture of a severe and unpleasant female of forty who had got what she deserved.

Not that Dacier gave much time to thinking about Mildred, for he was not at all a thoughtful young man. He was a cheerful, careless, good-looking fellow, who was a nephew of Mrs. Terhune. That lady refused to admit that of all her nephews and nieces he was her favorite, because she prided herself upon being a just and sensible woman, far too reasonable to be beguiled by the lad’s curly head and debonair good humor.

Not that he didn’t have solid and excellent qualities. He was doing very well as an architect, and was making a creditable income. Certainly he spent it all, but he spent it in a nice, gentlemanly way.

He earned less in a year than his uncle spent in a month; yet when the fellow came on a visit to the Terhunes, there was not a trace of poor relation about him. He had excellent cigars to offer to his uncle, and he showed his aunt all sorts of little attentions that touched and delighted her beyond measure. She had never had children of her own, and I don’t believe she had ever felt much happier than she felt when making a round of calls with that engaging and delightful nephew, showing him off with naïve complacency, and fairly basking in his affection.

Naturally she talked to him about Mildred Henaberry, because the affair had upset and troubled her. He listened good-humoredly, not in the least interested; but he was destined to be plunged into that affair, head over heels, and it was Mrs. Terhune who was to push him into it.

It happened simply enough.

“I heard about a new tea room up near Beacon,” he said to his aunt one afternoon. “Let’s run up there, Aunt Kate!”

“You don’t want to go with your old aunt,” said she, beaming with delight. “At your age, you want the society of young people.”

He answered exactly as she wanted him to answer. She dressed herself in her best and most imposing style, and off they went.

It was the most perfect sort of August day--bland, fair, not too hot, not dusty. Mrs. Terhune leaned back, greatly enjoying it all--the light air blowing against her face, the pleasant scents of the countryside, and, above all, the festive feeling caused by the presence of the holiday-making nephew.

Being only twenty-five to her fifty, Dacier was perhaps not quite so contented. He would have liked to drive, but it made his aunt nervous, so he had foregone that pleasure--although, to tell the truth, it made him nervous to sit back and go creeping along at such a calm, moderate pace. However, he enjoyed life so much that he was indulgent toward other people, and wished to make them happy as well; so on they went, conversing affectionately.

III

“Mercy!” suddenly cried Mrs. Terhune. “Can it be? Johnson, please stop the car!”

This Johnson did, and Mrs. Terhune pointed to a field to the right of the road, across which a white figure was sauntering.

“Robert,” she said to her nephew, “I’m sure that’s Mildred. I should know that figure and that walk anywhere. Oh, dear, she’s going through the fence! I can’t lose her. Do run after her and bring her back--that’s a dear boy!”

So off went young Dacier across the sunny field, bareheaded, and, his aunt thought, marvelously fleet and graceful.

The figure in white had gone through a gap in the fence, and had turned up a shady little road, but Dacier took a short cut, leaped over the fence, and stood before her, flushed and very hot. He had forgotten the jilted spinster’s surname, if he had ever heard it; but he felt quite certain that this was not she--not this serene and lovely young creature.

“Excuse me,” said he, “but I thought you were Mildred.”

She was startled.

“That is my name,” she said; “but--”

“But I’m afraid you’re not the right one--not Mrs. Terhune’s Mildred.”

“Oh, Mrs. Terhune!” cried the girl, very much distressed. “Did she send you?”

“Yes,” he replied, rather absent-mindedly, because he was trying to reconcile his imaginary portrait of the jilted spinster with the reality before him. He was impressed, deeply impressed, by this dignified and serious girl, because he was not very dignified or serious himself, but careless and light-hearted and sometimes a little impertinent. “Then,” he added politely, “if you are the right one, won’t you come and speak to Mrs. Terhune? She’s waiting in the car. She’s very anxious to see you.”

Mildred turned. Mrs. Terhune had now got out of the car, and was standing beside it. At that distance she seemed a small and shapeless creature, with veil and scarf fluttering, and her hand waving in earnest welcome.

“Oh, the dear thing!” said Mildred.

Her tone was so odd that Dacier looked quickly at her, and saw her gray eyes filled with tears. Why tears at the sight of Aunt Kate?

“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t see her just now. If you’ll please tell her”--Mildred turned away her face--“please tell her I’ll write. Please tell her I’m just as fond of her. Thank you! Good-by!”

After a few steps she stopped again, because Dacier was still beside her.

“Thank you!” she repeated significantly, with meaning.

“You’re welcome,” he said courteously. “Very pretty country about here, isn’t it?”

“You mustn’t keep Mrs. Terhune waiting,” was her reply.

“Well, you see, I hate to go back and disappoint her. She wanted so much to see you. She’s always talking about you.”

He positively jumped at the look he got from Mildred.

“Is she?” the girl asked, with a cold, unpleasant smile.

“Yes,” he said. “She--”

“Then please tell her that Will--Mr. Mallet--is coming back very soon. I’ll let her know, of course, when the wedding is definitely arranged. Just now I’m very busy with my preparations.”

Dacier was not lacking in wit. He didn’t believe a word of this, but he was so sorry for the girl, he so much admired her fine pride, that he answered in the most convincing way. He remembered everything he had ever heard about Mallet, and he spoke of him seriously, with interest. He asked about the florist project, and talked to Mildred as to a girl authentically and eternally engaged. It was the nature of the fellow to make himself agreeable. He did it without effort, and almost without motive--although he was by no means unsusceptible to Mildred’s grave beauty.

She was disarmed. She scarcely noticed that he went on walking beside her to the very gate of her little garden, so absorbed was she in her talk about Will. Dacier still didn’t believe her, but he was not at all amused. He thought it very pitiful that she should bring out this phantom lover, should lean upon this straw man, when she herself was so strong, so splendidly alive.

“Mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed. “What will Mrs. Terhune think? Please hurry back to her! And you’ll tell her--about Will, won’t you?”

He did hurry back, leaping over the fence again and running across the field.

“But where’s Mildred?” asked his aunt, terribly disappointed.

“She was too busy to come,” he said, with a smile. “She’s too busy waiting for Mallet.”

“Oh, dear, how very foolish! She’s a splendid girl, but she is so obstinate. I can’t bear to lose her again!”

“Don’t worry,” said her nephew cheerfully. “We’ll arrange all that, Aunt Kate. I’m rather obstinate myself.”

IV

Mildred lived in the most wonderful little cottage, so tiny, so neat, like the cottage of the three bears, or the abode of the dwarfs. The old woman who came to keep it so bright and spotless was exactly like a witch, too, and Mildred herself might well have been an enchanted princess--except that she worked rather hard, and kept accounts. A small sign in the window read, “Miss Mildred Henaberry--piano lessons,” and all through the day confirmation of this floated out across the garden and into the road--stumbling scales, painful excursions in Czemy, and then the masterly touch of the teacher herself, showing what might be done.

Her pupils liked her, because she was patient, polite, and always clear and definite. She liked them because they were young, and because they had such stubby little fingers, such earnest scowls, and such jolly laughs.

On this morning of pelting summer rain she had escorted one of them to the front door--a rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles--and was opening a minute umbrella that would shelter the little cropped head, when she saw, coming down the lane, the young man who had been Mrs. Terhune’s emissary. He saw Mildred, raised his hat, and came splashing on through the mud, with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down. He entered the gate and reached the veranda steps just as the little girl was coming down.

He smiled down at the child; and, if you will believe it, this youthful creature, not more than ten years old, hesitated, and then came up the steps after him.

“What is it, dear?” asked Mildred.

“If he’s going away soon,” said the little girl, “shan’t I wait and let him go under my umbrella?”

Dacier kissed her.

“I’m very much obliged,” he told her; “but I’ve come for a music lesson, so you’d better not wait.”

They were both silent while the child went down the path.

“Really,” said Mildred, “I am--”

“Of course it’s a subterfuge,” said he; “but even at that, why shouldn’t I have a music lesson? It would be such a good way for us to get acquainted.”

“I see no reason for our becoming acquainted,” said Mildred.

Dacier looked into the distance.

“Even that little girl,” he said, “could read my face and see the sort of fellow I am--honest as daylight, kind, simple--”

Not for the world would Mildred smile.

“I take only children as pupils,” she remarked.

“The sign doesn’t say so,” Dacier pointed out. “I noticed that sign when I was here before. Legally, I’m not so sure that you’d be allowed to discriminate against any person of good character who--”

“Did Mrs. Terhune send you?”

“No. She didn’t need to.”

“Then I’m sorry, but I’m very busy.”

“Miss Henaberry,” said Dacier firmly, “if I’m personally repulsive to you, of course I’ll go at once; but otherwise, why can’t I talk to you for a few minutes? I’m Mrs. Terhune’s nephew, Robert Dacier. I didn’t bring a certificate in my pocket, but I hope you’ll believe me without that.”

Now Dacier was not personally repulsive to Mildred--not in the least. She considered him somewhat presumptuous and overconfident, yet there was about him something that pleased her, something gallant and high-spirited and endearing.

“And he’s Mrs. Terhune’s nephew,” she thought. “I ought to be nice to him.”

To tell you the truth, no matter whose nephew he had happened to be, I don’t believe that Mildred could have helped being nice to him. Very few people could. She let him into her neat little sitting room, and she felt concerned, as any properly constituted woman would have felt, because he was dripping wet. She made him a cup of tea, and, having an hour to wait for the next pupil, sat down to talk to him. Dacier was good at talking.

After he had gone, she was not sorry that he had said he would come again. The smoke of his cigarette lingered in the room, and was not disagreeable. The sound of his voice lingered, too, and perhaps the memory of his audacious, blue-eyed, sunburned face. It was as if a fresh breeze had blown through her neat, lonely little house.

Come again he did, the very next evening, and he made of it the single happy, jolly evening in a long succession of solitary ones. They sat out on the veranda, with the moon shining; and if he had not the respectful humility she had found in other young men, he was none the less interesting for that.

He had no poems to read, as Will Mallet had had. Indeed, he knew little about poetry, or music, or any of the arts; but he said he would like to learn, if she would teach him. When he was going, he asked what time he should come the next day.

“I don’t think you had better come to-morrow,” she said, a little regretfully.

He pointed out that his holiday wouldn’t last forever, and that it did him good to come and hear her talk. He gave other unreasonable reasons, and he did come the next day, and the day after, as well.

Before a week had passed, Mildred saw that this must be stopped. It made her angry--so very angry that she nearly wept over it alone at night.

“I suppose he thinks, and Mrs. Terhune thinks, that he’s doing a kindness to a poor, forlorn, jilted old maid,” she thought. “He’s entirely too sure of himself. He takes it for granted that I’m glad to see him all the time. He thinks--”

Her ideas of what he thought distressed her beyond measure. That evening, when he appeared again, he found her very cool and aloof--even on the moonlit veranda, and even while he made his best efforts to amuse her.

“Mr. Dacier,” she said suddenly, “I’m very sorry, but I think you’d better not come any more.”

His voice, when he answered had a curious gentleness.

“Why?” he asked.

She was silent for a few moments.

“Because--I’m afraid Mr. Mallet wouldn’t like it,” she said at length. “While he’s away--”

Dacier got down from the railing and began to walk up and down.

“You know, I’m engaged to him,” she added.

“Yes, I know,” said Dacier; “but--”

Mildred felt her face grow hot in the darkness.

“I suppose you’ve heard all sorts of malicious gossip!” she said vehemently.

“Yes--I did hear--something,” he answered slowly.

“You thought he wasn’t coming back?”

Dacier had taken his hat. He paused at the top of the steps, and looked at her.

“I can’t imagine any man not coming back--to you!” he said.

V

As he was coming down the lane the next morning, he met the rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles, and they stopped for a chat. She told him all about her kitten at home, and talked of other interesting topics. They shook hands at parting.

“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Dacier!” she called, as he was moving off. “I’ve forgotten Miss Henaberry’s letter. I stop in at the post office for her, you know, to ask if there are any letters, only there never are; but there was one to-day.”

“I’ll take it,” said Dacier, not sorry for this pretext.

He was at a loss how to proceed. He couldn’t hurt the obstinate, proud creature by so much as hinting that he knew Mallet would never come back. He had decided to entreat her to give up this elusive lover; and he understood Mildred well enough to know that she would make it hard for him.

Not that Dacier shirked things that were hard. Whatever his faults, he was not lacking in courage and persistence. It was the pretense, the cruel comedy which her rebellious haughtiness made necessary, that he dreaded. He wanted to be utterly candid and truthful with her, because it was his nature to be so, and because he loved her.

He was notably less cheerful than usual as he entered her cottage.

“Here’s a letter,” he said casually.

When he saw her face, however, he was no longer casual. She had grown very pale. She looked at the letter with the oddest expression.

“Oh!” she said, with a gasp.

“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. “Please tell me, Mildred!”

She recovered herself, and even managed a constrained smile.

“It’s from Will,” she said. “Excuse me, please, while I read it.”

In great agitation, Dacier walked up and down the room.

“Did she write it herself?” he thought. “It can’t be from him! Good Lord, if he did come back, she’d marry him, whatever he was, just out of sheer pig-headedness! Nothing would count with her, in comparison with her infernal pride. All she wants is to show people--who don’t care a straw--that she hasn’t been jilted. She deserves to be jilted! She’s heartless! She’s inhuman! She doesn’t care--”

When she reëntered the room, every trace of anger and resentment left him. In her face, still pale, but very composed now, he saw plain and clear, her secret anguish and her terrible stubbornness. She was going to send him away, at any cost to herself or to him. She was going to drive away love and keep cold pride alone in her heart.

“Will’s coming back,” she said quietly.

Dacier looked at her. He thought that he had never seen so lovely a face as this, with her dark, straight brows, her steady eyes, her mutinous and defiant mouth. Even folly was dignified there.

“Are you glad, Mildred?” he asked.

What humiliation and loneliness and bitter disillusionment had never been able to do, his question accomplished. Tears filled her eyes. She struggled with them, and with rising sobs.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I’m very glad!”

VI

Will Mallet had an unhappy, furtive conscience trapped inside him. The words of other people, even things that he read, would stir up the poor creature and send it rushing about in its cage, terribly alarmed. It made Will so uncomfortable that he would do anything to quiet it. Sometimes he fed it with lies, sometimes he reasoned with it, and sometimes he plunged into rash action.

He had told his conscience that it was for Mildred’s sake alone that he left her. When he had “got on his feet,” he would come back and claim her, and she would praise his nobility and self-sacrifice. In the meantime he wouldn’t be obliged to work so very hard and be so very earnest--two things which disagreed with him.

Unfortunately, however, he could not “get on his feet.” On the contrary, it might be said that he fell down pretty heavily. Of course, he was proud of the fact that his poems were not “popular,” but he would not have objected to their being a little more profitable. Bitterly he said that a man must live, and he got a job as proof reader in a publishing house. No use! When certain phrases of an author distressed him, he would make changes. When he had been forbidden to do that, he wanted to point out such passages and argue about them.

After this, a cousin got him an amorphous job in an office, but the light hurt his eyes. Then, on the strength of his good appearance and his learning, he secured a position as rewrite man on a newspaper. Well, newspaper offices are easy to get into and still easier to get out of. Again a cousin helped him, and again he failed. It was summer now, and he began to think with longing of the country.

“The only thing left,” he reflected, “is to go back and try that florist business seriously. I’ll write to Mildred first, of course. She’ll understand. She’s very loyal. Moreover, she’s not the sort of girl most men take to. She’s--well, she’s too fine. She’ll help me to get the thing started, and then we’ll be married.”

So he had written, and very promptly he received an answer. He sat on the edge of the bed in his furnished room and read it again, while his conscience flew wildly about inside him.

DEAR WILL:

You need not have doubted that I should wait for you. You told me you would come back, and I believed you, of course. To me, loyalty is the most beautiful thing in the world.

I have been able to save a little money in the past year, by giving music lessons, and I have rented a dear little cottage here and filled it with what was left of mother’s furniture. I am really doing very well, so that even if the florist shop isn’t enormously profitable at the start, we shall be able to manage nicely.

So far the letter was delightful and comforting; but it went on:

But, Will, you know how thirsty a small town is for gossip, and it has really been more unpleasant than I care to tell you. We had better be married quietly as soon as you come. I’ll arrange everything, if you will let me know when to expect you.

This terrified him. Of course, he loved Mildred, and admired her.

“But I’m not worthy of her!” he cried. “I never can be!” And he might truthfully have added: “I never want to be!”

Impossible to say what his conscience would have driven him to, if the landlady had not come up just then and spoken very disagreeably about his rent; so he saw that it was right for him to be a florist. He sent a telegram to announce his arrival three days later.

VII

Mrs. Terhune wept.

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “A wonderful girl like Mildred, and that wretched Will Mallet!”

“It’s certainly a pity,” said her husband; “but I suppose she knows what she’s doing.”

“Of course she knows, but she doesn’t care. She’s always been like that. I remember that once, when she was a little girl, she said she was going to make a birthday cake for her father. Well, almost as soon as she began, she hurt herself with a hammer, trying to crack walnuts. Her mother told me about it. She said the child was sick and white with pain, but she would have her poor little crushed fingers tied up, and she would go on. The cake turned out not fit to eat, and the obstinate little thing was suffering so much that she had to be put to bed and the doctor sent for; but all she said was: ‘Anyhow, I made it. I did what I said I’d do!’ And that’s just the way she’s been about Will Mallet. She said she would marry him, and she’s going to. She’d wait--she’d wait forever!”

“Like poor Madama Butterfly,” said her husband. “Still, you’re obliged to admire that spirit. It’s fine!”

“Fine!” said his wife. “Not a bit of it! Devilish--that’s what it is. And when she’s married that scarecrow--yes, he is a scarecrow; I don’t care how handsome he is, he’s stuffed with straw--when she’s married Will Mallet, she’ll grow worse and worse. She’ll trample on him. It’ll do him good, but it’s terribly bad for her. If she’d had a real man like Robert Dacier, she’d have got over that. He’s the best-tempered, best-hearted boy in the world, but nobody could trample on him!”

Mr. Terhune respected his wife’s distress, and said no more. He couldn’t feel quite so strongly about weddings as she did, although he was very fond of Mildred Henaberry, and very sorry for her headstrong folly. He thought that on the whole the world was a pleasant place--especially on such a matchless day as this, the great climax of the summer.

They were speeding along smooth roads to the village where Mildred lived, and where the wedding was to take place that morning. The cloudless sky overhead was a brave, glorious blue, and the sun went up it like a conqueror. The grain stood ripe in the fields, the trees were at their best. You would think the countryside serenely quiet, unless you stopped to listen, and caught the ecstasy of sound from birds and insects all about.

None of this gave comfort to Mrs. Terhune. Her eyes were red when she alighted at the church, and she was glad, for she didn’t intend to look happy. She marched up the aisle and sat down in a front pew beside her husband. No one else was there except a rosy little girl in spectacles, and her mother.

Consulting her wrist watch, Mrs. Terhune saw that she had time to cry a little longer, and she was about to begin, when she was startled by the sight of her favorite nephew, Robert Dacier.

“You here?” she exclaimed, because she had fancied that there were reasons why he would not enjoy Mildred’s wedding.

“Yes,” he said affably, and sat down beside her.

As was mentioned before, he was good at talking, and his aunt and uncle were pleasantly beguiled, until the chiming of the clock in the belfry aroused Mr. Terhune.

“Time they were here,” he said, glancing about.

Dacier went on talking, but his aunt had grown restless. The little girl in spectacles had grown restless, too, and was wriggling.

“Fifteen minutes late!” said Mrs. Terhune. “It’s very odd, Robert! You’d better see if the clergyman is waiting.”

Dacier reported that the clergyman was waiting in the vestry, and growing a little impatient.

“It seems very strange!” said Mrs. Terhune.

Twenty minutes--twenty-five--half an hour. Then the clergyman came in, and, impressed by the appearance of Mr. Terhune, approached him.

“It’s somewhat awkward for me, as it happens,” he observed. “I have an important engagement for half past twelve. I was informed that the young man’s train arrived here shortly after ten, and that he would stop at Miss Henaberry’s house and bring her here at eleven; and my wife informed me that she saw a strange young man with two bags get off that train.”

“Shall I go and see what’s wrong?” asked Dacier. “It’s only a step.”

“Oh, please do!” said Mrs. Terhune.

Off went Robert. He pushed open the little gate, and went up the garden path to the enchanted cottage, which seemed quieter than ever under the hot sun. He rang the bell.

No answer--not a sound inside.

He rang again, and then opened the door and entered.

The sitting room was gay with flowers from the garden, and, if possible, neater and daintier than ever--but empty. Dacier went into the kitchen, and there, on the table, he saw a frosted cake that caused him a sharp pang. No one there!

He went into the little passage and listened, but heard not a sound.

“Miss Henaberry!” he called. “Please! Mildred!”

A door slammed open upstairs, and down she came like a whirlwind, such a tragic and heart-stirring figure! Her dark hair was wildly untidy, her eyes were heavy with tears, yet she had a look of such stern and dauntless pride on her face that a man might well feel abashed.

“Go away!” she cried. “Why do you come here? Go away!”

“No,” said Dacier. “I’m not going away. They’re waiting for you in the church. What do you want me to tell them?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“That’s not very polite.”

“Polite!” she cried. “Do you want to make one of your schoolboy jokes about--this? Go away! I won’t listen to you! I can’t bear to see you!”

“You’ve got to face this,” said Dacier firmly. “There’s no use flying at me. Perhaps I can help you.”

“I don’t want any help--from any one.”

“Where’s Mallet?”

It was a blunt enough question, but the shock of it steadied her. She turned away her head for a minute, and then faced him with something of her old composure.

“The--a boy came with a note,” she said evenly. “Mr. Mallet has been called away on business. The wedding will have to be postponed.”

Dacier came a little nearer, and looked at her with eyes as steady as her own.

“Don’t you think twice is too often?” he asked.

Her pale face grew scarlet.

“What do you mean? How can you dare--”

“I mean just what I said. I think it’s time the wedding came off now,” he answered. “The clergyman’s there, and the guests; and if you’ll take me, here’s the bridegroom.”

She smiled scornfully.

“That’s very chivalrous, Mr. Dacier, but--”

“It would please Mrs. Terhune.”

“I scarcely think you’re called upon to sacrifice yourself for Mrs. Terhune--or for me, either,” said Mildred, still scornful. “I’d rather not talk any more.”

Dacier caught her hand as she was moving away.

“There are lots of other reasons,” he said; “only there’s not time to tell them now, even if you were in the mood to listen. Anyhow, Mildred, I think you know. I’m sure you know. You must have seen, long ago, how I felt.”

“Oh, no!” she said, with a sob. “Not now! Do, please, go away, and leave me alone! You don’t know--you can’t imagine--I could die of shame and wretchedness. Do go away!”

“Darling girl!” he said. “Dear, darling girl! Come and have your wedding! Hold up your dear head again! We’ll say it was a sort of joke, and you meant me all the time. After all, I’m almost as good a fellow as Mallet, don’t you think?”

He said it in a boastful, conceited way that should have been rebuked; but Mildred did not rebuke him.

“Oh, you’re a thousand times better!” she cried, instead. “Better and dearer than any one else in the world! Only--”

It has been mentioned before that Dacier was good at talking. He needed all his skill now, for he had only a few minutes in which to overcome any number of objections, to change her tears to smiles, and to persuade her to make haste and get ready. He succeeded.

VIII

The clergyman was not surprised, because the bridegroom was unknown to him anyhow; but the little girl in spectacles, and Mr. and Mrs. Terhune!

Moreover, there were several things which startled Mildred. When they had all got back to the cottage, and the bride had gone into the kitchen for that noble cake, and Dacier had naturally followed her, she asked:

“Robert, why did you have a wedding ring in your pocket?”

“I have carried one there for some time, in case of emergencies,” he answered promptly.

“And why did you have a license with your name in it?”

“Foresight,” he replied. “I got that as soon as I saw you.”

He had come around the table and put his arm about her shoulders, and she looked up into his gay, audacious face.

“Robert,” she said sternly, “where is Will Mallet?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, “and I don’t care; but I don’t mind telling you that I found out from the moonfaced little girl when he was expected, and I met him at the railway station.”

“But--” she began indignantly--and stopped, because he was no longer smiling. He looked--she was surprised at his expression--he looked like a person pleasantly but firmly resolved not to be trampled upon; so all she did was to kiss him.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER, 1923 Vol. LXXIX NUMBER 4

The Marquis of Carabas

THE STRANGE STORY OF TWO YOUNG DOCTORS

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Perhaps you remember the story of “Puss in Boots”--how the talented and resolute cat caught game in the woods and presented it to the king as the gift of his master, the Marquis of Carabas. Then the cat advised his master to bathe in the river, and, as the king’s coach rolled past, he set up a great shout that the Marquis of Carabas was drowning, and that his fine clothes had been stolen by thieves. The king stopped, ordered new clothes for the marquis, and took him into the royal coach. While they drove on, the cat ran ahead, and bullied the workers in the fields into saying that all the land belonged to Carabas.

There is more in the story, but the chief thing is that the cat secured for his master a fine castle and estate, and the hand of a beautiful princess. And, mind you, the young man was nothing on earth but the youngest son of a poor miller, the Marquis of Carabas being simply an invention of the clever animal’s.

Well, there are people alive to-day who have the same ambition as that devoted cat--people who try to make a Marquis of Carabas out of some ordinary young man. Unfortunately, they do not always succeed. I know of a case in point.

There appeared one day in a certain town in Westchester a new doctor, arriving unknown and without introduction in the midst of a quite sufficient supply of well established practitioners. It was a prosperous town, but not a growing one. There seemed to be nothing for a new doctor to do, unless he set to work to create a demand for his services--a thing that doctors can’t very well do. He put out his sign, however, on his tidy little house--“Noel Hunter, M.D.”--sat down behind his sign, and waited.

Now and then he was seen out on his veranda, looking at the barometer, or strolling out to the garage, where an energetic little car ate its head off in idleness. Whoever saw him was favorably impressed, because he was a charming young fellow, slender, tall, and dark, with an honest, good-humored face and very fine black eyes. Indeed, he was almost too handsome for a doctor. It was cruel to think of his being called out at night in all weathers, of having hurried and inadequate meals and too little sleep, of losing his endearing youth in arduous and exhausting toil.

Well, to be sure, that was not happening, He had ample time for sleep, and, providing he was able to pay, there was nothing to prevent his eating all day. And that, too, was a pity and a waste, because obviously he must be longing to give his medical services, and must have studied a long time to prepare himself. The people who lived on the same street felt embarrassed and a little guilty when they caught sight of Noel Hunter, M.D., all ready to be a doctor, but wanted by no one.

II

One day there came to Mr. Miles, the rector of the parish, an affable little lady, dressed in a conservative style suited to her years--which were fifty-five or so--and presenting a letter from a clergyman in Brooklyn. The letter gave information that the bearer was Mrs. Edwin Carew, “whom we are more than sorry to lose, because of her tact and sympathy and her invaluable assistance in parish work.”

There was more of this, too, so that Mr. Miles blushed a little in deference to Mrs. Edwin Carew as he read it. He welcomed her very cordially. He assured her that she would find plenty of opportunities for using her tact and sympathy and for giving her invaluable assistance in parish work. He was so favorably impressed by the lady that he sent at once for Mrs. Miles, and Mrs. Miles was instantly charmed.

“The Needlework Guild is meeting now,” said she. “If you would care to come in and meet some of the ladies--”

Mrs. Carew accepted graciously, was brought before this gathering of her peers, and was judged and found worthy. She seemed to be the nicest sort of little body, cheerful and kindly and gentle, and though she was far too well bred to boast, it was obvious that she was a person of some social importance. She had traveled; she knew the world; she knew what was what; she was an acquisition.

“Are you going to be here permanently, Mrs. Carew?” asked the august and resplendent Mrs. Lorrimer.

“I hope so,” she answered, smiling. “I’m beginning to be quite fond of your pretty little town; but it all depends on my nephew. You see, he’s used to life in a large city, and I’m afraid--Still, I hope he’ll like it.”

“Oh! Your nephew?” said Mrs. Lorrimer encouragingly.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Carew. “Perhaps I did wrong in persuading him to leave the city and come here, where it’s so--so much quieter; but I feel sure that after he’s used to it, it will really do him good. He had so many friends in the city, and so many, many engagements, that it interfered with his work; and though I know we must make allowances for young people, still I can’t bear the idea of his talent being wasted.”

“Oh! His talent?” said Mrs. Lorrimer.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Carew. “He’s a physician. I think he has already ‘hung out his shingle,’ as they say--Noel Hunter. Of course, he doesn’t expect to do much practicing yet. I want him to rest first, and to get accustomed to the place.”

As if by magic, Dr. Hunter was transformed by those words from an object of pity into a very interesting young man. Professionally his life was not altered, but the very next week he was invited to a little dance; and every one who saw him there was irresistibly urged to invite him to something else. Ladies came to call upon Mrs. Carew, to sing the praises of her charming nephew. He was forever going out, or getting ready to go out, and he seemed to be very happy about it.

From the window Mrs. Carew would watch him drive off in his little closed coupé, so useful for a doctor, who must be abroad in all weathers. Much as she admired his resplendent appearance, and rejoiced in his popularity, she did wish that now and then he might be summoned to something less cheerful than a party.

That never happened. The more he was danced with and flirted with, the more did it seem tactless and ill-bred to mention one’s sordid ailments to him. It was unthinkable to call in one’s dancing partner and confess to a bilious headache from too much pastry. No one could see him as a doctor.

He seemed not at all downcast by this. Indeed, Mrs. Carew sometimes imagined that he had forgotten all about being a doctor.

“Don’t you think you ought to read your medical books now and then, Noel?” she suggested. “Just to--to keep up?”

“Oh, no!” he replied cheerfully. “I’m not likely to forget all that stuff that was so much trouble to learn. Don’t worry!”

“But you mustn’t lose interest, Noel,” she persisted.

He flushed a little, for he had at the moment two preoccupations which were nearer to his heart than the theory and practice of medicine. The first of these was Nesta Lorrimer, and the second was her brother’s hydroplane. They merged very well, because Nesta was frequently in the vicinity of the hydroplane, so that they could both be studied together.

It was unfortunate that Noel did not mention this to his aunt, because she would have approved heartily of one of those interests; but he knew that aunts were extremely likely to worry about flying. He was very fond of her, and didn’t want to worry her; so the poor lady knew nothing.

Mrs. Lorrimer knew, however.

“Alan,” she said to her son, “don’t you think you encourage that young Dr. Hunter a little too much?”

She spoke moderately, because she had a great respect for her son. He was a level-headed, intelligent young fellow, who used such things as hydroplanes only for diversion, and never neglected his business. He was not handsome, like his sister, but he didn’t need to be. He was a remarkably successful lawyer for his twenty-seven years, and he was a good-humored, quick-witted, tolerant fellow whom every one was obliged to like.

“Encourage him?” he repeated, with a smile. “That’s a queer way to put it. I’d like to think I encouraged any one. But why? What’s wrong with him?”

“He doesn’t seem to get on very well,” said Mrs. Lorrimer.

“He’s mistaken his métier,” her son replied casually. “But I like him very much. Plenty of nerve and grit. As a pilot--”

“Ah!” Mrs. Lorrimer interrupted. “I dare say; but as a brother-in-law?”

Alan was astounded, as brothers always are.

“What?” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean that Nesta--impossible!”

“I’m afraid she’s growing fond of him, Alan.”

He reflected in silence for some time, and then he said:

“Well, after all, she might do worse.”

“That’s not the question,” replied his mother, a little indignant. “I think she might do very much better.”

“I don’t know. He’s a very decent fellow. Personally--”

“Oh, every one likes him!” she interrupted impatiently; “and every one seems to have forgotten that we don’t know anything at all about him. Mrs. Carew is very nice, of course; but after all, they’ve only been here a few months. They don’t seem at all well off, and yet he doesn’t appear to be worried about not having the least sign of a practice. I can’t help thinking--”

She paused significantly.

“What can’t you help thinking?” inquired her son, with a smile. “That poor Hunter has some sinister secret in his past?”

“No,” said she. “No, not that. I don’t like to say it, but I’ve sometimes thought he might be nothing but an adventurer, who came here to find a wife with money.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Alan, quite shocked. “That’s not like you!”

But his trained and disciplined brain refused to remain shocked. He was obliged to admit that the qualities for which he admired Hunter--courage and daring and steady nerves--did not always signify moral excellence. An adventurer might very well possess them; and about Hunter’s former life, about his home life, he knew absolutely nothing.

“Very well!” he said to himself. “In justice to Nesta, and in justice to Hunter as well, it’s my business to find out.”

The thing was to take him by surprise, to see him at home, off his guard.

III

Alan felt unpleasantly like a spy as he drew near the house that evening. He would have preferred putting Hunter on the stand and cross-examining him. After all, he was a lawyer, not a detective, and to go to a friend’s house for the purpose of observing and judging him seemed an unworthy thing to do.

“Still, if he hasn’t anything to be ashamed of, he won’t care,” he reflected. “If he has, I’d better know it. I’ll have to study him carefully for some time.”

He rang the bell, and was amazed at the confusion the sound apparently caused. He had to wait outside for a long time, while furniture was being pushed about, footsteps hurried to and fro, and doors were closed. Then, at last, the door was opened, and he was still more amazed.

No one had ever heard mention of any other members of the household but Mrs. Carew and Hunter. Who, then, was this lovely girl, dark and serious, a little flushed and ruffled, as if from haste, but with the high-held head, the level, unabashed glance, the dignity of a young princess?

Having come expressly to observe, Alan did observe, and he thought this was the most intelligent and charming face he had seen in many a day. The girl was obliged to repeat her question.

“Who is it you want, sir?”

“Sir”--impossible! She didn’t speak like a servant, or dress like one, or look like one.

“The doctor in?” he asked.

“No, sir--not at present. If you care to wait--”

He asked for Mrs. Carew, and gave her his name, and she left him in the little sitting room, where he began to walk up and down, very much perplexed. A pretty room, furnished in a very good taste, but shabby. Through the half-open folding doors he could see a dining room of very much the same sort, with the table still laid, as if the diners had just risen. And--the table was laid for three!

“For three!” he said to himself. “And yet there’s no guest here. Mrs. Carew and Hunter--and who else?”

There was a light, quick step on the stairs. Turning, he saw the inexplicable girl descending. This was an excellent opportunity to study her, which Alan did not miss. A remarkable girl! Mere prettiness was not a thing that particularly appealed to this young man. He had met dozens of pretty girls without losing his heart. What interested him now was not the fine regularity of her features, but her air of candid and unassuming dignity, and the thoughtful intelligence of her face.

She entered the room to tell him that Mrs. Carew would be down directly.

“Thank you!” said he, and sought desperately for something to say that would keep her there.

Before he could do so, she had gone--only into the dining room, however, where he could still watch her as she cleared off the table. The more he watched, the more impressed and the more puzzled he became. When he caught sight of her hands--strong and beautiful hands, exquisitely tended--he very nearly exclaimed aloud. Three places at the table, and a girl with hands like that playing the servant!

“It’s a good thing I came,” he reflected grimly. “There’s something here that needs explaining.”

Well, he didn’t get much out of Mrs. Carew when she came down. He brought the talk around to the topic of servants. She said that she never had any trouble with them.

“You’re fortunate,” he observed.

“Indeed I am!” she replied brightly. “How charming the country is beginning to look now!”

After this, he couldn’t very well go on with the subject; but he felt no hesitation in approaching Hunter in a more direct fashion when they were alone.

“That’s a very remarkable young woman who opened the door for me,” he said. His eyes were on the other man’s face, and he saw him turn red.

“Yes,” said Hunter. “She--she is.”

But Alan’s eyes were still on him, and he was obliged to continue.

“She’s--not exactly a servant, you know,” he said. “In fact, she’s a sort of--relation. Helps my aunt, you know. She--she is remarkable, Lorrimer, very.”

Alan gave serious attention to this problem. His legal training did not make him disposed to believe everything he heard, though he was too intelligent to go to the other extreme and believe nothing.

What was the explanation? Had Hunter made a misalliance, which he was ashamed of, and wanted to conceal? No--marriage with that girl wouldn’t be a misalliance for any one, and she wasn’t the sort who would consent to being concealed.

His sister? There was no possible reason for keeping a sister like that hidden. If it was the case that she really was a poor relation kept as a servant to help Mrs. Carew, then it was a very bad case, and the aunt and the nephew might well be ashamed of themselves. Alan believed that they were ashamed, too.

Hunter had mentioned that he was going to take Mrs. Carew to the moving pictures that evening, and Alan decided then and there that he would use that time for further investigations.

“Because, if they’re capable of making a drudge of a girl like that,” he said to himself, “Nesta’s going to be told. It’s the most beastly piece of snobbishness I’ve ever come across! Evidently she eats with them. No doubt she’s one of the family until an outsider appears, and then she’s nobody.”

He was a little surprised at the vigor of his indignation. As a rule, he didn’t easily become indignant.

“But she’s such a remarkable girl,” he explained to himself. “I’ve never seen any one like her.”

IV

This time, when he returned to the house, Alan did not feel in the least guilty, although he was now coming deliberately in Hunter’s absence, and to collect evidence against him. On the contrary, he felt like a knight sallying forth to rescue a lady from duress.

He rang the bell without hesitation, and the girl opened the door. He had a plan. He explained to her that the doctor had invited him to make use of his medical library whenever he wished--which was true--and that he needed to look up fractures for a plaintiff in a damage suit--which was not true. He made his explanation long and markedly polite, and he was pleased to notice that she forgot all that nonsense about saying “sir.” Instead, she preceded him into the library as if it were her own, lighted a lamp, and, going to the bookshelves, brought out two volumes.

“These are on fractures,” she said.

This did not surprise him. She looked like a girl who would know all sorts of things.

“I’ll sit here and make a few notes, if you don’t mind,” Alan said, for this was part of his plan.

He waited until he heard a door close after her somewhere. He waited a little longer; then he rose. He intended to be awkward, and to pull down a lot of books, making a great deal of noise. Then she would come back and help him to pick them up, and it would be easy enough, in such circumstances, to start a conversation. But--well, if his intention was to make a noise, he did that, certainly, and the girl did come back, in great haste; but it is not possible to believe that it was part of his plan to pull the bookcase over entirely, or that a bronze bust should fall and hit him on the side of the face.

“I’m very sorry,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know how I came to be so clumsy. I--really I’m very sorry.”

“So am I,” said she. “Let’s see!”

To his amazement, she took his chin in fingers surprisingly strong, and turned his face toward the light.

“You’d better come into the office,” she said.

“It’s nothing, thanks,” he began, but she had already vanished through the door, and he felt obliged to follow.

He said nothing at all while she washed and dressed the trifling wound, but he watched her moving about the bright, glittering little room, he noted her precision, her deftness, her familiarity--and he tried to draw conclusions.

“You’re a trained nurse!” he suddenly exclaimed.

She turned toward him, and for the first time he saw her smile.

“No, Mr. Lorrimer, I’m not,” she said. “Now I think you’ll do very nicely.”

It was a tone of polite dismissal, but he did not intend to go.

“I’ll help you first to repair the damage I did,” he said.

She replied that he needn’t.

He said that he wanted to, and must; and because he was just the sort of young man he was, and because she had the intelligence to see it, she admitted him then and there to a sort of friendship. After the bookcase was set upright again, and all the books restored to order, they sat down, one on either side of the library table, in the most natural way in the world.

“You’d make a wonderfully good nurse,” he observed.

“I’m afraid not,” she answered, smiling again. “I shouldn’t like it at all!”

“But you seem to know a good deal about that sort of thing,” he went on. “It must interest you.”

She made no reply, and for a moment he feared she had thought him unduly curious--impertinent, perhaps; but there was no sign of displeasure in her face. She was looking thoughtfully before her, grave, serene, almost as if she had not heard him. Suddenly he fancied he understood.

“Of course!” he said to himself. “She’s in love with Hunter, and naturally she takes an interest in his work. That’s why she’s here, filling a servant’s place, simply so that she can be near him!”

There was no reason why this should make him indignant, yet, instead of being touched by the idea of such devotion, he was angry and disappointed.

“I wonder what Mrs. Carew thinks of it!” he pursued. “She probably thinks that this girl isn’t good enough for her precious Noel. She would object to such a marriage; or perhaps she doesn’t know what the girl is. Perhaps he doesn’t know, either. I may be the only one who has guessed her secret.”

Then it occurred to him that he was drawing conclusions from very insubstantial premises, also that he was forgetting the object for which he had come, and that his silence might not be impressing her favorably. Looking at her again, he was forced to the unwelcome conclusion that she didn’t care whether he spoke or not. It was presumptuous nonsense to feel sorry for a girl like this. Whatever she did, she intended to do; there was no helplessness or futility in those fine features.

Alan felt ashamed of himself for trying to find out about her in any indirect way. She deserved to be treated with absolute honesty and candor. He knew she would not misunderstand anything else.

“I came back here to see you,” he said bluntly.

She accepted that tranquilly.

“As soon as I saw you, I felt a very great interest in you,” he went on. “I don’t mean that as an impertinence, or as a compliment. It’s simply the truth. There are some human beings who make that sort of impression on others, and it seems to me a foolish and a wrong thing to stifle that interest because it doesn’t happen to be conventional.”

“As a human being, I welcome your interest,” said she, with her quiet smile. “I’ve heard of you from Noel, and I’m sure I should enjoy talking to you.”

“Of course I knew at once that you weren’t what you--you pretended to be,” he went on rather clumsily.

She stopped him.

“It wasn’t pretending, Mr. Lorrimer. I am here as a servant.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“It suits me. After all, there’s nothing better in life than really serving the people who need you, is there?”

“Sometimes there is,” he answered promptly. “It may mean the sacrifice of a fine life to a much less valuable one.”

A faint color rose in her cheeks.

“Well, you see,” she said, “I don’t feel wise and perfect enough to judge which lives are the most valuable.”

He was silent, because he could not well say that her life was a hundred times more valuable than all the Mrs. Carews and Dr. Hunters ever born--that in her grave youth, and her fine and dignified simplicity, she seemed to him absolutely invaluable.

“I dare say you’re right,” he answered seriously. “I’m sure your way is a good way. If you think you really would care to talk to me, when may I come again?”

“I have Sunday afternoons off,” she answered, and he believed there was a hint of a laugh in her voice.

“Then I’ll come at--”

“Oh, no! That’s not the way it’s done. I’ll meet you somewhere and we’ll take a walk,” she said, and this time she could not suppress a smile.

Alan refused to smile, however. He didn’t care if she came in an apron. He was willing to sit on the back steps, or in the kitchen, so long as he could be with her. It wasn’t a joke--it was serious, the most serious thing he had ever known.

He proposed a convenient meeting place, and she agreed to it.

“But I’d rather you didn’t mention me to any one, please,” she added. “I like a--a very quiet life, just now.”

V

This day was going to be the day. Nothing was going to put him off--not the fact that the mirror showed him a face he hated to think was his own, not the inner voice which warned him that it might be better to remain in doubt and still have hope. He didn’t want hope, if it was a false one.

He went downstairs, aware of all sorts of new defects in himself. He felt that he was the most commonplace, uninteresting fellow imaginable, and that there was nothing about him that could possibly please or interest any one.

Mrs. Lorrimer and a group of friends were on the veranda. He saluted them with a strange sort of severity, and went off down the road, in an odd state of despair and determination.

“Yes,” said his mother proudly. “It’s very unusual to see a man as serious as Alan is, at his age!”

She was wrong. She had herself seen any number of young fellows of twenty-seven overtaken by exactly the same sort of seriousness, only, in the case of her son, she didn’t recognize it. Alan himself, however, had known what it was for weeks--it was Judith.

She had told him to call her Judith, and he did, hundreds of times, but not once in her hearing. Indeed, there was an astounding difference between the things he said to her when she was not there and the words she actually heard from him. If she could only have heard those other things, or guessed them! He knew that what he was going to say would be so inferior to what he felt and thought.

He turned into the lane where they always met, and sat upon the stone wall to wait. He was thinking about her, in a curious way, half wretched, half blissful. He didn’t care two straws about her very humble position, nor did she. He had sat on the back steps and talked to her when the others were out, he had seen her in an apron, peeling potatoes, and she was more than ever exalted in his eyes by her quiet acceptance of such things. There was to him a sort of nobility in everything she did, in all her words and gestures, in her smile, even in her little transient moments of gayety.

Nor did he care two straws for the mystery that surrounded her. Wherever she came from, whatever her name or her history or her reason for living as she did, he knew that she was right, and could never be anything else.

No--the things that troubled him were those things which so often trouble people in his condition--all sorts of doubts and alarms and hopes and determinations mixed together. He wasn’t good enough, but he was obliged to convince her that he was. She couldn’t care for him, and yet she must.

At last he saw her coming, and went forward to meet her. She was walking unusually fast, as if, he thought with a fast beating heart, she were hurrying to him. Whatever joy he had felt in that thought vanished at the sight of her face.

“Judith!” he said. “Tell me, what has happened?”

She had all her usual fine composure, but she was very pale, and, in some subtle way apparent more to his heart than to his eyes, there was grief upon her face. She did not answer him, but she held out her hand, and he fancied that she clung to him.

“Let’s walk a little,” she said, after a moment.

They went on side by side along the lane, thick with cool, white dust under the old trees. So dense was the foliage on the branches meeting overhead that the light came through it greenish and wavering, like water. The dust might have been the sandy floor of the sea, and the church bells that rang seemed mournful and distant, as they must sound to the mermaids.

A painful sense of unreality oppressed Alan. He didn’t know her; she was terribly remote, a stranger, indifferent to him. Not once in all the time they had spent together had she talked freely about herself, about her life. She might have any number of anxieties and griefs of which he had no suspicion. She had been friendly, but in such an impersonal, untroubled way!

At last they reached the fence at the foot of the lane, where the fields began, and she spoke.

“Noel has gone,” she said.

“Gone?” he echoed.

“He left a letter,” she continued. “Perhaps I had better read you a part of it.” She took a letter out of her pocket, and turned as he noticed, past the first page to the second. She read:

“So I’ve taken this job in the airplane factory. It’s a remarkably good job, and I expect to do rather more than well. I’m sorry, my dearest girl, to disappoint you so after all you’ve done for me, but, to be frank, I can’t be a doctor. I always hated the whole thing. I’d never have been any good at it. Now I’ve found the one thing I am good at. I think you know how I felt about Nesta Lorrimer, and now I see some faint chance of being able to speak to her some day.

“Try to forgive me, Judith. It is really the best and kindest thing I can do for you--to clear out and leave you free.

“That’s all that matters,” she ended. “So you see--”

Her look amazed and angered him terribly. She seemed so sure that he would understand and sympathize. She wasn’t a child, she was very far from slow-witted, and she must have seen how it was with him. And now this!

Try to forgive me, Judith. It is the best and kindest thing I can do for you--to clear out and leave you free.

Such bitterness and pain overwhelmed him that he could scarcely speak.

“I’d rather--go now,” he said. “Another time--I can’t--”

“But--” she began.

“Not now!” he said vehemently. “It was cruel of you to do this. Why didn’t you tell me before that you weren’t free? Why did you let me go on? I trusted you so! And all this time you’ve been thinking of him! No, please don’t speak to me! Let me go!”

She was looking at him with a curious sort of inquiry, her dark brows drawn together in a faint frown.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I thought you had guessed long ago. I didn’t think you’d have--gone on like this, if you hadn’t guessed!”

She was not by nature impulsive, but it was impulse alone that moved her now. She came nearer to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face, with bright tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Alan!” she cried. “It was a beautiful thing to do--to accept me on faith, like that! Not to know, or to care! Oh, Alan, my dear!”

“Judith!” he said. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? Nothing else could have mattered to me, except your caring for him--”

“For Noel?” she asked. “I’m afraid I cared for him a little too much--more than was good for him. But, you see, he’s my only brother.”

“Brother!” shouted Alan. “Then why--”

“Walk home with me, and I’ll explain,” said she. “I thought you had found out long ago.”

Alan went on by her side, willing to wait forever for any further explanation. There were a few questions he wanted to ask, and Judith answered them to his satisfaction, but they had nothing to do with Noel.

“Now look!” said she.

He did look, but he saw nothing but the front of Dr. Hunter’s neat little house.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

She opened the gate, and he followed her along the path and up on the veranda.

“Look at that!” she said.

It was nothing but the usual sign in the window. “Noel”--but it wasn’t! In blue letters on a white ground was printed:

JUDITH HUNTER, M.D.

VI

“You see,” she said, a little later, when they were in the library, “Noel and I were left orphans when we were very young, and Aunt Katherine Carew took care of us. I couldn’t begin to tell you all she did, all the sacrifices she made. Naturally, it was Noel, the boy, that she hoped and expected most from. I wanted to study medicine, and poor Noel couldn’t make up his mind exactly what he wanted to do; so he chose that, too, and we studied together. It was a terrible strain for Aunt Katherine. It took almost all she had, and after we’d both left the hospital, she couldn’t possibly set up two young doctors. We talked it over, and it was my idea to give him his chance first. He’s two years older, and--well, I thought I could wait. Poor Aunt Katherine couldn’t manage everything herself, and we couldn’t afford a servant, and yet she felt that it was very important to keep up appearances; so I decided that I would be the servant. I intended to be invisible until I was ready to appear as a full-fledged M.D. myself.” She paused, and smiled a little. “We both worked very hard to make a doctor of Noel,” she went on. “I think now that we tried a little too hard. If he hadn’t felt that so much was expected of him, he might have gone through with it.”

“He may do better where he is,” said Alan.

“I can’t think that,” said she, “even if he makes a great deal of money; because, for me, our profession is by far the noblest one in the world. There’s nothing else so fine and so--”

“Absolutely nothing else?” asked Alan. “Nothing to compare with it?”

He thought that the slight confusion she betrayed was infinitely more becoming to her than her usual composure.

“Well, of course,” said she, “there’s--there’s you!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

OCTOBER, 1923 Vol. LXXX NUMBER 1

Out of the Woods

THE STORY OF AN ARTLESS GIRL, A HUNGRY WOLF, AND A WONDERFUL GRANDMOTHER

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

When you learn that this story begins with the heroine setting off through the woods to visit her grandmother, who was ill, you may guess that it is the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood. I must admit that that is what it is, and I warn you that you may count upon a very artless little heroine and a wolf of insinuating manners and glib tongue; but this grandmother will not be eaten up.

Nor did Ethel carry a basket containing a little pat of butter and a cake. She had, instead, a large and luxurious box of candied fruit under her arm; and instead of singing through the woods, she wore a sulky and miserable expression. Unfortunately red hoods are not in vogue, for such a thing would have been notably becoming to her little gypsy face. However, she was young enough and lovely enough to look well in anything, even a sulky expression.

She was not without some excuse for her discontented air. Ethel was one of those unfortunate little bones of contention so often to be found in divided families, and she had been so much disputed over and argued about, and so rarely consulted or even questioned, that she had grown to think of herself as a helpless pawn in an incomprehensible game, where she could never win anything.

The disputes had begun long before she was born. Her father’s family had that pride of newly acquired wealth beside which pride of ancestry shrinks to nothing. Indeed, to spring from splendid ancestors may often make one feel a little humble, but to feel that one is vastly more important than any of one’s forbears makes for arrogance.

The Taylors had objected very much to the marriage of their only son. Even when the marriage was made, and there was no earthly use in objecting, they kept on, in a very unpleasant way. All the misfortunes which the young man brought upon his wife and child by his recklessness and folly only increased their anger against the victims; and when he died, they all came forward with helpful suggestions as to what he should have done when he was alive.

Ethel had been a small girl of nine then, and not yet looked upon as guilty; but when she refused to leave her mother and take advantage of the offers made by several of the Taylors, she lost their sympathy. Her mother, with criminal selfishness, hadn’t made the least attempt to persuade her child to leave her. On the contrary, she had gone back to her own people, and had lived with them in quiet contentment.

It was to these people of hers that the Taylors so strongly objected. She herself was a quiet and inoffensive creature who gave little trouble, but her parents were Italians, and poor, and not ashamed of either of the two things.

Dr. Mazetti had been professor of romance languages in a small Western college, but he had become so absorbed in the enormous commentary upon Dante which he was writing that he found his teaching very much in the way; so he gave up his chair. Mrs. Taylor, the paternal grandmother, had spoken about this.

“Of course,” she had said, not very pleasantly, “it’s a good thing to have faith in your husband’s work; but suppose it’s not a financial success?”

“We don’t expect it to be,” replied Mrs. Mazetti, in her excellent English. “Such work as that is not undertaken for money.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ll permit your husband to give up his--” began Mrs. Taylor, but the other interrupted her.

“A man does not ask the permission of others to do what he thinks best,” she said quietly. “I should be ashamed of myself if I were even to suggest that he should sacrifice his life’s work on my account.”

“What about yourself? Aren’t you sacrificing--”

“I sacrifice nothing,” said Mrs. Mazetti. “I am very, very happy and proud.”

And so she was, and so was her only child until she married young Taylor; and so she was again when she came home with the little Ethel, to live with those simple, gentle people once more. Not for long, however, for she died some two years later.

Then the arguments and disputes began again, and this time the Taylors won. Children of eleven are pitifully easy to bribe, and while Ethel was still dazed and stricken after the loss of her mother, all these relations competed for her favor. She was petted and pampered as she had never been before in her life.

It is regrettable to admit that she liked all this, liked the toys and the pretty clothes and the indulgence better than the benign and quiet régime of her grandfather Mazetti, who believed that children should be literally “brought up” to the level of the wiser and more experienced adults about them, instead of bringing a whole household down to childish standards. He was always very patient and gentle, but he was too fond of talking about Dante, and of relating anecdotes about an Italian poet who insisted upon being tied into his chair, so that he couldn’t run away from his studies.

Moreover, old Dr. Mazetti had no money to spend upon toys and clothes. The Taylors took no interest in Dante or any other poet, but they took Ethel to the circus; so she said she wanted to live with Aunt Amy, her father’s sister.

She wasn’t aware, at the time, how terribly she had hurt the Mazettis. They said very little. Indeed, they discussed it in private, and decided that it was their duty to say very little. Aunt Amy could give Ethel material benefits which they could not give; and if the child preferred that sort of thing, it was, after all, neither unnatural nor unexpected.

“Each must find his own,” said Dr. Mazetti. “What is joy for one is a burden for another.”

So they let her go, and they did it beautifully, without saddening her little heart with reproaches or tears. She came back to visit them once a month or so, but somehow, in her new existence, this quiet old couple had begun to seem very foreign, very unreal.

She was abroad with her aunt when Dr. Mazetti died. Though she grieved for him honestly, she was too young and too busy to nourish any sorrow long.

II

When Ethel Taylor came home, at nineteen, her grandmother seemed like a little ghost from the past, utterly unconnected with her present life. She still went to visit the old lady, and sat in the familiar room in her little cottage, where the bronze bust of Dante appeared to impose a dignified calm; but these visits were nothing but interludes to real life, and real life, just now, was a miserable thing.

The trouble was that Aunt Amy kept on being Aunt Amy, while the childish Ethel and the nineteen-year-old one were entirely different persons. Aunt Amy wanted her to come out, and to be a nice, happy débutante like other girls; but something in Ethel’s blood rebelled against that. She called it a “modern spirit,” and never realized that instead of being modern, it was the old Mazetti strain, come down to her from people who for generations had not lived by bread alone.

She told her aunt that she wanted to be a singer.

“That’s a charming accomplishment,” said Aunt Amy affably.

“I mean I want really to study--for years and years!”

“Certainly, dear, if you can find the time.”

“Time!” said Ethel. “What else do I ever do but waste time?”

“Naturally you can’t neglect your social duties--”

“Duties!”

“Please don’t repeat my words in that odd way,” said Aunt Amy, a little hurt. “If you want to study singing, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, so long as you’re not excessive about it.”

“But I want to be excessive! I want to give all my time to it! I want to be a professional singer!”

Aunt Amy laughed, not in order to be irritating, but because she really thought it was funny. Not being a woman of much penetration, she told some of her friends about that absurd little Ethel’s fantastic idea.

As a result, the girl was teased about it. Ethel couldn’t endure being teased. She had that queer lack of self-confidence, combined with tremendous resolution and a little vanity, that belong to young artists, and she felt that she was absurd, although she really knew that she wasn’t. She was ashamed to practice now, and at the same time she exulted in her clear, strong, flexible voice. When she was asked to sing, she refused; yet sometimes, when she knew there were people in the drawing-room, she would go up the stairs or through the hall, singing her loudest and sweetest, half terrified, half delighted, at the glorious flood of melody that rose from her heart.

She didn’t want anything else. She couldn’t and wouldn’t be bothered with “social duties.” She wanted to work hard, all day and every day, until she was mistress of this great gift of hers, until she could sing in reality as she did in imagination. She had fits of black depression, when the sounds that came from her throat seemed a mockery of what she intended. At other moments she was in wild spirits, because she was sure she had made a little progress.

Her changing humors were so marked that Aunt Amy was gravely perturbed. She felt that Ethel was becoming “eccentric,” which was the worst thing any one could be, and she attributed it all to this annoying obsession with singing. In all good faith, she did what she thought best for the girl--she stopped her lessons.

Ethel wept and stormed and entreated and argued until she was almost ill, but without moving Aunt Amy.

“No!” that lady said firmly. “If you’ll put all that nonsense out of your head, and lead a normal, sensible life like other girls, I’ll let you take up singing again in a year.”

She hoped and believed that within a year’s time such a pretty and delightful girl would surely find something better to think about.

Ethel was helpless. She was exquisitely dressed, and she lived in great comfort and luxury, but she hadn’t a penny of her own to pay for lessons.

Artists, however--even young and undeveloped ones--are very hard to deal with, because they will not give up and be sensible. Instead of resigning herself to doing without what she wanted, Ethel did nothing but think how she could get at least a part of it. Being nineteen, and rash, and terribly in earnest, she was dallying with a singularly unsuitable idea.

III

“Hello, Lad!” she said, not at all surprised, and apparently not very much pleased, at the sudden appearance of a young man on that quiet path through the woods.

“Hello, Ethel!” he returned, and fell into step beside her.

She didn’t trouble to glance at her companion. She knew exactly how he looked, anyhow. He was slender and supple and dark, and handsome in his way--which was not her way.

There were times when the sleekness of his hair and the brightness of his smile and the extreme fastidiousness of his clothes exasperated her. There were other times when his talk about music made her see in him the one sympathetic, understanding person on earth. He had learned to read the signs, and to tell which sort of time it was; and he fancied that this was a favorable moment.

“Have you been thinking--” he began softly.

“Naturally,” said she. “I suppose every one does, once in a while.”

Young Ladislaw Metz was not easily discouraged. He, too, was an artist.

“Do you mind my walking with you, Ethel?” he asked patiently. “I came all the way out from the city on the chance of meeting you here, because I had something special to tell you.”

She thought she knew what he meant, and frowned; but when he began to speak, the frown vanished, and she sat down on the grass to listen.

* * * * *

Old Mrs. Mazetti was waiting and waiting in her chair by the window. All the bright spring afternoon had passed. The sky was blue no more, but faint and mournful as the sun went down. Outside, the light lingered, but in the room it was dark--very dark, very quiet. Ethel had written to say that she would come early, and for hours the old lady had been watching the road along which her granddaughter must come. It always made her uneasy to think of a girl as young and pretty as Ethel traveling alone.

This was one of the very few ideas that Aunt Amy shared with Mrs. Mazetti. Aunt Amy wanted Ethel to go properly in a motor car, but her niece was so obstinately set on going by train that she had yielded. After all, it was such a trifling matter--an hour’s journey to a suburb, to visit a grandmother. The good lady never so much as imagined the existence of Ladislaw Metz, or any one like him.

But old Mrs. Mazetti did. Not that she knew anything of this particular young man, but she had had opportunity, in her long life, to observe that in such cases there generally was a young man. When Ethel began taking more and more time between the station and the house, the old lady grew more and more sure, and more distressed.

She said nothing, however, because her grandchild showed no disposition to confide in her, and she knew that more harm than good would result from asking questions. She couldn’t get near to Ethel. She had tried time after time, with all her quiet subtlety, to bring about a greater intimacy, to show how steadfast and profound was her sympathy; but Ethel never saw.

In fact, Ethel didn’t know that she needed sympathy. She thought that all she wanted was to be let alone. Without in the least meaning to be unkind, she ignored the invaluable love that would so greatly have helped her.

For the third time the servant came in to light the lamp, and this time Mrs. Mazetti permitted it. She had given up expecting Ethel for that day.

“She has forgotten,” she thought.

In spite of her bitter disappointment, she could still smile a little over the girl’s careless youth. The sun had vanished now, and a strange yellow twilight lay over the earth like a sulphurous mist. It was a melancholy hour. The brightness of the little room made the outside world more forlorn and dim by contrast.

Mrs. Mazetti was about to turn away from the window with a sigh, when she caught sight of Ethel hurrying along the road--with a young man. The girl’s companion left her when they were still some distance from the house. If the old lady hadn’t had remarkably sharp eyes, she would never have seen him.

Ethel came in alone.

“Grandmother!” she said. “I’m awfully ashamed of myself for being so late!”

She really was ashamed and sorry, but it was not her nature to invent excuses, and she had no intention of explaining. Mrs. Mazetti saw all this perfectly, and did not fail to note something defiant in her grandchild’s expression. Nevertheless, she meant to come to the point this time.

“You were with a friend?” she asked mildly.

“Yes, grandmother.”

“Your Aunt Amy knows this friend?”

Ethel tried to imitate that tranquil, affectionate tone.

“No, grandmother, she doesn’t. He’s just a boy I met at the studio where I used to take singing lessons.”

“And you think she would not care for him?”

“I know she wouldn’t,” Ethel answered candidly. “I don’t care for him so very much myself; but we’re interested in the same things, and nobody else is.”

“In music?”

“Yes. He’s--” Ethel began, but she stopped.

What was the use of going on, and being told again how absurd she was? Mrs. Mazetti was silent, too, but not because she felt discouraged. She was thinking, trying to understand.

“You are still always thinking of the singing?” she asked softly.

Ethel’s face flushed, and her young mouth set in a harsh line.

“I’m not going to listen to any more lectures,” she thought. “No one understands. No one ever will!”

“This young man is a musician?” her grandmother asked.

“Yes, in a way,” said Ethel. “Isn’t the country pretty at this time of the year, grandmother?”

The old lady looked out of the window at the rapidly darkening sky, against which the trees stood out as black as ink. It seemed to her not at all pretty now, but vast and terrible.

“My little Ethel!” she thought. “My little bird, who longs to sing! What is this going on now, poor foolish little one? What am I to do?”

She missed her husband acutely. She missed him always, but more than ever at this instant. Ethel would have listened to him, for every one did. Quiet and tranquil as he was, there had been an air of authority about him that she had never seen disregarded.

Ethel was very still. The lamp threw a clear light on her warm, vivid young face, downcast and plainly unhappy.

“If I spoke to your Aunt Amy about those lessons?” suggested the old lady.

“It wouldn’t do the least bit of good, grandmother. I’ve said everything there is to be said; and--anyhow, I don’t care now.”

“Why not, Ethel? Why not now?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Ethel replied airily. “Let’s not talk about it, grandmother. I’ve brought some candied fruit. You like that, don’t you?”

The old lady untied the flamboyant package with fingers that were not very steady. While she was doing so, the clock struck six.

“I’ll have to go,” said Ethel quickly. “I’m sorry I came so late and had such a tiny visit, grandmother, but--”

“Wait, my little Ethel. Gianetta will order a taxi.”

“Oh, no, thanks!” said Ethel. “I like the walk.”

“Not now, in the dark, my dear.”

“I don’t mind the dark. It’s really not at all late. I’ll--”

“No!” said the old lady with unexpected firmness. “There must be a taxi, and Gianetta will go with you to the train.”

Ethel answered politely, but with equal firmness, that she didn’t want that.

“Come here, my little Ethel!” said her grandmother. When the girl stood before her, she took both of her hands. “This friend--this young man--is waiting for you?”

Ethel flushed, but she answered with the fine honesty that had been hers all her life.

“Yes!” she said, in just the sturdy, defiant tone she used to confess a piece of childish mischief years and years ago.

“You see me here,” said Mrs. Mazetti, “unable even to rise from my chair. I could do nothing to stop you, if I wished. I do not wish, because I trust you; only I ask you to tell me a little.”

Ethel was more moved than she wished to be. She bent to kiss the soft white hair.

“I’d rather not, please!” she said.

“If you will remember, my little Ethel, that your mother always came to me, always told me what troubled her! I am very old. I have learned very much, seen very much. I could help you.”

“But you wouldn’t, grandmother. You wouldn’t like my--plan.”

“Then perhaps I could make a better one.”

Mrs. Mazetti felt the girl’s warm hands tremble, and saw her lip quiver. She waited, terribly anxious.

“You see,” said Ethel, “all I care about is being able to sing. Nobody believes that. No one understands except Ladislaw!”

“That is the young man?”

“Yes--Ladislaw Metz,” said Ethel, a little impatient at this interest in the least important part of her story. “He knows what it means to me.”

“What is he? He sings?”

“He’s a barytone. He’s going to be a wonderful singer some day.”

“But now? What is he now?”

“Well, you see, he’s poor, and he can’t afford to go on studying just now. So--I don’t like to tell you, because you’ll think he’s not really a musician--he’s on the stage.”

“Ah!” said the old lady, with perfect composure. “The theater? An operetta?”

“Well, no--it’s vaudeville. He’s been singing awful, cheap, popular songs, just to keep himself alive. Now he wants a partner for a better sort of turn--an act, you know. We should sing--”

“We?”

“He’s going to give me a chance,” said Ethel quietly. The old lady was silent for a moment.

“I should like to hear about it,” she told the girl at last, in a voice that touched Ethel profoundly--a voice so determined to sound cheerful and sympathetic.

“I can’t tell you, grandmother,” she said gently; “because you’d think it was your duty to tell Aunt Amy, and she’d try to stop me. I don’t intend to be stopped. I may never have another chance. I don’t care what I have to sacrifice. I’d gladly give up anything on earth for my singing. You can’t think what it’s like to have that in you--such a terrible longing--to know that you can do it, and to be stopped and turned aside and laughed at!” She bent and kissed the old lady again. “I’ve got to go now, grandmother dear!” she said, with a sob.

“No! Little Ethel! No!”

“I’ve got to, grandmother. I promised.”

“Ethel! You promised what?”

The girl was frankly crying now.

“Good-by, darling!” she said. “You’ve always been my dearest, kindest friend. If I hadn’t been a little beast, I’d never have left you; but I am a little beast. I must go my own way. I’ve got to go. Good-by, dear!”

Her hand was on the door knob.

“No, Ethel, no!” cried the old lady.

With one backward glance, tearful, soft, but utterly resolute, the girl was gone.

“Gianetta!” called Mrs. Mazetti.

Gianetta came in from the kitchen with the querulous expression natural to her. She had been the old lady’s servant for nearly twenty years. She adored her, and had never found her anything but just, kind, and generous. Nevertheless, Gianetta had a great many grievances, and did not keep them to herself.

“Telephone,” said her mistress, “and order me a taxi.”

“You? You a taxi?” cried Gianetta. “But that is mad!”

“Quick, Gianetta!”

“But you are very ill! With this rheumatism, you can’t walk! How do you think then that you--”

“Quick, Gianetta!”

“Patience! Patience!” said Gianetta, in her most annoying tone. “I order this taxi, but you cannot get into it. It is only a waste of money. No matter--you are the mistress. I telephone!”

“Now!” said the old lady to herself. “I must get up. Leo always said that what one ought to do, one would find strength for. I must do this. For one minute more I shall sit quietly here, and then I shall rise and get myself ready.”

She clasped her hands in her lap and laid her head against the back of the chair, looking out at the sky, now quite dark. Then, with a long sigh, she grasped the arms and slowly raised herself to her feet.

Gianetta, coming in again, gave a loud shriek.

“Silence, you foolish one,” said the old lady. “Get me my cloak and hat.”

IV

“I don’t understand you,” said Ladislaw, in a deeply injured voice. “You’ll trust your whole life to me, and yet--”

The little wood was dark and unfamiliar, and he found it very disagreeable to hurry along at the pace she set.

“And yet you behave--” he went on.

“I’m not trusting my whole life to you,” replied Ethel vehemently. “I’d be sorry to think there was nothing better than that to trust in!”

“That’s not quite the way to talk to the man you’re going to marry, is it?” he asked. “I’ve always tried my best to do what you wanted. I don’t see why you shouldn’t trust me.”

“I don’t see, either, Lad,” Ethel answered, with her discounting frankness. “Only somehow you seem so--so dreadfully strange to me. I never understand you. I know you must be fond of me, or you wouldn’t have asked me to marry you; and I know it’s a sensible, practical idea if we’re going on tour. But I can’t--I can’t--” She choked down a sob. “I can’t feel--friendly--with you!”

“I don’t want you to. I want you to love me.”

“But they ought to go together!” she cried. “I’m awfully grateful to you, and I love to hear you sing, but I’m afraid! Oh, it’s not fair to you, because I know I’ll never feel like that!”

“You will some day,” he answered, with a patience that frightened her still more.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, Lad. I’m sure I shall never feel so. It’s only because I want this chance so much--so much that I’d do almost anything to get it. I know that if I can once sing in public, I shall be all right, and--”

He laughed softly.

“It doesn’t go so fast,” he said. “Nothing does. You will have what every one else has--two failures for each triumph, two pains for every joy. You will have hard work, discouragement, anxiety, and a good many other troubles you’ve never thought of. That’s why I ask you to marry me, because you need some one to protect you. If you don’t love me, very well! I’ll love you twice as much, to make up for it.”

His hand fell lightly on her shoulder. She sprang aside hastily.

That did not offend him. He never seemed to be offended or impatient. He was always reasonable, kind, sympathetic; and yet, instead of being pleased or touched by this, Ethel found it disquieting and mysterious.

His polite endurance of her changing humors was more like that of indifference than that of love. Of course, he did love her. He must, and she was a very fortunate girl to have found, at the very beginning of her career, a man who loved her and who could and would help her so greatly.

This first venture was in itself a thing very displeasing to her. It was a vaudeville act of his own devising, in which, with several changes of costume, they would sing snatches from the most popular operas, all woven together to make a silly story. She tried to look beyond that, to the great triumphs of the future. She tried to feel that these triumphs would be ample compensation for the monstrous sacrifice she was making of her life.

Once in a while, in a brief flash, she half realized what she was doing. The memory of her mother came back to her--that gentle and quiet woman who had held so steadfastly to her own ideals.

No matter how ardent her desire for perfection in her beloved art, no matter how splendid her ambition, Ethel could not be rid of a secret and bitter sense of guilt. It was wrong--she knew it--it was wrong and unworthy to marry Ladislaw.

“But why?” she demanded of herself. “I don’t care anything about love, and men, and things like that. Ladislaw knows it, and if he doesn’t care, why should I? Anyhow, it’s too late now. I’ve promised, and I’m going to keep my word. Mother would want me to do that. Oh, but if mother had been here, she would have understood! She would never have let me get into such a dreadful, miserable, heartbreaking situation! If she could come now, just for one little minute, just to say one word--”

But there was no one there except Ladislaw. The lights of the railway station gleamed before them, and he drew close to her.

“Give me one kiss, Ethel!” he said, very low.

She hated his voice, she hated to have him so near her, she hated herself. The little wood seemed like a black and sinister forest.

“No!” she said brusquely, as she had often spoken to him before.

This time he was not patient and humble. He caught her arm, and tried to draw her to him.

“You shan’t treat me like a dog!” he muttered.

In growing alarm, she stared at him in the dark, and she fancied she saw his white teeth revealed by a wolfish grin. With a violent wrench, she freed herself. With the swiftness of terror, she ran out of that haunted wood into the safe, bright road before the station.

As she stood there, flushed and panting, trying to consider the situation, he came leisurely up to her.

“You can’t go back now--not after that telegram you sent your aunt,” he said. “There’s nowhere for you to go, except with me. You haven’t even your ticket or your purse. You gave them to me to keep--and I mean to keep them!”

“I don’t care--I’ll walk,” she retorted, in a trembling voice.

“Walk where?” he inquired. “You told your aunt you were going away to get married. You’ll have hard work explaining that you changed your mind; and you’ll have hard work getting home at all without a penny. Come! Here’s the train. Don’t be a little fool!”

The long, mournful hoot of the approaching engine came to her ears.

“Oh, give me my purse!” she cried in terror and despair. “Oh, please! Oh, please, Ladislaw!”

“I won’t,” he said. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll leave you here alone. You’ll be sorry, Ethel. You’ll lose your chance to be a singer, and you’ll lose more than that. Your aunt won’t take this very well.”

She looked around in anguish. The ticket office was closed for the night, and there were only strangers on the platform. All about that little lighted oasis were the woods and fields and tiny distant houses, filled with more strangers.

V

“Ethel!” cried a voice.

It was the voice of the one person who would understand and help and solace her--a voice she could never hear again in this world, strong, tender, and clear.

“Oh, mother!” she cried.

“Ethel!”

It came again, and not the voice of a spirit, but real, and close at hand.

“It’s some one in that taxi,” whispered Ladislaw. “Better not answer.”

“But it’s grandmother!” said Ethel, astounded.

She flew to the old lady like a stone from a catapult.

“Grandmother, what are you doing here?” she demanded, wild with delight and relief.

“Nothing!” replied the old lady serenely. “Present your friend to me.”

“I--” began Ethel.

Ladislaw was already there, hat in hand.

“Mr. Metz, grandmother,” she said.

“Ah! Mr. Metz!” the old lady repeated, looking thoughtfully at him. Her calm old eyes seemed terrible to him. “Are you leaving?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he remembered that Ethel had never seemed to regard her grandmother as especially important. She was old, and poor, and obscure; what harm could she do?

“Yes,” he said. “Ethel and I are going to be married. She’s already sent a telegram to her aunt in the city, to tell her.”

“You are a rash young man,” said the old lady, in a tone almost friendly.

“Rash?” he repeated, with a faint frown.

“Very!” said she. “It is a surprise to me, because I see that you are not American. Americans marry that way--for love; but with the people of Europe, it is often different. They think of how they shall live. They wish a dot--a dowry--something more than love. It is very beautiful, this; because the poor little Ethel will never have anything.”

Metz was too much taken aback to be discreet.

“But she will!” he said. “Her aunt will--”

“Her aunt has only the income of an estate. She leaves nothing to Ethel; and certainly she gives nothing to Ethel when she is the wife of Mr. Metz.”

“But I thought--” he began.

Suddenly the frail little old creature blazed into magnificent wrath.

“Be off!” she cried, raising her hand in a threatening gesture. “Away with you, miserable, beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! Bestia! Be off!”

He started back. She leaned out of the window, her voice wonderfully strong and vigorous for her years. As he retreated, even above the roar of the incoming train, he heard her only too plainly, and was aware that other people heard her, too.

“Beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! Bestia! Away with you!”

He was glad to climb on board.

The taxi went hastening back along the dark, still roads, and the old lady held the sobbing Ethel tight in her arms.

“But what is there to cry about?” she asked, in tears herself. “Foolish little one! You shall stay with me, my little bird, until you are ready to fly away. There was something put by for you to have--later. You shall have it now, for the singing lessons. Why do you cry, then? You shall sing, I tell you!”

Ethel was silent for a time.

“Grandmother!” she said. “The first time you called me--it sounded--I thought it was--mother!”

The old lady’s arm tightened about her.

“It is the same voice,” she said.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

DECEMBER, 1923 Vol. LXXX NUMBER 3

Benedicta

AND HOW SHE DISCOVERED JUST WHAT IT WAS THAT SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

When the charming prince at last cut his way through the enchanted forest, and set foot in that silent palace, the sleeping beauty was delighted to be waked with a kiss. It is not difficult, however, to imagine some beauties who would prefer to be left in dismal, cobwebby peace--beauties who had grown so used to sleep that waking would be a pain and a shock. It is pitiful to think of the poor young prince in a case like that--except that princes are almost always fortunate in the end, and probably know that they will be.

The real sleeping beauty, you will perhaps remember, had a spell put on her at her christening by a disgruntled fairy. If ever she touched a distaff, she would prick herself and die. Another and a better fairy interfered, and arranged that, instead of death, an enchanted sleep should overtake the princess; and so it happened. In vain the royal parents prohibited distaffs. Curses are very, very hard to avoid, and the poor, lovely girl did find a distaff, and did prick her finger, and did fall asleep, and so did every other living creature in the palace with her, to stand or sit or lie just where they were for I don’t remember how many years.

Benedicta had nothing to do with fairies, and she wouldn’t have known a distaff if she had seen one; nevertheless, at the time when this story begins, she had been going about for years in a sort of enchanted slumber. She didn’t know that it was a slumber. She called it dignity, and pride, and so on, and clung most tenaciously to her twilight existence.

She was a tall, disdainful creature, very pretty, if you had the courage to look at her; but the people of Elderfield were so well used to her that they had no particular wish to look at her. She was simply Miss Benedicta Miller, from the old Miller place, and the Millers had ceased to be interesting long before she was born.

They had been rich, but now they were poor. They were very tiresome about it, too, keeping up a moldy, lamentable sort of state in their dilapidated house, turning up their noses at every one new and friendly, and being frightfully sensitive toward all the “old” people who offered them any courtesy.

There were only two of them left now--Benedicta and her father. Mr. Miller had grown so sensitive and squeamish and absurd that he was practically invisible, and was very nearly forgotten. The more he saw that he was forgotten, the more hurt and resentful he became, and the less would he come out into the world.

Some one had to come out, however. They couldn’t be Robinson Crusoes on a farm where nothing grew any more. They had to buy what they wanted, and, to do so, Benedicta had to go to the village.

This she did two or three times a week in a little car, beautifully polished and cared for, as she cared for everything. She would come rattling down Main Street, and no amount of jouncing could make her look anything but dignified, just as no hat, however old and unbecoming, could destroy the beauty of her proud little head and fine features. She would enter a shop and give a pitiful little order; and because she remembered what a wonderful family the Millers had once been, and because she was so miserable at their present eclipse, and so ashamed of herself for being miserable, she would be quite cold and curt.

Then home she would go, to her father, who always asked her what was the news. She knew what sort of news he wanted to hear--that some one had inquired about him, or sent a message; but no one did that any more.

They would sit down to a meager little lunch cooked by the cheapest servant obtainable. Though Benedicta herself could have cooked one ten times better, it would have choked them. Even the heartbreaking bills that came had to be presented to Mr. Miller on a silver tray.

Benedicta admired her father beyond measure, and agreed with him that the only self-respecting thing for them was to hide their shameful poverty from the rest of the world; but he was fifty, and she was only twenty-three, so that sometimes she was not able to find quite the same satisfaction in solitary pride that he did. She kept up the tradition splendidly, but she didn’t always relish it.

For instance, when that Wilkinson girl had come to see her, uninvited and unencouraged, she had found it difficult to be courteously disagreeable every instant. She had to be constantly reminding herself that the Wilkinsons were impossible people who had been retail grocers when the Millers were in their prime. She had also had to remind herself that this jolly, friendly girl was not, could not be, really friendly, but had doubtless come to spy upon their poverty and to laugh about it afterward.

When, from the window, she had watched her visitor drive off in a smart little roadster, tears came to Benedicta’s eyes--not tears of envy, but of genuine regret that the pride of the Millers forbade her to like Miss Wilkinson. Her life seemed duller and mustier than ever.

II

Nevertheless, instead of being pleased, Benedicta was affronted when the impossible girl came back. It was late one June afternoon, in the bright and tranquil hour before the sun goes down, and Benedicta, weary and idle, was in the sitting room, because it was proper for her to be in the sitting room.

She looked out of the window, because she was thoroughly tired of looking at the room. The fact of its being filled with genuine Colonial furniture of fine mahogany gave her no pleasure at all. The landscape, too, was uninspiring--a straggling, neglected garden, and a stretch of fields which had once been part of the Miller estate, but which had been first rented and then sold to farmers who did not object to working.

Something was coming along the road. She recognized the smart little roadster. It turned in at their gateway and stopped before their door.

It was a memorable interview. Indeed, it was a battle, and Miss Wilkinson conquered. In the most ordinary way, she made a preposterous suggestion.

“I want you to spend this week-end with us,” she said. “Please do!”

Benedicta, almost overcome, said that she had never spent a night away from home.

“Then begin now,” said Miss Wilkinson. “Please come! It’s going to be awfully nice. Two--”

“I’m sure it would be nice, but I really can’t,” said Benedicta firmly.

Miss Wilkinson seemed perfectly unaware that it is bad manners to press an invitation. She had taken a fancy to Benedicta’s dark beauty, with her sulky mouth and her unhappy eyes, and she was sorry for her. She kept on urging until Benedicta was obliged to point out to her that invitations must come not from daughters, but from mothers, and that she was not acquainted with Mrs. Wilkinson.

“All right!” said the other good-humoredly. “Then mother ’ll come to-morrow and ask you.”

“But--” Benedicta began.

She found it hard to go on. Impossible as Miss Wilkinson was, it was difficult to dislike her. The idea of a week-end in her company was terribly tempting. It was an invitation to be young for a little while.

“But,” Benedicta went on more gently, “you see, you live so near, it really seems absurd to stay overnight. I should like very much to come some afternoon--”

Miss Wilkinson had said a week-end, and a week-end she intended to have.

“If I could get her away from this ghastly house, the girl would be entirely different,” she thought. “Poor thing! She really wants to come, too.”

So she kept at it, and, being an obstinate creature, accustomed to her own way, she at last obtained Benedicta’s reluctant consent.

“I’ll come for you on Friday, before dinner,” she said gayly.

Off she went, well pleased with herself, and with Benedicta, and with almost everything else in the world.

But Mr. Miller! Better to pass over that interview, for it accomplished nothing except to make both father and daughter very miserable. Even Mr. Miller was forced to admit that, as the invitation had been accepted, nothing could be done. All the Millers did what they said they would do, no matter how disastrous the consequences. All he wished was to say what he thought of this undignified, improper proceeding, and he did so.

III

Wilkinsons being kind to a Miller! Mrs. Wilkinson conducting Benedicta to a charming little bedroom, and actually kissing her at the door! Mr. Wilkinson meeting her in the dining room and saying:

“It’s a pleasure to see the daughter of Mr. Hamilton Miller in my house. Your father was one of my earliest customers.”

Mr. Wilkinson saying this, and not seeming at all ashamed of having had customers! Nan--that was Miss Wilkinson’s name--doing everything possible to make her somewhat difficult guest feel at home!

When at last she was left alone in her room to dress for dinner, Benedicta had to struggle with a great desire to cry, for ridiculous reasons--because Mrs. Wilkinson had kissed her, because the room itself was so pretty, furnished in white and lit by a rose-shaded lamp, because she was touched, and was ashamed of herself for being touched. She reminded herself that she had come as a favor to Nan, and against her own will. She remembered that everything in her chilly, bleak little room at home was an heirloom.

“I ought to have more poise,” she told herself sternly.

When she came down to dinner, she had perhaps a little too much poise. The Wilkinsons all kept on being kind, because it was natural to them, and because they knew all about the Millers and understood Benedicta; but the other guests saw in her nothing but a very stiff, cool, silent girl in a dowdy frock, and they didn’t like her.

There were two girls and three others, whom Nan called “boys,” but who were what Benedicta considered young men, and very frivolous ones. Three men and four girls!

“Of course, I’m the extra one,” she thought. “It doesn’t matter to me, of course.”

She felt still more extra and superfluous after dinner, when they began to dance as a matter of course. One of the men asked her to dance, but she declined. She told Mrs. Wilkinson that she didn’t care for dancing, but the truth was that she knew nothing but waltzes and two-steps, which were of no more use than minuets. It wouldn’t do, though, for a Miller to confess herself ignorant of the art.

So she sat beside her hostess, consoling herself with pride, and finding it a very dismal sort of thing. Indeed, she was scarcely able to speak, for fear the unsteadiness in her voice might betray her misery.

“Oh, why did I come?” she asked herself. “Oh, why, why didn’t I stay home, and not know how happy every one else is? Here I just have to sit and look on. I’m young, too! Oh, I wish I wasn’t! I wish I was old--old, like father. Then I wouldn’t care!”

“Here’s some one else who doesn’t care for dancing,” remarked Mrs. Wilkinson, and beckoned to a newcomer who had strolled casually in through the open French window. “It’s Francis Dumall. You know the Dumalls, don’t you?”

The history of the Dumalls had been familiar to Benedicta from her infancy. Like the Millers, they had come down in the world; but not sadly and slowly like the Millers, or generation by generation. Paul Dumall had caused the disaster alone and unaided, and had brought down his family with a crash.

There was nothing discreditable in the debacle. Dumall had ruined himself like a gentleman, and had aroused nothing but sympathy. What is more, he had died before becoming vieux jeu, like poor Mr. Miller, and he was now a sort of legend. His wife and child had gone away, no one knew where.

“And this must be the son,” thought Benedicta.

She was pleased and a little excited at the idea of meeting some one with a history so like her own--some one fallen from greatness like herself, suffering the same humiliation and sadness. She would have liked this young man, even if he hadn’t been so very likable.

He was a tall, slight fellow, a perfect Dumall, with gray eyes, fair hair, and the fine, big Dumall nose. He was not handsome, but he was agreeable to look at, because of his kind and rather shy smile, and the sensitive intelligence of his face.

He was presented to Benedicta, and they looked at each other with rather artless curiosity. How many Millers and Dumalls had met in the past, in circumstances so different! Indeed, a Dumall had once married a Miller, long ago, so that they were distantly related.

“Sit down, Francis,” said the hospitable Mrs. Wilkinson.

The affection in her manner impressed Benedicta. It was obvious that Mrs. Wilkinson had a great regard for this boy. His dinner jacket was shabby, his fair hair was a little ruffled, he had none of the sleek elegance of the other guests; and yet his hostess showed him a sort of deference not given to the others.

“It’s his family, of course,” thought Benedicta. “She ought to remember that the Millers were just the same!”

In spite of their mutual interest, the two young people were constrained and silent when Mrs. Wilkinson left them alone. Benedicta knew that she ought to talk and be gracious and entertaining, but she completely lacked practice. Young Dumall made no effort whatever, but sat looking at the dancers in the next room, not enviously or wistfully, but in a calm and thoughtful way.

“Don’t you care for it, either?” he asked suddenly.

That “either” pleased Benedicta. It seemed to place her with Dumall in another and superior world. It made her feel that she really didn’t care for dancing; so she said:

“No.”

“Sometimes I think people have forgotten how to enjoy themselves,” he went on. “They did know long ago, in Greece. They danced out in the sun, and did it beautifully. They were happy, instead of simply being excited.”

Benedicta looked with amazement at his boyish face, but he did not look at her. He was staring ahead of him with a strange, lost look that fascinated her, and was talking earnestly of Greek festivals, now and then using a Greek word.

From the next room Nan caught sight of her, and was impressed.

“Look at Miss Miller!” she said to her partner. “Isn’t she lovely?”

Benedicta was, just then. She was listening to young Dumall with shining eyes and parted lips, entranced by his words. She thought he was marvelous.

Well, perhaps he was. Another listener might have found him a little dogmatic and immature; but, after all, he did think, and he did imagine, and he had a rare and fine admiration for the perished beauties of the ancient world. He knew his facts, too. He had studied honestly and intelligently.

When he rose to go, darkness fell upon Benedicta.

“Aren’t you staying in the house?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. She knew very well that he was looking at her, although she seemed unaware of it. “I have to go into the city to-morrow, to buy some books; but I’ll be here on Sunday afternoon again. I--I hope I’ll see you then!”

IV

On Sunday evening Benedicta pretended that she was sleepy; and when Mrs. Wilkinson told her to go to bed, and get a good night’s rest, she assented willingly. As a matter of fact, she thought that very likely she would never go to sleep again. Certainly she didn’t want to waste time in that way.

She sat down in the dark by the window, where she could look out over the garden, but she didn’t see it. She had abolished time and space, and was looking into the middle of the afternoon that had passed.

She saw herself and Francis Dumall sitting on a fallen tree in the woods, where the sun shone through the leaves in queer bright spots on his hair, like gold coins. He was dressed in an old belted coat and tweed trousers that didn’t match, but his shabby clothes were worn with his own air of careless distinction. He was hatless. Sometimes he looked like a boy, and sometimes very much of a man.

He had talked about books. He had talked in an enthralling, a marvelous way. He had made Benedicta resolve to begin to read books herself.

“Why have I gone on like this?” she thought. “Never even trying to improve my mind, with all the spare time I’ve had! It’s disgraceful. I’m ashamed of myself. I don’t know what Mr. Dumall must think of me!”

This was somewhat hypocritical, for she had at least a suspicion of what Mr. Dumall thought of her. He hadn’t talked about books all the time; nor was it likely that when he had asked if he might come to see her, he had contemplated nothing but a literary monologue.

In spite of this, however, and in spite of the look in his gray eyes, which was unmistakably admiration, Benedicta was doubtful.

“He can’t really like me,” she thought.

She did not realize how unworthy of a Miller such humility was. Why shouldn’t he really like her? What was he but a boy not much older than herself, and, like herself, obscure and poor? She didn’t even realize how lovely she was, lost in her ridiculous admiration for him.

“He’s so different from me!” she thought. “He’s not ashamed of being poor. He doesn’t care one bit about clothes, and dancing, and things like that. He could hold his own anywhere. Everybody respects him and likes him. Nan thinks he’s splendid. He is splendid! He’s risen above his disadvantages, and I haven’t. I’ve let myself be so miserable about being poor that I’ve neglected everything else. He remembers that he belongs to a fine old family, and he’s worthy of it!”

She must follow this inspiring example. She must be worthy of her fine, old family. She wished the magic summer night would pass so that she might begin. She was filled with impatience and hope, half happy, half miserable.

She began to dream of the past, when the Dumalls and the Millers were in their prime, when the two houses blazed with lights in the evening and were filled with guests, when the estates were intact, when the ladies exchanged visits, riding along the roads in carriages, and all the country people uncovered as they passed. All gone now--gone forever!

“I don’t care!” she said, wiping away a tear. “I’d rather have what I have than ten times the Wilkinsons’ money!”

The result of her meditations was to make her none too gracious to the Wilkinsons the next morning. She took leave of them, firmly resolving never to set foot in their house again, because it wasn’t worthy of a Miller. She was going home to improve her mind, and never to see or think of any one less august than a Dumall for the rest of her life.

“She’s a high and mighty young woman, I must say!” observed Mr. Wilkinson, a little hurt by her patronizing farewell.

His wife and daughter were not hurt. They said in the same breath:

“Poor Benedicta!”

“Why?” he wished to know.

They didn’t explain, but the thought both of them had was that it is a lamentable piece of folly to bite off one’s nose to spite one’s face, especially in the case of such a delightful nose and such a pretty face as Benedicta’s.

V

Once inside the Miller stronghold again, Benedicta went from bad to worse. Her father confirmed and strengthened all her theories. He was inordinately interested to hear that she had met young Dumall, and he remembered any number of new things about the two families.

When they sat down to their ill cooked, meager dinner, the fact that it hadn’t been paid for was amply compensated by eating it with old silver from old china. Mr. Miller, looking at his child, had not a single pang of regret that her youth and her loveliness were shut up in that dismal ruin. He felt, instead, a surge of pride and gratitude that she was a Miller.

Young Dumall came that very evening, bringing a book for Benedicta; but he did not show the least desire for a decorous conversation on family topics with her father.

In spite of his scholarly tastes and his shy, quiet air, he was a young fellow of enterprise and resolution. He suggested taking a walk, for the inadequate reason that the moon was up. So Mr. Miller was left alone--which, after all, was the fate he had chosen for himself.

Benedicta had fixed ideas about courtships. It cannot be denied that, although she had seen this young man only twice, and had no proper foundation for such a notion, she believed that this was the beginning of a courtship. The most singular delight and confusion filled her heart. She didn’t wish to speak, or wish him to speak. Later, after they had known each other for weeks and weeks, would come the moment when he would tell her those wonderful things of which she had read; but now all she wanted in the world was to walk by his side on the long, dim road, soft with dust, with the crickets chirping in the parched grass, and the breeze, sweet with the breath of the fields and the hills, blowing against her face.

Young Dumall, apparently, had no such ideas about courtships.

“You know,” he said, “I’m poor enough--”

“Oh!” Benedicta interrupted. “What does that matter? It’s something to be proud of--in these days, when people like the Wilkinsons have so much money.”

He turned toward her, but it was too dark to read her face.

“I don’t see anything wrong with the Wilkinsons,” he said. “They’re the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Benedicta was a little nettled at this.

“Of course they’re very nice, and all that,” she answered; “but they’re not at all our sort.”

“That’s our misfortune,” declared Francis. “Mr. Wilkinson made money because he worked hard and used his wits. Our sort of people wouldn’t work, and thought it a fine thing not to have any common sense. I’m not proud of being poor--and I’m not going to stay poor!”

“There are better things in life than hard work and common sense,” observed Benedicta stiffly.

“I know that,” said he; “but you can’t get or keep those better things without hard work and common sense. Valuable things have to be paid for.”

“The very best things can’t be bought,” said she.

“You can’t get them any other way,” said he.

Benedicta was growing rather angry.

“Not good blood,” she said. “Not family and traditions.”

“But, see here!” he interposed. “Haven’t you ever heard or read how the people we came from--the old Millers and the Dumalls--got what we’re so proud of now? They bought all they ever had. They often paid with their lives, and always with the hardest, most dangerous kind of service. After they’d come to this country and cleared their land, they had to defend it. All the Dumalls who amounted to anything were fighters in one way or another--not necessarily soldiers, but men who held their own. When they stopped fighting--and paying--they didn’t amount to anything any more. I don’t intend to spend my life talking about what other and better men have done before me. I’m a man myself, and I mean to do something worth doing!”

Benedicta was a traitor. She agreed with every word he said. She was so thrilled by his boyish spirit that she could have wept with pride and joy. She thought to herself that he was like a knight, that he was the bravest, finest, most wonderful creature who had ever walked the earth.

“I’m sure you will!” she cried.

He stopped short.

“Do you really think so, Benedicta?” he asked.

He called her Benedicta, and his voice--

“Yes,” she answered, very low.

“Benedicta,” he said again, “I can’t say what I want to say to you just now--not yet; but if I thought--I could do anything in the world if it was for you!”

It was necessarily a very long walk, with so much to be said. Benedicta came home with a hole walked through one of her best slippers; but she had heard the important things necessary for her to know. She had heard exactly why he felt that way, and at what instant he had begun to feel that way. She had given him permission to go ahead and do anything in the world for her; and he had kissed her--an awkward little kiss--when they said good night at the gate.

VI

Benedicta awoke to a rainy morning, but it was not the sort of rain that had hitherto fallen upon the earth. It was sweet, fresh, exhilarating. The sound of it drumming on the roof was as gay as martial music.

All the old wearisome things were gone out of her life, and the new ones had scarcely begun. She felt wonderfully free and spirited, like a person on a journey who has got as far as the railway station--who is definitely away from home, but still in familiar country.

She was thinking of nothing but Francis Dumall, the knight, the adventurer, the man determined to do something worth doing. She could imagine nothing in the modern world quite splendid enough for him to do. It was brave to be an aviator, but it wasn’t important enough. A statesman? Not picturesque enough. A writer? Not sufficiently active or daring.

“But he’ll have thought of something,” she reflected. “I know he has his life all planned. I wonder why I didn’t ask him about that, instead of about--other things. It’s because I’m frivolous and silly!”

Even that didn’t depress her. She was so full of hope and courage this morning that it seemed the simplest thing in the world to acquire wisdom at once. She intended to buy and read a new book this very day, so that she might talk about it to the incomparable Francis in the evening; and this not from any desire to show off, or to impress him, but simply from an honest and touching wish to follow him, to go at his pace, to prove her sympathy with his aims.

She had never bought a book in her life. It had been difficult enough--impossible, at times--to buy the barest necessities; and what they did get was usually procured on credit in mysterious ways by Mr. Miller.

Money of her own was a thing unknown to Benedicta. Nevertheless, she went in the calmest way and asked her father for a little. Mr. Miller was equally calm when he gave her all he had. Indeed, he forgot the present moment, and felt himself one of the old Millers making a lavish gift to a daughter whose hand was sought by a scion of the Dumalls.

It didn’t matter that she went rattling off in her little car along muddy roads. She couldn’t have been lovelier in a coach with footmen. The rain blew against her face and made it beautifully rosy. Her dark hair became a little loosened under her wide hat.

When she sprang out, and went into the butcher’s, he was astounded by this new aspect of the high and mighty Miss Miller. To tell the truth, he felt more respect and admiration for her happy youth than he had ever felt for her Millerness.

“Mr. Schultz,” she said eagerly, “can you tell me where there’s a book shop?”

Mr. Schultz had an educated son who bought books. He told her that for the first time in many years there was now a book shop in Elderfield, and a good one, too, just behind the post office.

“It’s--” he began, but she thanked him, and hurried off.

It was a trim, attractive little shop, with a striped awning, and in the window were displayed books as fresh and tempting as the first delectable fruits in spring. No bookworm was Benedicta, however. She pulled up the little car smartly, jumped out, and entered the shop with a brisk and resolute air.

“Have you a copy of--” she began, addressing the young man who came forward.

Then she stopped short with a gasp. It was Francis Dumall!

“Benedicta!” he cried. “This is the best thing that ever happened; I never thought of seeing you on a rainy day like this! Benedicta! How especially pretty you look!”

“But--” she faltered. “But I didn’t know--I didn’t think--you never told me you were here in a place like this!”

“Didn’t I?” he answered, with an air of triumph. “Well, take a good look at it, Benedicta! It’s my own!”

“Your--shop? You have a shop?”

He mistook her horror for incredulous admiration.

“Fact!” he said. “Mr. Wilkinson set me up six months ago, and I’m doing even better than I expected. I tell you, Benedicta, I’m really making the people here sit up and take notice that there are such things as books in this world. A fellow told me the other day that I was doing splendid missionary work. Why, look here, Benedicta--”

And he went on, showing her things, explaining, taking up books and opening them, and never noticing her frozen silence.

A customer came in. He sold her the book she wanted, and another which she hadn’t wanted before. A Dumall waiting on customers! A shopkeeper! That was what Benedicta’s knight, her splendid adventurer, was doing--selling books and wrapping them up!

When they were alone again, he sat down on the edge of the table and took both her hands.

“You see, darling, beautiful girl, in a year’s time, even if I don’t do better than I’m doing now, I’ll have paid back Wilkinson, and I’ll be standing on my own feet. Then I’ll be able--”

Benedicta tried to draw away her hands, tried to find words for the anger and bitter disappointment within her; but before she had uttered a syllable, the door opened again and a man entered.

“Dumall,” he said, politely ignoring the flushed Benedicta, “I wish you’d come over to the station with me and see that fellow from Cowan’s. He’s waiting for the up train, but he’d like to see you about that Bijou line of cards.”

Young Dumall turned to Benedicta with such a pleased expression.

“You won’t be afraid to look after the shop for a quarter of an hour, will you?” he asked earnestly. “You needn’t try to sell anything. If any one comes in, show those new books, you know--and keep them talking until I get back.”

Before she had time to refuse, he had hurried away on his errand.

VII

A Miller waiting in a shop! No! It was too much!

“I won’t do it!” Benedicta thought, angry tears in her eyes. “I’ll leave his horrible, vulgar shop! I never want to see him again! So this is what he calls something worth doing! In a year he’ll pay back Mr. Wilkinson and be standing on his own feet--”

Somehow the phrase arrested her. Standing on his own feet! Working honestly and faithfully and happily, proud of his work, confident of success, looking forward, instead of back--standing on his own feet!

Benedicta was at the door, with her hand on the latch, but she could not open it. It was as if a crowd of new ideas were holding it fast, keeping her in there. This bright, neat little place, where something was done, instead of remembered--this thing that was being built up, instead of falling into ruins--what had she ever had in her life one-half so fine? After all, wasn’t it an adventure, wasn’t it a worthy thing to do, to stand on his own feet?

The door was pushed open then, and the next instant the daughter of the Millers was confronted by a customer. Suddenly a strange new desire came over her--a desire to do something, instead of just being herself, a fierce determination to make even the smallest sort of individual effort.

In an instant, Benedicta knew all sorts of things she wasn’t aware of knowing. She understood the arrangement of the stock. She knew how to talk to this strange man. She was calm, reasonable, efficient. He wavered, and said he didn’t think he would take anything that morning; and she persuaded him! She made a sale!

She wrapped up the book and took the money for it. She kept the coins in her hand and stared at them. The shop was an entirely different place. The whole world was changed. She walked thoughtfully about, she saw improvements that could be made.

“Got it!” cried Dumall boyishly.

“Got what?” asked Benedicta, turning with a slight, preoccupied frown.

“The agency. I’m sorry I had to leave you, Benedicta. I ought to have some sort of assistant, but that’ll have to wait. Now, then, dear girl, let’s go out to lunch!”

“And leave the shop?” she inquired.

“I’ll close it for an hour. I often do, you know. No one’s likely to come in.”

“Some one did come in, just now,” said Benedicta, “and bought a book.” She handed him the money. “So you see,” she went on quite sternly, “if there’d been no one here--”

“But I have to. We’ll only be gone--”

“I’ll stay here while you have lunch.”

“But, Benedicta!” he objected. “I want to be with you. Never mind the shop!”

“Francis, I’m ashamed of you!” said she. “The shop shan’t be left alone. I--I love it!”

“Love the shop?” he asked. “Is that all?”

“Well, anyhow--I’d like to help you, Francis,” she murmured. “I’d be glad to come every day until--until you don’t need me any more.”

Young Dumall looked at her.

“I don’t think you know what you’re undertaking, Benedicta,” he said. “If you’re going to come until I don’t need you, it’s a life job!”

“Do run along and get your lunch!” replied Benedicta, dignified in spite of very flushed cheeks. “I--I believe a job was just what I always wanted, Francis!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY, 1924 Vol. LXXXI NUMBER 1

Nickie and Pem

THE STORY OF A YOUNG WOMAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO WASTE HER LIFE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“Pem, you’re too darned good!” said Nickie.

“I don’t call it being good,” replied Miss Pembroke. “I call it simply being self-respecting.”

This was the sort of thing her friends found objectionable, and Nickie began to object now.

“Lord!” said she. “Don’t we work hard enough to deserve a little fun now and then? It won’t hurt your precious self-respect to speak to a man now and then, will it? I can’t--”

“Oh, that’s all nonsense!” interrupted Miss Pembroke. “I see enough of men, and I put up with enough from them. When I’m off duty, I don’t have to put up with anything, and I won’t!”

“Nobody wants you to. The boys who are coming this evening are awfully nice boys. If you’d just come in and speak to them--”

Miss Pembroke closed her book sharply.

“Nickie,” she said, “I’m very fond of you; but I don’t like your friends--not any of them--and I wish you’d let me alone.”

“Certainly,” replied Nickie, in a haughty and offended tone.

She turned all her attention upon the process of manicuring, but neither the haughtiness nor the silence reassured Miss Pembroke, who knew that they wouldn’t last. It was hardly worth while to open her book again, for Nickie would be sure to interrupt.

“It’s getting to be too much of a good thing,” she reflected. “I needed a good rest after that last case, but I’ll never get it while Nickie’s here. This whole thing was a mistake. I ought to have taken a room somewhere by myself, where I couldn’t be bothered.”

This was by no means the first time she had regretted her present domestic arrangements. It was all Nickie’s fault, of course. Nickie had told her what a fine thing it would be to join with three other graduate nurses in taking a flat.

“A nice little home of our own,” Nickie had said, “where we can rest when we want to, and entertain our friends, and keep all our things. The other girls are simply great. You’ll like them.”

Miss Pembroke had said that five girls were too many.

“But we’ll never all be home at the same time,” Nickie had assured her. “Lots of times you and I will have the place to ourselves.”

In the course of a year this had happened only once. When Nickie was at home, Pem was off on a case. When Pem came home, instead of finding her faithful Nickie, one of the other girls would be there, or sometimes two of them; and Pem didn’t like them. She didn’t like their “parties,” or their conversation, or their cheerful, careless style of housekeeping.

She herself was never careless, and, though she was even-tempered and polite, she wasn’t often cheerful. As a nurse, she was matchless. Doctors wanted to send her to their most troublesome and exacting patients, because not only was she quick, capable, and intelligent, but she could hold her tongue and keep her temper, and she had a cool, quiet way with her that kept her patients in good order.

But this cool, quiet way of which doctors so highly approved was not at all pleasing to her housemates. Even Nickie thought it deplorable.

“Pem,” she had said to her once, “you could be young and beautiful, if you’d only learn how!”

There was truth in that observation. Miss Pembroke had both youth and beauty, and somehow managed to disguise them, so that they often went unnoticed. People would say that she was “impressive,” or “dignified,” or something of that sort, because they never saw her off guard, as Nickie saw her now. She was a tall, slender, dark-haired girl, with an austere, fine-bred face--not the sort of face one would turn to look after in the street, but a face which patients--above all, male patients--found very, very hard to forget. Her slender hands were clasped about one knee, and her clear amber eyes were staring thoughtfully before her. She was, thought Nickie, engaged in daydreams of some mysterious and enchanting kind unknown to more ordinary girls. But in reality--

“Nickie’s getting coarse,” Miss Pembroke was reflecting.

There was no coarseness to be seen in Miss Nicholson’s rosy, jolly face, nor to be observed in her manners and conversation. Indeed, no one but Miss Pembroke had yet seen any trace of it; but Pem was by nature critical, and just at this moment she was jaded and dispirited after six weeks of a ferocious typhoid patient, who had fallen in love with her in a very trying and ill-tempered way. Moreover, she was mortally weary of Nickie’s persistence.

“I’m sick and tired of men,” she thought. “All Nickie ever thinks of is men, and going to parties, and having what she calls a good time.”

Now this was not quite doing justice to Nickie. When she was not working, she was undeniably very fond of playing; but when you consider how very short and infrequent were her play times, and how very hard and exhausting was her work; when you consider that this lively, warm-hearted young creature had to witness every sort of human agony and wretchedness; when you bear in mind the tremendous responsibilities she so faithfully accepted; her generous readiness to do more than she needed to do, her charity, her sympathy, her sturdy courage--when you think of all this, it is not difficult to forgive her for being somewhat frivolous during her little hours of freedom.

There were weeks at a time when men, parties, and having a good time gave her mighty little concern. Just now, however, her mind was entirely given to such matters; and, as Pem expected, she couldn’t help trying again to persuade her friend.

“Oh, Pem!” she said coaxingly. “Just this once! Come in and speak to the boys, and if you don’t like them--”

“No!” said Pem.

But she did, and, by doing so, she changed the course of three lives.

She had no intention of seeing Nickie’s friends. In fact, she came nearer to quarreling with Nickie than she had ever yet come, and she retired to her own room with flushed cheeks and a frown on her calm brow. She was not in the habit of losing her temper, and this unusual annoyance disturbed her. She was restless, and couldn’t settle down to read or sew.

Her neat little room seemed all at once too neat and too little, and she wanted to get out of it. It was a clear, fine night. A walk, even a solitary and aimless one, wouldn’t be bad. She had put on her hat and coat, and was just about to open her door, when--when Nickie’s party arrived.

Impossible to go out now! In order to reach the front door, she would have to pass by the sitting room, and Nickie would see her and stop her.

“Nickie has absolutely no pride!” she thought, angrier than ever. “Even after what I said to her, she’d try to drag me in there!”

She took off her hat and flung it on the bed.

“I’ll read,” she decided.

She couldn’t read. The party disturbed her too much. They were laughing and talking, and presently some one began to play the piano and sing. It was an idiotic song, but it was delivered in a hearty, boyish voice that was somehow very touching.

There was violent applause when the singer finished, and after a few minutes he began again.

Pem came nearer to the door, her face grown very pale. “Keep the Home Fires Burning!” Some one else sang that--one night in Montreal--the night before the troop ship went out--a boy in a lieutenant’s uniform. Pem snapped the light and stood listening in the dark, her hands clenched, her eyes closed.

“So turn the dark clouds inside out, Till the boys come home.”

“Oh, God!” whispered Pem; for that boy would never come home, and the Pem who had listened to his gallant young voice was gone, too.

The singing stopped, only not for Pem. It went on sounding in her ears. The voice that she would never hear again and the living voice mingled together until she could bear it no longer. She must go in and see this other one--see with her own eyes that he was a stranger, in no way like--any one else.

II

Nickie welcomed her with a cry of joy.

“Here’s my pal!” she said, triumphantly. “Now you’ll all have to be good little boys. Pem, here’s Mr. Brown and Mr. Caswell and Mr. Hadley. Look ’em over!”

But the only one Pem wanted to see was Caswell--the boy who had been singing, the boy who must not look like some one else. Well, he didn’t. That one had been fair and this one was dark. There was no resemblance in a single feature; and yet the spell was not broken.

There was some quality in this man that stirred intolerable memories to life in Pem--something in his voice, in his smile, in the hearty grip of his hand. She looked and looked at him, trying in vain to catch that fugitive likeness.

She had never been so lovely, or so utterly careless of her own beauty. Her eyes were wonderfully luminous and soft in her pale face. Her hair, a little disordered by the hat she had pulled off, floated about her forehead in tiny, misty threads. She hadn’t a trace of that cool, quiet manner now.

Under that look of hers young Caswell grew suddenly ardent.

“I say!” he began. “You know--you’re simply--simply marvelous!”

“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Nickie, delighted. “Now sing some more, Cas. That’s what brought her to.”

“No,” said Pem. “Please don’t.”

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