The collected stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding from Munsey's Magazine, 1920-1928 (part 2 of 5)

The collected stories of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding from Munsey's Magazine, 1920-1928 (part 2 of 5)

The spell was slowly dissolving. She could see Caswell without illusions now--an ordinary nice-looking young fellow, unfortunately a little the worse for drink just now, like the others.

She had come in without any idea of staying, but for Nickie’s sake she resigned herself to a wearisome half hour. This was Nickie’s idea of a good time, and these were Nickie’s “awfully nice boys”! One of them offered Pem his pocket flask, but she declined, civilly enough, and sat down on the piano stool, so that Caswell couldn’t sing again.

She was quite aware that he was looking at her all the time. Very well, let him look! She felt a thousand miles away from him and the others, and somehow very lonely.

This sudden change disturbed Nickie. Now that she had got Pem here at last, it would never do to let the party prove a fizzle. She whispered to one of the men, and then called out:

“Pem, get your hat on! We’re all going up to the Devon to dance!”

“No, thanks,” said Pem firmly.

There was a chorus of protests.

“Oh, come on, Pem!” Nickie entreated. “I don’t want to go alone with three fellows, and I’m dying for a dance. Please, Pem, just for an hour!”

“No, thanks,” said Pem again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel up to it. I’m tired.”

And then, beside her, she heard a voice which, in spite of herself, she could not hear unmoved.

“I say, Miss Pembroke! Please!”

She shook her head, but she smiled, for once more she caught a glimpse of that curious likeness, and it made her gentle toward him. What was it? What could she see in this flushed, unsteady boy to put her in mind of that other, fine and stern, a young knight?

“Look here!” said Caswell, bending lower, so that only she could hear. “Please don’t--don’t judge me by this. I--I’m--I can’t tell you how sorry I am for you to see me--like this. I--I don’t do it, you know, I give you my word. You see, I’ve just come back from Melbourne, and this was my first night on shore, and--if you’d just give me another chance!”

“All right, I will,” said Pem suddenly. “I’ll see you again. I’ll be glad to.”

And she meant it. She no longer wanted to deny the unreasonable, half scornful liking she felt for this man. She did like him, and that was enough.

“Oh, but, look here!” he cried. “We’re sailing to-morrow for Halifax. I’ve only got this one night!”

“But you’ll come back to New York, won’t you?”

“Oh, some day!” he answered bitterly. “God knows when--I don’t. We’re running all over after cargoes. We may come back here from Halifax, and we may go anywhere. It may be months before I see you again.”

“Would that be so awful?” asked Pem, with a smile.

But he didn’t smile.

“Yes,” he said. “It would--for me!”

Pem was annoyed at her own response to his emotion. She wanted to laugh at him, and she could not. This was the worst sort of nonsense--the sort of thing Nickie was always telling her about. Nickie would call this “thrilling.” Well, Pem didn’t.

“I’m sorry for you,” she said ironically; but, as if there were magic in his eyes, the words turned to truth when she looked at him. “Please don’t be silly!” she added, in a quite different voice--gentle, almost appealing.

“The only silly thing would be to pretend it wasn’t like this,” said he. “I didn’t want it to be this way, but--it just happened. As soon as I saw you--”

Pem jumped up.

“All right, Nickie!” she called out. “I’ll go with you!”

III

Caswell got into the taxi after her and slammed the door.

“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Pem, you wonderful girl!”

“You know you really are silly!” she protested.

“Then I hope to Heaven I’ll never be anything else! I’d give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this. Hang being sensible, anyhow! Let’s be silly, Pem!”

“I am--I have been--sillier than I ever was before in my life. Don’t, Arthur!”

She felt obliged to object to his putting his arm about her shoulders and kissing her--a very unconvincing little objection, however, to which he paid no attention.

“You do love me, don’t you, Pem?” he asked, and waited a long time. “Pem! I say, Pem! You do love me, don’t you?”

“Oh, I really don’t know!” she cried impatiently.

Was it love, she thought? It was not in any way the love she had felt before--not that strange and terrible thing, half pride, half humility, half anguish and half ecstasy.

“That couldn’t ever come again,” she thought.

It had been her consolation for so long, that never again would that intolerable emotion stir her heart. After she had lost that one man, there wasn’t another walking the earth who could capture her interest--until this evening.

She couldn’t understand the glamour that enveloped young Caswell, the inexplicable charm of him. He was neither very handsome nor very clever--just an ordinary nice-looking boy; and yet, when he said that he would give all the common sense and prudence and so on in the world for one night like this, she agreed with him in her heart.

They had gone to a restaurant and danced, they had taken a taxicab to another restaurant and danced again, they had had supper--that was all there was to it. It was simply one of those brainless “parties” so dear to Nickie--with too much drinking on the part of the men, too much smoking, the stupidest sort of talk and laughter. Then why had it been so beautiful? Because of that boy’s glance which always followed her, that look on his face, his fervent, halting love-making?

Suddenly she stopped trying to reason about it. It was beautiful. She had been utterly happy again; she was happy now.

“Pem!” he said. “Oh, Pem! Can’t you tell me? I’m going away, you know.”

His voice broke, she felt the arm about her shoulders tremble a little, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m afraid I do love you,” she said.

She gave him one kiss, and then, with a little laugh, pushed him away.

“Don’t talk any more about it--not now,” she said. “Look! The sky’s getting light. It’s morning.”

“And I’m due on board at ten o’clock,” he said. “I’ll come back to you, Pem. Pem, you won’t forget me? You won’t--you couldn’t, could you, Pem?”

“I don’t think so,” she answered.

The taxi had stopped before the apartment house, where Nickie and the two other boys, just arrived, were waiting for them in the street. A pallid light was spreading in the sky, and a strange quiet lay over the city. Trucks rumbled far away, but there wasn’t a voice or a footstep. The street lamps still burned wanly.

“It’s time for breakfast,” suggested one of the boys. “Let’s go to a beanery and have something to eat.”

“No!” said Pem sharply. “We’ve had enough. Good-by! Come on, Nickie!”

For she had seen on Nickie’s face something that hurt her--something that she had often seen in the mirror, reflected in her own eyes.

IV

Nickie was lying on the bed, flat on her back, without a pillow, her eyes resolutely closed, in a stern effort to rest. That morning, just as she was saying good-by--very willingly--to the cantankerous old lady with a broken arm whom she had been attending for three weeks, Dr. Lucas had telephoned and told her that he wanted her for night duty on a pneumonia case. It was a bad case, and she had a bad night ahead of her. She must rest now; but she couldn’t. This wasn’t rest.

She heard the key turned in the latch, and the front door opened quietly.

“Hello, Mac!” she called.

But it was not Miss McCarty who answered. It was Pem.

“You home, Nickie?” she said. “That’s nice.”

She came into the bedroom. Nickie sat up and stared at her with wide eyes.

“For Pete’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s the meaning of all this, Pem?”

“I don’t know,” replied Pem slowly. She had taken off her hat and coat, and was looking at herself in the glass--at her carefully dressed hair, the artful touch of color in her cheeks, the new frock of navy twill with red leather buttons. “I look rather nice, don’t I, Nickie?”

“Yes,” said Nickie, “stunning; but--well, I suppose I’m not used to it. But what’s the reason, Pem?”

Pem’s explanation did not satisfy her. Pem said that her patient was a wealthy young woman suffering from a mild form of melancholia. She had to be diverted, and--

“I had to look halfway decent, going about with her,” said Pem. “She wanted me to.”

“Finished now?” Nickie asked.

“No--it may last for months; but I often get an afternoon off when her sister comes to stay with her. She likes me to clear out sometimes, so that she can tell her sister how awful I am.”

“Doesn’t she like you, Pem?”

“Oh, pretty well; but she doesn’t really like anybody but herself. That’s what’s the matter with her. She’s got everything on earth--money, and friends, and a wonderful husband. Lend me some of your powder, Nickie?”

“Powder? Going out again now, Pem?”

Pem nodded.

“Who with?”

“With a man,” said Pem, laughing. “Don’t faint!”

“Of course it’s not my business,” observed Nickie, “but it--it isn’t the husband, is it?”

She waited a long time for an answer.

“I wish you’d tell me, Pem. I always tell you things.”

Pem turned and looked at her steadily.

“No, you don’t, Nickie,” she said; “not always.”

Nickie looked back at her friend quite as steadily.

“I do,” she said. “I tell you anything that really matters. You see, Pem, the reason I am asking this is because I thought you were rather gone on Arthur Caswell. You see, I’ve known him for a long while, so I--”

Pem turned to open the bureau drawer, and to take out a pair of white gloves and a handkerchief.

“I’ll tell you something, Nickie,” she said in a curt, cool voice. “He would never have looked at me that night if I had been my real self. I acted like a fool, and that’s what he liked. That’s what every one likes. After he’d gone, everything seemed tame and flat, and I felt so lonely that I couldn’t stand it. I’m going to keep on being a fool, Nickie. I’m going to make people like me. I’m going to live, and enjoy myself!”

“All right,” said Nickie; “but what about Arthur Caswell?”

“He’ll never come back.”

“Yes, he will.”

“If he does, then--but he won’t. I’m not going to waste my life--or what’s left of it.”

“If I was going to waste any lives,” said Nickie, “I’d rather waste my own than any one else’s.”

Pem was astounded.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Are you trying to preach to me, Nickie? It was you who started the whole thing--always pestering me to go to parties.”

“I never went out with a married man in my life,” said Nickie; “and I never would, either.”

“That’s a little too much, after that last party!” returned Pem scornfully. “You wouldn’t go out with a married man, but you don’t mind three fellows who’ve been drinking!”

“How do you know I didn’t mind?” cried Nickie, jumping up. “Just let me tell you, Pem--I knew Arthur Caswell’s people in Halifax. His father’s a strict Presbyterian. I know what he’d think about that, and I’d have stopped Arthur, too, if--”

Pem was about to make a sharp retort, but she changed her mind in time. Going over to Nickie, she put her arms about her friend.

“I’m sorry, little pal,” she said gently. “I didn’t mean to.”

Nickie gave her a rough little hug.

“All right, Pem,” she said. “I know! But, Pem, for my sake, please don’t go out with this man. You’ll be sorry for it--awfully sorry. It’s not like you. Don’t do it, Pem!”

“You don’t understand, Nickie. He’s a wonderful man, so honorable--”

“He’s not honorable if he goes out with you behind his wife’s back.”

“How can he help it, when she’s turned her back on him for good? She’s horrible to him. Nobody else would have put up with her as he has. He is honorable, Nickie; he’s a gentleman through and through. He’s so lonely--you don’t know what that is, but I do. He’s longing and longing for women to be nice and friendly to him. If his wife was ever halfway decent to him--”

She stopped short, because the doorbell had rung.

“There he is,” she said. “Nickie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I wish you’d see him and talk to him. Then you’d understand. Open the door and talk to him while I’m getting ready.”

Nickie hesitated for a moment.

“All right!” she said, then. “I’ll talk to him!”

Without even troubling to smooth her unruly hair, off she went, down the passage. In a moment she was back.

“Pem,” she cried, “Arthur Caswell is here!”

They stared at each other in a sort of dismay, both speechless for a time.

“I’ll take him out, quick,” said Pem. “When Mr. Blanchard comes, tell him something--anything. I’ll see you later, Nickie. I’ll stop here before I go back to Mr. Blanchard’s.”

“All right,” Nickie said again.

When Pem had gone, she closed the bedroom door after her; but she didn’t even try to rest now.

V

Pem went down the passage with a lagging step and a heart strangely troubled and doubting.

“No,” she said to herself. “Of course it can’t be like that. I just imagined it. I’ve thought about it so much that--no, it couldn’t really have been so wonderful. He couldn’t have been so dear. When I see him again I shall get over being so silly.”

But that silliness was the best thing in her life. For weeks the glamour of that enchanted evening had colored all her days. The music they had danced to still sounded in her ears, faint and stirring. When she closed her eyes, she could see again the sparkle and glitter of that tinsel fairyland of Broadway, made true and fine by the boy’s love.

“I won’t be an idiot!” she told herself. “When I see him again, I’ll find that he’s--not really like that!”

So, with what fortitude she had, she entered the little sitting room. He didn’t hear her. He was standing at the window, with his back toward the room, his hands in his pockets--such a straight, stalwart figure!

“Hello!” said Pem. “It’s a surprise to see you here again!”

Then he turned, and it was true, all of it--that look she had remembered, that glamour, that enchantment.

“Oh, Pem!” he said. “Didn’t you know I’d come?”

For a minute she was utterly content in his arms, as if her restless and disconsolate spirit had at last found peace; but not for long. She moved away, still holding his hand, and looking at him with a misty smile.

“You’re so beautiful!” he said. “Sometimes I thought you couldn’t be as lovely as I remembered, but you’re a hundred times--”

The clock on the mantelpiece struck three.

“Let’s go out!” she said hastily.

He was a little taken aback.

“Can’t we stay here, Pem? I want a chance to talk to you.”

“Not here. We can talk somewhere else. I know a nice little tea room where we can dance.”

“I don’t want to dance,” said he; “and--look here, Pem! I’m a bit hard up, this trip.”

She couldn’t help kissing him for that.

“As if I cared! We’ll take a bus ride, then.”

“No, we won’t do that, either,” said he, half laughing. “We’ll stay where we are. I want to talk to you. I--does this suit you, Pem?”

From his pocket he pulled out a ring, carried loose in there, without a box, without even a bit of paper, and laid it in her hand. There it was, honest and unashamed, like himself--the tiniest little diamond. She stared down at it through a veil of tears.

“Best I could do,” he said a little forlornly. “You see, I never tried to save my pay, and it’s darned small, Pem, old girl. I’m only third mate. I dare say I don’t make as much as you do.”

“Never mind! That doesn’t matter,” she answered, so low that he could scarcely hear.

It seemed to her the most touching and beautiful thing that had ever happened, that he should come to her with his poor little ring, so simply and loyally offering her all he had.

“But we can manage,” he went on more cheerfully. “I’ve figured it out. We can take a little flat, you know, and if we’re careful, we can get on. You won’t mind a pretty quiet life, will you, Pem? Nickie told me you weren’t keen on going out and all that. I’m not, either--at least, not now. I was, you know, but not now. We’ll settle down--”

He stopped short, looking at her with a faint frown, but she did not meet his eyes. She was shocked, appalled, at her own traitorous thoughts. She glanced again at the ring, and tried in vain to recapture the tenderness and pity she had felt.

To settle down and marry this boy--not to dance with him, not to listen to his love-making to the accompaniment of music, in a bright dazzle of light, but to marry him and settle down to a deadly quiet life--she knew very well what that meant. She had often enough been in the sort of little flat they would have to live in. She went into such places when sickness was already there. She had seen all the makeshifts, all the sordid and pitiful anxieties of such existences--people who hadn’t enough towels and sheets, who couldn’t afford hot water bottles, who couldn’t afford even the necessary sunlight.

The quiet life! What had he to do with a quiet life? He had come suddenly into her own chill, somber existence, startling her into youth and gayety--that was why she loved him. A dear, honest, silly boy, to dance with, to be happy with for an evening, but--

“Pem!” he said abruptly. “What’s the matter?”

At his peremptory tone, she found it less difficult to speak. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke as kindly as she could.

“I’m afraid you’re going ahead a little too fast,” she said. “After all, we’ve only seen each other once before, you know. Doesn’t it seem--”

“Do you mean that you don’t care for me?” he interrupted.

His bluntness disconcerted her.

“No,” she said, with a trace of impatience; “but we don’t really know each other. I think we ought to wait--until we’re sure.”

He was silent for a long time, searching her downcast face.

“You’re sure now, aren’t you?” he asked at last. “All right, Pem! All my fault! I might have known--”

And in the face of his sincerity, his honest and unresentful pain, she could give him no false hope, no false consolation, nothing but the truth revealed to him by her silence.

He took the ring from her hand and looked at it with a shadowy smile. Then, before she knew what he was about, he threw it out of the open window into the street.

She came to the window and looked down, but she couldn’t see it in the street far below.

“Oh, why did you do that?” she cried. “Why, didn’t--”

A sob rose in her throat. She turned away her head, so that he should not see her tears.

“Don’t cry!” he said. “It’s all my fault. I should have known better, of course. I say, Pem! Please don’t cry! The whole thing isn’t worth it. Just--let’s say good-by, Pem!”

She held out both her hands. After a brief hesitation, he took them in his.

“I’ll never forgive myself!” she said unsteadily. “Never!”

“Nothing to forgive,” he assured her, with a gallant attempt at a smile. “I--anyhow, I’m glad I ever saw you. Good-by, Pem!”

If it could only have ended then! If he could have gone then, with that moment for them to remember! But it was their great misfortune that no such memory should be left to them.

The doorbell rang, and Nickie came out of her room.

“Shall I go, Pem?” she asked. “Or--”

Pem looked at her helplessly. As the flat was arranged, the front door could not be opened without affording a plain view of the sitting room.

“I’ll let it ring,” said Nickie, with a fine effect of carelessness. “No one we want to see.”

But that was not Pem’s way. She came of an austere and stiff-necked family, living secluded on an exhausted little Vermont farm. They had nothing much but pride to keep them warm in winter, to feed and clothe them. Pride was the only heritage that came down to Pem, and pride would not allow her to refuse admission to Mr. Blanchard, no matter what it cost her. As for the possible cost to Arthur Caswell and to Nickie, that didn’t occur to her just then.

She opened the door herself.

“I’m afraid I’m a little late,” said a courteous, apologetic voice. “Please--”

Then, as he followed Pem inside, he caught sight of the others, and made a general bow.

“This is Mr. Blanchard, Nickie,” said Pem.

He looked altogether what Pem had called him--a gentleman through and through. He was a rather slight man in the middle forties, with a sensitive, harassed face, hair a little gray on the temples, and fine, dark eyes. He hadn’t in the least a furtive or shamefaced air. Indeed, there was a quiet sort of straightforwardness about him that favorably impressed Nickie, in spite of her prejudice against the man.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you from Miss Pembroke,” he said.

Nickie liked his smile, his voice, his well bred ease. She liked all this, and yet, when Pem presented Caswell to him, her liking was a pain. Arthur seemed so young, so awkward, such an immature and unimpressive creature, in contrast to his senior. She wanted to defend him against comparison. She wanted to force Pem to see, and Mr. Blanchard to see, the splendid qualities in the young sailor.

But she had no chance. Before she could interfere, Blanchard had mentioned that it was growing late. Pem had answered that she was ready, and off they went.

VI

“I would never have told you,” said Blanchard. “I would have gone on the best way I could, without you; but now--”

Pem looked at him across the table. By the light of the gold-shaded electric candle his thin face was almost incredibly fine. He looked, she thought, a little inhuman, with his delicate features, his dark, glowing eyes, and the silvery gleam of white on his temples. His tremendous consideration for her, his squeamishness, had made his story such a long one!

After all, she wasn’t a girl just out of school.

“I’ve seen more of life than he has,” she reflected; “and yet it has taken him two hours to tell me that his wife is going to divorce him. I suppose it’ll take another hour before he can tell me that he hopes I can marry him when he’s free. I suppose it ought to take me a week to answer him!”

She stifled a sigh. It was nonsense for him to try to shield his wife from Pem, who had two months in which to observe her savage egotism. Such a dilemma for his chivalrous soul--to make it clear to Pem that his wife had no just cause for divorcing him, and yet to protect the woman against the implication of cruel unreasonableness. All things considered, he had done very well.

“A--a mutual agreement,”, he had called it. “I think you’d better not go back,” he went on gently. “She’s very much upset. Her sister and her mother are with her.”

Silence fell between them. The orchestra was playing in a gallery behind them--a gay and delicate air. The rooms were filled with the sort of people Pem liked about her, with light, laughing voices, faint perfumes, and the smoke of cigarettes.

One of Blanchard’s hands was extended on the table--a slender hand, beautifully tended. He was so fastidious in everything, so kind, so honorable, so appealing in his masculine assumption of her ignorance and helplessness. He wanted to take care of her and shelter her. He would have been horrified at the thought of her living in a little flat on a third mate’s pay. He would have turned pale at the sight of that poor, poor little ring.

“You’re very quiet,” he said, a little anxiously. “I hope I haven’t--”

Pem looked up with a smile.

“No!” she thought, as if defying a voice that had not spoken. “It’s no use! I’m not like that. I couldn’t stand it. I shall be happy with Everett. It’s his kind of life that I want.” Aloud she said, in the ladylike, noncommittal tone he expected of her: “I’d better be going back to Nickie now.”

Blanchard took her back in a taxi, and all the way he talked of impersonal matters--not a word of love. She knew he wouldn’t mention that until he was free to do so honorably.

He left her at the door. She turned as she entered, and saw him standing bareheaded in the street--a handsome and distinguished man, yet somehow pitiful to her, with that touch of white at the temples.

The flat was empty when she got in. Nickie, of course, had gone to her case. Arthur Caswell--she couldn’t imagine his destination.

On the kitchen table were the disorderly remains of a tea for two. The sitting room, too, was very untidy, as Nickie always left it. Pem turned on the electric light and began to set it in order. She emptied the ash tray, full of the stubs of those horrible cheap cigarettes she had seen Caswell smoking. She picked up the magazines that lay on the floor, and straightened the chairs.

The piano was open, with music on the rack. She went to close it. The lid slipped from her hand, and, falling, jarred the strings with a queer, trembling discord. She could have imagined it the faint, distant echo of a voice--a young voice.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1924 Vol. LXXXI NUMBER 3

His Remarkable Future

THE STORY OF A RAPTUROUS BUT SOMEWHAT TUMULTUOUS ENGAGEMENT

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“Haven’t you any umbrella?” asked Hardy, with a frown.

“I have one,” answered Miss Patterson, “but not here.”

She was dignified, he was somewhat severe. Both were important, preoccupied, adult persons, full of business concerns; nevertheless, they did not quite know how to proceed with the conversation. They stood side by side in the lobby of the office building, looking not at all at each other, but at the steady and violent rain. Miss Patterson was reluctant to walk off in such a downpour, and Hardy was determined that she should not.

“Silly kid!” he thought. “In that flimsy suit and those fool shoes!”

Any number of other girls ran past, some with newspapers over their hats, some laughing, some gravely worried, but he was not perturbed by them. They could stand it. No other living girl was so peculiarly fragile as Miss Patterson, or beset with so many dangers.

“I think it will stop,” said she.

This annoyed him. She was trying to make light of a most serious situation.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because it always does stop,” she said. “At least, it always has, in the past.”

He turned his head to look at her, and he grew a little dizzy. In the bleak light of that dismal day, Miss Patterson seemed to glow with a strange radiance. Her light hair was like a nimbus under her hat, her blue eyes were lambent, and she chose just that moment to make the color deepen in her cheeks. It was not fair!

“I’ll get a taxi,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “Please don’t! I live miles and miles uptown.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Hardy, and off he darted.

He stopped a cab with the air of a highwayman, and returned to Miss Patterson. As he put her into the vehicle, a curious change came over them. Hardy ceased to be masterful and severe, and Miss Patterson was no longer dignified. They looked at each other steadily, with a strange sort of despair.

“Look here!” said Hardy, in an uncertain voice. “Can’t I come with you?”

“Oh, no!” cried she. “Oh, no! Oh, you’d better not!”

But they both knew that he was going with her, that he must, that the inevitable moment had come, the moment foreseen by both of them all through the winter.

“What’s the address?” he asked.

That was the last thing needed. Now he knew where the human, unofficial Miss Patterson lived. She was disassociated from business now. She was not a typist, but a girl.

She seemed aware of all this, for, as he got into the cab beside her, she looked at him in a new way--a look so bright, so clear, so gentle!

“Look here!” he said. “I--I don’t want to be a nuisance. If you’d really rather I didn’t come--”

She only shook her head. If she had tried to speak, she would have ended in tears.

He didn’t know that he, too, had a new look--that his young face had grown pale and strained, his eyes dark with his great fear and his great hope. And this was the splendid, vainglorious Mr. Hardy from the import department, the young man of whom great things were expected, who was to be made assistant buyer when Mr. Hallock left at the end of the year.

The other girls had talked about him a good deal, for he was a figure to capture the imagination--a handsome boy, swaggering a little in the honest pride of his young manhood: only twenty-three, and going to be made assistant buyer!

“You know,” he said. “I’ve often wanted to--to have a little talk with you. I--I often noticed you.”

“Did you?” said Miss Patterson, ready to laugh through her unshed tears, for he needn’t have troubled to tell her that.

“But you see,” he went on, “I didn’t know--I couldn’t tell whether you--”

She was very glad to hear that, because sometimes she had been afraid that he could tell, could read in her face what was in her heart.

“You know, you’re so different from any one else,” he said. “Every time I saw you, I--whenever I saw you, it seemed--that is, I thought you were so different from any one else.”

He stopped, aware that he was doing very badly, and filled with horror at his own idiotic words. She would think he was a fool.

Yet how could he possibly convey to this ethereal, fragile, and unworldly creature any idea of his own tempestuous love without alarming and offending her? He had no business to love her. It was a gross impertinence. She was an angel, and he was nothing but a clumsy--

The taxi turned a corner sharply, and he was flung sidewise, so that his shoulder brushed hers.

“I’m sorry!” he cried earnestly. “I couldn’t help it!”

“But you’re soaking wet!” said Miss Patterson.

Her gloved hand rested on his shoulder, and her voice--no, impossible!

“You’re not--crying?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, I am,” said Miss Patterson. “I am. I can’t bear to--to think of your getting so wet and catching a cold--just to get me a--a taxi!”

“But I shan’t catch cold,” said Hardy. He was trying to bear in mind that her words, her tears, were nothing but an expression of her wonderful kindness and humanity. She would be sorry for any one who got wet and caught a cold in her service. That was all that she meant--absolutely all. “I shan’t catch cold,” he went on. “I never do: but you--you see, you’re so delicate--”

“I’m not!” said she. “Not a bit! But I remember perfectly well that last February you had the most--oh, the most awful cold!”

“Edith!” cried he, astounded, overwhelmed by this confession. “You remember that?”

Miss Patterson suddenly drew away, and ceased weeping.

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “I--yes, I remember.”

A silence.

“Then you must--must feel a little interested in me,” said Hardy.

Silence.

“I hope you do,” added Hardy.

The worst silence of all.

“Why do you hope that?” she asked, in a blank, small voice.

“Because I--ever since the first time I saw you, I thought perhaps you’d noticed.”

“Noticed what?” inquired Miss Patterson, and he fancied that there was a shade of coldness in her voice. He was in despair. Of course she had no idea what he was driving at, he was so appallingly clumsy and stupid about it. He must do better than this! He drew a long breath.

“My prospects are pretty good,” he remarked. “They’re going to make me assistant buyer at the end of the year.”

“So I’ve heard,” said she, and this time there was no mistaking the coldness in her tone.

“I didn’t say that to boast,” he assured her anxiously. “I only wanted to tell you because--I wanted you to know that I--”

“I shouldn’t blame you for boasting,” said Miss Patterson, in a polite, formal way. “Every one says you have a remarkable future before you.”

“Not without you!” he cried. “I don’t want any future without you! Oh, Edith, I don’t know how to tell you--”

The head of the auditing department, in which Miss Patterson worked, often praised her for the quickness with which she grasped new ideas. This praise seemed justified, for she understood Hardy without further explanation.

Nevertheless, they both had an enormous amount of explaining to do. All the way uptown they were engaged in explaining to each other, with the greatest earnestness, just how they felt, why they felt so, and when they had begun to feel so. When they reached the depressing West Side street where Edith lived, they hadn’t half finished.

The taxi stopped, and the driver turned around, so that they couldn’t go on explaining, or even say good-by; but Hardy went into the dingy little vestibule with his Edith.

“Darling girl!” he said. “Shan’t I come upstairs with you and see your aunt?”

She turned away.

“I’d rather you didn’t, Joe,” she said. “Not just now, please!”

He was willing to do anything in the world she wanted, except to leave her; but that was almost impossible. She seemed to him so forlorn, so little and so young. The brightness had left her face now. She was downcast and pale.

“Edith!” he said. “Aren’t you happy at home?”

“No, Joe, I’m not,” she answered. “I’m wretched!”

When she saw what that did to him, how much it hurt him, she was overcome with remorse.

“Oh, but it doesn’t matter--now!” she said. “Not now--when I have you. Really and truly, Joe, I don’t care a bit!”

Her anxiety to reassure him, to send him away happy, touched Hardy almost beyond endurance. He had always been aware of something wistful, something a little sorrowful about her, like a shadow over her clear beauty. She had been the dearer to him for that. She was a thousand times dearer to him now because she was sad, and must look to him for her happiness. He meant to make her happy--at any cost!

II

Those words, “at any cost,” did not come consciously into Hardy’s mind. He didn’t really believe that happiness cost anything--or love, either. You found them, suddenly, on your way through life, and of course you had a right to keep what you found.

He did see difficulties, though. His prospects were good, but in his immediate present there were many things that troubled him.

His chief trouble was one which young fellows of twenty-three who want to get married have encountered before. It was money. His salary of twenty-five hundred a year was more than he needed for his own wants, and he had done a very sensible thing--he had begun buying stock in the company that employed him, turning in ten dollars of his salary every week for this purpose. He had four hundred dollars saved in that way, but no one ever repented a folly more heartily than young Hardy now regretted his prudence.

He couldn’t touch that money. He knew very well that one of Mr. Plummer’s strongest reasons for promoting him was that infernal stock he was buying. If he were to sell it, or to stop his payments, Mr. Plummer would want to know why, and Hardy’s prospects would be in jeopardy. He couldn’t marry without those prospects, nor could he very well get married without the money.

Well, any wise and experienced person could solve that difficulty for him. He must wait. Even Edith, who was neither wise nor experienced, told him that. They were having lunch together a few days after their great discovery of happiness, and Hardy had been explaining the situation in detail.

“We’ll have to wait,” said Edith. “Anyhow--”

“No,” said he. “I can’t stand seeing you so miserable!”

“But I’d be a hundred times more miserable if I thought I was doing you any harm!” said Edith.

As soon as the words were spoken, she realized that she had made a serious mistake, and tried hastily to remedy it.

“I’m really not miserable, Joe!” she cried. “Not a bit!”

He knew better, though. Without even having seen her, he was becoming acquainted with Edith’s aunt, and learning to appreciate her talent for making people miserable. Edith never told him about it. It wasn’t her habit to complain, but to any one who watched her as Hardy did, the thing was obvious.

One evening, when he was walking to the Subway with her, she had to stop in the drug store to buy a bottle of “nerve tonic” at two dollars a bottle.

“You don’t take that stuff, do you, Edith?” he had asked anxiously.

“Oh, no!” she replied. “It’s for Aunt Bessie. She’s in very poor health, you know.”

“What’s the matter with her?” Hardy bluntly inquired.

He did not fail to notice Edith’s troubled, face and rising color; and the answer that Aunt Bessie was “terribly nervous” seemed to him to explain a good deal.

Then he learned that Aunt Bessie was upset if Edith was a few minutes late in getting home, and that she would be still more painfully upset if Edith should even suggest going out in the evening.

“She’s alone all day, you see,” the girl explained, “and it does seem selfish to go out again.”

“Oh, very selfish!” Hardy interrupted. “And what about Saturday afternoon and Sunday?”

“Well, you see, Joe, she’s alone all week, and--and she hasn’t any one but me. Anyhow, Joe, we see each other every day in the office, and we can have lunch together, can’t we?”

He said nothing more just then, for he could see that Edith was unhappy and anxious. For those first few days even having lunch with her was almost too good to be true; but the day when Edith said they must wait, and Hardy said he wouldn’t, was Monday, after he had spent a horrible Sunday without a glimpse of her.

“No,” he said again. “We can’t go on like this. I can’t, anyhow.”

Again she pointed out that they saw each other every day in the office, and could have lunch together. She added that they had only been engaged five days.

“I know,” said he. “It would be all right if I could see you, but you won’t let me come to your house, and you won’t go out with me.”

“But we see each other--”

“Yes, and we can have lunch together, for the next ten years, I suppose!” Hardy interrupted.

“It won’t be anything like ten years, you silly boy! At the end of the year, when you--”

“Yes, and do you know what’s going to happen then? They’re going to send me to Europe, with Preble, for two months.”

“Oh!” cried Edith.

For a moment she was silent, overcome by this news. Then she made a gallant attempt at a reasonable, calm, businesslike manner.

“But, after all--two months!” she said.

Her smile was a very poor one, and her voice betrayed her. Instead of helping her, Hardy became unmanageable.

“Look here!” he said. “September, October, November--that’s three months that we can have lunch together. Then I’ll be away for December and January: so perhaps after five months I may have a chance to--kiss you once more, if your aunt doesn’t mind. Five whole months, and you won’t let me see you alone for five minutes!”

“Oh, Joe, darling! Do be reasonable!”

“You’re a little too reasonable,” said he. “If you really cared for me--”

There is no better way to begin a quarrel than with those classic words. Edith grew angry, but her anger was such a mild little thing compared to Hardy’s that she took refuge in flight, and left him sitting alone in the restaurant. All was over!

That afternoon they had four hours to think over their words. When Edith came downstairs, Hardy was waiting for her in the lobby.

“Edith!” he said. “Edith! I don’t know how I could have been such a brute! Edith, I can’t--”

“Oh, Joe, you weren’t! I know it must seem heartless to you for me to talk that way: but you don’t understand, Joe!”

As they walked toward the Subway, she tried to tell him. It was the hottest hour of that sultry September day, and she looked so jaded, so pale, that he was frightened. He held her arm, his tall head bent, to catch every word, his eyes fixed on her face.

“You see,” she said, “I owe so much to Aunt Bessie. She took me when I was a tiny girl, after mother died, and she gave up everything for me--everything, Joe! She used the little bit of money she had to send me to a good school, and when that was gone she went to work. That’s what ruined her health--working in an office; and she did it for me, Joe. If she’s a little--a little trying now, I--you do see, don’t you, Joe?”

“Yes, my darling girl, I see,” he answered, more gently than she had ever heard him speak before. “I think--see here, Edith! Could you spare time for a soda?”

She thought she could. They went into a shop near by, and sat down at a little table in a dark corner. He stretched out his hand toward hers, which lay on the table, but he drew it back again. He wasn’t going to do anything that might bother her, never again. He would be patient, he would do anything in the world she wanted. He was sick with remorse and alarm at her pallor and fatigue.

“I’ll do whatever you want, Edith,” he said. “Only--I love you so! If you would just tell me more about yourself! It’s hard not to know.”

It was her hand that grasped his.

“As if I didn’t understand! Oh, Joe, I worried so awfully about you that time you got wet! If you had been sick, I couldn’t have been with you. I didn’t even know who there’d be to take care of you.”

“Don’t!” he said suddenly. “Please don’t, little Edith! I don’t need much taking care of. It’s you! Do you mind telling me what--how you--how it is with you financially?”

She did tell him, readily and frankly, and he was appalled. She was supporting herself and her aunt on her meager salary. Two persons entirely dependent on this slip of a girl!

“Edith!” he said. “Won’t you marry me now? My salary’s enough for us to scrape along on.”

Both her hands clasped his now.

“Joe, my own dearest, I can’t!”

“We can take your aunt to live with us for a while, until I’ve got my raise.”

“Joe, we can’t!”

“I don’t care how bad she is. If you can stand her, I can.”

“You couldn’t! Don’t you see, Joe, that that would spoil everything? We couldn’t start like that. But if you’d--”

“If I’d what?”

“Nothing!” she said hastily. “I’ll tell you another time.”

But instead of telling him, she left a note on his desk the next morning.

DEAR JOE:

I will marry you now, if you won’t ask me to give up my job.

“I don’t wonder you wrote it,” said Hardy, when he met her for lunch.

“Joe, it’s the only way!”

“It’s not my way,” said he.

She reminded him that he had promised her to do whatever she wanted, and he replied that he would do so--except in this instance.

“Well, I won’t let you have the burden of taking care of Aunt Bessie,” she told him. “It’s bad enough for you to think of getting married, anyhow, when you’re so young, and just at the beginning of a wonderful career--”

“Young, am I? Then what about you?” he asked. “No! When you marry me, you’ll be done with offices. That’s something I won’t argue about.”

She pretended to be angry, but in her heart she adored him when he was magnificent and arbitrary.

III

“It isn’t really a lie,” said Edith. “I really do go to the French class.”

“It’s too near a lie to suit me,” said Hardy bluntly. “I’m sick of this hole-and-corner business. It’s--can’t you see for yourself that it’s degrading to both of us? Edith, can’t we be honest about this? Let me go and see your aunt, and tell her the whole thing. If she makes a row, I dare say I can live through it.”

“I dare say you could,” Edith answered briefly.

They were coming near to one of the gates of Central Park. Their walk together was almost at an end--a walk which only a few weeks ago would have been a delight almost unsupportable, a thing to lie awake at night remembering, to think of all through a busy day. Now that rapture, that glamour, was gone. With all their love, their hope, their blind tenderness for each other, they were bitter at heart.

It was a wild, bright October evening. The moon seemed rocking in the fitful clouds, the wind sprang like a kitten along the paths after the dry leaves, the bare trees creaked stiff and resistant. All the world was in motion, restless, hurried. All things were free--except themselves. It was intolerable to Hardy, an affront to his fine young pride in himself, his magnificent assurance. It was petty, base, shameful!

“Edith!” he said suddenly. “I won’t go on like this!”

She stopped short in the middle of the path.

“I’m tired of hearing that,” she replied, in a queer, unsteady voice. “You’re always saying that--always blaming me; and you know we’ve got to go on like this--or not go on at all!”

“We haven’t. That’s what I’m always trying to tell you,” he said stormily. “We don’t have to meet this way--in this beastly, lying way--pretending to your aunt that your French lesson is for two hours instead of one, so that we can have one hour a week alone together. Tell her! Let her be upset! She’ll have to know some time. Then at least I can come to see you in your own place, decently and honorably.”

“I will not tell her now! You don’t realize what it’ll mean to Aunt Bessie. You don’t care. She hasn’t any one but me. I won’t tell her now, and let her have all that long time to think about--losing me. She’s going to be happy as long as possible.”

Hardy took her arm.

“Come on,” he said, “or you’ll be ten minutes late, and she’ll have a nervous attack and keep you up all night, as usual!”

But when he felt how she was shivering in her thin jacket, a terrible compunction seized him.

“Oh, Edith!” he cried. “Edith, never mind all that! Darling little Edith, it’s only our affair, after all! Let’s get married now, before I go!”

“You know we can’t,” she said, with a sob. “Not when you’re so obstinate and--and unkind. You know we couldn’t manage for ourselves and Aunt Bessie, too, in any place where she’d be comfortable, just on your salary; and you’re so unreasonable about my job!”

“Look here, Edith--I’ll sell that blamed stock, and that’ll provide for Aunt Bessie until I’ve got my raise.”

“You won’t! You shan’t!” She pulled her arm away from him, and roughly wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare to mention such a thing! I’m not going to ruin your whole life just for--”

“Well, you’ve ruined it!” said Hardy. “I can tell you that, if it’s any satisfaction to you. I don’t care now what happens to me, or whether I go on or not. You’ve shown me how little you care for me. You’ve--Edith!”

She had started running along the path, but he easily overtook her. All at once their arms were about each other, Edith’s wet cheek against his, and all their pain, their bitterness, lost in a passion of tenderness and remorse.

IV

Still Hardy went about the office, magnificent as ever, very well aware of being a remarkable young fellow, who was to be made assistant buyer at twenty-three, a man talked about, admired, and envied. He was still proud of himself, still sure of himself, but some of the magic had gone out of it, some of the zest. He couldn’t look forward to that trip to Europe with unmixed joy now.

Indeed, all the joys he had at this time were so mixed with anxiety and impatience that he could scarcely recognize them. He dreaded leaving Edith. He imagined all sorts of misfortunes that might befall her in his absence. Sometimes he even resented his splendid future, because it so burdened and harassed the present. He wanted to live now, not to wait.

Worst of all was the humiliation he endured from their furtive and hasty meetings. He had never before in his life been furtive, or even cautious. He had lived boldly and rashly, in the light of day, and it hurt and angered him to do otherwise. He wanted to love boldly and rashly. He wanted to be proud of his love.

Well, he wasn’t proud; he was ashamed.

He couldn’t understand Edith’s viewpoint. Her life had been so repressed, so weighted down by unjust and inordinate demands upon her, that she was thankful for the briefest minutes of happiness. If she could meet Hardy for ten minutes on a street corner, she was joyous for those ten minutes--when he would let her be. He tried to let her. He would watch her coming toward him--such a gallant little figure!--and he would make up his mind to be tender and considerate; but when she was with him, when he saw her ill dressed and ill nourished, and couldn’t help her, when he saw her glance at her watch even when he was speaking, his good resolutions only too often vanished, and he reproached her bitterly.

She didn’t endure his reproaches meekly. He wouldn’t have loved her, if she had. On the contrary, she replied to him vigorously, and so many, many times they had left each other in anger, to be paid for later by hours of remorse.

Neither of them was quarrelsome by nature, nor was there any lack of real harmony between them. They were both generous, quick to forgive, eager to understand, passionately loyal to each other. Every one of their disagreements would have been quickly adjusted and forgotten, if they had had time; but they never did have time, and neither did this fellow of twenty-three and this girl of twenty have any greater amount of patience and ripe wisdom than others of their age.

Sometimes a sort of panic seized them, and they felt it necessary to “explain.” They had fallen into the habit of taking a little more than the allotted hour for lunch. Though Edith had been solemnly warned by her superior, she found it impossible to leave Joe in the middle of a speech. He was so unreasonable about her always being in a hurry.

So there was lunch almost every day, and the walk to the Subway, and that hour stolen from the French class once a week, all through October and November, until the trip to Europe was only a few weeks ahead of them. Mr. Plummer hadn’t actually told Hardy he was to go, but the thing was understood. Mr. Loomis, the buyer, was taking pains to train him, and had once or twice said such things as:

“You’ll see how that is for yourself, Hardy, when you’re in France.”

“It’ll probably be before Christmas,” said Hardy. “The idea is that I’m not to be told until Hallock is gone, because I might slack up on my present work. Silly, childish way to do--as if it was a treat for a good boy!”

“Well, it will be a treat, won’t it?” said Edith. “You’ve always--”

He looked across the table at her. The cold air had brought no color into her cheeks. She looked weary, downcast. He could see that her smile was an effort, and in her eyes was the look that he couldn’t bear.

“No!” he said. “I wish to Heaven I wasn’t going! I mean it! If I have to leave you like this--”

“Joe,” she began, and was silent for a minute. “I--I know it’s selfish of me; but--oh, Joe, when I think of your going away--”

Mr. Plummer, who was also taking lunch in that restaurant, saw his promising young man lean across the table and lay his hand on that of Miss Patterson from the auditing department.

“Too bad!” thought Mr. Plummer. “A boy with a remarkable future before him--and getting himself entangled before he’s begun! Too bad! Too bad!”

Fortunately, however, he could not hear what monstrous folly the boy spoke.

“I won’t go, Edith! I’ll stay here with you. Nothing else counts with me but you--only you. I’ll--”

“I want you to go, Joe, darling,” said she, with quivering lips; “but I thought--only I know you wouldn’t! I--if we could just get married before you go, and not tell any one till you come back--just so that we’d really belong to each other--then it wouldn’t be so hard!”

And Hardy, the bold, the rash, the magnificent, who hated anything secret and furtive, looked only once at her dear face, and agreed.

V

“You’re late again, Miss Patterson,” said Mr. Dunne.

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Edith. “I’ll really try not to again.”

But she didn’t look sorry. She sat down at her desk, flushed and a little out of breath, and, to Mr. Dunne’s great displeasure, there was a smile hovering about her lips.

“Miss Patterson,” said he, “I’m afraid this is once too often.”

Edith looked up in alarm.

“But, you see--” she began, and stopped.

She couldn’t explain to Mr. Dunne that this was a most pardonable lateness, and not at all likely to happen again. Going to the City Hall for a marriage license wouldn’t occupy much of her time in the future. Thinking of this, she smiled again--and lost her job. Mr. Dunne didn’t like people who smiled when they were late.

So it happened that just when she badly needed a smile she hadn’t one. The wretched little imitation she gave to Hardy, an hour later, didn’t deceive him for an instant. He stopped beside her desk--a thing he had never done before.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded, and would not be put off.

No use to tell him that he shouldn’t stand there and talk to her! He knew that very well, and he didn’t care. A mighty rage filled him. Edith, his Edith, his own girl, to be discharged and humiliated like this!

“Get on your hat and jacket,” he commanded, “and come on!”

“Joe! You mustn’t--”

“Look here!” said he. “I won’t have you here like this. If Dunne told you to go, then go now. Good Lord! Haven’t you any pride?”

She was too wretched to be angry at him. She did get on her hat and jacket, and, in full view of every one. Hardy walked out of the office with her at three o’clock on a busy afternoon.

“We’ll go to the flat,” he said, “and talk it over.”

They had a flat of their own. Hardy had insisted upon this.

“We’ll take it now,” he had said: “and whenever we see anything especially good in the way of furniture, we’ll buy it. Then, when I come back, we’ll have a place of our own all ready for us.”

It wasn’t quite what they wanted, but Hardy had very little money just then, and their only time for house hunting was what they had been able to pilfer from their lunch hour; so they had taken the first one that seemed at all suitable. It consisted of three tiny rooms in a remodeled house west of Central Park.

They had already become inordinately fond of this future home. To be sure, there was nothing in it except a barrel containing a Limoges dinner set, which Hardy had bought from a shipment received at the office; but Edith had made a flying visit and measured the windows for curtains, and after that she could look upon the place as her own.

This afternoon, when Hardy opened the door with his latchkey, the place was obviously a future home. It was bare, bleak, and dusty, with slanting sun rays falling across the ill laid board floor of what was going to be the sitting room.

The door closed behind them, and there they were, alone, with plenty of time for talking now, and neither of them said one word. Hardy began walking about. His footsteps made a loud and somehow a melancholy sound. His voice in the empty little rooms was not at all his confident office voice, but boyish, and, to Edith, terribly touching.

She sat down on the barrel, struggling against her despair and misery, while he moved about in the kitchen, mocked by a gas stove with no gas in it, and water taps that gave forth no water. She knew how he felt; she knew what he would say.

“But I won’t!” she thought. “I’ll get another job. I won’t let him take care of Aunt Bessie now. I won’t! I won’t! Not now, when he’s just beginning.”

If she were making resolves in the sitting room, so was Hardy in the kitchen. He hadn’t been singled out by Mr. Plummer because of his gentleness and consideration. He had a remarkable future because he was remarkably persistent and clear-sighted about getting his own way, and Edith was no match for him.

“No!” said he. “No more jobs! We’ll tell your aunt now, and we’ll get married to-morrow, as we planned, and we’ll move in here.”

“We can’t, Joe. We haven’t any furniture, you know--”

“Then we’ll get it.”

“And Aunt Bessie--”

“We’ll see Aunt Bessie now. Look here, little Edith! It’s got to be this way. I couldn’t have my wife running about looking for a job. I couldn’t go away and leave you working in a strange office. It was bad enough in the old place. Look here, Edith, don’t you think you can be happy with me? Don’t you love me enough?”

“I love you too much, Joe! It’s not fair to you. You’ll--oh, Joe, you’ll have to sell your stock, and Mr. Plummer--”

“Edith,” he said, “I’ve been thinking lately--I don’t know how to put it very well--but it seems to me that maybe it’s a mistake to live so much in the future. Suppose there wasn’t any future--for us? Suppose something happened to one of us? Edith, I can’t stand thinking of that! Look here! Let’s just live now, and not be afraid of what’s going to happen. Let’s start this thing”--he stopped for a moment--“with courage and confidence,” he finished.

She put her hand on his cheek and turned his head so that she could look into his honest, steady eyes.

“Let’s!” she said, with a very unsteady little smile. “I feel that way, too, Joe. We’ll begin this minute, and unpack the china, just so that we’ll--we’ll feel at home!”

VI

Hardy turned his back upon Mr. Plummer, and looked out of the window. It was a cold, rainy day. The people far below on the street were hurrying by under umbrellas.

“In that case, Hardy,” said Mr. Plummer, “I’m sorry, but--”

“Yes, sir,” said Hardy.

He couldn’t, at that moment, say anything more. Something had risen into his throat and silenced him. He would have liked to speak, to tell the man who had shown so kindly an interest in him that he regretted his hasty and violent words. He hadn’t meant all that he said. He had come to tell Mr. Plummer that he wanted to sell his stock. He had listened, as patiently as he could, while his employer remonstrated with him. He had endured a pretty stiff lecture upon his recent slackness and lack of attention to work, because he knew he deserved it; but when Mr. Plummer undertook to warn him about “entangling” himself with that “young woman in the auditing department;” all his genuine respect for his chief had vanished in an overwhelming anger. That “young woman” was his Edith!

He didn’t like, now, to recall what he had said.

“I’m sorry, Hardy,” said Mr. Plummer again. He was looking at the boy with an odd expression on his lined face, a look half respectful, half sorrowful. As a man, he liked Hardy the better for his outburst, but as a business man he deplored it.

“I wish you the best of luck, my boy,” he said. “Refer to me at any time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Hardy.

Off he went, with his words of apology unsaid, with five years of friendly interest unrewarded, and with his own heart like lead. He walked through the office for the last time, and into the corridor, leaving so much behind him.

Edith was waiting for him in the lobby.

“Oh, Joe!” she cried. “I found a place uptown where they promised to deliver the furniture this afternoon. Imagine! And I got the dearest material for curtains! I brought a sample to show you.”

She was opening her hand bag, but he stopped her.

“No, don’t,” he said curtly. “Not just now.”

Here she was, chattering about curtains, after all that had happened! He remembered how he had left her the evening before, after a horrible interview with her aunt. He remembered her pitiful attempts to soothe and comfort that hysterical old demon, and her anguish when she failed so utterly, and was told that if she married “that man” she would be cast off--except for the trifling communications necessary to continuing her support of the martyr.

“And I couldn’t sleep for worrying about her!” he thought bitterly. “I thought she’d be ill, and look at her now--perfectly happy, talking about curtains!”

“Come on!” he said aloud, and then stopped, with a frown. “Haven’t you any umbrella?” he asked.

“I have one,” she replied, “but not here. It wasn’t raining when I started.”

“Edith!” he said suddenly. “Don’t you remember?”

How could he have imagined that she was happy, or that her mind was filled with thoughts of curtains? That small, gallant, smiling thing, so pale, so troubled, with the shadow of her suffering dark in her eyes!

“It’s nearly twelve, Joe,” she said, looking at her watch. “We haven’t much time.”

“Oh, yes, we have!” he told her. “We have any amount of time, for I’m never going back there.”

“Joe!” she cried. “Oh, Joe! Oh, no, no! Don’t tell me you’ve--”

He drew a long breath, and then looked down at her with a grin.

“You’ve got a young man with a remarkably uncertain future,” he said. “Never mind--we’ll start a new future. Anyhow, I shan’t have to go to Europe now, and leave you.”

“Oh, Joe! What have I done?”

“I did it myself,” he said sturdily, “and I’m glad. Thank Heaven, we’ve got time, now, for a nice, peaceful wedding!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JULY, 1924 Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 2

His Own People

MRS. DENIS LANIER’S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HER HUSBAND’S FAMILY PROVES TO BE A TRYING ORDEAL

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

After each stroke of the brush her bright hair flew out in glittering threads, and in the strong light that centered upon the mirror her vivid little face seemed framed in a sort of unearthly radiance. She looked at the reflected image, at her great, solemn amber eyes, at her white shoulders, at that sparkling flood of hair.

A brief moment of joy that was, however, for almost at once came other thoughts that put an end to it. She grew disconsolate and troubled. With a sigh she threw down the hairbrush, and, going over to the table, picked up her book. Being pretty wasn’t going to do her any good. On the contrary, it might well be another charge against her, another offense in a list already very long.

“They’ll say he married me just because I’m pretty,” she reflected.

And it was not so! Her incomparable Denis had seen and loved and praised all those things in her heart of which she was honestly proud. He loved her because she was valiant and loyal and tender.

“Of course, he does like my looks,” she thought; “but even when I’m old and ugly, he’ll still feel the same toward me. He said so--and I know it!”

But how was she to make these terrible people see all that? What she needed for the ordeal before her was dignity, assurance, poise--that was it. She had even gone so far as to buy a book on etiquette, to find the secret. Useless! No situation like hers was mentioned in the portentous volume. The bride received a visit from her husband’s family, or he brought her to visit them, but there was no help offered to a bride who was suddenly commanded to go all alone to meet her new people for the first time.

She looked through the pages again. “The Etiquette of Weddings”--there had been precious little of that about their wedding--just she and Denis and a strange clergyman, with a deaconess and the sexton for witnesses. “The Bride’s Family”--hers was hundreds of miles away, in Maine. “The Groom’s Family”--she closed the book violently.

“I ought to be ashamed of myself!” she cried.

It seemed like treachery toward her own people, this fear of Denis’s family. There was no reason on earth why she shouldn’t go to them with her head high, no reason why she shouldn’t have poise. She must; she would summon it up from the depth of her anxious heart, so that she might do credit to her Denis.

“And they may be very nice to me,” she said to herself, without for an instant believing in the probability.

She remembered the letters that Denis had received from his mother after he had written to tell her of his engagement. He had never read a word of them to Emily, but his face told her enough, and the black gloom that settled over him. He admitted that his mother wanted him to wait--he didn’t say how long, or for what, but Emily knew very well. His mother was hoping that time would cure his deplorable and unaccountable folly of wishing to marry an American stenographer.

Well, it hadn’t. Their engagement had lasted five months--not a very happy time for either of them, because of the depression that seized Denis every time he had a letter from his people, or was in any way reminded of them. Emily had endured this with admirable patience. She knew that he loved her with all his honest heart, that he was proud of her, and that he couldn’t help his queer, tribal notions about his family. He was always saying that “a fellow owes it to his family” to do this or that, and it was the strongest possible proof of his love for Emily that he clung to her in spite of their opposition.

Still, no matter how willing she was to understand Denis’s point of view, Emily couldn’t be expected to share his reverence for his relatives. On the contrary, she often found it very hard to hold her tongue--as, for instance, on the day when he came to her with the air of an absolutely desperate man, and told her that he was ordered off to New Orleans on forty-eight hours’ notice, to survey a damaged hull, and that they must be married before he left.

When she objected, he threatened to throw up the whole business--that flourishing business as a marine surveyor which was the very apple of his eye--because he could not and would not leave Emily unless he left her as his wife. She was secretly delighted by this impetuous and domineering conduct, and sorry for him, too, because he was so obviously upset; and yet she was exasperated. He couldn’t hide the fact that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in affronting his sacrosanct people for her sake.

After the wedding he had sent a cable announcing it to his mother. Then a reckless gayety had come over him, like that of a man who has nothing more to lose.

“I don’t care!” said Emily to herself, with tears in her eyes. “It’s all part of his darlingness. He’s so terribly loyal!”

Of course, he hadn’t imagined that his family would descend upon Emily like this, when he was away. He had expected them to stay in England, where they belonged. He would have been appalled at the thought of this meeting.

The latest development had come upon Emily like a thunderbolt. That morning a letter had been brought up to her, and, without the faintest suspicion, she had opened it to read:

MY DEAR EMILY:

I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.

Most sincerely yours, MAUDE LANIER.

She had sent a messenger boy with her acceptance, because she knew that that was what Denis would have wished; but she couldn’t make the best of it, couldn’t recapture the smiling, careless bravery that Denis so loved in her. She had had courage enough to leave her dear, shabby old home at eighteen and go off to try her luck in the wide world. She had been able to give Denis the most gallant, bright farewell. She had faced more than one black moment in her twenty years, but she could not face Denis’s family untroubled.

She had given herself two hours to dress in, and she needed every second of the time. Her prettiness seemed to ebb away with every breath she drew. That radiant hair was an unruly tangle when she tried to put it up. The brightness fled from her face, leaving it pale and strained. The dark dress that Denis had admired so much was admirable no longer, but austerely plain and grievously unbecoming. Emily could have wept at her own image in the mirror.

“I look so--so mean!” she cried, with a sob. “Such a meek, scared, silly little object!”

This wouldn’t do. The thing that the serious Denis had loved best of all in her was her absurd, delightful gayety. She straightened her shoulders and drew a long breath.

“You know,” she said to her own reflection, “Denis picked you out from all the other girls in the world, and now you’ve simply got to show the reason why. Even if you’re hideous, you needn’t be dismal. Here goes!”

So she managed a smile, after all.

She had been Mrs. Denis Lanier for only five weeks, had had a check book and money to spend for the same short time, and it was still a little intoxicating. She ordered a taxi from her room by telephone, and when it was announced she went down into the lobby almost her own debonair self again. Think of Mrs. Denis Lanier, in a fur coat and a pearl necklace, getting into her taxi!

Her father was a professor in a small New England college, and Emily had been brought up with a full understanding of the woeful discrepancy between the tastes and the incomes of professors and their families. She had learned to be happy without any of the things for which her young heart thirsted. It was the very essence of her nature to be happy; but it cannot be denied that she was a hundred times more happy now that she possessed some share of worldly goods. She wished and tried to be high-minded, and still she couldn’t forget her pearl necklace.

II

Mrs. Lanier was established in a hotel of the sort which Emily had never yet entered. Directly she entered its august portals, she felt herself dwindle again. What were her fur coat and her necklace here? Who was Mrs. Denis Lanier? Nothing at all!

She went up to the desk and told the haughty young man there that Mrs. Denis Lanier wished to see Mrs. Cecil Lanier; and then she waited.

It was the waiting that unnerved her. If some one had come at once, if she had been taken upstairs without delay, her courage might have held out; but to sit there, alone and unregarded, while fifteen endless minutes went by, was too much for her. She began seriously to contemplate running away.

“She’s doing it on purpose--just to be rude and hateful!” she thought. “I won’t stay! Denis wouldn’t want me to stay. It’s humiliating and--”

She was aware then that some one had come up behind her and stopped at her side, looking down at her. What is more, she felt certain that it was a critical, hostile look.

“Very well!” said she to herself. “Go ahead and stare! It doesn’t bother me the least little bit in the world!”

She sat quite still, trying valiantly not to care; but it was unendurable. She felt her face flush. She stirred uneasily, and very soon she turned, to glance up into a pair of glacial blue eyes.

“Is this Emily?” asked the other. “I fancied so.”

Remarkable, the implications that could be put into six short words!

“Yes,” said Emily. “I’m--I am. And you’re--this is Denis’s mother?”

For a moment they regarded each other in silence, and each with the same thought, almost audible:

“I knew you’d be like this!”

Of course Denis’s mother was like this--a handsome, gray-haired woman, tall, rather angular, with a disdainful nose and a faint, chilly little smile. In spite of her queer, stiff, high-waisted figure, her very unbecoming coiffure, her positively ugly black satin dress, she produced an effect of extraordinary magnificence.

“It’s very odd of Denis to go off that way,” she said.

“He couldn’t help it,” returned Emily hotly. “He had to go.”

“Cecil, my younger son, called in at Denis’s office directly we landed, and he was told that Denis had gone away,” Mrs. Lanier went on, without noticing the interruption. “As soon as we had his cable, we arranged to come. It seems to me very odd that he should run off like that! However”--she paused for a moment, looking carefully at Emily--“perhaps we’d better dine upstairs, alone,” she added, “instead of in the restaurant. I know quite a number of people here.”

With burning cheeks and eyes averted, Emily murmured:

“That would be nicer.”

As they walked together toward the lift, she tried to smile, to talk brightly; but she was terribly hurt--even more hurt than angry.

But this was Denis’s mother, a person of supreme importance in his world. He couldn’t help but be influenced by her opinion; so her opinion must be favorable.

“Is it--do you find it comfortable here?” Emily asked politely.

Mrs. Lanier seemed surprised that any one should imagine her comfortable here. She smiled wearily.

“I’ve been in the States before,” she answered. “I dare say I shall do very well for a time. I’m sorry, though, to hear that you and Denis are going to live about in hotels.”

“But we’re not! We’re going to start housekeeping just as soon as he--”

“Denis is very domestic, like his father. I’m sorry to think of his having to live about in hotels,” Mrs. Lanier went on. “However--”

She preceded Emily down a corridor. At the end she opened a door, and they entered a small sitting room.

“We must have a little chat,” said Mrs. Lanier, “before Cecil comes in.”

She took up a packet of letters from the console near her, and began looking over them.

“Let me see,” she said. “Ah, here it is! ‘She is only twenty, and very young for her age,’ Denis tells me. Are you really? And then he says--let me see--‘a remarkably sweet disposition.’ That’s very nice, I’m sure. ‘Her people are thoroughly respectable, decent people, but they’--well, no matter. ‘She is a very clever and amusing girl.’”

This went on for an intolerable time. Extracts from poor Denis’s letters were read aloud, as if for purposes of comparison with the real Emily, and from time to time Mrs. Lanier asked very direct questions about her parents, her education, her financial position. In the end, Emily had an excellent picture of herself as she appeared to Denis’s mother--a silly, awkward girl, without money or position, who had somehow cajoled a fine young man to his destruction.

She made no attempt to defend herself. She had no great talent for that. She was a sensitive, impulsive creature, quite lacking in self-satisfaction. Moreover, she was very young and inexperienced, and perhaps a little too willing to learn.

She began to think that she really was the contemptible creature that Mrs. Lanier believed her to be. A sense of guilt oppressed her. She sat before her imperturbable judge, pale and downcast, answering the older woman’s questions in a low, unsteady voice.

Presently Mrs. Lanier had an ally in her daughter Cynthia, a cool, casual blond girl, who looked as if she could be beautiful if she liked, but didn’t think it worth trying. Cynthia didn’t ask questions. That, too, she seemed to think not worth trying. She simply began conversations which died at once, because Emily could take no share in them.

There was really no malice in Cynthia--only a measureless indifference to other people and their unimportant feelings. When she discovered that Emily had never set foot in Paris, had never been to the opera or to a race, and bought her clothes in department stores, she saw that poor Denis’s wife was hopeless, and simply stopped talking.

By this time Emily quite agreed with her. The window was open, and Mrs. Lanier had asked her daughter to shut off “that horrible heat.” In a temperature that caused Emily to shiver in misery, those two superior creatures sat in calm comfort.

Very well--if they could endure the cold, in their low-cut frocks, then Emily, in a cloth dress, could also endure it, and would. She would endure their little stinging, icy words, too--every one of them.

In desperation she made an effort to imitate Cynthia’s cool and casual air. A pitiable failure! There was precious little coolness in her strained smile, her faltering words. The last trace of poise had slipped from her. She no longer tried to hold her own, but simply to endure.

“They’ll tell Denis,” she thought, over and over again. “Nothing could really make him change toward me; but oh, this will hurt him so! If only they had waited! Oh, if only they had waited until--until I was a little older and--and had more poise!”

A waiter came in to lay the table, and Mrs. Lanier ordered a dinner of all the things that Emily most heartily disliked--such a cold, flat sort of dinner!

“Cecil should be here by now,” observed Mrs. Lanier, with a glance at the clock. “He promised to make a particular effort to come, on Denis’s account. Poor Cecil!”

Emily wondered in what way she had injured Cecil, that he should be sighed over in this fashion.

It was now after eight o’clock, but Mrs. Lanier decided to wait for the poor boy until half past eight; so there they sat, in the icy room, and all of them silent now. Cynthia had given up, Mrs. Lanier had asked all the questions in her mind, and certainly Emily was not inclined to introduce any topic on her own account. She was stiff with cold, and she fancied her miserable heart was numbed, too. She didn’t care very much about anything.

III

“Hello, people!” cried a jolly voice.

There in the doorway stood a most engaging young fellow--a real human being, thought Emily, a creature warm and happy, and able to smile. Smile he did, and directly at Emily.

“Cecil!” said Mrs. Lanier. “Denis’s wife, you know.”

He went over to her gladly, and took her cold little hand in a cordial grasp.

“Clever of Denis!” he observed. “Very!”

She looked up at him, half incredulous, but in his face there was no mockery, no disdain--nothing but a very frank approbation. She knew that he thought her pretty. In the bright glow of his admiration her prettiness seemed suddenly to come to life again, her frozen heart beat faster, and color rose in her cheeks. A friend had come!

What is more, Cecil was a powerful friend. He had a cheerful, domineering sort of way with his mother and sister, and it was obvious that they idolized him. He said that Emily was chilly, and that the window was to be closed and the heat turned on. They suffered terribly, but did not complain. He consulted Emily about the proposed menu. He insisted upon knowing what she really liked, and saw that she got it. He made her talk and made her laugh, because he was so persistently cheerful and silly, and his mother and sister looked on with an air of patient indulgence.

Back came all her native gayety. She didn’t fear or dislike these frigid women any more. She wasn’t a meek, scared, silly little object now; she was the girl Denis loved, and they would have to love her, too. She felt sure of herself, radiant, happy, no longer alien and oppressed; and beyond all measure grateful to her new friend, her brother Cecil.

IV

Nothing had been said by any of the Laniers about seeing her again, and Emily had consulted her book on etiquette in vain for a hint. She was the more disturbed by this because she had had a letter from Denis--a solemn, miserable letter, filled with careful descriptions of the scenery and the weather. Through it all, in every line, she could read his longing for her and his great anxiety about her. Such a dear, stupid letter--honest and serious and manly, like Denis himself. He knew well enough how to love, but nothing at all about making love.

He hadn’t heard yet of his family’s arrival in New York, and, thought Emily, he was not going to get the news from them first. Very likely his mother would write to him by the same mail, but he would surely read Emily’s letter first, and he should have her account of the meeting.

Just what ought she to tell him? She would say, of course, that she had dined with his people.

“And then shall I say I’m going to call on them? Or should I invite them here to dinner?” she thought. “Or ought I just to wait?”

She was in her room, struggling with this problem, when Mr. Cecil Lanier was announced. She hastened down into the lounge, very much pleased. Here was something else to tell Denis. There was at least one member of his family that she could praise with candor.

She welcomed Cecil with frank pleasure, and he, on his part, seemed so remarkably glad to see her again, so very friendly, that a new and daring idea sprang up in her mind. It might be more diplomatic and more polite to wait a little, however. In spite of his jolly, friendly manner, there was something rather impressive about Cecil. He wasn’t to be treated too casually.

He was really younger than Denis, but he seemed older, not only because his face was a little worn, and his smiling eyes a little tired, but because of his affable worldliness. Denis, in his earnestness, his straightforward simplicity, had sometimes seemed quite boyish to Emily, but there was no trace of boyishness in Cecil. He was a charming fellow, handsome, courteous, and amusing, and he knew it. Emily had mighty little worldly wisdom, but she did not lack intuition, and she thought--and rightly--that Cecil would be extraordinarily kind and obliging to any one he liked, and by no means so to those he did not like; so she decided to make him like her.

It was not difficult. He had already been attracted to her the evening before, and he was delighted with her this afternoon. The time fairly flew. They had tea together at five o’clock; and after what seemed only a few minutes, it was seven.

“Let’s go out somewhere and have dinner,” said he.

“Oh!” said Emily. “I’d like to, but--aren’t there other things you have to do?”

She was thinking of his mother.

“I never have anything to do,” Cecil assured her cheerfully. “That’s the great advantage of being hopelessly incompetent. I can’t do anything, you know.”

“I don’t believe that. I’m sure you could do almost anything, if you tried,” said Emily.

She hadn’t meant to say it in quite that tone, or with quite that admiring glance, and she grew a little red as he returned the glance with interest.

“I’m never going to try,” said he. “Once you start, people begin to expect things of you.” He paused. “But if there’s anything you’d like done, Emily--”

She had no more poise left then than you could put into a thimble. She had a favor to ask of Cecil, and she felt sure he would grant it. She was determined to ask it, too, and saw no reason why she should not, and yet--and yet, in spite of his kindliness, Cecil made her uneasy and confused.

“I just thought,” she began, “that if you were going to write to Denis--”

“Never wrote to him in my life,” said Cecil; “but look here, Emily!”

She did not look there, but down at her clasped hands. After a glance around the empty tea room, Cecil bent forward and took one of these hands.

“Look here!” he said again. “Do you mean--you poor little kid!--do you mean there’s something you don’t like to tell him yourself? Denis is such a confoundedly high-minded--”

“Oh, no!” cried Emily, shocked. “Mercy, no! I only thought--if you were going to write--” Well, she had to finish it now. “I thought maybe you’d tell him that you’d met me, and that you--you didn’t think I was so horrible.”

Cecil looked at her for a moment with a singular expression.

“I see!” he said, with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’re exactly horrible, Emily; but still, I don’t think I’d better write and tell old Denis so.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see--”

Emily, looking at him, did see, in a vague, uneasy fashion. She did not care to ask Cecil for any explanation. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk to him any more. She made all sorts of polite excuses, which he accepted very good-humoredly, and they parted in the most friendly way; but in her heart, Emily never wanted to see him again.

She cried herself to sleep that night, longing for her dear, honest, comprehensible Denis, and wishing she need see nobody else but Denis all the rest of her life.

V

When Cecil came again the next afternoon, she could think of no good reason for refusing to see him. After all, what had she against him? Nothing at all--nothing real. He hadn’t said a word that she could resent. It was only--well, she didn’t know what--something in his smile, in his tired eyes.

“It’s my own fault,” she decided. “I know he’d be all right, if I weren’t so--silly. If I had more poise--”

This afternoon she had an unusual amount of poise, for she had had a letter from Denis that made her happy. She was Denis’s wife, and she really didn’t care a snap of her fingers about any one else on earth.

She found Cecil charming that day.

“Let’s go out somewhere,” he suggested. “It would do me no end of good--that is, if you’ll be jolly and a little bit kind to me. I’m not happy to-day, Emily.”

She believed that. She fancied that perhaps he was never very happy, and she felt sorry for him. She was still more sorry when she saw how quickly he responded to her own cheerful mood.

It cannot be denied that this very superficiality of his made him a most engaging companion. They took a taxi up to the Botanical Gardens, went into the hemlock forest there, and wandered about for two hours, breaking the enchanted stillness with their careless, happy talk, without a moment’s constraint or weariness. Away from hotels and family conventions, Cecil was a very different fellow. His polite sophistication vanished, and with it his misleading pretense of being a cheerful idiot. He wasn’t that. He was clever, adroit, and by no means apathetic.

As the sun was beginning to sink, they strolled out of the forest and across the hilltop and the smooth meadows, past the greenhouses, to the entrance. It was growing chilly, and they were tired and furiously hungry.

“We’ll have tea now,” said Cecil. “Please don’t always object, Emily!”

So they took another taxi down town, to a sedate little tea room that Emily suggested, and after tea he left her at her hotel.

“Thank you, Emily,” he said simply. “I’ve never had a better day.”

Emily, too, was happy. She wanted to rush upstairs and write all about it to Denis. He was always pleased when she spent her time out of doors, and he looked upon walking as a solemn duty. He said that she didn’t walk nearly enough--that no American girls did.

“Mrs. Lanier!” said the desk clerk, as she stopped for her key.

With a cordial smile, he handed her a note. She recognized the handwriting as her mother-in-law’s, and took the envelope with no great pleasure. Nor was she in a hurry to open it. She took off her dusty shoes and her street suit, put on slippers and a mandarin coat, let down her glittering flood of hair, and only then, when she was lying in comfort on the bed, did she open the thing.

MY DEAR EMILY:

I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.

Most sincerely yours, MAUDE LANIER.

“But that’s the old note!” she cried.

Jumping up, she looked in the desk to see if the other was missing. There it was, and, taking it out, she compared the two. Except for the date, they were exactly alike, word for word. That made her laugh, and laughter gave her courage.

“I shan’t go!” she thought. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to go! I don’t have to rush off every time I’m sent for!”

She reached out for the telephone at the bedside and, with admirable poise, asked for and obtained the hotel where the elder Mrs. Lanier was living. It seemed somehow an audacious, almost an arrogant thing, to telephone to that majestic creature while lying in bed with her hair down. And to refuse her invitation! It was an adventure--it was thrilling!

But when Mrs. Lanier’s voice came to her over the wire, all Emily’s exultation fled.

“You can’t come?” said Denis’s mother. “That’s most unfortunate!”

There was more than chilly indifference in her tone. There was actual hostility, and something very like a threat.

“You see,” Emily explained, “I’m awfully tired, and--”

“If you will be at home, we shall call after dinner,” said Mrs. Lanier. “Will you be alone?”

“Yes, of course,” Emily answered, with as much cordiality as she could manage.

After she had hung up the receiver, the odd intonation of that word “alone” still sounded in her ears. Wasn’t she always alone? Ever since Denis had gone she had had no visitor, except one of the girls from the office where she had formerly been employed. She had seen no one.

Not that she cared for that. This new life, this new dignity, the delights of buying new books to read and new clothes to wear, of eating in the restaurant downstairs, of going to a matinée now and then, and, above all, of writing immense letters to Denis every evening, had filled her time in the most satisfactory fashion.

“Who did she imagine would be here?” she thought, puzzled. “Some of my awful friends that she couldn’t bear to see? I just wish Nina would drop in again this evening!”

That wasn’t likely, however. In all probability she would have to entertain her difficult guests alone, and, as it couldn’t be avoided, she resolved to make the best of it. Her sitting room was far inferior to theirs, but it was bright with flowers, books and magazines lay about on the table, and it was warm!

“I’ll see if I can’t make them thaw out,” she decided. “Denis would be so pleased!”

VI

No, the warm, bright room couldn’t thaw them. On the contrary, Mrs. Lanier seemed to bring in her own frigid atmosphere. She entered, followed dutifully by her daughter and her son, and, without so much as a smile, bade Emily good evening.

“It’s so nice of you to come to see me!” said Emily. “Isn’t this a cozy little room?”

“It seems to me quite unbearably hot. However--”

A chill silence fell. Cecil broke it by asking if he might smoke a cigarette. Emily was about to say “Please do,” when Mrs. Lanier interposed:

“Pray don’t, Cecil--not in this close room!”

With a trace of sulkiness, Emily got up and opened a window. A gust of cold air blew into her face, stirring her bright hair. For an instant she looked down into the street below--the hurrying taxicabs, the hurrying people, all bent on their own concerns, all going somewhere. If she were only out there with Denis!

“I think,” said Mrs. Lanier, “that you had better come to live at my hotel, Emily.”

“Oh, thanks!” said Emily, alarmed. “But I’m very comfortable here. Anyhow, I couldn’t afford it.”

“I am willing to defray all your expenses myself.”

“Thank you ever so much! But--”

“I think it advisable,” said Mrs. Lanier.

“Advisable?” Emily repeated, a little puzzled. “I don’t--”

“You ought not to be here alone. You should be with your husband’s family. I’m sure Denis would agree with me.”

“He picked out this place himself. He said--”

“In the circumstances, Denis would agree with me.”

“In what circumstances?” Emily demanded, beginning to grow angry.

“We called yesterday afternoon, and the clerk informed us that you had gone out with a young man. I really don’t think Denis would--”

That was too much!

“Upon my word!” cried Emily. “Didn’t you know--”

“I say!” interrupted Cecil, in haste. “Not our affair, is it? I mean--hardly the thing, is it, to bother Emily like this? I mean to say--”

His pleasant, well bred voice trailed off into silence, and Emily, after one amazed glance at his face, was silent too.

So he hadn’t told them, and his eyes implored her not to tell! She sat very still. All the heat of anger had died in her, leaving only bitterness and scorn. She could not endure to look at any of them--not at Cecil, with his contemptible faith in her good nature, not at the hostile and suspicious Mrs. Lanier, not at the utterly indifferent Cynthia.

“I strongly advise you to come to us,” said Mrs. Lanier.

“No,” replied Emily quietly. “I’m going to stay here.”

Mrs. Lanier rose.

“Then I shall feel it my duty to write to Denis,” she said, “and explain this unfortunate situation to him. I wish him to know that I have done my best.”

“By all means write to him,” said Emily, as calmly as she could.

“Come!” said Mrs. Lanier to her children, in a freezing tone.

After ceremonious farewells they all left, Cecil last. He turned in the doorway, but Emily was not looking at him. She was already absorbed in the letter she was going to write to Denis.

As soon as the door closed after them, she sat down at the desk, to put down on paper all her burning indignation and resentment. She wrote seven pages at lightning speed. Then she began to read over what she had written, and suddenly she broke into tears.

“No, I can’t!” she sobbed. “Poor Denis! They’re his own people. I can’t say all that to him. Oh, poor Denis!”

So in the end, after her fit of weeping had subsided, she wrote another letter--a cheerful, airy little letter. Part of it was:

Your mother seems to think I’m a flighty young thing. She wants me to come and live in the hotel with her--so that she can keep an eye on me, I suppose; but I’m going to stay here, in the place you and I picked out together. I don’t imagine you’ll be much worried by any tales of my awfulness, will you, Denny?

And then, moved by an honest and generous impulse to make her Denis happy, she added:

The trouble is that your mother doesn’t quite understand my barbarous American ways yet. Perhaps I don’t understand her very well, either; but we shall in time, I’m sure, Denny. Don’t worry about it!

She went to bed happier after that. As for her husband being in the least troubled by any tales of her going out with young men, that was simply absurd. He trusted her just as she trusted him.

VII

Emily was not surprised at receiving a visit from Cecil the next day, and not at all displeased. She wanted to see him--once more.

He was waiting for her, and came toward her as she came out of the lift. It was a relief that he did not smile. He was as grave as she was.

“Emily!” he said. “I’m sorry!”

“I am, too, Cecil.”

“I can’t expect you to understand,” he went on. “I shouldn’t like you so well if you could understand that sort of thing. No use trying to explain; but I had to come and thank you for being so decent to me. Besides, I wanted to tell you that I would set the thing right--tell them I was the man, you know--before I go away.”

“When are you going?” she asked coldly.

“There’s a ship sailing on Saturday. I’ll try to get a passage on her. Anyhow, I’ll go as soon as I can, Emily, so that I can clear up this thing.”

“You mean that you have to run away because you came to see me?” she cried, with a sort of sorrowful scorn.

“Yes,” he answered. “You see, Emily, I haven’t a penny of my own--nothing but an allowance from mother. She’s a bit--difficult, at times. If she hears that I’ve come to see you, she’ll call it disloyal, d’you see? Fact! She’ll make it too hot for me, so I’d better run home and--”

“Oh, don’t go on!” said Emily.

It was intolerable to hear him so frankly, almost carelessly, admitting his shameful humiliation; and a little while ago she had thought him a fine and gallant figure, so insouciant, so independent!

“No!” she went on headlong. “Don’t tell your mother! I don’t care, no, not one little bit, what any one thinks! Denis would--”

She stopped, struggling with a sob that rose in her throat.

“It simply doesn’t matter,” she added more calmly. “You needn’t tell any one. You needn’t--run away; only please don’t talk about it any more.”

He stood before her, not shamefaced, but simply unhappy.

“I’m sorry, Emily!” he said again.

And so was she--terribly sorry, remembering what an endearing companion he had been, how considerate, how kindly. She was still grateful for those poor little kindnesses. She saw much that was good in Cecil, no malice, no harshness, only that pitiable lack of manly pride and honor, that degradation of which he was not even aware.

With a smile not very steady, she held out her hand.

“Never mind, Cecil!” she said. “It’s all over now, and forgotten. Let’s just say good-by and--”

“Does it have to be good-by, Emily?” he asked wistfully. “Look here! Suppose I tell mother, and simply face the row? Suppose I write and explain to old Denis? Then why couldn’t you and I go on being friends?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing has to be explained to Denis,” she said. “I’ll just tell him, if he asks me; and--I’m sorry, Cecil, but it does have to be good-by. I wouldn’t make any trouble in the family for anything in the world!”

He submitted to her decision, as he was inclined to submit to anything definite, and off he went, with one last miserable look. Emily watched him with misty eyes.

“Poor Cecil!” she thought. “Poor fellow! But how terribly his mother must hate me, if it’s disloyal for him even to come to see me!”

Pain and dismay seized her at that thought. Ill will was a new thing in her life, something which she had never felt in her own heart or in the air about her. A most potent and subtle poison!

She waited for a letter from Denis with a new feeling of resentment. He ought to have written at once, to assure her that he only laughed at other people’s tales--or, better still, that he was angry. Much better if he would be angry. Emily found herself hoping for that with a bitter delight that half frightened her. She wanted that! She wanted her complete triumph, wanted to stand beside Denis while he humbled her enemies. It was an ignoble hope, she knew, and yet it was beyond measure precious to her.

On the third day his letter came, and she tore it open eagerly. It was unusually brief:

MY DEAR EMILY:

I think you had better go to mother’s hotel until I come back. It seems advisable to me for several reasons. Only time for these few lines, but I’ll write more fully later. Take care of yourself.

Yours, DENIS.

That was how he vindicated her! So he believed what other people told him! He wanted her to go where his mother could watch her! This was his faith, his pride, his love! This was her triumph!

VIII

“I’ll give him just one more day,” Emily declared in a tremulous voice. “Then I’ll go home!”

She knew, even while she spoke, the pitiable folly of her words. One more day, when she had long ago given Denis all the days she ever could live! And to talk of going home, when she had no home in all the wide world!

Her father’s house wasn’t her home now. If she went there, she would be a visitor, welcomed and beloved, but always a visitor. She didn’t belong there any more. The words of the old proverb came into her mind--“Home is where the heart is.” Once upon a time she had thought that a fanciful idea, but now she knew it to be true; and her heart, alas, was wandering homeless.

She had written Denis a very prompt reply to his letter. She had told him that his people had treated her shamefully, that she was done with them, and that he must take his choice. “Either them or me,” she had said. “Please let me know when you have made up your mind.”

She hadn’t thought that he would take so long about making up his mind, or that her just anger would prove so feeble a flame. It was anger that had warmed and strengthened her, anger that was her justification; and it was flickering dimly now, leaving her defenseless against the cold wind of doubt and bitter regret.

If only she had had patience, if only she had waited until Denis came back! They could have talked it over together; but instead of that, she had forced upon him a decision that would inevitably cause him untold pain.

It was cruel! He couldn’t choose between her and his venerated people; and he couldn’t compromise--he was too downright for that. He would take what she said seriously. Well, suppose he didn’t choose her?

She thought that if Denis never came back to her, or if he came back changed, she could not bear to live.

It was half past five--time to put on her hat and go out to meet Nina at the little table d’hôte where they were to have dinner together. She slipped her arms into her fur coat--the coat Denis had bought for her--and pulled on a little hat without troubling to look in the mirror. Who cared how she looked, anyhow? A whole week, and he hadn’t written. Seven days, utterly shut off from him!

“Perhaps there’ll be a letter for me downstairs,” she thought, knowing very well that if there had been, it would have been sent up to her.

There was no letter, but there was Denis himself. At first she couldn’t possibly believe it. She saw some one come through the revolving door--some one like Denis, only it couldn’t be he. He was in New Orleans, and very busy there. The man she saw was very much like Denis--the same sort of well knit, stalwart figure, the same sort of dark, serious face.

“It’s not you, is it?” she asked in a queer little voice.

“Yes,” said he.

His voice gave her no clew, nor did his keen, quiet face. She wasn’t going to be silly. If he could be as cool as this, then so could she.

“I was just going out to dinner with Nina Holley,” she told him.

“I see!” said Denis.

He stood aside for her to go out of the door. Then he followed her out, and they walked down the street side by side, turned a corner, and went down another street, without a single word. This was by no means what Emily wanted.

“Would you like to come with me?” she asked, with punctilious politeness.

“I am coming with you,” replied Denis.

Again they went on in silence, as long as Emily could endure it.

“Haven’t you anything to say?” she cried at last. “Haven’t--”

“I’ve a good deal to say,” he interrupted; “but not here.”

That was too much for Emily. They were at a crisis in their lives. She was waiting in desperate anxiety for what he would say, and he couldn’t speak, because they were in the street, and some one might possibly hear! He couldn’t for an instant forget his stiff Lanier propriety.

“You’re angry,” she said. “I can see that. Well, it’s no use. I said you’d have to choose, and I meant it. There’s not a bit of use in your coming to quarrel with me. If you’re disgusted with me, go back to your--”

“Look here!” said Denis. “Are you trying to be funny?”

Emily was very much taken aback at this question.

“Funny?” she repeated.

His hand closed suddenly on her arm.

“Look here, old girl!” he said. “I’m--you’ll have to make allowances, you know. It’s been a bit hard. I dare say it doesn’t seem much of a job to you, but after all, you know, they’re my own people, and it’s been a bit hard.”

Emily stopped short in the street.

“Denis!” she cried. “What do you mean?”

“I went to see mother, but they were all out. I left a note. I think I made it pretty clear.”

“Oh, Denis! Denis! You mean you chose me?”

“Don’t do that!” he said in alarm, pulling out a great handkerchief and hastily dabbing at Emily’s eyes. “You are a silly kid, and no mistake! Of course it’s you, always. I thought you knew that well enough.”

“I can’t possibly stop crying,” said Emily. “You’d better get a taxi.”

He did so. Once they were in the cab, Denis Lanier took his wife in his arms and kissed her in his own earnest and resolute fashion.

“But how could you come, Denis?”

“How could I not come? It seemed to me I was rather badly needed. Dont’t cry, dear girl, please! I’m going back to-morrow, and I’ll take you with me. I’ll not leave you again. But I say, Emily, exactly what was there in my letter that upset you so? I couldn’t--”

“You wanted me to go to your mother’s hotel!”

“I know; but that wasn’t so bad, was it? She wanted you to come, and I thought that if you did, you know--if she saw more of you, there’d be--well, more harmony.”

He was smiling down at her, as her head lay on his shoulder, but in his eyes there was a pain that he could not hide or stifle. She sat up suddenly.

“There will be, Denis!” she said vehemently. “There will be harmony, my dear, darling old Denis! I’ve been selfish and horrible!” He tried to stop her, but she would go on. “I knew all the time that I was. Oh, Denis, forgive me, and let me have another chance! Let’s go now to your mother, and--”

“Not much!” said Denis. “Not after the note I left!”

“It’s early. Perhaps she hasn’t come home yet. Oh, do tell the man to hurry! Denis, let me have my chance!”

IX

There Denis sat, as much at home in that icy room as a frog in water. To be sure, he had offered to close the window, but Emily had declined, preferring to wear her fur coat. His very voice had changed. All the warmth had gone out of it, and his face wore a look she had not seen before--a bored and disdainful look.

Yet she knew that he was really happy. All the talk about old friends and old days, from which she was so entirely shut out, interested and pleased him. She knew that he thought Cecil amusing and Cynthia a beautiful and distinguished girl, and that he profoundly admired his mother’s frosty calm. He was among his own people, and immeasurably glad to be there.

And Emily herself was quite happy, quite content to sit in silence. She had two supreme consolations. One was the look in Denis’s eyes each time he turned toward her, and that was often. He wasn’t good at expressing himself in words, but his glance was eloquent enough, and it spoke only to her. His own people were entirely shut out from their secret happiness. They might ignore her if they liked; she didn’t care in the least. They were the real outsiders.

And the other compensation was a bit of paper tucked inside her blouse--Denis’s note to his mother, which Mrs. Lanier was never to see. Emily could well afford to be generous, for her triumph was complete and magnificent.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

AUGUST, 1924 Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 3

Who Is This Impossible Person?

THE STORY OF A VERY FORMIDABLE AUNT AND A VERY PERSISTENT YOUNG MAN

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

The up train stopped, a porter sprang down the steps with two heavy bags, assisted a lady to descend, climbed on board again, and he and the train went off, leaving the lady and the bags there. The platform was deserted, shining like a treacherous sheet of water beneath the dim lamps. The rain fell steadily. It was the blackest and most dismal night that ever was.

For some time the lady stood just where she had been left, with an annoyed, affronted expression upon her face, as if she was waiting for some one to come and remove this unpleasant weather. Nobody came, nothing stirred, and she herself was strangely inactive.

Did she look like a submissive or helpless creature? On the contrary, she was a portly, white-haired lady, dressed in black of a somewhat majestic style, and not only her face, but the set of her plump shoulders and even the jet ornament on her toque, seemed to be alive with energy and resolution.

Yet she did not move. She turned her head to the north--rain and darkness were there. She turned it to the south--the same thing. Behind her she knew there was nothing but the railway track; so, with a sigh, she picked up the bags and went on toward the waiting room.

Then, had there been any one there to see, the secret of her reluctance to move would have been revealed. This imposing and dignified lady, whose very glance was a rebuke to frivolity, had nevertheless one outrageous vanity--she would wear shoes that were too small for her.

Setting down the bags, she turned the handle of the door, and it was locked. Through the glass she could see into the dimly lit room, where there were plenty of benches upon which a sufferer might rest. Exasperated, she rattled the knob and rapped upon the glass, but all in vain. Picking up the bags again, she made her way painfully to the end of the platform, to see what she could see.

The town of Binnersville, however, was one of those illogical towns which are almost invisible from their own proper railway stations. There lay before her a forlorn and lifeless street lined with small shops, all tight shut, and not a human being in sight.

Her sharp eyes, however, caught sight of something very welcome. At the end of the street, standing before a faintly illuminated drug store, there was a real, civilized taxi. With all the speed possible to her she went toward it, to seize it before it could vanish.

The street was slippery, the bags were heavy, and the portly lady in her little high-heeled shoes made a dangerous progress. Nevertheless, she got there. Seeing no driver where a driver should have been, and being a woman of enterprise and resource, she set down her bags, leaned across the seat, and blew the horn three or four times--great, loud squawks that resounded startlingly through the night.

At once the door of the drug store opened, and a young man appeared on the threshold.

“Kindly take me to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said the portly, white-haired lady.

“But I’m not the driver,” said the young man.

“Then kindly call the driver!” said she.

Opening the door of the cab, she managed, with considerable effort, to shove one of her bags inside. The young man was there to help her with the other.

“The driver’s in the shop,” he explained, “getting something taken out of his eye; but--”

“Be good enough to tell him I am waiting,” said she.

“He’ll be along in a minute, and then he can take us both to--”

“Pardon me!” said the portly lady, in a perfectly awful voice.

The young man seemed a little taken aback. She was now settled inside the cab, and he was standing outside in the rain. It was very dark, and they could not see each other; but so expressive was her voice that he fancied he knew how she looked.

“I shall instruct the driver to return here for you, if you wish,” said she.

“But, you see,” said the young man, quite good-humoredly, “I had engaged this cab. It’s late, and the weather’s bad, and I’m going in your direction. We can--”

“Pardon me! I cannot consent to that.”

“What?” persisted the young man. “Why not?”

“It is not my custom to encourage chance acquaintances,” replied she. “If you insist upon getting in, I shall get out.”

“But look here!” protested the young man. “I--”

She was already struggling with the handle of the door.

“Very well!” he said curtly. “I’ll go!”

As he turned, he saw the driver coming out of the shop, holding a handkerchief to his eye.

“This lady wants to go to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said he. “Oh, never mind me!”

And he set off on foot up the hilly street, in the pelting rain. The portly, white-haired lady watched him go.

“I cannot,” she said, half aloud, “encourage chance acquaintances--especially on Lynn’s account.”

II

For years the house at 93 Sloan Street had displayed a sign announcing that it was “to let or for sale,” and these words might as well have been followed by “take it or leave it,” for that was the owner’s attitude.

It was a hopeless house, dark, damp, and badly arranged, standing in a garden where enormous old trees cast so dense a shade over the front lawn that not even grass would thrive. As for the back garden, only the queerest, most obstinate, ancient shrubs were there, huddled against the side fence, because anything less tenacious was inevitably carried away by the river in its annual spring flood.

Just now the river was low, dolloping along dejectedly between its brown and uninteresting banks. Everything was brown--the water, the bare trees, the fields, the road in front, and No. 93 itself. Altogether the breath of life had gone out of Sloan Street, and to any one coming down from the sunny, breezy hilltop it seemed a sorry spectacle.

Some one had come down from the hilltop this morning--a brisk, neat little red-haired lady. She came smartly along the road to No. 93, pushed open the gate, and walked up the garden path. She saw the portly, white-haired lady standing on the veranda, looking down the road.

“Good morning!” said the visitor. “I’m your neighbor, Mrs. Aldrich.”

She waited at the foot of the steps, because she thought she would not go up on the veranda until she was invited. Well, she never was invited.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, with honest and neighborly good will.

The portly lady looked down at her as if doubtful whether such a creature could really exist.

“Thank you, there is not,” she said.

Mrs. Aldrich was greatly taken aback.

“I thought perhaps--” she began, in a tone not quite so neighborly, but the other interrupted.

“Very good of you, I’m sure; but I shall do very well, thank you.”

That last “thank you” seemed capable of lifting Mrs. Aldrich out of the garden all by itself.

“I wouldn’t set foot in that place again,” she declared, “if she begged me on her knees!”

This declaration was addressed to her nephew, Jerry Sargent. She had made it before, to her husband and to a neighbor or so, but she found special pleasure in telling things to Jerry, for the strange reason that he never agreed with her. She was a shrewd, sensible, rather peppery little woman. She had been his guardian when he was younger, and she still interfered pretty considerably in his affairs--which he good-humoredly permitted.

“If you could have seen the way she looked at me!” she went on. “As if I were a--a toad!”

“I know,” replied Jerry. “I didn’t see her, but I heard her, and I know the sort of look that would go with that tone. ‘Who is that impossible person?’ She told me she didn’t encourage chance acquaintances, and it looks as if she meant it!”

“I should have made her get out of that taxi and walk--in the rain!” cried Mrs. Aldrich, who had been informed of the episode of the previous night.

“Of course you would,” her nephew agreed, with a grin. “I know you! And you’d have called her names out of the window as you passed her, wouldn’t you? But I’m much milder. I was ashamed of being a chance acquaintance, anyhow. It didn’t seem respectable.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take everything so lightly!” complained Mrs. Aldrich, but she didn’t mean it. The thing she loved best in her nephew was his careless and generous good humor, his utter lack of malice or resentment. “You ought to have more pride, Gerald, than to allow yourself to be trampled on.”

He rose to his feet, and stood looking down at her with an expression of great severity; and though his aunt knew it to be assumed, she thought it very becoming to his face. A big, handsome fellow he was, with the gray eyes and black hair and all the wit and charm and grace of his blessed mother, and all the energy and practical good sense of his father. A good man of business he was, but into the dullest matter of routine, into the most trifling details of everyday life, he brought his own sort of laughing romance.

“Very well, madam!” said he. “You’re disappointed in me because I’ve let myself be trampled on. Now you’ll see what I can do when my pride is roused!”

“Jerry, you ridiculous boy! Where are you going?”

“Down to No. 93,” said he. “The turning worm! Good-by!”

And off he went, down the hill, whistling as he walked.

III

Without the slightest hesitation Jerry opened the garden gate, went up the path and up the steps, and rang the bell. At least, he imagined that he rang the bell, but as a matter of fact he did nothing except turn a handle which was connected with nothing. After two or three attempts he began to suspect this, and knocked instead, which soon brought some one running along the hall to open the door.

He was astounded--not because it was a girl, and not because she was pretty. He had seen pretty girls before, and knew that they were likely to crop up anywhere; but this girl had exactly the sort of prettiness he had been looking for and waiting for so long that he had almost given up hope of finding it.

She was tall, slender, dark-browed, so gracious and serene, with lovely, fragile hands; and her eyes! They were black eyes, so clear, so quiet, so luminous and untroubled! It didn’t make the least difference that she was wearing a gingham apron and carried a rolling pin under her arm. She was matchless, she was incomparable, in her was personified all the romance left in the world.

“Did you--” she began, and hesitated. “Are you--”

“I thought--” he answered, still a little dazzled. “That is, I thought maybe--”

It was this tremendously important and significant conversation that the portly, white-haired lady interrupted. She appeared suddenly in the background, and regarded them with severe astonishment.

“Are you the plumber?” she inquired of Jerry, raising her eyebrows. “Run away, Lynn!”

“I don’t think so,” he answered absently, because he was watching Lynn “run away” as slowly as any healthy human being could well move.

“Indeed!” said she. “The plumber should be here.”

The inference evidently was that Jerry Sargent should have been the plumber.

“No,” he added, with a smothered sigh. “I just stopped in to see if there was anything you wanted done.”

“There are several things that I want done,” she replied; “but I trust I shall be able to find the proper workmen to do them. I need a plumber and a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?”

Now Jerry knew very well that she knew he wasn’t a carpenter, and that she simply wished to be obnoxious. On the spur of the moment, looking steadily at her, he answered:

“Yes, I am. Any little odd jobs you’d like done?”

She returned his glance with one quite as steady.

“There are,” she said.

With that, he promptly took off his coat, and she, equally determined to see the thing through, led him into the dismal front room.

“I want shelves put up,” said she. “Three rows--on this wall. There are boards in the cellar for that purpose.”

Fortunately Jerry was by nature “handy,” and in his younger days had had much experience in building chicken houses and rabbit hutches and such things. With the calmest air in the world he set to work, wondering for what possible reason she could want a triple row of enormous shelves. For some time the portly lady watched him, but that didn’t worry him, for he felt sure that she knew even less than he did about putting up shelves; and at last she went away.

When he was alone, he couldn’t help laughing. It might have ended that way, with Jerry thinking the whole thing a rather idiotic joke, in which he was getting somewhat the worst of it, if something had not happened to change the aspect of the situation.

He was hammering away at a bracket which would--he hoped--support one end of one of those monster shelves, when he heard a light footstep behind him. He turned and saw the incomparable girl.

She smiled in her serious way, and Jerry tried to look equally serious, but did not succeed very well. In the first place, it wasn’t natural to him to be serious, and, in the second place, he was extraordinarily pleased to see the incomparable girl again. He couldn’t help fancying that she shared at least a little in his delight.

Anyhow, she was very friendly toward this strange carpenter. She asked him if he needed anything else for his work. He thanked her earnestly and said that he did not. Then she advanced a little farther into the room, and laid one of her slender little hands on the boards standing against the wall.

“Is the work very hard?” she asked.

“No,” said Sargent. “I like it--very much!”

There was a long silence. She was still standing beside the boards, running her delicate fingers along the edges, with her eyes thoughtfully downcast. The shifting sunshine, filtering through the leafy branches outside, threw a wondrous light upon her gleaming dark hair and her pale, clear features. Somehow it hurt Jerry to look at her. There was something about her, some intangible shadow over her young face, which made him feel sure that she had endured much, and had endured it with fortitude and courage.

“The poor little thing!” he thought. “Shut up here in this dismal hole, with that dragon! Oh, the poor, poor little thing!”

He suddenly realized that he was in his shirt sleeves. With a hasty apology, he put on his coat.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not really a carpenter.”

“I knew you weren’t,” said she. “I knew you were--well, I mean, I knew you weren’t.”

Another silence.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. “I’d be--oh!”

“What’s the matter?” cried Jerry.

“Nothing,” she answered, but he saw her pull a handkerchief out of her pocket and wrap her hand in it.

“Let me see!” he commanded.

“Really it’s nothing,” she protested; “only a splinter from those boards. I should have known better.”

Well, splinters ought to be taken out, lest they fester; and it was the most natural thing in the world for Jerry to insist upon performing the operation. She fetched a needle, and he burned the point in the flame of a match, and grasped her injured hand firmly.

He hadn’t realized what it would mean. The splinter was long and deeply embedded, and he could not help hurting her. She winced and bit her lip. When at last the heartbreaking job was done, his face was quite pale. He still held her hand, and was looking at her with the most miserable contrition; but she smiled.

“You mustn’t be so silly!” she said. “It’s really--”

“Lynn!” said an awful voice.

Lynn, suddenly growing very red, escaped at once, and Jerry saw her no more that day.

He would perfectly well endure being called a plumber, a carpenter, and a chance acquaintance, but he could not endure this. He no longer wished to laugh, he no longer saw this thing as a joke. On the contrary, he was immeasurably offended by the suspicious and scornful glare he got from the portly, white-haired lady.

IV

Next morning the postman delivered a letter at No. 93, addressed to Mrs. Nathaniel Journay, who was none other than the portly lady.

DEAR MADAM:

In order to avoid a misunderstanding which has often been a cause for dissatisfaction in our tenants, we beg to call your attention to that clause in your lease which restrains the tenant from driving any nails into the walls, or in any way defacing or marring the walls or woodwork of the premises.

Trusting that you find the house entirely as represented,

Very truly yours, COOPER & COOPER, Agents.

“Humph!” said she, very much taken aback.

Lynn looked up from her breakfast.

“What is it, auntie?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said the other calmly. “Simply one of the necessary annoyances of a business career.”

She was prepared to say a good deal more than that to a certain person. She was by no means stupid. She put two and two together, and chalked up a mighty black four against that fraudulent carpenter. He was the talebearer. Very well--only wait until he presented himself again!

In the meantime the indomitable woman finished the carpentering herself. The noise of the hammering made her very nervous, but she made up her mind to defy Cooper & Cooper if they should appear. She had to have those shelves, and she would have them.

That afternoon a man came by, asking for work. He said he was a gardener; and after Mrs. Journay had cross-examined him until he was reduced to an abject condition, and she felt sure he was no spy, she set him to work.

The next morning she had another letter from Cooper & Cooper, pointing out to her that it was strictly prohibited to tenants to remove shrubs in the garden, to lop off branches from trees, or in any way to mar or deface the garden.

This time she wrote a tart answer, remarking that the garden was in a lamentable condition which no one could deface or mar, that the branches lopped away had been those which shut off light from the house, and that she would really be justified in sending the landlord a bill for this work. Nevertheless, she did not employ the gardener again.

For a few days she and her niece were invisibly busy within the house, but at last, one bright morning, they came out with a ladder, which Mrs. Journay held while Lynn climbed up it and hung out a glittering gilt signboard, lettered in black:

YE OLDE NEW ENGLAND BOX SHOPPE

The sign shone in the sun like a warrior’s shield. The two women regarded it with pride and pleasure.

“I believe the customers will begin coming to-morrow,” said the elder.

But the first thing to come the next day was a letter from Cooper & Cooper.

DEAR MADAM:

It has no doubt escaped your notice that the premises at 93 Sloan Street are upon highly restricted property, which restrictions forbid the use of the house or grounds for any business purpose. You will find this covered in the fifth section of your lease, any violation of which, if willfully persisted in, renders the contract null and void.

Very truly yours, COOPER & COOPER, Agents.

“Let ’em!” she cried aloud, dismayed, but valiant as ever.

“What is it, auntie?” inquired Lynn.

“Never mind, my dear!” said the other. “You go on painting your boxes, and I’ll attend to the business arrangements.”

Mrs. Journay spoke in her usual confident manner, but at heart she was alarmed and not at all certain as to what she ought to do. She was certain, however, that her niece must not be worried by these unexpected developments. To protect Lynn was her chief duty on earth, and her chief pleasure, too. Terrible as she might be to others, to Lynn she was never anything but kind and generous and affectionate, in her august fashion.

“I’d rather know, auntie,” insisted Lynn. “I think I really ought to know. We’re partners, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Journay. “Yes, I know that, but--”

“We can’t carry on our business,” Lynn continued, “unless we both know everything about it--can we, darling?”

She was now standing behind her aunt’s chair, resting her soft cheek against that imposing coiffure. Mrs. Journay frowned.

“It doesn’t seem necessary,” she said.

She was already conquered, however. To tell the truth, her serious and quiet niece had always been able to wind Mrs. Journay around her little finger.

“Let me see the letter, auntie dear!” said Lynn.

She did see it, and the two former ones.

“It’s that man!” declared Mrs. Journay. “There’s no possible doubt of it. He came here to spy. Some one sent him. My theory is that some one knew we were going to start this shop, and, fearing the competition, determined to drive us out!”

Lynn stood looking down at the letter with a curious expression.

“I see!” she said.

From her face one might imagine that whatever it was she saw gave her very little pleasure.

They were both silent for a time, with their meager little breakfast forgotten between them. They had always been more or less poor, but never in this way. Until recently they had lacked neither dignity nor comfort. They had had their friends and their little diversions, and a cozy sort of existence, until something happened. It doesn’t much matter what the catastrophe was. The important fact is that their small income vanished, and here they were, gallantly prepared to make a new one for themselves.

And was this enterprise, into which the very last of their savings had gone, to be wrecked by Cooper & Cooper? Mrs. Journay would not permit it. Often in the past, when she had coldly ignored people, such people had disappeared from her sight--beneath the surface of the earth, for all she knew; and she decided to try this on Cooper & Cooper. She would scornfully ignore them. The shop should go on--it must!

She was about to say this aloud, when Lynn began to speak.

“Auntie dear,” she said, “let’s give it up!”

“Lynn! I am surprised!”

“Yes!” Lynn went on, with a sort of vehemence. “Let’s give this up and go away from here.”

“Lynn! Your boxes! The beautiful boxes you’ve painted!”

“I’d like,” said Lynn, “to see them all sailing down the river! Oh, auntie, do let’s go away! I hate this house and this place and--we’ll go back to Philadelphia, and I’ll take a position in an office, and--”

The girl stopped short at the sight of her aunt’s face.

“Oh, my dear!” she cried. “I didn’t really mean that! No--we’ll stay here, of course, and we’ll make a wonderful success of the shop.”

She sat on the arm of her aunt’s chair, and they talked with enthusiasm of their dazzling future; but they didn’t look at each other--not once. They talked, they even laughed, and after breakfast they went about busily preparing for customers; but all the time there lay over them the black shadow of this persecution. Why should any one wish them ill?

“I’d really be glad to go,” thought Mrs. Journay, “if it weren’t for Lynn; but I can’t and won’t have Lynn working in an office. I’ll make this--this disgusting shop a success!”

Lynn went on painting boxes all the morning.

“He was the only one who knew about the shelves,” she said to herself. “Out of petty, despicable spite against poor auntie, he went off and told the agents; and after he’d been so--not that I care, though. I knew all the time that he was one of those men who always--who always pretend to--to like people!”

Still, in spite of not caring in the least, it seemed to her that this incident was harder to bear than all her other misfortunes--harder to bear than exile from her old home and her old friends, than her desperate anxiety about money, or than the frightful tedium of painting boxes.

“Because it’s such a humiliation,” she explained to herself.

The admiration of young men was certainly no new thing to Lynn, but that a man should look at her like that, should speak as he had spoken, and then so basely betray her aunt and herself--

Her cheeks burned with just anger, or perhaps with shame, that even for a moment she should have thought so well of him.

V

No one came to molest them that day, or the next, or all that week, or that month, but this good fortune was counterbalanced by the fact that no customers came, either.

Mrs. Journay and her niece took turns in attending to the shop with the regularity of deck officers standing watch; and, having once arranged a schedule, they were afraid to depart from it, for fear of admitting in any way that trade was not brisk. Lynn went on and on painting boxes, because, in the first place, they had a large stock to be painted, and, in the second place, she had nothing else to do; but the dismalness of sitting in that big, dim room, to see the boxes piling up on the shelves, and to make calculations which showed that the money decreased even faster than the boxes increased, was not a life to give animation to a girl, or comfort to an elderly lady.

Indeed, the only thing that supported them was their splendid, ridiculous Journay fortitude and obstinacy. They had gone into this thing without help or advice. They wouldn’t ask help or advice now, and they wouldn’t complain.

It was Lynn’s turn in the shop that afternoon. She sat there behind a long table on which were a tin cash box, wrapping paper, twine, and a pile of pretty little blue cards on which was printed:

YE OLDE NEW ENGLAND BOX SHOPPE--Hand-decorated gift boxes for all purposes--Chests made to order.

She was sewing, but when she heard a step on the veranda she hid the sewing in a drawer and began to write busily on a pad. The front door was open, and the customer entered the room. Lynn looked up with an alert, businesslike expression--and it was that man!

“I’ve been away,” he began eagerly. “Otherwise--” He stopped short, looking at Lynn. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“No,” she said evenly.

For an instant her clear eyes rested on his face, and then they glanced away, as if he wasn’t worth regarding. She was not rude, or scornful, or awe-inspiring like her aunt, but her attitude was unmistakable.

“I’ll have to ask you to excuse me,” she said politely. “I’m busy this morning.”

Rising, she moved toward the door.

“No!” he cried. “Please wait! Please tell me what’s the matter! Every minute I’ve been away, I’ve been thinking of getting back and seeing you again. I--please don’t go! Just tell me!”

“I have nothing to tell you,” said Lynn, with energy. “I have nothing to say to you at all, except that I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t come again.”

Then she vanished. Before Jerry had recovered himself, he was confronted by his mortal enemy, Mrs. Journay.

“Kindly send your bill for the carpenter work you did,” said she, “and it will be attended to promptly.”

He tried a smile.

“That was just a little neighborly service--” he began.

“I prefer not to accept it as such,” she interrupted.

“Well, I prefer not to send bills,” said he, resolutely good-humored. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll introduce myself--”

“I do not allow you.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied firmly, “but it’s time it was done. I’m Mr. Sargent, your landlord.”

This was a blow to stagger Mrs. Journay, but she rallied superbly.

“Indeed!” said she. “Now I see it all! Very well, call your Cooper & Cooper to put us out. Let them--”

“But there’s no question of that!” he protested. “I’m only too glad--” She really was magnificent!

“I refuse to be under obligations to you,” she said. “Your agents may forbid me to do such and such a thing, and I shall do it. I defy them. I defy you. I intend to continue in this course until I am forcibly ejected. Instruct your Cooper & Cooper to that effect. I do not recognize you!”

VI

This was ordinary rain. From a sullen sky it came driving down like a sheet of fine wires, digging into the sodden ground, dashing on the roof, beating down the tiny new leaves on the trees, riddling the muddy water of the now hurrying river. This was the worst of three rainy days, and the house on Sloan Street was in a sad state. There was water in the cellar, there were spots of mold on the walls, and everywhere there was a most miserable, dank, bleak chill, which even these two resolutely cheerful women could not ignore. They did not appear to relish their breakfast.

“I--” began Mrs. Journay, and, for the first time since Lynn had known her, she visibly hesitated. “If you can look after the shop alone,” she said, “I’d like to--to--attend to some business.”

Now, if she had not been so intent upon her own duplicity, Mrs. Journay would have observed that Lynn’s conduct was unusual. The girl showed no surprise at her aunt’s singular decision to go out in such weather. On the contrary, she seemed relieved and pleased.

“I don’t mind at all,” she replied. “Not a bit! I--not a bit!”

So Mrs. Journay put on an old raincoat with capes, and a hat that was good enough for the rain, and her overshoes, and set off.

Lynn, watching that erect and imposing figure tramping through the mud of Sloan Street, took out a handkerchief and cried into it for a good ten minutes. She planned treachery that day. She had made a secret appointment with a wholesaler who would, she hoped, buy all those boxes for a lump sum, and thus put an end to some of their financial difficulties--and also to the shop.

Fortunate that she did not suspect her aunt’s errand! Even Mrs. Journay, with her unconquerable spirit, was very, very unhappy that morning.

“But,” she said to herself, “there wouldn’t have been enough to pay that man his rent on the 1st of next month, and that I could not bear!”

She, too, had renounced the shop, and intended to tell Lynn so in the evening.

In the meantime, on she pressed. The mud was slippery, the rain disconcerted her by beating in her face, and her shoes were even more uncomfortable when worn with rubbers. What was worse, her way lay uphill, and up a mighty steep hill at that, and she had a heavy heart to carry with her. She turned her ankle rather painfully, the top button burst off her raincoat--she breathed so hard--and the rain ran down her neck. Still, as was her admirable way, she reached her goal. At last she stood upon the summit of the hill, and though to be sure she did not cry “Excelsior!” she felt a little like that.

She turned for a last glance behind her. There lay Sloan Street far below, and No. 93 was plainly visible in every detail. She sighed sternly, faced her destiny again, and turned in at the gate of a fine stone house before her. She rang the bell.

“Mrs. Aldrich?” said she to the maid, and presented her card.

She was asked to step into the music room, but would not. She was too wet. She would stand in the hall; and there Mrs. Aldrich found her when she descended.

Now Mrs. Aldrich, when she saw that card, had meant to treat Mrs. Journay as Mrs. Journay had treated her; but it was impossible. In the first place, Mrs. Aldrich was not capable of a majestic manner. She was peppery and sharp, sometimes, but never hoity-toity. In the second place, the caller looked so forlorn and tired and wet that all her rancor vanished. She held out her hand with a smile and a friendly greeting.

“Pardon me,” replied Mrs. Journay, in the most frigid tone she had ever used. “I fear you mistake my purpose. I have come”--here she opened her purse and took out a bit torn from a newspaper--“I have come to apply for this position as cook.”

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Aldrich.

“If the position is not filled, I believe I have at least some of the qualifications you desire. I understand cookery in all its branches. I am honest, clean, and strictly sober.”

This was awful! This was intolerable!

“Oh, but, my dear Mrs. Journay!” cried Mrs. Aldrich, immeasurably distressed. “I--don’t you see? I can’t! Let’s sit down and--”

“Thank you,” interrupted the other. “Then I must apply to the next place on my list.”

“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Aldrich, for she could not endure the thought of Mrs. Journay going out into the rain again, and tramping about, looking for a position as cook. She could not endure to see this magnificent creature so humbled. “Can’t--something else be done?” she asked.

“Thank you, it cannot.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Aldrich, “if you really feel that you must, then please stay here with me.”

“Thank you. I shall ask you to allow me to use the telephone for the purpose of sending a message to my niece. May I safely say that I shall return to her at ten o’clock this evening?”

“Oh, much earlier! Whenever you like!”

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Journay, “but I believe I understand the requirements of such a position.”

VII

“The dam has burst,” said old Mr. Cooper.

He made this melodramatic announcement with great calm, because it was a very unimportant dam, and not likely to evoke much excitement; but Jerry Sargent, his employer, sprang to his feet.

“What?” he cried. “Elliot’s dam? Then Sloan Street must be under water!”

“I’m afraid so,” said Cooper, somewhat startled; “but No. 93 is the only house there that’s tenanted, and I didn’t imagine you’d be much upset about them.”

He was still more startled by the expression he now saw upon Sargent’s usually good-humored face.

“What do you mean by supposing that?” thundered Jerry. “On the contrary, they’re--they’re special tenants. They--”

“Well,” said Mr. Cooper, “you see, in view of the correspondence we had with them--”

“What correspondence?”

“Why, those letters that Mrs. Aldrich directed us to send while you were away. You distinctly said we were to take directions from her in your absence.”

“Let me see those letters!”

Mr. Cooper produced them. Mr. Sargent read them.

“It’s an outrage!” shouted Jerry. “It’s persecution! It’s--”

He flung himself into his overcoat, jammed a felt hat well down on his head, and started out, slamming the office door behind him. His roadster stood at the curb. He got in, started off with a jerk, and went down the street, around the corner, and out into the road that led to Sloan Street from the town. It was a good road, and he took advantage of it. He turned another corner, and Sloan Street lay before him at the foot of the hill.

Oh, Sloan Street was under water, sure enough! It was, in fact, a shallow stream, moving sluggishly. It was certainly not more than six inches deep, and there was no danger, visible or implied; yet to Sargent it was horrible, that sullen, muddy stream, under the merciless downpour of rain, with stanch old No. 93 standing there among the tossing, dripping branches of the trees.

He left his car, ran down the hill, and splashed into the water, ankle deep. His feet sank into the mud, the rain beat in his face, but he bent his head and floundered on, the slowness of his progress putting him into a dogged fury. He wanted to get there at once, to explain.

He stumbled over something, fell to his knees, and lost his hat while regaining his feet. He wiped his rain-blurred eyes with a muddy sleeve, and went on.

“Mr. Sargent! Mr. Sa-argent!”

He stopped, turned, and saw Lynn standing on the hill he had recently left.

“Oh, please come back!” she cried. “Please, Mr. Sargent!”

He did come back, and stood before her.

“I had to come,” he said, “to tell you that I didn’t know anything about those letters from Cooper & Cooper. I never heard of them till to-day.”

Never in his life had he imagined that a girl could look like this. Her hair lay dank across her forehead, giving to her glowing face an adorably childlike look. Her dark lashes were wet, and were like rays about her clear eyes; and the kindness, the heavenly kindness of her regard! The poor fellow had positively no idea that she was a forlorn, bedraggled little object. There he stood, looking up at her, and she looked at him, and tears came into her eyes.

“Don’t!” he cried.

“But you don’t know!” she said.

She meant that he didn’t know how splendid and gallant and handsome he appeared, bareheaded in the rain, with a great streak of mud across his face, and how deeply touched she was by his coming through a flood to explain about the letters; and of course she didn’t wish him to know.

“I--my boxes!” she said, by way of explaining the tears. “I’ve been into the city to see a wholesaler, and he’s bought them all. I had them all on the dining room floor, ready to pack, and I’m afraid--”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Sargent.

“No! No! Mr. Sargent, come out of that water!” said she sternly. “It doesn’t matter!”

“It does,” said he. “Wait here!”

Off he splashed again.

No. 93 was built on the side of a little slope. The front door was reached by a flight of steps, but the back door was level with the garden, and Jerry knew very well that the house must be filled with water. He kicked open the gate, made his way along the path and up the steps to the veranda, and put the pass key he carried with him into the lock.

The key turned readily, but the door would not open. He pushed his hardest. At last he drew off a little and crashed against the door with his shoulder. Then it opened, and a great flood of water, dammed up inside, came rolling down the steps in a cascade. Suddenly something heavy, borne on the swift-moving current, struck Jerry on the shins, knocked him backward, and, sailing on, struck him violently on the head. The chill, muddy water rolled over him, but he was as indifferent to it as the fleet of hand-decorated boxes that went down the front steps with him.

VIII

Mrs. Aldrich and Mrs. Journay sat in the kitchen, side by side, on two straight-backed chairs. They had just had a quarrel, due to Mrs. Journay’s obstinately refusing to eat her lunch with Mrs. Aldrich and insisting upon having it in the kitchen. In the course of this quarrel Mrs. Aldrich had explosively confessed that it was she who had ordered the Cooper & Cooper letters sent, and who had observed from her hilltop all that went on below.

“Because I didn’t like the way you treated my nephew,” she explained. “Can you forgive me for that?”

“I can,” said Mrs. Journay, calmly. “I should have felt the same, if it had been my nephew.”

“Then,” said Mrs. Aldrich triumphantly, “if you really do forgive me, the least you can do is to come in and have lunch with me decently!”

But Mrs. Journay would not, so Mrs. Aldrich had sent away the two servants and eaten there in the kitchen with Mrs. Journay. In the beginning both of them were very angry, but they became more and more friendly every minute. They had a great deal to talk about--they had Lynn and Jerry to talk about.

“Jerry tells me that your niece is a charming girl,” said Mrs. Aldrich. “He’s talked about her incessantly ever since he first saw her; and it isn’t like Jerry to be so enthusiastic.”

“She is a charming girl,” replied Mrs. Journay complacently; “and as for your nephew--”

The front doorbell rang, and Mrs. Aldrich went to open the door. Mrs. Journay sat where she was.

“Jerry!” she heard Mrs. Aldrich cry in a tone of fright.

“Don’t worry!” answered a cheerful voice which Mrs. Journay recognized without difficulty. “It’s only a scratch; but--this is Miss Journay. She saved my life!”

“Oh!” protested Lynn. “Really I didn’t!”

Mrs. Journay then entirely forgot her position, and hurried into the hall. There she saw that man, with a bandage around his head, and Lynn standing beside him.

“Auntie!” cried Lynn, amazed. “You here?”

“Why not?” inquired Mrs. Journay. “I might ask why you are here!”

“Mr. Sargent got hurt trying to save my boxes,” Lynn explained anxiously; “so you see, auntie--”

“What am I expected to see?” asked Mrs. Journay, with lifted eyebrows.

Mrs. Aldrich now intervened.

“Jerry,” said she, “now that I’ve had an opportunity of knowing Mrs. Journay better, I see that I was wrong--altogether wrong. I want her and her niece to stay here with us until that horrible old barn is put in order for them again--if it ever is; and I want you--”

Jerry stepped forward and held out his hand, smiling. Lynn thought, with a flash of hope, that even her aunt could not resist him; but Mrs. Journay regarded him sternly.

“Lynn,” said she, “introduce this young man to me. I do not know him.”

“But, auntie!” protested Lynn. “You’ve seen him--”

“Not properly,” said Mrs. Journay.

“Mrs. Journay, this is my nephew, Gerald Sargent,” said Mrs. Aldrich.

Then Mrs. Journay took his outstretched hand and smiled, the jolliest sort of smile.

“I always liked that boy!” she observed aside to Mrs. Aldrich.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER, 1924 Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 4

Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN OLIVE’S ARDENT ADMIRER AND HER FORMIDABLE AUNT

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Olive was weeping quietly, but Miss Torrance, sitting beside her in the dark, was very calm, and even a little scornful. The unmerited sufferings of the hero and heroine on the screen before them didn’t trouble her. It was sure to come out all right in the end; and even if it didn’t, who cared?

Olive was a sentimental little thing, and yet the strong-minded, prodigiously sensible Miss Torrance could understand, perhaps too well, how she felt. It wasn’t the story that made Olive cry. It was the spectacle of that swift, vivid, intense life that so disturbed her; and it disturbed Miss Torrance, too.

Yachts, tropical islands, coral reefs, dark figures in oilskins seen by lightning flashes on storm-swept decks, clear lagoons, palm trees in the moonlight--when you saw all that, and when you thought of getting up six mornings a week at half past seven, and going down to the office, and coming back to the boarding house at twenty minutes past five, and when you were a stern, adventurous spirit, like Miss Torrance, or only twenty-one, like Olive--

Miss Torrance and Olive often talked about traveling. They even got booklets from the steamship companies, and planned routes and figured expenses. Olive took it all very seriously, but Miss Torrance smiled indulgently at such a childish pastime.

Miss Torrance was not the sort of woman to cry for the moon. She often said she wasn’t, and she never suspected that she was one of those still more romantic creatures who try to build bridges to reach the moon. Olive longed for impossible things, but Miss Torrance tried to get them.

“Come, my dear!” said she, with just a trace of impatience. “This is where we came in.”

“All right!” answered Olive, with a resigned sigh.

They squeezed past a row of people and went up the aisle and out into the lobby.

“Oh, mercy!” cried Olive. “Raining!”

Miss Torrance said nothing, but her brows met in an anxious frown.

The April rain was coming down in a steady torrent, drumming loud on the roof, and spattering on the pavement. The streets shone like deep, black water under the arc lights. Taxis spun by like incredibly swift motor boats. It hadn’t at all the appearance of a shower. It was obstinately and definitely a rainy night--chill, too, and windy, so that it was almost impossible to believe that only six days ago, on Saturday, spring had begun, and Miss Torrance and Olive had been irresistibly tempted to buy spring hats.

“We’ll take a taxi,” said Miss Torrance. “It’s cheaper than ruining our new hats.”

“All right!” said Olive.

So Miss Torrance advanced to the very limit of the covered entrance, and signaled to the taxis that went by, fleet and careless; but not one of them stopped--no, not one.

“Beasts!” said she.

“Maybe they’re all taken,” suggested the gentle Olive, but Miss Torrance would have none of that.

She, too, still had in her mind the images of tropical islands and coral reefs and high adventures, and somehow it hurt and angered her, and the taxis that would not stop were like the stream of life itself that hurried past and left her behind.

“I’ll make one stop!” she declared grimly. “Here!” Taking off her brave new hat, she thrust it into Olive’s hands. “I’ll stop one if I have to stand in the middle of the street!”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Olive. “Wait just a minute!”

“Let me get you one,” said a cheerful voice.

Turning, they both looked into the face of an unknown young man. It was by no means a face to inspire alarm, nor was his manner at all sinister. He was a sturdy, square-shouldered young chap, with a sunburned face, in which his eyes looked amazingly blue. As he stood there, hat in hand, he looked altogether so good-humored and friendly and honest that Miss Torrance’s glare softened.

“Well--” said she.

He needed no more than that grudging consent.

“Half a minute!” he cried, and off he darted into the rain.

“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh, Miss Torrance! Oh, we forgot! We can’t pay for it! We have only fifteen cents!”

“Oh!” said Miss Torrance, too.

She certainly had forgotten, for the moment, that they had come out simply for a walk, and hadn’t meant to go to the movies, or to buy the cake of chocolate they had just eaten inside. To-morrow was pay day at the office, and only that morning Miss Torrance had deposited the week’s surplus in the savings bank, and Olive never had any surplus.

“I’ll stop him!” she said hurriedly, and she, too, dashed off into the rain.

Just as she reached the curb, the young man arrived there on the running board of a taxi.

“Here you are!” said he, opening the door.

“I meant--” said Miss Torrance. “Thank you just the same, but we have changed our minds. We--we are going in the subway; but thank you.”

The lights from the brilliant lobby shone across the street, making it very bright where they were. The rain was pelting down on her sleek blond head. The valiant little white ruffle at her neck was already beaten flat, but she herself was indomitable--a little woman and a good-looking one, although, by her severe expression and her curt manner, you might fancy that she was trying to deny both the littleness and the good looks, and to force you to remember only her thirty-five years and her ability to earn her own living.

“But--” protested the young man.

“Thank you, just the same,” said Miss Torrance again, and, turning, hastened back to Olive.

The stranger was not a faint-hearted young man, however. He followed her.

“Look here!” he said earnestly. “You haven’t even an umbrella. You’ll catch cold!”

“Thank you, but it can’t be helped,” said Miss Torrance.

She spoke sternly, but she didn’t really dislike this man. There was something rather engaging about him, and she was very much pleased to observe that not once did he even glance at Olive. Miss Torrance did not wish strange young men to look at Olive.

“I meant to take a taxi, anyhow,” said he. “Won’t you please let me drop you?”

He looked at Miss Torrance with a wistful, humble expression, which she knew very well to be false. There was precious little humility in that young man! Still, she didn’t dislike him on that account, either. Indeed, she was almost ready to smile, when he added:

“I’m going through West Twelfth Street. If you live anywhere near there--”

All thoughts of smiling abandoned her.

“Thank you, no!” she replied frigidly. “Good evening! Come, Olive!”

To her dismay, Olive did not come.

“Let’s!” the girl whispered. “Why not? He seems--”

Politely the young man stepped back a little. Miss Torrance gave Olive a long and severe glance.

“No!” said she.

Olive was silent for a moment. Then she raised her eyes to her friend’s face.

“But I’d like to,” she said quietly.

Then Miss Torrance had her turn at being silent.

“Very well!” she said, at last.

In those two words there was something not far from tragedy. Miss Torrance was not stupid. She had seen in Olive’s face the dawn of a new spirit of independence, and the shadow of the end of her own fiercely benevolent despotism. And she loved Olive so!

She put on her hat--such a smart little hat!--and, at that moment, she hated it. It was absurd that any one who felt as she did just then should wear a jaunty little hat like this!

The young man was standing by the open door of the taxi. In they got, she and Olive side by side, the stranger facing them. There was something else in that cab which almost stifled Miss Torrance--something which she insisted upon in stories, but found unbearable here--something known professionally as “heart interest.” Olive did not speak one word, and did not stir. The stranger’s conversation was quite impersonal, and yet Miss Torrance knew. It seemed to her that she knew exactly what was in the minds of her companions.

The young fellow’s cheerful voice was speaking in the darkness.

“Beastly weather, isn’t it?” he remarked, to fill a long, long pause.

“Personally,” said Miss Torrance, “I don’t believe in thinking about the weather. I agree with Dr. Johnson that it is contemptible for a being endowed with reason to live in dependence upon the weather and the wind.”

“Well--” said the young man, who knew not Dr. Johnson, but was respectful toward Miss Torrance. “You can’t help it very well at sea, you know.”

“Have you been at sea?” came Olive’s clear little voice.

“Ever since I was seventeen. I’m chief officer now,” he answered, with modest pride. “Passenger ship.”

It seemed to Miss Torrance that even as he spoke she could smell a salty vigor in the air. He came from the sea, did he--the sea of which she and Olive talked so often? He was a sailor, was he? Miss Torrance’s heart sank, remembering all that she and Olive had said about sailors. The romance of the sea--what nonsense!

They had reached the house. The young man sprang out and held open the door of the cab; but he stood in the doorway, so that no one could get out.

“I wish I could see you again!” he said earnestly. “We’re not sailing until Monday--engine trouble. The cargo’s all in, and I know I could get another afternoon or evening on shore.”

He waited.

“My name’s Martin--Sam Martin,” he went on anxiously. “I--I know a fellow who lives in your house--Robertson. He could tell you--”

“We don’t know any one in the boarding house,” said Miss Torrance stiffly; “but thank you for bringing us home, Mr. Martin. Good evening!”

The house door closed behind them, leaving them in the dark hall and Mr. Martin out in the rain. Miss Torrance began to mount the stairs, and Olive followed her, rather slowly. They entered the room which they shared.

“How,” inquired Miss Torrance, “did that young man know we lived on West Twelfth Street?”

“Well,” said Olive, who was taking off her shoes, so that her fair head was bent and her face not to be seen, “I think perhaps he saw me coming out of the house this morning.”

II

Now Olive was not inclined to object to anything that Miss Torrance might say or do. Her memory for office details was not remarkable, but her memory of her friend’s thousand queer little kindnesses was unalterable, ineffaceable.

When she had been left an orphan by the death of her father, the very first person to arrive at the house was Miss Torrance, her mother’s cousin; and as soon as Miss Torrance entered the door, she had taken charge of the bewildered and heartbroken girl. She had brought Olive home with her, got her into bed, brought up dinner to her herself, and looked after her in a brisk, matter-of-fact way for a long, weary fortnight.

There remained, for Olive to remember forever and ever, a Miss Torrance who got up half a dozen times on bitter winter nights to mix medicines and heat broth and milk, or even to talk pleasantly to an invalid who sometimes wept for sorrow and weariness; a Miss Torrance who rose earlier in the morning to attend to Olive’s breakfast, who rushed back from the office at lunch time with little delicacies, who hurried home at five o’clock as brisk, as competent, as unfailingly kind as ever. Her salary was not a large one, yet she was ready, was glad and willing, to feed, clothe, and shelter Olive for the rest of her days. She loved the girl. From the very first moment that Olive had wept on her shoulder she had loved her in a fierce, generous, tyrannical way of her own.

She had never loved any one before, and sometimes she couldn’t quite understand why she was so very, very fond of Olive; for the girl had none of the qualities which Miss Torrance herself possessed, and which she admired in others. Olive was a slender, quiet young girl, pretty enough in her gentle way, but not of the type Miss Torrance was wont to praise. Her brown eyes had a wistful sort of eagerness, and her mouth was oversensitive. Altogether, there was something dreamy and unpractical about her.

At the end of the fortnight she had told Miss Torrance that she wanted to set about earning her own living. The older woman was torn between her wish to shelter and protect this gentle young creature and her conviction that every human being should work. Conviction conquered, and she found a place for Olive in the office of the Far Afield magazine, of which she was fiction editor. With a severe sort of patience, she labored over Olive until she had made a pretty fair worker out of her, but she had no illusions as to the girl’s lack of business ability. She had begun now to train her for the career of a writer, and she saw more hope in that.

They were not friends in the office. Miss Torrance would not permit it. Directly they entered the building, all intimacy was put aside until five o’clock. They did not even lunch together, because Miss Torrance considered it a bad precedent. Yet, the morning after the meeting with that Mr. Martin, Miss Torrance, to save her life, could not help looking very often through the half open door of her office toward the end of the outer room where Olive sat.

“Nonsense!” she said impatiently to herself. “She’ll forget him in a week. She doesn’t know him--doesn’t know anything about him. He wasn’t at all the type to suit her. A very ordinary, commonplace young man! I’m glad I discouraged him. He was inclined to be troublesome.”

Olive was quietly working away, as usual.

“If she were--interested in him,” thought Miss Torrance uneasily, “she’d look different.”

The telephone on her desk rang.

“Miss Torrance speaking!” she said briskly.

“This is Sam Martin,” came the answer. “I wanted to ask you and--and--I don’t know her last name, but I think I heard you call her Olive--I wanted to ask you both to lunch.”

A sort of panic seized Miss Torrance. Was she never to be rid of this young man, never to have Olive all to herself again?

“Olive cannot come,” she answered, in a voice that trembled with anger.

“Then won’t you?” said he. “I’d like very much to talk to you.” She consented to that, and at twelve o’clock she put on her jaunty little hat and hurried out of the office, giving Olive a very strained smile as she passed her.

How much she regretted having consented to see Mr. Martin! She had meant to crush him utterly, to point out to him how ungentlemanly, how disgraceful, it was for him to persecute two defenseless women with his unwelcome attentions; but instead of being offended or ashamed, all he did was to entreat her for a chance.

“Just give me a fair chance!” he begged. “If you find you don’t like me, why, there’ll be no harm done. Let me come to see you, or write!”

“No!” said Miss Torrance. “It’s ridiculous. It can’t possibly matter to you.”

“It does,” he declared.

For a moment they were both silent, sitting at the table in the very good restaurant, and not eating the very good lunch the young man had ordered.

“Look here, Miss Torrance!” he went on. “I’ve got to tell you. I’d been in to stay overnight with Robertson, and in the morning I saw--her--going out. The moment I saw her, I--look here, Miss Torrance, you’ll have to believe me--the moment I saw her--she’s so--I--I can’t tell you; but she’s so--sweet!”

Miss Torrance could not endure this. She could not endure the sound of his earnest, entreating voice, his pathetically inadequate words, or the sight of his unhappy, honest young face. She did not know whether she was contemptuous and angry, or even more unhappy than he was; but she did know very positively that she wanted to get away, wanted to end this.

“You don’t know Olive,” she said coldly; “and I do. I tell you frankly, Mr. Martin, that I shall do all I can to protect her from--” She stopped. “She’s all I have in the world!” her heart cried. “I won’t let her go. I won’t let her see you! Because, if she does see you--you confident, good-looking, detestable creature!--how can she help loving you and forgetting me, and how shall I live without her?”

“But I’m--I give you my word I’m--respectable!” said he, in despair. “I’ll tell you all about myself. I’ll get people to write you letters about me. I--”

“I don’t doubt you, Mr. Martin,” said Miss Torrance, with a chilly smile; “but that’s not the point. You’ll pardon me, but I see no advantage to Olive in making the acquaintance of a man whom she might never see again. A sailor’s life--”

“Oh, but look here! If she would marry me--”

“Marry you?” cried Miss Torrance. “What preposterous nonsense is this, when you haven’t spoken half a dozen words to each other?”

“I can’t help it,” said he, terribly downcast, but resolute. “That’s the way it is with me; and if she even seemed to--to be beginning to like me, I’d give up the sea.”

Miss Torrance smiled--not a trustful smile.

“I mean it!” said he. “I have to make this trip, but when I come back, I’ll stay. I promised, long ago, that if ever I met a girl I wanted to marry, I’d swallow the anchor.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Torrance.

Like all innocent persons who wish to be convincing, Mr. Martin added details.

“The best friend I ever had made me promise that,” he went on. “He’d had a hard lesson when he tried to mix the two--falling in love and going to sea, I mean. He lost his ticket and his girl both.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Torrance again. “Very interesting, I’m sure!” The poor young man believed that she meant that.

“Yes,” he said, “it is an interesting story. This chap--I’ll call him Smith, if you don’t mind, because naturally he wouldn’t like to be named. It happened some time ago--eighteen or twenty years ago, and this chap was third officer on a cargo steamer running between London and Antwerp. Well, one trip he met a girl in London, and he--well, you know, he liked her, and she seemed to like him. He told her when he’d be likely to dock again, and she said that that was her birthday, and that she wanted him to come to a little dance she was having. Well, of course, he got her a present. He pretty well broke himself to get her something he thought she’d like, and I suppose he thought about her a good deal. A fellow would, you know, at night, on watch, you know, and so on. Well, they got in the morning of the very day he’d said--docked at Tilbury--and then the old man told him he needn’t expect to get ashore this trip. The first was married and lived in London, and the second was signing off, so Smith would have to stay on board. Of course he couldn’t say anything, but it hit him pretty hard. Look here, Miss Torrance, does this bore you?”

“No,” said Miss Torrance, who was interested in spite of herself.

“Well, then, as soon as the others had cleared out, Smith stepped ashore and telephoned to her. She began to tell him how glad she was, and how she’d been hoping he’d be able to come to her dance, and he had to tell her he couldn’t come. She asked him”--Martin grinned--“she asked him if he couldn’t tell the captain it was her birthday, and then she asked him if he couldn’t get some one to do his work for him. You know, girls never understand responsibility; but they’re--there’s something sweet about--”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Miss Torrance sharply.

“Anyhow, this girl didn’t--or wouldn’t--understand. She said if he didn’t come that night, he needn’t ever come. She told him he was no better than a slave--had no spirit, and so on. Well, there he was! It was a rainy day, and--ever seen Tilbury Docks on a rainy day? I wish I knew how to give you the--the effect. It’s the most dismal, desolate place you’d ever want to see. The Alberta was coaling, too, and you know what that means.

“Except for a steward and some of the crew, there was no one on board but Smith and the second engineer, and they didn’t hit it off very well. The cargo was all out of her, and the new lot not coming in till the next morning. The coaling was nearly done, and there was a train up to London about four o’clock. Well, if you were making a story out of this, you’d put in a lot here about a moral struggle. He must have had one, you know--love and duty,” said Mr. Martin, obviously pleased with his phrase. “That’s it--a struggle between love and duty, and love conquered. He must have been very fond of that girl! He went to town on the four o’clock train. He saw his girl, and she must have been a remarkably pig-headed, unreasonable young person. She said she’d marry him if he would give up the sea, but he would have to make up his mind then and there, or she’d know he didn’t really care for her. So he said he’d let her know before he sailed.

“The dance broke up pretty late, so Smith went to spend the night with a friend of his in London, and took the first train back to Tilbury in the morning. Hadn’t been able to sleep all night, trying to make up his mind whether he’d give up the sea or the girl. Well, he got back, and on the dock he meets the marine superintendent of the line--a terrible old fellow, Captain Leavitt. Poor Smith felt pretty sick when he saw the captain. Anyhow, he says ‘Good morning, sir,’ and goes on to explain that he’d just stepped ashore for a bit of breakfast at the hotel.

“‘Ship’s breakfast not good enough for you, eh?’ says old Leavitt.

“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ says Smith. ‘It wasn’t that--’

“‘If you’ve any complaints to make,’ says old Leavitt, with a queer sort of grin, ‘now’s the time to make ’em, Mr. Smith!’

“Smith said he had none.

“‘Satisfied with the Alberta, eh?’ asks old Leavitt. ‘Everything all right on board when you stepped ashore for a little breakfast, Mr. Smith?’

“By this time Smith felt pretty sure that Captain Leavitt knew how long he’d been away, but he thought he’d better try to see it through. So he says yes, everything was all right.

“‘Humph!’ says old Leavitt, staring hard at him. ‘Well! So you’re quite sure everything’s all right on board this morning, eh?’

“‘Oh, yes, sir!’ says Smith.

At that Leavitt takes his arm, and, without another word, stumps along beside him to the Alberta’s berth. The Alberta wasn’t there!

“‘Sure everything’s all right on board, eh?’ says Captain Leavitt. ‘My eyes aren’t as good as they were.’

“Poor Smith just stared and stared at the empty slip. He couldn’t say one word.

“‘She’s gone to the bottom!’ shouts Captain Leavitt. ‘And too bad you didn’t go there with her, you young liar and blackguard!’”

“Do you find that humorous?” demanded Miss Torrance, with a severe glance at his laughing face.

“Well, I can’t help it!” said Martin. “No one was hurt, you know. The trimmers had loaded her down too much on one side, and she simply rolled over and sank. And when you think of old Leavitt asking him if everything was all right on board, when he knew all the time, I can’t help thinking it’s funny!”

Martin stopped, quite overcome with laughter.

“This friend of yours--this Smith--did he consider it funny?”

“Oh, Lord, no! But he’s a serious, high-minded sort of fellow. He thought it was a disgrace, you know, and he went off and told the girl that he was disgraced and ruined, and she threw him over. He never got over it, and that’s why he got me to promise that if ever I--well, you know, if I got seriously interested in a girl, I’d swallow the anchor. I think he’s right. It’s not fair to a girl--”

Miss Torrance rose.

“I think, Mr. Martin,” said she, with a frigid little smile, “that if I were you, I shouldn’t renounce my trade.”

“Profession,” Mr. Martin suggested.

“Occupation,” Miss Torrance compromised. “It is one thing for you to be seriously interested in a girl, and quite another thing for her to be seriously interested in you.”

And with that she walked off, leaving her unfortunate young host standing beside the table, on which remained the last course of that excellent lunch.

III

It was a lamentable day. There was a smoky fog outside, which was, for some reason, twice as bad inside the house. When Miss Torrance let herself in, the ill lit hall was thick with it, and the puny gas jet spurted as if panting for breath.

As usual, she stopped at the hall table to look at the letters there. She picked one up hastily, and put it into her hand bag. Then, as she was about to ascend the stairs, she caught sight of Mr. Robertson standing in the doorway of the sitting room.

“Good evening!” said he.

Even in the dusk, she could see the gleam of his white teeth as he smiled. She knew how he looked when he smiled, anyhow, for hadn’t she been seeing him twice a day for at least six months? Olive had remarked that he “looked like a darling.” Though Miss Torrance didn’t agree with any such extravagant statement, she had secretly thought him a rather distinguished man--until she had learned that he was a friend of Mr. Martin’s.

He was tall, very slender, very dark, with keen, thin features and an odd smile that lifted his neat black mustache up to his narrow nostrils, giving him an expression a little fierce, but altogether agreeable. Of course, she didn’t know him, and wouldn’t know him. Let him smile! He was a friend of that Mr. Martin’s, and he and Mr. Martin were both in a conspiracy to rob her of Olive.

Still, she couldn’t very well refuse to answer, and so she did, after a fashion. Mr. Robertson did not seem to be discouraged. He made another remark, which she also felt obliged to answer. Indeed, he began to talk, and so artful was he that before she realized what she was doing, Miss Torrance was engaged in conversation with him.

She was thus engaged when Olive came, but that brought her to herself. With the coldest little nod for Mr. Robertson, she went upstairs.

“I see you were talking to Mr. Robertson,” Olive observed.

“I couldn’t help it,” said Miss Torrance, with a frown. “He’s--well, I don’t like the man.”

Strange, then, that as she lay awake that night Miss Torrance should constantly see before her the image of Mr. Robertson--a tall, dark form in the dark hall, lounging against the hat stand in one of his characteristically easy and nonchalant attitudes! Strange that she should keep seeing his gleaming smile, and hearing in her ears his quiet, courteous voice!

All this caused her a curious uneasiness. For some reason it seemed to her a great misfortune, almost a disaster, that he had spoken to her. A very great misfortune! There he was, however, whether she liked him or not.

Being in all things so much quicker and brisker than Olive, she got downstairs first in the morning. When she entered the dining room, Robertson spoke again, and smiled. He pulled out her chair for her, and paid her various polite little attentions not at all remarkable in themselves, but new to Miss Torrance. She couldn’t actually be rude to the man, for he hadn’t offended in any way, and he wasn’t really obtrusive; but--

Morning and evening, for an endless week, she was obliged to see him, and to make civil responses to his civil greetings. By the end of the week she knew why she didn’t like Mr. Robertson. She didn’t like him because she couldn’t manage him. She couldn’t overawe him. She couldn’t impress him. When she was with him, she couldn’t really be Miss Torrance at all.

This, of course, she couldn’t endure. She wasn’t much used to talking to men, and she had a pretty poor opinion of them in general. She thought they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and Mr. Robertson evidently was not at all ashamed of himself. He was a surveyor of hulls, and she couldn’t help admitting that he had advanced further in business knowledge than herself. He had lived in all sorts of outlandish places--in Surabaya, in Hongkong, in Cape Town. He knew the world, and seemed to take it for granted that she didn’t. Apparently he regarded her as a dear, helpless little creature, and the incredible thing was that, while with him, Miss Torrance couldn’t help feeling like that.

One morning, when they were alone in the dining room, talking together in what certainly looked like a friendly manner, she looked up at him and asked him a question, with exactly the look and the voice of a dear, helpless little creature. Mr. Robertson looked back at her. Their eyes met. This made Miss Torrance very angry.

“I’m down town almost every day,” said Mr. Robertson. “Can’t we arrange to have lunch together some day?”

“Thank you,” said Miss Torrance, “but I have no time.”

She said it in a way that Mr. Robertson could not very well help understanding. And the whole morning long she remembered this--remembered how the smile had vanished from his face, how stiffly he had bowed.

“I hope I did discourage him!” she told herself vehemently. “He’s the friend of that troublesome Mr. Martin, and he’s trying to scrape up an acquaintance with me, so that he can give messages and so on to Olive. Well, he shan’t!”

IV

It was really spring now, a wild, gay April day, and Miss Torrance felt unusually restless. She was wearing a new suit, dark blue, very plain, very smart, and what with that and the spring in the air, she felt inclined to festivity. She thought it would be nice if she was going to meet somebody for lunch. Well, of course she wasn’t, but instead of going to the tea room where she had been going for years, she went to a near-by hotel.

The first person she saw there was Olive, very cozily lunching with Mr. Robertson.

Miss Torrance got away without being seen, and went back to the office, for she did not want any lunch now. She went home a little earlier than usual, but she left nothing undone that should have been done.

Olive noticed nothing amiss with her friend. When she left the office, she didn’t hurry. She was glad to go slowly through the sweet afternoon. The western sky was clear and clean, ready for the down going of the sun, and the quiet and beautiful light of that most beautiful hour shone full in her face. Seeing her at that moment, you could well understand why poor Mr. Martin had been so suddenly overwhelmed.

She gave a last glance at the sky before opening the front door. Then she entered the house and went upstairs. The door was closed, so she knocked.

“Come in!” answered Miss Torrance.

She was on her knees, packing her trunk.

“What are you doing?” cried Olive.

“I’m packing,” answered Miss Torrance. “I’m--going away.”

“But why? Where?”

“I saw you!” cried Miss Torrance. “I saw you--with that man!”

Olive was silent, not by any means from guilt or confusion, but because she was struggling against an unwonted anger. She thought of a good many things to say in regard to this unwarrantable interference with her affairs, but she did not say one of them. Instead, she looked down at Miss Torrance, who was working away in hot haste, and every one of her friend’s generosities and queer little kindnesses rose up before her. She crossed the room and knelt by the other woman’s side, putting an arm about her shoulders.

“Oh, my dear!” she said gently. “If I’ve done anything to--to hurt you, can’t you forgive me?”

“It’s not that,” said Miss Torrance, in a hard, cold voice. “I’ve nothing to forgive. It’s simply that I’ve--I’ve made a fool of myself.” The tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she pretended not to know it. “I’ve made the worst sort of fool of myself--and I will not face that man again! I will not!”

“But, darling,” said Olive gently, “if you feel like that, we’ll both go.”

“No!” cried Miss Torrance, with a loud sob. “I will not come between you and your precious Mr. Martin!”

“What do you mean?” said Olive. “I don’t--” She stopped. “That’s silly, darling,” she went on, in an airy sort of way. “I’ve forgotten all about Mr. Martin, and he’s gone off to sea and forgotten all about me, long ago.”

“He has not!” said Miss Torrance. “He wrote you two letters, and I tore them up. Take your arm away, please, and let me get up!”

Olive, too, had risen.

“My letters!” she said faintly. “I didn’t think you would--”

“Well, now you know,” said Miss Torrance. “Now you know what a--a beast I am!”

“Stop!” said Olive.

“I won’t!” said Miss Torrance. “I pretended to myself that I wanted to save you, but to-day, when I saw you with that man, I knew that I was nothing but a jealous, meddlesome old--”

Suddenly they were in each other’s arms, clinging to each other and weeping.

“Of course I’m going with you!” said Olive. “You might have known!”

V

It was nothing--nothing at all--for Olive to give up the hope of seeing Mr. Martin again. Twice only had her eyes rested upon his jolly, sunburned face, and it ought to have been very easy to forget that. His letters she had never seen, so they were surely nothing to think about. Altogether, he and his letters were only the briefest sort of episode in a life that might go on for thirty, forty, even fifty years longer.

She had so much to be thankful for--a good position, a comfortable home, and the immeasurable gratitude and devotion of her friend. Well, to be sure, she was as quietly good-tempered as usual, and gave no sign that she had not forgotten the whole thing; yet Miss Torrance knew that Olive hadn’t forgotten.

She could read it in the girl’s face, and she could read it in her own heart. She could understand how Olive felt about her lost Mr. Martin. She understood very well what it was to remember one face, one voice, so constantly that all others were a weariness.

“It really is like that!” she sometimes said to herself, with a sort of awe. “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true!”

She never spoke about this to Olive, nor did she think it necessary to tell her that a week after they left the boarding house she had returned there, to see Mr. Robertson, and to get from him the address of the roving Mr. Martin. Mr. Robertson had gone away, the landlady didn’t know where, so Miss Torrance was spared that humiliation, and had no inclination to mention it. She had done away with the young man so effectively that now, when she would have given her right hand to get him back for Olive, she couldn’t find him.

She tried her very best to atone. She no longer attempted to interfere in Olive’s affairs, for she no longer felt herself supremely competent to manage other people’s affairs. Indeed, the poor little woman was sometimes so subdued, so crushed by remorse, that it was all Olive could do to enliven her.

There were times when Olive found it rather a strain to enliven any one, when she would have welcomed any one who would perform that kind office for her. To-day was one of those days. The work in the office had been very heavy, and the weather was warm and sultry. She wanted to go home and rest, and yet she was reluctant to enter the new boarding house, so discouragingly like the old one.

She closed the front door behind her, and sighed. The servant had forgotten to light the gas, and the hall was inky black. There wasn’t a sound in the house, and the only sign of life was a steamy smell of rice and mutton ascending from the basement.

Olive was about to go upstairs when the doorbell rang furiously, and she thought she would wait and see what it meant. There might be a telegram for herself. She knew of no living person to send her one, but still, who knows what may happen?

Anyhow, she lit the gas herself, and pretended to be looking at the letters on the rack. She heard the maid coming up the basement stairs. The bell rang again, louder and longer.

“Mercy on us!” said the servant. “You’d think it was a fire!” She opened the door, and in came a man, in great haste.

“Miss Torrance!” he said. “I want to see Miss Torrance at once!”

“She ain’t in,” said the maid, as if pleased.

“Look here!” said the stranger. “I made them tell me at her office where she lived, and this is the place, and I’m going to see her!”

“She ain’t--” the servant began again, when Olive stepped forward.

“Will I do?” she asked.

“You!” he cried.

Olive was not so much startled as he, because she had been looking at Mr. Martin ever since he entered. Nor did she seem pleased. Mr. Martin had apparently come here filled with rage against her Miss Torrance, and that she would not tolerate.

“What was it you wanted?” she inquired coldly.

“I came,” said Mr. Martin firmly, “about this story--in this magazine. It’s--it’s an outrage!”

“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh! The--the story?”

He looked at her sternly, yet with a sort of compassion.

“Do you mean that you know about it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Olive, in a faint little voice. “But--I didn’t think it was so--so bad.”

Mr. Martin looked at her with growing horror.

“Look here!” he said. “You don’t mean--you can’t mean--it was signed with a man’s name, but I felt sure Miss Torrance wrote it, because it’s based on a story I told her myself, about Robertson. I called him ‘Smith,’ but I suppose she knew all the time--”

“No!” Olive interposed. “No! Mr. Martin, I’m awfully sorry, but--I wrote that story!”

“What? You?”

“I’m awfully sorry,” Olive said again, and she looked so. “You see, Mr. Robertson told me the story himself, and he didn’t say that it wasn’t to be used.”

“Naturally he didn’t. It never entered his head that you would--”

“But, you see, I didn’t mean--I didn’t think--I only thought it was funny.”

“Funny!” cried Mr. Martin, all his indignation returning. “You thought it was funny to say--wait a minute!” He pulled a magazine out of his pocket and turned the pages. “This!” he said in a terrible voice. “You say, ‘The man went bowed under the weight of his infidelity. False to his duty, false to his inmost self, he--’”

“I didn’t!”

“Here it is in black and white. ‘Raising his glass in his shaking hand, he drank again, his bleared eyes peering--’”

“I did not!” cried Olive.

“You’ve made him out a drunken old beach comber--Robertson, the finest fellow who ever lived! You’ve got all the facts there--any one could recognize ’em. You say--”

Olive could endure no more of this nightmare. She snatched the magazine out of his hands. “Remorse,” the story was called, and the author’s name was given as “John Hunt.” She suddenly collapsed upon the bottom step of the stairs.

For a moment the young man remained the just and stern judge. Then he bent over her and said, in a voice of quite human solicitude:

“I’m--perhaps you didn’t realize. Look here--I wish I hadn’t said all that! I’m--please don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” replied Olive, in a stifled voice. “Please forgive me! It really isn’t funny, but--oh, oh, I just can’t help it!”

He bent nearer.

“Are you laughing?” he demanded incredulously.

“Oh, please forgive me! It’s horrible, but--I’ll stop in a moment. You see, that awful story is Miss Torrance’s, but I wrote a story, too--only mine was better, I think, and funnier. You see, we both--”

“You and Miss Torrance each wrote a story about Robertson?”

“Yes, both of us, and neither of us knew. Oh, imagine the editors, and Miss Torrance, and poor Mr. Robertson, and you, and me--”

“Personally, I don’t see anything--” he began in a frigid tone, but it was of no use.

The dull, dingy old house rang with his great, hearty laugh.

VI

They were all having dinner together in a restaurant. In the circumstances, Miss Torrance could not well refuse, especially as it was Mr. Martin’s one night on shore; but she was not happy. Every one else was happy, but not she.

As a rule, she strong-mindedly concealed her feelings, but to-night she didn’t. She allowed Mr. Robertson to see just how miserable she was. Olive and Mr. Martin might have seen this, too, if they had looked at her.

“It looks as if there was a new story beginning there,” observed Mr. Robertson. “Might be called ‘Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor.’”

Miss Torrance refused to smile.

“I shall miss Olive so,” she said, in a not very steady voice, “if she--”

“I’m sure you would,” agreed Mr. Robertson; “but she couldn’t find a better fellow than young Martin. I’ve known him all his life, and--”

“Yes, I know,” said Miss Torrance; “but I shall be lonely--oh, so lonely!”

It turned out, however, that she was not destined to be lonely.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY, 1925 Vol. LXXXIII NUMBER 4

Too French

THE STORY OF A NERVOUS WRECK AND HER ATTRACTIVE YOUNG COMPANION

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Young Mandeville Ryder entered the employment bureau with extreme reluctance. Indeed, when he opened the door and saw so many women in there, and heard so many feminine voices, he would have backed out again, only that he was too young to dare to run away.

He was twenty-five--the age of pig-headed valor. He had undertaken to do this thing, and he meant to do it. Instinct warned him to flee, but he paid no heed. Hat in hand, he advanced to the desk and somewhat vaguely made known his wants.

It was a question of engaging a companion for his sister, who was a nervous wreck. His brother-in-law had implored him to do this.

“B-because,” Sheila’s husband said, “if I find any one--well, Mandy, you know what she’ll probably say.”

Mandeville did know. He had taken pity upon his luckless brother-in-law, and had agreed to go and pick out a companion for Sheila; so here he was.

The young woman in charge of the bureau listened to him with courteous inattention. She had long ago ceased to trouble with any one’s detailed requirements. She knew that both employers and employees wanted and demanded things that never existed in this world, and that in the end they would take what they could get and be more or less satisfied.

She was, however, rather favorably impressed by this client. Not only was he more than six feet tall, extraordinarily good-looking, and extremely well dressed, but he had an air about him--a superb sort of nonchalance, which she saw through at once, and which she recognized as merely a disguise for an honest, candid, and endearingly youthful spirit; so she decided not to inflict Miss Mullins upon him. Miss Mullins had been registered for six weeks, and, considering her temperament and personal appearance, she needed every possible chance.

“No!” thought the young woman in charge. “I’ll let him see Miss Twill.”

Smiling pleasantly, she led Mandeville into a room where four women were already established, talking, two in each corner, in low tones, and eying each other with quick, terribly penetrating glances. A prominent clubwoman was interviewing a poor little secretary, and a mild, home-keeping lady was being interviewed by a stern and handsome English governess.

Young Mandeville had to sit either on a very low wicker rocking-chair, or on a settee. He tried the rocking-chair first, but it brought his knees up to his chin, so he had to take the settee, and this caused him considerable anxiety; for suppose--

Well, it happened. Miss Twill, brought in and presented to him, did sit down on the settee beside him. She was a cheery soul. All her unimpeachable references mentioned her “cheerful disposition.” She really had no perceptible faults at all, but she wouldn’t do.

Young Mandeville was absolutely incapable of telling her this to her cheerful face, and their conversation had trailed into an awful succession of one “well” after another, when the intelligent manageress of the bureau saved him. She sent him another prospective companion to be interviewed, another and yet another, and none of them would do.

Mandeville suffered exceedingly. He wished that he could give the discouraged, pinched little old one a present--a dozen pairs of gloves, for instance. He wished that he could invite the pert, pretty young one out to lunch. He was sorry for all of them, and he felt like a brute; but he knew what he wanted, and these would not do. There he sat, like a caliph in his divan, pronouncing judgment upon these poor, anxious creatures, and waiting, without much hope, for the right one.

He had a clear idea of the right one. He had met her--in novels and in the theater--a tall, grave, lovely young woman, exquisitely well bred, dignified, and yet subtly pathetic; the sort of companion who can stand about and converse with diplomats. Not that his sister ever entertained diplomats, but that was the type.

The manageress was becoming a little severe. It was dawning upon her that this client was not so manageable as he looked. After he had seen and--with great mental suffering--rejected six companions, she decided to make an end of him.

The room was temporarily empty of all but Mandeville when she returned with the seventh applicant.

“Miss La Chêne!” said she, and, saying, vanished.

Miss La Chêne did not sit beside Mandeville on the settee--not she! She took the low rocking-chair opposite him, crossed her feet modestly, clasped her little white-gloved hands in her lap, and raised her eyes to his face. Enormous, soft black eyes they were, set in a dark, lovely, pointed face. She was dressed with an innocent sort of elegance, in a dark suit and a small, close-fitting hat. She had about her such an air of propriety, something so decorous and demure and delightful, that Mandeville couldn’t repress a smile. She smiled, too, and dropped her eyes.

He didn’t know how to begin. This charming little thing was nothing but a child, a kid.

“Er--” he said, in his vague, grand manner. “Er--I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience as a--er--a companion.”

“None!” said she, almost with vehemence. “None at all; but I speak French just as I do English, I can sew, I can read aloud, I can play the piano. I have good personal references from people in Quebec, and I have a diploma from the convent.”

In hot haste she opened her hand bag, brought out some letters, and handed them to the young man. Somehow he didn’t care to read them. Somehow this interview lacked a businesslike tone. No--he couldn’t read the poor little thing’s letters!

She was watching him anxiously.

“I’ll try very hard, if some one will only give me a chance!” said she.

Poor little thing! Such a sweet, well bred little voice!

“I know,” said Mandeville earnestly; “but--you see, my sister wants--”

For instinct warned him that this delightful creature would not do.

“You see--” he went on, but stopped short, because the poor little thing’s black eyes filled with tears.

“I’m only eighteen,” she said, “and all alone in the world.”

This was more than he could endure. He was silent for a moment, trying honestly to weigh the merits of the case. She was obviously well bred, she spoke French, she could sew, she could read aloud, she could play the piano; but all these qualifications became confused in his mind with the quite irrelevant facts that she was only eighteen and all alone in the world, and that she had those extraordinary, those marvelous eyes.

“I’ll take you to see my sister,” he said, at last, for he thought that his sister could not fail to be touched by so much youth, beauty, and innocence.

II

Sheila Robinson, the nervous wreck, lay on a couch in her boudoir, and from time to time she wept. She was a handsome woman, a fine woman, tall, regally formed, with long, languid blue eyes and a superb crown of red hair. She was not unaware of her natural advantages, yet compliments almost always made her weep.

“If you could have seen me before I married Lucian Robinson!” was what she usually said.

She had just said this now, to Miss La Chêne, and Miss La Chêne had answered instantly:

“Oh, any one could see how much you’ve suffered!”

Considering the age and inexperience of the girl, this reply showed talent; but what had the poor little thing, only eighteen and all alone in the world, to depend upon except her own native wit? She had made a determined effort to please Sheila Robinson, and she had succeeded at the very first interview. Mrs. Robinson had been much gratified by her wide-eyed interest and fervent sympathy.

For a whole week Miss La Chêne had not failed once. She had been earnestly attentive, obliging, polite, and amusing. She had been, without complaint, a servant in the morning, a dear and intimate friend in the afternoon, and completely forgotten in the evening. Everything had gone very nicely indeed.

But a week of calm was about as much as Mrs. Robinson’s nerves could endure. Her husband was away on a business trip, and his daily letters upset her horribly. She could, she assured Miss La Chêne, read between the lines. She was wonderfully clever about this, though she modestly said that it was all intuition.

For instance, if a letter was dated the 12th, this remarkable woman knew at once that it had really been written on the 5th, and given to some complaisant friend to mail. If Lucian said that business was bad, it was because he wished to lavish his money elsewhere. If he said that business was good, it was because he was disgracefully happy.

Altogether Mrs. Robinson was so barbarously ill-used and deceived by her husband that she no longer cared what happened to her. The hotel suite which she occupied became the scene of a lamentable martyrdom. She trifled with her life. When she lay in bed, she observed to Miss La Chêne that the doctor had positively ordered her to go out and divert her mind. When she passed a hectic day away from home, she would frequently remind Miss La Chêne, with a brave, scornful smile, that the doctor had forbidden any excitement. Every meal, every cup of coffee, every cigarette, was a reckless defiance of the doctor’s orders; but, as she said, what did it all matter? Perhaps it would be better if she were dead, and the heartless Lucian free to marry again.

“If I should not be here when he comes back,” she said to Miss La Chêne, in a low, thrilling voice, “tell him that I forgive--everything!”

Nevertheless, it seemed that she wished to know definitely what there was to be forgiven, for on this particular morning she said she had a “strange, psychic feeling that something was wrong,” and she desired to verify the suspicion. She read her husband’s letter over and over.

“My dear!” she said, with dangerous calmness. “He says he is at a hotel in Washington, but I do not believe him! Something tells me he is not in Washington at all!”

Miss La Chêne looked appalled.

“Please,” Mrs. Robinson went on, “get the hotel on the long distance for me, my dear. I must know!”

This the willing companion did. Mrs. Robinson took up the receiver and requested to speak to Mr. Robinson. There was a pause. Then a pleasant feminine voice answered her:

“Mr. Robinson is out, but this is Mrs. Robinson speaking. May I--”

It was terrible! In vain did Miss La Chêne point out that Robinson was not a very unusual name, and that there might well be a Mrs. Robinson in that hotel totally unknown to Mr. Lucian Robinson.

“Don’t go on!” cried Mrs. Robinson. “I knew it--I knew it all the time! My heart told me!”

She began at once to prepare for her departure. In every crisis she was wont to fly to some one who could “understand,” and it was now the turn of her sister, Mrs. Milner, to perform this office for her. She was going away. She cared not where she went, in her anguish, but she thought that Miss La Chêne might as well buy her a ticket for Greenwich and look up a train and order a taxi.

“I must go at once,” she said, “while I have the strength. My dear, do I look too terrible?”

“Well,” replied Miss La Chêne, “of course, any one could see how much you were suffering.”

Mrs. Robinson cast a glance at the mirror. With her handsome face pale with grief and Rachel powder, her eyes somber with pain and mascara, her regal form dressed all in black, she did indeed look tragic.

“What does it all matter?” she demanded. “You’ll stay here and look after the packing, won’t you, my dear? And my jewels--” This was too much for her. “My jewels!” she said wildly. “Almost all of them were given to me by him, in those days when he still loved me. Take them away! Never let me see them again--never! But be sure to get a receipt from the safe-deposit, my dearest child, and remember that the bank closes at three o’clock.”

She gave the jewel case to Miss La Chêne and turned with a shudder, covering her eyes with her hand.

“Take the five o’clock train, my dear,” she said. “I’ll see that you’re met at the station. Good-by! Good-by!”

“Au revoir!” said Miss La Chêne, with fervor.

Directly she was left alone, Miss La Chêne, with remarkable skill and energy, set about the business of packing. She did the job well--as, indeed, she did almost everything she undertook.

In a way she enjoyed the task, but in another way it was unspeakably painful. She adored handling these satin, silk, lace, chiffon, batiste, and georgette garments of Mrs. Robinson’s, these perfumes, powders, rouges, creams, and lotions, these hats, shoes, slippers, gloves, and scarfs. She could thoroughly appreciate the somewhat flamboyant tastes of the unhappy lady; but oh, how she coveted! Actually tears came into her eyes--tears of fearful envy.

She was an honest and sturdy little soul, however, and she tried to console herself with the reflection that, if she continued to be honest, industrious, and virtuous, she might some day have all that Mrs. Robinson had, and more. Even in boarding school she had known that she was going to marry a millionaire, and now she was so situated that she might meet one at almost any minute. Who could tell what might not happen at the house of this sister in Greenwich?

So she did her work; and when it was done, and the trunks had gone off, she sat down to rest for a little. It was at this minute, when her busy little hands were idle, that temptation assailed her. She wondered what Mrs. Robinson had in her jewel case. She discovered that the key was in the lock. She did not see what harm it could possibly do just to look at the jewels; and then she did not see what harm it could possibly do just to try on a few of them.

She tucked in her blouse, so as to leave her slender neck and shoulders bare. She took the net off her smooth, neat coiffure, and produced a fascinating effect of wildness by a few deft touches. Cosmetics she needed not, for her eyes were starry, her cheeks flushed with delight. She slipped two or three rings on her fingers and a broad gold bracelet on one childish arm. She put on a long rope of pearls, and clasped about her throat a short necklace of emeralds.

Then she found a jeweled butterfly, the use of which she didn’t comprehend, but she fastened it in her hair, just above her eyebrows; and she stared and stared at her image in the mirror, enthralled by the magical glimmer of the jewels. She was altogether the most amazingly lovely little creature, and the man standing in the doorway behind her was very properly overwhelmed. He never forgot that first glimpse of Miss La Chêne.

“I--I--I--” he stammered.

She spun around, as white as a ghost. He was a slender, well dressed man, with a thin, harassed face, pleasant brown eyes, and hair a little gray. He was greatly embarrassed, and she was terrified; and that made conversation difficult.

III

Miss La Chêne was the first to recover.

“Who are you?” she demanded in a small, defiant voice.

“I?” said he, surprised. “B-but the thing is, who are you? I’m Robinson.”

Impossible! This mild and nervous gentleman the heartless brute who had ruined Mrs. Robinson’s life, shattered her illusions, and made her the nervous wreck she was? And yet, looking at him, Miss La Chêne could not doubt him. He seemed authentic.

“I’m Mrs. Robinson’s companion,” she said. “I--she--”

Then, so abashed was she, so humiliated at being caught thus, bedecked in Mrs. Robinson’s jewels, that she began to cry. She would not admit that she was crying, however. With great tears rolling down her cheeks and her lashes like wet rays, she explained, in a formal tone, that Mrs. Robinson had left her behind to pack, and that she had just tried on the--the jewels.

“W-well, what of it?” he said cheerfully. “Th-there’s no harm done. See here! Please don’t cry! Why shouldn’t you t-try on the things? Very natural!” He paused. “And very becoming,” he added, with a singularly nice sort of smile.

She liked him. He was kind and courteous, and he evidently admired her. When he asked where his wife had gone, Miss La Chêne found that she was sorry for him. He was so innocent, so absolutely unaware of his latest crime. He said that he had “popped in to surprise her.”

For an instant the tactful and zealous companion was at a loss. She was not very old and not very experienced, and this seemed to be rather a delicate matter; but she was a warm-hearted little thing, and pretty sharp-witted, and she was convinced now that Mr. Robinson was an old darling, and badly misunderstood. So she told him the truth, in the most tactful way she could.

“B-but, good Lord!” cried the unfortunate man. “There might be t-ten Robinsons in a b-big hotel!”

“I know,” Miss La Chêne agreed. “I said that to Mrs. Robinson, but you know how--sensitive and high-strung she is.”

“Yes,” he said ruefully. “Yes, she is.” He sighed. “Well!” he said, and sighed again.

Miss La Chêne took advantage of his abstraction to retire to another room, to take off her borrowed ornaments, and to restore her costume to its usual demure neatness. When she came back with the jewels in her hand, to restore them to the case, she found Mr. Robinson sitting in a chair, staring before him, profoundly dejected. The only thought that entered her kind little heart was a very admirable and very feminine desire to cheer and comfort this unhappy man.

“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea, Mr. Robinson?” she asked.

“Why, yes, I should,” he replied, very much pleased.

So Miss La Chêne telephoned downstairs to the restaurant, and a tea was sent up, but it did not suit the fastidious young woman. She did magical things to it with various electric devices; and the tea itself was so delectable, and the temporary hostess was so gay and amusing and delightful and kind, that Robinson soon completely recovered his spirits. He was a very good sort of fellow, too, when he had half a chance, and altogether they were so cozy and jolly that they quite forgot the time, until the clock struck.

Then, startled as Cinderella was by the same sound, Miss La Chêne sprang up from the tea table.

“Mon Dieu!” she cried. “Quatre heures! Madame sera bien fâchée! Mais que je suis bête! Mon Dieu!”

All this sounded very alarming to Robinson. He was relieved to hear that the only trouble was that the bank had closed at three o’clock, and Miss La Chêne could not deposit the jewels, as she had been directed to do.

“Well, if that’s all,” said he, “I’ll take ’em myself to-morrow morning. You run along and catch your train, and don’t worry.”

Then he had to spoil all that cheerful, innocent little hour they had had together. His face grew red, and he did not care to look at Miss La Chêne.

“Er,” he stammered, “I--I--I think it would be just as well not to mention to Mrs. Robinson--”

“Very well, Mr. Robinson,” said she.

IV

Mandeville Ryder sat in a corner of the screened veranda, reading. It was a good place for reading, cool and breezy; the electric lamp afforded an excellent light, and his book was an interesting one. Twice his young niece, Elaine Milner, had come out to entreat him to come in and dance, but with a smile of lofty amusement he had refused. He said he preferred reading.

Yet, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t read one page. From where he sat he could look through the window, through the long room where the dancing was going on, into the smaller room beyond, where sat his two sisters, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner, and with them Miss La Chêne. He could look, and he did look.

Elaine was a pretty girl, and she had collected two or three rather pretty young things and a proper number of young fellows. All in all, they were a cheerful, well dressed, well mannered lot of young people, and the spectacle of their harmless merriment might well have brought a smile to the lips of any observer; yet Mandeville did not smile.

He was looking at Miss La Chêne, sitting there with the two ladies, silent, decorous, and patient, in her plain little dark silk dress, the very model of a companion. Only her enormous black eyes moved restlessly, following the dancers with a look which Mandeville could hardly endure.

“Poor little thing!” he said to himself. “Poor little thing! It’s a confounded shame!”

There wasn’t a girl there half so pretty as she, not a girl with anything like her style, her charm, her grace. She was beyond measure superior to all of them, yet there she had to sit, looking on.

“And I let her in for this!” young Ryder thought. “She has no business being a companion, anyhow. By George, if she had half a chance!”

And, with a rather touching naïveté, he thought he could remedy all this, could notably assist and hearten the poor little thing. He rose, put down his book, entered the house, threaded his way among the dancers, and presently stood beside Miss La Chêne’s chair. She raised those big eyes to his face with a startled look.

“We’ll try a dance, eh?” said the lordly, blond-crested youth.

For a moment she hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t accept. Elaine wouldn’t like it, Elaine’s mother wouldn’t like it, Mrs. Robinson wouldn’t like it; but Miss La Chêne couldn’t resist. With another glance at Mandeville she rose, he put his arm about her, and off they went.

And, as he put it, they stopped the show. He was a wonderful dancer, and she was incomparable. They danced with the curious gravity of professionals. They did not smile, they did not speak, except when he gave a low, brief order for a change of step.

“Put on a tango!” said he, when the fox trot was ended.

Somebody did this, and now they had the floor to themselves. They stepped out with splendid arrogance, in absolute accord, lithe, utterly easy, utterly and disdainfully sure of themselves. Mandeville looked down at the dark, glowing little creature before him with a fine fire in his blue eyes.

“You’re the prettiest girl in the world!” he whispered. “And the sweetest!”

Well, this went to her head. When the tango was at an end, young Lyons, who was Elaine’s latest interest in life, came entreating Miss La Chêne for a dance. She forgot all worldly wisdom and discretion, she forgot everything, except that she was young and pretty, and that the handsomest and most distinguished young man in the room--or perhaps in the universe--had singled her out for his attentions, and that all the other men admired her.

She liked to be admired, and she loved to dance. The music had got into her blood. Her slender shoulders moved restlessly. She smiled, and dimples showed in her olive cheeks. Her eyes were as bright as stars.

“I just will!” she thought. “I’ll have one happy evening, anyhow!”

She did. Penniless and obscure, in her plain, dark little dress, she had come among these luxurious girls and eclipsed them all. Every one of the young men was dazzled by her dainty coquetry, the faint foreign flavor of her allurement. The girls were prodigiously civil. They jolly well had to be, when this little intruder stood so high in favor with the opposite sex.

And all this was due to Mandeville Ryder. He had raised her up from her sorrowful obscurity. She made no secret of her gratitude. Her eyes were forever seeking his, and she generally found him looking at her. They smiled at each other with a sort of friendly understanding.

“He thinks he’s invented her,” said Elaine, to one of her friends.

But there came, of course, that moment so dear to sour and middle-aged moralists--the moment when the party breaks up, the music stops, and fatigue comes across laughing faces. The guests went away, and there was nobody left but the family and Miss La Chêne. She had danced, and now she must pay the piper; and his bill was likely to be a large one.

Elaine whispered something to her mother, Mrs. Milner whispered something to Mrs. Robinson, and they all looked at Miss La Chêne in a certain way. Mandeville had gone out on the veranda for a smoke, and she had no friend here.

“You needn’t wait,” said Mrs. Robinson, in a tone she had never used before.

V

There were two things the matter with Mandeville Ryder, and neither of them was fatal. He was too young, and he was spoiled. He was a handsome fellow, the only son of a well-to-do father; and he was so much run after and so much flattered that he had acquired a manner and an outlook lamentably toploftical. At heart, however, he was wholly honest, generous, and chivalrous.

On the morning after the dance, he went off to the city, resolved not to come back to his sister’s house, and not to think any more of Miss La Chêne; but even before lunch time he had resolved that he would go back. He was a conceited ass, he told himself, and a girl like Miss La Chêne was too good for any man.

So back he went, arriving a little before the dinner hour. Perhaps he was a little too consciously heroic in his determination to show the greatest deference toward Miss La Chêne; but he soon got over that, for he had no chance to display his heroism.

All the sparkle and gayety had gone from the poor girl. When he began to speak to her, she answered him with a hurried little nervous smile, and flitted away. He couldn’t even catch her eye. She fairly clung to Mrs. Robinson, hiding in the shadow of that regal lady. She was so pale, so subdued, so startlingly changed from the charming little creature of the evening before, that Mandeville was worried.

It never occurred to him that he was responsible for this lamentable change, and he went ahead, making a sufficiently unpleasant situation worse and worse by his well meant efforts. At the dinner table he tried to bring the pale and downcast Miss La Chêne into the conversation, and wondered at her very brief answers and her flat, small voice. He knew that she could talk.

“I’ll try a dance with you, Elaine,” he said to his niece, benevolently, after dinner.

“No, thank you, Mandy,” said she, with a very peculiar smile.

“Well, what about you, Miss La Chêne?” he asked, in all innocence.

There was a terrific silence.

“N-no, thank you, Mr. Ryder,” she finally managed.

The wisdom of the past is very clearly demonstrated in the story of Cinderella. You will remember that that long-suffering girl maintained a canny silence regarding her succès fou at the court balls until the prince had made a frank declaration of his honorable intentions. Otherwise her life between balls, with those stepsisters and that stepmother, would have been unendurable--as Miss La Chêne’s life was now. Naturally Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner did not like to see their adored and only brother making an idiot of himself about a girl who was just a little nobody, and naturally they firmly believed it was all the girl’s fault. They didn’t actually say anything, but they managed remarkably well with implications.

Miss La Chêne could not defend herself. Never before in her brief life had she shown herself deficient in spirit or in proper pride, but now a terrible humility had come over her. She thought Mandeville Ryder was so marvelous that he couldn’t possibly be interested in her. She thought he hadn’t really meant it when he said she was the prettiest girl in the world, and the sweetest. She thought he hadn’t really looked at her like that. How was it possible, when the most beautiful and charming and brilliant girls were all competing for his favor? No--he had only been kind to her, because it was his dear, splendid way to be kind to every one.

And, after all, his kindness had brought her nothing but misery. It seemed to her sometimes that she couldn’t bear the slights and the innuendoes of Mrs. Milner and Mrs. Robinson another moment; and yet she couldn’t quite make up her mind to go back to some cheap little boarding house, to wait there until she could find another position, possibly worse than this--and never, never to see Mandeville Ryder any more. She generally cried after she got into bed at night.

As for young Mandeville, he generally sat out on the veranda alone, smoking, and meditating in a very miserable way. Miss La Chêne as a dancing partner, gay and sparkling and lovely, had charmed him, but Miss La Chêne subdued and obviously unhappy touched him to the heart. What was the matter with her?

A week went by, and then the household was thrown into turmoil by a dramatic and tremendous reconciliation between Mrs. Robinson and her husband. Mrs. Robinson enjoyed it very much, Mr. Robinson not quite so much. Indeed, he had a pretty sheepish look when his wife sat beside him on the sofa, weeping, with her head on his shoulder, and announced to the assembled family:

“Lucian and I are going to make a fresh start, and all the miserable, miserable past is to be as if it had never been!”

That evening Elaine sang Tosti’s “Good-by” for them:

“Hark, a voice from the far-away! ‘Listen and learn,’ it seems to say; ‘All the to-morrows shall be as to-day, All the to-morrows shall be as to-day!’”

Her dancing eyes met Mandeville’s. He was obliged to get up and walk over to the window, to hide a reluctant and irresistible grin; but Mrs. Robinson noticed nothing. She had no sense of humor. She was too intense.

The next evening Robinson brought out his wife’s jewel case from the city, and, knowing what was expected of him in any reconciliation, he brought also a gift--a diamond pendant on a gold chain. It was impossible for Mrs. Robinson not to show to the other members of the household this proof of her husband’s penitent devotion. She took it downstairs, and Mrs. Milner and Elaine hastened to her, and they all three stood by the piano lamp, vehemently admiring the glittering thing.

Robinson was rather pleased with himself; but then, unfortunately, he caught sight of little Miss La Chêne standing outside the charmed circle, pointedly disregarded by the others, and trying her valiant best to look as if she didn’t care. Though he was years and years older than Mandeville, and most bitterly experienced, the same dangerous notion came into Mr. Robinson’s head--the wish to be kind to the luckless young creature. He remembered how nice she had been to him, how kind and jolly over that impromptu tea, how loyal and discreet in never mentioning it to Mrs. Robinson.

He crossed the room to her side, and stood there, talking to her. Miss La Chêne, in the joy and comfort of being spoken to like a real, human girl, came to life. Her face grew bright and piquant again, and she said funny, amusing things that made Robinson laugh. They both forgot their terribly precarious positions, and were happy and cheerful.

Mrs. Robinson saw this; and that evening, when she went upstairs to her room, she discovered that one of her bracelets was missing from the jewel case. She had given the case to Miss La Chêne unlocked, and no one else had touched it.

“I c-can’t tell her!” thought the thrice-wretched Robinson. “Not now! If I’d mentioned it in the beginning--but now, after all this t-time! If she knew that we had t-tea together, and that I t-took the infernal case! I can’t stand another of these rows--I simply c-can’t! I’ll make it right, somehow.”

So he persuaded his outraged wife not to summon policemen, or detectives, or sheriffs that night, but to wait until the morning. Then he pretended to go to sleep, but it was a long time before sleep really came to him. He felt certain that Miss La Chêne would not betray him, and he felt equally certain that to count upon her loyalty was about as contemptible a thing as his sorry weakness had ever led him into doing.

VI

Mandeville Ryder returned to his sister’s house the next evening at the usual hour, and found Elaine sitting alone on the veranda.

“Hello, Mandy!” she greeted him.

“Afternoon, Elaine,” he vouchsafed.

“Golly, such a row!” said she.

“Who? Sheila and Lucian?” he asked, not much interested.

“No--Aunt Sheila and mother and that poor little French girl--”

“What?”

“Yes!” said Elaine. “They’ve been looking for a chance to destroy her ever since you danced with her. We’ve all been pretty beastly. I’m sorry. I don’t believe she ever stole--”

“She--stole?”

“That’s the tale--that she stole Aunt Sheila’s bracelet--the one you gave her two years ago on her fifth anniversary.”

“She?” cried Mandeville. His healthy face grew pale. His eyes narrowed. “That’s a damned lie!” he said.

Elaine was enchanted by this dramatic outburst.

“You never heard such a row!” she continued, with unction. “You know what mother and Aunt Sheila are when they get going. I feel sorry for the poor girl.”

“Where is she?” demanded Mandeville.

“Oh, she’s gone!” said Elaine cheerfully. “But--oh, here’s Uncle Lucian! Better and better! Poor Uncle Lucian! He--”

But Mandeville waited to hear no more. He ran up the stairs, to face his sister, and to find out where Miss La Chêne had gone.

At first he could find neither of his sisters, although he heard their voices. He flung open door after door, and at last he discovered them in the little room that had been Miss La Chêne’s.

Sheila Robinson was very busy there. She was emptying out the bureau drawers, ransacking the wardrobe, and unpacking a trunk. All over the floor lay Miss La Chêne’s dainty belongings--filmy little garments, shoes, bits of ribbon, a pathetic wreath of flowers from a hat. The sight of these things--her things--trampled underfoot, was more than the young man could endure.

“What are you doing in here?” he shouted.

“My bracelet is gone,” said his sister, “and I’m going to search that girl’s room thoroughly.”

“Clear out of here!” he ordered. “I won’t have it!”

“You won’t have it?” said she. “And pray--”

“Look here!” said he. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the time you accused that poor little chambermaid of stealing your ring, when it was in your purse all the time; but I haven’t. I won’t have Miss La Chêne called--”

“Lucian!” she cried, spying her husband in the doorway. “Don’t let Mandeville insult me like this!”

The unhappy Robinson essayed a smile.

“I--I--I say, Mandy!” he stammered. “Sheila’s upset, you know, and--”

“Get her out of here, Lucian!” cried Mandeville.

“This is my house,” said Mrs. Milner, “and Sheila has a perfect right to be here. That little French thing has robbed--”

“Stop that!” shouted Mandeville. “Look here, Lucian, if you don’t get them both out of here--”

“Lucian, are you a man?” his wife demanded wildly. “Will you allow your own wife to be insulted and ordered out--”

Mandeville advanced toward his brother-in-law until he stood towering above him.

“If you don’t keep her quiet--” he said.

“Lucian, protect me!” wailed Sheila.

“I--I--I--” began Robinson.

With one glance at him, Mandeville turned away. Only one glance--but it might better have been a blow.

VII

Elaine Milner was sitting on the veranda again, the next afternoon, all ready with an astounding piece of news. A station taxi came up the drive, and out stepped Mandeville Ryder.

“Oh, Mandy!” she cried, when her attention was diverted by the arrival of a second taxi, from which descended her Uncle Lucian.

“For Heaven’s sake!” thought she. “Separate taxis--and they’re not even speaking to each other!”

Before she had recovered herself, both men had gone into the house. Robinson went to his wife’s room, where she was not. Mandeville went to Mrs. Milner’s boudoir, where she was. He knocked on the door.

“Come in!” called his two sisters, and in he went.

“Sheila!” he said. “Look here! I--I want you to send for Miss La Chêne to come back--”

“I dare say you do!” his sister interrupted.

His face was flushed, and no man had ever a guiltier air. Young Mandeville was not diplomatic, not adroit. So far in his life he had had no occasion to be. He had existed in magnificent candor.

“You made a big mistake,” he went on. “I knew it all the time. I knew she--”

“Perfectly obvious!” murmured Sheila.

These words very greatly perturbed him. He didn’t know quite what his sister meant, and he was alarmed; but he continued doggedly:

“Because I found your confounded bracelet this morning--in your room at the hotel, where you’d left it.”

Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner looked at each other.

“Ah!” murmured Sheila.

“And here it is,” said he.

Mrs. Robinson took the velvet case that he held out to her, opened it, and looked inside.

“I see!” said she. “What a sweet, dear boy you are, Mandy! Isn’t he, Nina?”

“Perfectly pathetic!” said Mrs. Milner.

“Well, why?” he demanded, horribly confused.

No one answered him.

“Well, look here!” he went on. “Now that you’ve got the thing, will you send for her to come back? Or you can tell me where she lives, and I’ll go and explain--”

“Oh, I’m sure you would, Mandy!” said Sheila sweetly.

“Well, what--” he began, growing angry now.

There was another knock at the door, and in came Lucian Robinson. He started at the sight of Mandeville. He wished never to see Mandeville again. He couldn’t forget that look; and he couldn’t forget that if Mandeville had known the truth, his contempt would have been beyond measure greater. At the same time, he couldn’t help liking the contemptuous young man, and admiring him, because he knew that nothing in this world could ever induce Mandeville to do a base or cowardly thing.

“I--I--I--” he said, turning toward the door again. “L-later, my dear!”

“Do come in, Lucian!” said his wife. “Mandeville was just speaking of Miss La Chêne.”

“Th-that’s queer!” cried Robinson, with very strained geniality. “Dashed queer! Because I--”

“Because you were just thinking about her?” his wife inquired pleasantly.

“N-no,” said he; “but--but--but--the thing is, I got thinking about that b-bracelet, and--well!” From his pocket he pulled a velvet case. “H-here it is!” he said. “I found it in your room at the--”

He stopped, stricken with horror by the expression on his wife’s face. She rose. She opened the door into Mrs. Milner’s bedroom.

“Miss La Chêne!” she said. “Kindly come here! Perhaps you can explain this!”

In came Miss La Chêne. Her face bore the marks of recent tears, but she looked not at all abashed or humbled. On the contrary, she held her little head mighty high.

“You see,” Mrs. Robinson said to her, “both these gentlemen found my bracelet in the room at the hotel. Doesn’t that seem rather strange?” She turned toward her husband. “Because,” she went on, “I telephoned to Miss La Chêne this morning, to tell her that I had found it myself, in my bureau drawer.”

Silence.

“I wanted to apologize to Miss La Chêne,” Sheila continued. “I thought she might be feeling badly about it. I didn’t know how many people there were to look after her and defend her. Mandeville and Lucian--Mandeville I can understand, but why you should take it upon yourself, Lucian, to shield this girl before you knew whether or not--”

“Please!” Miss La Chêne interrupted anxiously. “It was a kind and generous thing for Mr. Robinson to do for--”

“You have the effrontery to take his part against me?” cried Mrs. Robinson. “This--”

“W-wait!” said Robinson.

They all turned, startled by his tone. The harassed and wretched man had spoken with a sternness no one had ever heard him employ before. The spectacle of Miss La Chêne defending him was a little more than he could bear. He had come to the end of his tether. Indeed, he had cut it, and he stood free. His stammer had left him, and so had his nervous smile.

“Be good enough to keep your disgusting suspicions to yourself,” he said to his wife. “They only lower you in my eyes.”

“You dare--” she began.

“I’m sick and tired of being bullied and suspected and accused,” he went on. “Of course I bought this bracelet. I did it partly to save a defenseless girl, whom I knew to be innocent, from the outrageous treatment I knew she’d get at your hands; but I did it chiefly because I owed it to her. I was the last one to handle your accursed jewel case. I took it from Miss La Chêne in the city. I met her there the day you left. I had tea with her; and you can be proud or not of the fact that I was afraid to tell you I had spoken to her.”

The effect of this speech was tremendous. Every one in the room was stricken into sinister silence.

There stood Robinson, pale, but absolutely resolute, waiting for the storm to break. It was going to be awful, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be badgered and bullied any more. Sheila was a fine woman. He always had thought so, and he thought so now, but she--

“Lucian!” breathed Mrs. Milner, as if in awe.

“Lucian!” cried Mrs. Robinson.

And he saw that instead of being temporarily speechless with rage, she was looking at him as she hadn’t looked for years and years--not since that day, before they were married, when he had won the tennis singles, and she had called him “my hero” in a very silly but somehow rather touching way.

“Oh, Lucian!” she cried again.

His business training had taught him that nothing is more fatal than a half triumph. He must go forward.

“No!” said he. “Don’t talk to me. I won’t be talked to about this. Only I want to offer my most sincere and humble apologies to Miss La Chêne--”

“Mon Dieu!” cried Miss La Chêne, completely overcome. “Ah, monsieur! Que vous êtes gentil! Que vous êtes bon!”

“Please don’t cry!” said Robinson.

“Je n’y puis rien!” sobbed she.

He really couldn’t bear this, especially as, for all he knew, her words might be an appeal to his better nature. He came nearer to her and patted her shoulder.

“There! There! There!” he said gently.

And the poor little thing, worn out by the series of terrific scenes in which she had been engaged, and by the misery and anxiety she had endured, rested her head on Mr. Robinson’s shoulder and cried and cried.

This was a sight which could not fail to impress Sheila Robinson deeply.

“Lucian!” she said, beginning to cry herself, and speaking in an imploring tone. “Please forgive me! Oh, please forgive me--and come over here!”

Robinson looked at his wife over Miss La Chêne’s shoulder. In his heart he felt extremely sorry to see that regal creature brought low, but he meant never to admit this.

“The episode,” said he, “is ended. You have your bracelet--three of ’em in fact; so we’ll say no more about it.”

Then he looked at Mandeville. The young man was frowning heavily. He was profoundly displeased, but he was no longer contemptuous. On the contrary, he was envious.

“Er--Miss La Chêne!” said he.

She raised her head from Robinson’s shoulder, smiled uncertainly, and walked off to a corner of the room, there to dry her eyes. Mandeville followed her.

“Look here!” said he to her, very low. “Robinson’s a fine fellow, and so on, but he’s married!”

“What of it?” said she coldly. “Do I do anything wrong?”

“Oh, no!” Mandeville replied hastily. “Of course not. Only--look here! Don’t--please don’t be--too French, you know!”

They went out into the garden, and walked about there; and Mandeville must have advanced some excellent arguments, because, before dinner was announced, Miss La Chêne had promised not to be French at all any more, but to become an American for the rest of her life.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

APRIL, 1925 Vol. LXXXIV NUMBER 3

The Good Little Pal

HOW BARTY AND JACKO STARTED THEIR MARRIED LIFE UNDER ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

It was an afternoon very much like many other afternoons. Leadenhall stood on the corner waiting for her. He was so weary, and still so much absorbed in the work he had just left, he had waited for her so often, and he was so sure of her coming, that he scarcely thought of her at all.

It was five o’clock of a fierce July day, and the sun still blazed unabated in a cloudless sky. Before him, along Fifth Avenue, went an unceasing stream of busses and motor cars. The noise, the heat, the reek, the tireless movement, exasperated him. He wanted to go home for a cold shower and a quiet smoke. He wanted to be let alone.

Then he saw her, and there was nothing else in the world. She was coming down a side street with that eager, beautiful gait of hers, so straight and gallant, so self-possessed and debonair--and so touchingly slight and young. He noticed for the first time, with an odd contraction of the heart, how thin she had grown this summer.

She had stopped at the corner. She smiled at him across the stream of traffic, and a pang shot through him, because her dear face was so tired. He raised his hat, but he could not smile in return. All the other things--the minor things that had troubled him--were lost in his great anxiety for Jacqueline. He dashed across the street, with the luck of the foolhardy, and stood before her, looking at her in alarm.

“Jacko!” he said. “Jacko! You’re tired!”

“Well, I know it,” she answered, laughing. “So are you! Who isn’t, this awful weather?”

But she stopped laughing as their eyes met. They stood there, looking at each other in silence for a long minute. Then the color rose in her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.

“Barty, don’t be silly,” she said.

He did not answer. He took her arm to pilot her across the street again. It seemed to him a terribly frail arm. He seized it tightly, in a sort of panic. She meant to make a laughing protest against being hustled along in this fashion, but somehow the light words would not come. A glance at Barty’s face made her heart sink.

“Oh, he is going to be silly!” she thought, in despair. “And I’m so tired, and so hot, and so--unconvincing!”

It had been decided between them that spring that they were to be simply good pals--until a more propitious season. They were not even engaged. No, they were both perfectly free. She had insisted that it should be so, and so it was. She was free to worry about him and yearn over him--even to cry over him night after night, if she liked. He was free, too, to do as he chose; but when she looked at him now, at the close of this weary day--

“You don’t take one bit of care of yourself!” she said suddenly, in an angry, trembling voice. “I know perfectly well you’ve been smoking too much, and I know you didn’t eat a proper lunch. Just look at you!”

He was startled.

“There’s nothing the matter with me, dear girl,” he said. “It’s only--”

“I wish you could see yourself!” she cried. “You have a big black smudge on your chin!”

“Well, that’s not fatal,” he said, beginning to laugh; but then he saw tears in her eyes. “Jacko! You’re nervous and upset. You’re overworked. You’re tired. You’re--Jacko, you look like the devil!”

“Thank you!”

“I can’t stand it,” he went on doggedly, “and I won’t stand it! I want to take care of you!”

“You said you wouldn’t be silly, Barty!”

“Silly!” said he. “I’ve been a fool! I won’t go on like this. If you love me at all, if you care for me even a little, you won’t ask me to.”

They had entered the park, and were walking down their usual path at their usual brisk pace, only that to-day Barty held her by the arm, like a captive, and their customary friendly conversation failed. The hour she had dreaded had come.

Barty was not easy to manage. Her ideal had been not to manage him, not to use any feminine arts to beguile him, but to be frankly and splendidly his comrade; but somehow that didn’t work. She could not reason with Barty, she could not persuade him, she only could make him do as she wished by the power she had over him. He loved her so much that for love he would yield, and she did not want that. A true friend, a good pal, would not stoop to managing.

“Barty,” said she, “let’s sit down here and talk.”

So he sat beside her on a bench and listened. All the time she spoke, she saw--with dismay, and yet with a queer little thrill of delight--that her words made absolutely no impression. Of course, she spoke of Stafford, because Stafford was the dominant factor in their problem. If Barty were to marry now, it would seriously offend Stafford, and that would be the height of folly.

A queer fellow, Stafford was--sensitive and touchy. He had done a great deal for Barty, and he expected Barty to appreciate it. Certainly he gave a great deal, but it had always seemed to Jacqueline that Stafford got the best of the bargain.

He was one of the foremost architects in the city. It was an honor for the obscure young Barty to be singled out by such a man, to be taken into his office, and, just recently, to be asked to share a studio apartment with the great man; but in return he got all Barty’s honest enthusiasm, his fidelity and gratitude. He had Barty’s companionship, Barty’s sympathy for the many affronts this rough world offers to sensitive men.

Indeed, Jacqueline thought, he had a most unfair share of Barty’s life; but Barty did not see that, and she was not going to mention it. Not for any consideration on earth would she speak one word against Barty’s hero. Not for any possible gain to herself would she tarnish his faith in his friend, or injure his prospects for the future. She simply spoke in a quiet, reasonable way of all that he owed Stafford.

“And when it means so much,” she said, “to both of us--when it affects your whole future--”

“Well,” said Barty deliberately, “I dare say you’re right.” She glanced up hopefully. “But I don’t care,” he went on. “I love you, and I won’t go on like this any longer! I’ve tried, and I can’t--that’s all. I can’t stand seeing you thin and miserable and shabby--”

“I’m not shabby, Barty!”

“You are--for you,” he said. “You ought to have everything in the world! You’re so beautiful and wonderful! And you won’t let me do anything for you. You won’t--”

“I would let you,” she said hurriedly. “I’d let you--I’d love you to do all sorts of things for me, Barty. I’d marry you to-morrow, if--”

“If what?” he demanded.

This idea had been so long in her mind, these words had been so often on the tip of her tongue, that now she was going to speak them, whether he liked it or not.

“If you’d just get married--unostentatiously,” she said.

“Unostentatiously?” he repeated. “I don’t know what you mean, Jacko.”

“I mean, just go down to the City Hall and get married, and you go on with your work, and I’ll go on with mine, and we won’t tell any one.”

“Oh!” said he. “You mean secretly, do you?”

He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. There was a hard, cold look in his gray eyes.

“It’s no use talking about that,” he said curtly, “because I won’t do it.”

But he did. Later on, she remembered that hour with bitter regret and remorse--the hour of her victory and his defeat. She had been unfair, cruelly unfair. She had made use of those tears which he could not endure. She had held out to him the prospect of gaining everything and losing nothing, of having her and yet not alienating Stafford.

He was ambitious, and she tempted him. She took advantage of his hot-headed, unreasonable love for her, and she conquered him; and his defeat was bad for her and worse for him.

She meant only to do him good, to help him; but she was very young, and she was a woman, and she had all a woman’s blind and beautiful and absurd determination that her beloved should have his cake and eat it, too. Barty needed her, and he should have her; and he needed Stafford, and he should have Stafford too. Barty should have everything--except his own way.

II

Good pals don’t mind waiting. They understand how unimportant are tea engagements compared with careers. They understand that often a man simply can’t get away at a certain time. Even if he is too busy to telephone, even if he forgets the engagement altogether, why, a good pal accepts all that cheerfully.

Still, Jacqueline did not think it necessary to be superfluously cheerful. She was sitting at a table near the window of a down town tea room, waiting for Barty to join her.

The tea room closed at seven. It was now half past six, and she had been sitting there since half past five. The brightness of the September day had faded into twilight. The street outside, so crowded a little while ago, was quiet now. One by one people were leaving the tea room, so that she was surrounded by a widening area of empty tables. A group of waitresses stood in a corner, talking together. There was a general air of home-going; but she had no home.

“It’s not Barty’s fault,” she said sturdily, to herself. “It was my own idea.”

She had made Barty do this. She had insisted upon this sort of marriage. If it had turned out to be so much harder than she had foreseen, it was her fault, not his. She was gallantly determined to carry on to the very end, like a good pal. She did not want Barty to know how hard it was. She was glad he did not know, and yet--

If he had not become resigned to the situation quite so readily! They had been married seven weeks now, and his protests had ceased. He no longer rebelled. All his thoughts were of the future. He was working with a sort of dogged fury for that marvelous future, so that the present seemed scarcely to exist for him.

“It’s all for you, little pal,” he had often said to her.

She knew he meant that, and she loved him for his ambition, his energy, his determination. Presently he would come hurrying in, eager to tell her exactly what he had been doing, absolutely confident that she would understand, that she hadn’t minded waiting. He would talk about the fine things that were going to happen--in five years’ time. He would talk about large, impressive things. The little things--her things--would never be mentioned.

For she could not hurt and trouble him by telling him how her back ached and her head ached from typing all day, or how unreasonable, how beastly, Miss Clarke had become, how lamentably the meals had deteriorated in her little hotel under the new management, or how very awkward it was to explain to sundry young men that she would never go out with them, and wished to see them no more.

“It would be like throwing rocks on a railway track,” she reflected, smiling a little at the fancy. “It would derail poor Barty, just when he’s flying along so splendidly, too!”

A very nice young couple at the next table rose and went out, and Jacqueline looked after them with a curious expression. She decided that they were engaged, would soon be married, and would go to live in a new little house somewhere, or even a flat--any place where lamps would be lighted at this twilight hour.

“Miss Miles!” exclaimed a delighted voice. Looking up, she saw Mr. Terrill. “I just dropped in to buy some chocolates,” he explained, “and I saw you!”

He spoke as if it were the most amazing and delightful thing that could have befallen him. Never before had Jacqueline seen Mr. Terrill except in the presence of Miss Clarke, and she was surprised at the difference in him.

Miss Clarke, the authoress, somehow had a way of dwarfing all those about her. She was so brilliant, so handsome, so humorous. Jacqueline herself, secretary to this eminent woman, had always felt very young and very uninteresting, and Mr. Terrill had seemed to her an agreeable but rather insipid gentleman.

He did not appear insipid now. He had, thought Jacqueline, a really distinguished air. He was a tall, slight man of perhaps thirty-five, with a sensitive, well bred face and a singularly pleasant voice. He was looking down at her.

“Miss Miles!” he said. “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” replied Jacqueline.

It was a relief to admit this, instead of pretending, like a good pal, that she was not tired and never could be tired.

“Can’t we have a cup of tea together?” he asked.

“I’m waiting for some one,” she told him.

“But can’t we have tea while you’re waiting?” said he. “The place will close in fifteen minutes or so, you know.”

A queer little anger arose in her. Barty would not like her to have tea with Mr. Terrill. He was more than an hour late already, but he would think nothing of that. He would explain casually that he had been too busy to get away, and he would expect her to understand. Well, it was her own fault--she had told him so many times that she did understand.

“All right!” she said to herself. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have tea with Mr. Terrill. It’ll do Barty good. Let him do a little of the understanding, for a change!”

But when the tea room had closed, and Barty had not come, she discovered that it was Mr. Terrill, after all, who exasperated her, because he was not Barty. It was her own Barty that she wanted, and no one else. The idea of Mr. Terrill presuming, even unconsciously, to take Barty’s place!

She was humiliated, too, that Terrill should have seen her here, waiting and waiting for some one who did not come. She was so tired, so dispirited!

Terrill was walking along the street beside her, in the direction of the subway, and he was asking her to go down to Long Beach in his car on Sunday.

“Sorry,” said Jacqueline curtly, “but I can’t. I have an engagement.”

“It would do you good,” said Terrill. “You look played out, Miss Miles. A day at the seashore--”

“I said I had an engagement,” Jacqueline interrupted pettishly.

Terrill was neither discouraged nor offended, and his patience and courtesy made her ashamed of herself; but, for some inexplicable reason, being ashamed of herself caused her to behave still more outrageously toward Terrill. She had never in her life been so disagreeable to any one.

The worst of it was that she found a wicked satisfaction in it, because she saw that Terrill regarded her little outburst of pettishness as an engaging feminine caprice. Apparently he did not care how trying she was. He seemed to think she had a right to moods and humors. Evidently he had no notion of her as a pal.

III

As she ate her solitary dinner, Jacqueline reflected upon this episode. Not a trace of wholesome contrition for her treatment of poor Mr. Terrill remained. On the contrary, the whole thing filled her with reprehensible contentment. Evidently Terrill admired her very much. She felt that she ought to tell Barty about him.

“And I’m afraid Barty won’t like it,” she thought.

Rank hypocrisy! Afraid? She hoped with all her heart that he wouldn’t like it. What if he should be really jealous and angry, and should insist upon a public announcement of their marriage? What if she had to give up her job and just be Barty’s wife?

A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes. Not for anything on earth would she hinder or worry Barty; but if he really insisted upon it--

He did not, however. Nothing, apparently, was farther from his thoughts. Before she had finished her meal, a bell boy came in to tell her that Mr. Leadenhall was waiting in the lounge, and she hurried in to him. She had entirely forgiven him for breaking that tea engagement. In fact, she was rather glad he had done so.

There he stood, waiting for her, and the sight of him aroused in her a tenderness that was half pain. Something she had once read in a book came to her now. “A young falcon”--that was what Barty was like. He was a strong, splendid, free creature whose heart would break if he were fettered.

“I’m not silly about him,” she thought. “I know he’s not so awfully handsome.”

But she thought there was something about Barty that marked him out among all other men. His tie was crooked, his sandy hair was a little ruffled, he might seem to others simply a passably good-looking young fellow with a somewhat impatient and careless manner. His conversation was practical enough for the most part. Indeed, his feet were solidly planted on the earth; but Jacqueline had had a glimpse now and then of his jealously guarded spirit, of his passion for beauty, of his love for the mute harmonies of his great art. She loved all that was Barty--even his faults; but his spirit she very nearly worshiped.

When she had first met Barty, she herself had been ambitious. She had wanted to write, to make a name for herself. She could laugh--or weep--at that thought now. Ambition? She hadn’t known the meaning of the word. For no imaginable reward could she have worked as Barty did. He would work for days and days on a sketch or a plan, careless of rest or food, in a fire of enthusiasm. Then, putting his enthusiasm aside, and looking at it with his cool, impersonal brain, he would accept his work, or he would reject and destroy it and begin all over again.

Her own little ambition had flickered and died. It seemed to her a sublime destiny to help Barty, to serve this rare talent which her honest heart acknowledged as beyond measure superior to her own.

Their hands met in a formal clasp, and they smiled at each other, with their own secret smile of understanding. It was a wonderful thing to meet thus in public, and to let nobody know that they belonged to each other.

“Old Jacko!” said he.

“Old Barty!” said she.

Looking into his steady gray eyes, all desire to tease him about Mr. Terrill left her. All she wanted in the world was to help her man, at any cost.

“I’ve only got a few minutes,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and finish that thing.”

“The museum?” she asked, with a sinking heart, but with a bright expression of interest.

“No,” he answered, with a trace of impatience. “That can’t be hurried. This is a bit of hack work--a plan for remodeling a house that ought to be blotted out of existence.”

“I hate you to do work like that, Barty!”

“Oh, do you?” said he, smiling. “Well, I’ll tell you what it means, Jacko. The fellow’s coming to look at the plans to-morrow, and if he likes ’em--which he will--it means a week off for you and me.”

“Oh, Barty! You don’t mean that we could go away together for a whole week?” she cried. “Oh, Barty!”

“Don’t, Jacko!” said he, turning away his head. “It--it makes me feel like a brute. You know, I had meant you to have a honeymoon in Europe.”

“As if I cared!”

“Well, I care,” said he, with a sort of fierceness. “You deserve it. You deserve--Jacko, you deserve more than I can ever give you in all my life!” He met her eyes, which were bright with unshed tears. “No one like you, Jacko!” he ended huskily.

IV

She made up her mind not to count upon that week together. She felt sure that something would happen to prevent it, that Miss Clarke wouldn’t let her go, that Barty would be detained by some important work.

Hers was the wildly unreasonable pessimism of a woman’s love. She foresaw the direst misfortunes, and was almost resigned to them. She was tired, too, after a long summer of hard work, and Miss Clarke was increasingly disagreeable to her. She was worried about Barty, worried about all sorts of absurd little things, so that she did not sleep well, and could scarcely tolerate the meals in her hotel. A whole week away somewhere with Barty? Impossible!

But on Sunday morning he actually came. She went upstairs and got her bag, which, with such wretched misgivings, she had packed the night before. She got into the taxi with Barty. His bag was in there. They really were going!

“But where?” she asked, like a happy child. “Where are we going, Barty?”

“Long Beach!” he said proudly. “You told me you liked it.”

“I do!” she assured him earnestly.

After all, what if they did happen to run across Mr. Terrill?

“I’ve engaged a room,” he went on, “for Mr. and Mrs. Leadenhall. If we see any one we know, all right. I’m pretty sick of this hole-and-corner business, anyhow.”

It was then that she noticed there was something wrong with Barty--something very wrong. There was about him an air of grim recklessness, almost of desperation. He was trying to be jolly, but he achieved only a strained sort of hilarity utterly foreign to him, and beyond measure distressing to Jacqueline. She watched him with growing anxiety, pretending to believe in his pretense, but positively sick at heart with apprehension.

They went all the way down by taxi.

“Hang the expense!” he said. “I’ve worked for it!”

And she pretended to enjoy the trip. She was even jollier than Barty. She spurred on her anxious heart to a hectic gayety. She talked and laughed, always with her eyes on Barty’s face.

He had engaged not a room, but a suite of parlor, bedroom, and bath. Mentally she computed the cost of this, and was appalled; but even then she said nothing. If this was what Barty wanted, very well, she was glad he had it. If it gave him any joy to waste what he had worked so hard to get, very well, she would not spoil his week by a single remonstrance.

He was walking up and down the parlor, with his hands in his pockets, and Jacqueline was in the bedroom, unpacking her bag. She had said all the things she could think of in praise of the suite. While she tried to think of some more praise, a blank little silence had fallen.

“Jacko,” he said, “you--you really do like this, don’t you? You really will be happy here, won’t you--for this week?”

He spoke like a doomed man, as if this week was to be their last. He didn’t even try to smile. Jacqueline could not bear it.

“Barty,” she said, “aren’t you well?”

“Well?” he repeated, in surprise. “Of course I’m well! I’m always well!”

She hesitated for a moment. Then she got up and went into the parlor, barring his path, so that he had to stop short in his pacing; and she asked him the question that had been in the back of her mind all the time.

“Didn’t Mr. Stafford like your going away, Barty?”

“Who cares?” said he.

She hadn’t much doubt now.

“I’d like to know, though, Barty,” she said quietly. “I’d rather know.”

“I can’t see that it makes any difference what Stafford says or thinks. After all--”

“I want to know, Barty!”

It seemed to her that this was the first time she had really felt like Barty’s wife, with a wife’s dignity, a wife’s right to know what concerned her husband. She saw that he felt this, too, for his high-handed air was conspicuously absent.

“Well,” he said, “if you must know, he made the devil of a row.”

“Oh, Barty! But how unkind and unreasonable of him!”

“Well, you see,” said Barty reluctantly, “he’s sick, and--”

“Sick?”

“Some trouble with his eyes. Can’t use them for a week or so. He wanted me to put off going away.”

“Oh, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want to. I had told you we’d have this week together.”

“I’d have understood, Barty!”

“I know it; but, don’t you see, Jacko, you’re my wife, and you come first.”

She began to cry foolish tears of tenderness and pride.

“That was very rash and imprudent,” she began.

“I’m not prudent where you’re concerned,” said Barty, “and I’m sick of trying to be. If it hadn’t been that I had promised you not to tell any one, I’d have told Stafford then that I was going away with my wife.”

“What did you tell him, Barty?”

“Nothing.”

“You must have said something!”

“I told him I had made arrangements for a week’s holiday with a friend of mine, and I couldn’t put it off.”

Her moment of pride and delight was over now. She realized what had happened. For her sake he had left the friend to whom he owed so much at the time when that friend most needed him. It was the supreme proof of his love for her, but it was a proof which she must not and could not accept.

She gently pushed Barty into a chair. Then she sat on the arm of it and drew his head down against her heart; and with all the wisdom, all the ingenuity, all the art born of her love, she talked to him, argued, pleaded, warned, cajoled. There was dismay in her heart, but she was unwaveringly resolute, and she vanquished him.

Once more she took ruthless advantage of his masculine instinct to yield to the beloved woman whatever she asked. For the second time she safeguarded him to her own cost. Their love must be a help to him, not a handicap. She was not a weak, silly creature to be indulged and protected. She was his friend, his pal. She understood.

“I’ll stay here by myself,” she said, “and it’ll be a splendid rest for me. Of course, I’ll miss you, Barty, but we’ll write to each other every day; and it won’t be very long before we shall be together all the time.”

She managed to say this without a tremor, and even with a smile; but Barty could not respond. Almost unconsciously, she had used two terribly potent arguments. She had evoked the sacred name of honor, telling him that he was in honor bound not to desert Stafford; and she had warned him that, in hazarding his future prospects, he was endangering her happiness as well as his own. With these weapons she had defeated him.

They went down into the dining room for lunch, and it was dust and ashes to them. They sat facing each other across a small table. Their eyes met, they tried to speak, but what was there to say?

This was not an episode. It had the air of a final tragedy. Their week, their one beautiful week, was lost! And they were so young, so honestly and utterly in love! That day, neither of them believed that happiness would ever come again.

As they were leaving the dining room, a man rose from one of the tables and bowed to Jacqueline.

“Who’s that?” asked Barty.

“Oh, I met him at Miss Clarke’s,” said Jacqueline.

At that moment Mr. Terrill was not of sufficient importance to have a name. He was less than nothing.

They went up to their suite again, and Barty put into his bag the few things he had unpacked so short a time before. Jacqueline helped him. She brushed his hair with his military brushes, she straightened his tie. She kissed him and sent him off with a smile.

“Oh, Barty! Oh, Barty!” she cried, after he had gone.

V

“Stopping here?” cried a delighted voice.

Odd, how people keep on existing, completely unaware how superfluous they are! Jacqueline turned from her contemplation of the moonlit sea to the vastly inferior spectacle of Mr. Terrill, and answered him as civilly as she could just then.

“Yes,” she said, “for a rest.”

“Not a very quiet place for a rest,” remarked Terrill.

“I don’t like quiet places,” Jacqueline replied impatiently.

He was charmed with this. The more unreasonable she was, the more he liked her.

“I enjoy a place like this,” he went on; “but not for a rest. What appeals to me is the stimulation one finds in a motley crowd like this.”

“Bah!” said Jacqueline, under her breath.

If he would only go away and leave her alone! His voice and his presence were an intolerable exasperation to her. She wanted Barty--and, failing Barty, she wanted to think of him undisturbed; but Mr. Terrill continued to exist, unabashed.

“It’s a curious thing,” he continued, “the transformation that certain qualities of light can effect. Of course, it’s been pretty thoroughly studied in the theater; but to the average mortal--well, moonlight, for instance. I’ve seen your face in lamplight and in the sunlight, but now, in the light of the moon--”

“It makes every one look ghastly, doesn’t it?” Jacqueline interrupted hastily. “I hate it!”

“Hate moonlight, Miss Miles?” said he, mildly reproachful.

“Yes!” she answered stoutly. “I’m not one of those sentimental idiots!”

He seemed to grasp her meaning, for he asked, in quite a different tone, cheerful and matter-of-fact, if he might come down to visit her while she was stopping here.

“Oh, but--” said Jacqueline, dismayed. “You see, Mr. Terrill, I--”

He waited patiently for the reason why he must not come to see Miss Miles, and she tried hard to think of one.

“Well,” she said lamely, “you probably wouldn’t find me at the hotel. I--I take long walks, and I shouldn’t like you to come all that way from the city, you know, and not find me.”

“I’d take a longer trip than that, any day,” said Terrill, “just on the chance of seeing you!”

She had to let that pass. There was no way of explaining to him; but she made up her mind that he should not find her in, whenever he might come.

The next morning she had a letter from Barty. He wrote:

You should have seen Stafford when I got back. There he was, sitting in the dark. I told him I’d thought better of it--took all the credit for your idea, little Jacko, but what else could I do?

I see now that you were right. It was so hard to leave you that I couldn’t see it then. All the way back on the train I was thinking things about you that you wouldn’t have liked. I thought you were a cold-blooded little beast to send me away like that; but after I’d seen poor old Stafford, I saw how right you were. You know, Jacko, I’d have given up Stafford, or anything else on earth, for that week with you, but you wouldn’t let me make a fool of myself. I’ve got it in me, you know, Jacko. I could make the most exalted, glorious sort of fool of myself, and I’d enjoy it; but you’ll always be my sensible little pal.

Jacqueline put down the letter and sat for a time staring before her, with a very odd expression on her face. Then she took it up and finished it.

Address letters in care of Jordan Galloway, Philipsville, Long Island. That is the nearest village, and I’ll go there for the mail whenever I get a chance; but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me every day, dear girl, because sometimes I may not be able to get into the village.

And then many affectionate messages, and a check, “so that you can stay where you are for another week.”

This check was the first money Barty had ever given her. He had paid for things--dinners, taxis, and so on--and he had bought her presents, but this was different. If she was his friend, his pal, why should she let him do this?

He warned her in his letter not to swim out too far. They had often bathed together. She was a good swimmer, strong and sound of wind, and she knew Barty was proud of her; but she could not swim as well as he. He could always have outdistanced her easily, if he had wished, but the idea of competition had never occurred to them. They were pals, friends, equals; but in almost everything he was stronger and more skillful.

He earned four times as much as she, and he was going forward while she stood still. When they went walking, she always tired first. Whatever they undertook, he did better than she, and it seemed to them both so much a matter of course that she had never thought of it before.

She looked about her, at those rooms, so terribly empty without Barty. She had made him go. She had sent away her man, telling him that she could do without him; but could she? He would do very well with Stafford. He would enjoy himself, no doubt, but how was it with her, left alone here, and sick at heart, longing and longing for Barty?

Suppose she had done wrong not to let him be a “glorious fool”? Suppose it was all a mistake to try to be a pal?

VI

Mr. Terrill did find her. He came across the beach to her, his thin, sensitive face bright with pleasure, and stood before her, hat in hand, looking down at her.

She was not sorry to see him. She had had no letter from Barty for three days. She had written to him every day--jolly, friendly little letters; and not a word from him! Three days!

“I went into the hotel and asked for you, Miss Miles,” said Terrill, “but they would have it that there was no Miss Miles stopping there.”

“How stupid!” murmured Jacqueline, with a smile; but at heart she was ashamed and distressed. “He ought to know,” she thought. “It’s not fair!”

But if he knew, what would he think of Barty?

“I came down in my car,” Terrill went on. “I thought perhaps you’d let me take you for a ride.”

“He’s got to know!” she thought. “Poor thing! At least I can give him some sort of hint.”

But he gave her no opportunity. He said nothing that could be seized upon as an excuse for mentioning that there was a Barty in the offing. It was his way of looking at her, the tone of his voice--intangible things which, of course, he meant her to notice. He very well knew that she did notice them, too.

It was a distressing situation, yet not without zest; for she was young and pretty, and when Mr. Terrill looked at her she felt ten times younger and prettier than when she sat on the sands alone and lonely. She tried not to like this, but she could not help it.

“We could run along the Motor Parkway,” he was saying, “turn off at Philipsville, and go--”

“Philipsville?”

“Yes. Do you know that route, Miss Miles?”

“No, Mr. Terrill,” said she.

He went on to describe the beauties of the trip he proposed. He need not have troubled. Any road that passed through Philipsville was of peculiar interest to Miss Miles. She accepted the invitation very graciously, and off they went.

It was a bright, cool morning, early in September, still summer, with summer’s green beauty all about; yet in the air there was an indefinable hint that the end was coming. There was an invitation to haste, even to recklessness--to live in joy while the roads were still open, before the iron frost came.

Never had Mr. Terrill seen Miss Miles so charming. To be sure, she responded with frank mockery to his sentimental glances, but he could forgive that, because her mockery was so gay and so kindly. Indeed, he liked everything she said and everything she did. She was willful, lively, imperious, and he submitted gallantly to her least caprice. This went to Jacqueline’s head a little; she found it only too agreeable to be imperious.

She made him stop the car while she gathered goldenrod and purple asters. She made him halt at the top of a hill and sit there for a long time in silence, while she admired the view. His patience and meekness encouraged her to further boldness. She insisted upon getting out of the car in Philipsville, pretending that she found that very dull and commonplace little village “quaint.”

With the obliging Mr. Terrill she strolled down the drowsy, tree-shaded Main Street until she found what she was looking for--a sign reading “Jordan Galloway, groceries and hardware.” Mr. Galloway’s store she also acclaimed as “quaint.” She went in, and bought some wizened little apples by way of excuse for lingering; and, behind the corner of a calendar hanging on the wall, she saw a little sheaf of letters addressed to Barty in her own handwriting. Then he hadn’t troubled to come and get her letters!

She was glad that the store was so dim and shadowy, for she could not keep back the tears. Terrill was talking affably with the proprietor, and nobody was looking at her just then. She could struggle valiantly against her pain and bitterness, and could master them.

She had turned toward Terrill, outwardly quite cool and self-possessed again, and was about to suggest their going on, when a man came in--a man so incongruous in Philipsville that she at once suspected his identity. He was a tall, lean man, fastidiously dressed in a theatrical sort of camper’s outfit--a gray flannel shirt, tweed knickerbockers, and high boots, all fatally belied by his neat Vandyke beard, his delicate hands, his toploftical air. What was more, he was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder. It was scarcely necessary for Galloway to address him as “Mr. Stafford.” She had felt sure enough of that already.

“Er--we want potatoes, Galloway,” he said; “and--er--bread and bacon and coffee, and so on.”

He went over to the calendar, took down the letters, and put them into his pocket. Then he saw Jacqueline. His hand went involuntarily to his hat, but he was wearing none, so he bowed gravely instead.

“Er--Galloway!” he said. “I’m in no hurry. Attend to the lady first.”

“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, “but I’ve finished. I was only going to ask if any one here would be kind enough to tell me where the old Veagh house is. I wanted to see that doorway.”

“No! Really?” cried Stafford. “Upon my word, that’s very interesting! You’ll pardon me, but do you mind telling me where you heard of that doorway?”

“I read about it,” said Jacqueline simply, “in a book by Luther Stafford, ‘Vistas of Enchantment.’”

“No!” he cried, his dark face all alight. “Please allow me to introduce myself--Luther Stafford, the writer of that little book.”

So it came about that Mr. Terrill and Mr. Stafford were presented to each other. When the enthusiastic Stafford suggested it, Terrill drove them all in the car to see the doorway of the old Veagh house; but he was singularly lukewarm about that architectural relic, and he did not even pretend to share in Miss Miles’s hitherto unsuspected passion for old doorways.

No--he simply drove the car, and Miss Miles and Stafford sat on the back seat. He heard them talking. Miss Miles was not imperious now. She was so sweet, so gentle, so serious, so humbly anxious to be instructed. She seemed to possess such a surprising acquaintance with architectural terms!

And all the time Jacqueline was praying in her heart:

“Oh, let me make him like me! Oh, please, let me make him like me!”

If she could only win Stafford’s unqualified approval, think what it might mean to Barty and herself! She had never wanted anything so much in her life before.

Barty had often told her that Stafford was the most thoroughly likable fellow he had ever met; but, hearing of the famous architect’s high-strung nerves, his squeamishness, his minor affectations, she had privately doubted the soundness of this estimate. Now she understood, however. His fine enthusiasm for his art, his eagerness to share it, his spontaneous courtesy, and, above all, something generous and frank and indisputably great that was obvious in all that he said and did, won her immediate respect and liking. And, oh, how she wanted him to like her!

As they drove away from the abandoned farmhouse, it occurred to Stafford that the sun was going down the sky.

“By George!” he cried, alarmed. “I am an idiot! It ’ll be dark now, and I have all that stuff to carry back! The young chap who’s with me is laid up--”

“Laid up?” cried Jacqueline.

“Yes, or he’d have come with me; but now--”

“What’s the matter with him?” Jacqueline demanded fiercely.

Her tone made Stafford turn toward her, and Terrill threw a startled glance over his shoulder.

“Why, it’s nothing much,” replied Stafford, puzzled. “He caught his foot in an old trap that was buried under some leaves.”

“Is it serious?”

“No, it isn’t--not if it’s properly looked after.”

“What are you doing for it?”

He looked at her with a faint frown, and her eyes met his steadily.

“I want to know,” she said bluntly, “because I’m Barty Leadenhall’s wife.”

There was a long silence. The sun had vanished now, and the dusty road before them was somber under the deepening shadow of the trees. The sky was pallid, the world was without light or color, and a terrible oppression had suddenly descended upon Jacqueline.

She no longer saw this episode as a gay little comedy. It was very close to tragedy. Her high spirits of the afternoon seemed to her now only heartless flippancy, tarnishing the dignity of her wifehood.

“Then you’re the friend he went away with?” asked Stafford.

“Yes,” she answered.

“And--did you send him back to me?”

Her face flushed.

“He didn’t need sending,” she said. “He wanted to go. He--”

“I see!” said Stafford, and again he was silent for a long time. “I think you’d better come back with me,” he said at last.

“But--you mean--now?” cried Jacqueline. “I don’t see how--”

Terrill turned his head, only for an instant, just long enough for her to see on his face a smile she never forgot.

“I would if I were you, Mrs. Leadenhall,” he said. “Set your mind at rest about--your husband.”

There was nothing in his voice but honest, chivalrous kindness. He did not resent her trickery, he did not despise her. He was only kind--so kind that in the dusk she wept a little to herself.

VII

They set off together across the fields. Stafford was burdened with a tremendous sack, which he did not know how to carry properly. Jacqueline could have given him good advice, for she had had five years’ experience of girls’ camps; but she tactfully refrained.

Whenever they came to an unusually rough bit of the trail, Stafford took her arm, to render her assistance, which she did not in the least require; but she accepted it with polite gratitude. There was absolutely nothing of the pal in Stafford. He would only have thought the less of her for knowing how to carry heavy sacks, and for being able to look out for herself.

A canoe was waiting for them at the head of a lake. As a matter of course Jacqueline took up the second paddle, but Stafford earnestly entreated her to put it down. He paddled in a very amateurish fashion, and she could have done much better; but she held her tongue, and listened to Stafford while he reassured her about Barty.

Barty’s foot had not been badly injured in the first place, and it was now almost healed.

“He’s walking about,” said Stafford. “He could just as well have come to-day, but I thought I’d like to try it alone.”

The shores of the lake, where trees and bushes grew, were densely black, but in the center of the lake there was a dim reflection of the moonlight, though the moon itself was not yet visible. It was very still. The woods were all alive with bird, beast, and insect, and the water beneath the canoe was teeming with life, but no sound reached their human ears but the dip of the paddle. Stafford’s voice broke the stillness.

“There used to be Indians here,” he said.

A singularly inept remark for a man of his intelligence, yet in Jacqueline’s mind it conjured up the most vivid images. She turned her eyes toward the dark woods.

The naked, copper-colored figures which had passed by there, silent as the beasts themselves, the other canoes which had sped through these waters; and after them their enemy, the paleface--an enemy inferior in strength and endurance, ignorant of the forest ways, utterly alien here, and yet, because of the invincible spirit in him, always conquering. Indian and pioneer, warriors, hunters, killers--and behind them the faithful, patient shadow of the burden bearer, the woman. Squaw woman and white woman, carrying babies in their arms or on their backs, their own God-given burdens; and always with other burdens, too--the homely implements of daily life laid upon the shoulders of women, so that the hands of the men might be free for their weapons.

It had to be so. Only by the strong arm of her man could the woman and her child live; but all that was over and done with. Where civilization was established, woman was the friend and equal of man.

Jacqueline moved a little, uneasy and resentful at the thoughts that came to her. Those half legendary loves that were the glory of the civilized world, those names which had, after hundreds of years, still the power to stir the heart--Romeo and Juliet, Hero and Leander, Paul and Virginia--magic names of imperishable glamour and beauty! All good pals, weren’t they? All the women for whom men had ventured sublime and terrible things, the women who had inspired the heroic undertakings of history and romance, the women for whom men had gladly died--all good pals, weren’t they?

A pal? The nearest approach to a pal was the Indian squaw. She had shared her man’s life, she had been his indispensable helper, and the humble, unconsidered bearer of his burdens. The whole idea was a turning back, a renunciation of something lofty and beautiful for something commonplace and inferior. Barty had wanted to be a lover, and she made him a comrade. He had asked for bread, and she had given him a stone. He had longed for the high romance and glory of life, and she had said they couldn’t afford it. She had tried to keep his money in his pockets for him. She had kept his spirit pinned to the earth.

VIII

The sack had bumped poor Stafford black and blue. With a weary sigh he flung it across the other shoulder--and whack, those stony potatoes caught him on the left leg. But he was nearly there now. That silly, adorable girl must have had plenty of time to make her explanation to Barty. Stafford had sent her on ahead from the landing stage with an electric flash light. It was only a short half mile over a good trail, and he was only a little way behind her, never out of hearing of a call. He thought that she ought to see Barty alone. They must arrange their own affairs in their own pathetic, blundering way.

Whack! This time just behind the knee. Stafford flung the sack on the ground and began to drag it after him. Let happen what might, he had the tobacco safely in his pocket. If further meals depended upon carrying that accursed sack any more, then he preferred never to eat again.

Ah! He saw the flare of the camp fire now.

“Hallo-o-o, Barty!” he shouted.

“Halloo-o-o, Stafford!” Barty responded cheerfully. “What’s been keeping you so late? I was beginning to get a bit uneasy.”

Stafford made no answer, but came on at a very much quickened pace, dragging the sack behind him over the rough ground.

“Leadenhall!” he said. He stood still, looking anxiously about him. The flickering light of the fire illumined a small cleared space in the dark woodland, and there was no one there but Barty. “Didn’t some one else come?” he demanded sharply.

“Some one else?” said Barty, with a laugh. “Expecting callers?”

Then Stafford told him.

At first it seemed to Barty preposterous, and even a little annoying, that the alert and self-reliant Jacko should have got herself lost in this fashion. The trail up from the landing was perfectly clear and easy to follow, and Stafford had given her his flash light.

Barty went all the way down to the lake again, calling her name. Then, as he stood on the shore of the black water, the note in his voice changed. A fitful wind had sprung up, driving clouds across the face of the moon. The trees stirred and sighed. No matter what feminine folly had induced her to leave the trail, she had left it. She was gone, beyond reach of his voice. Which way?

He remembered Stafford’s words--hard words for a young man of his temper to swallow.

“You accepted the responsibility for her life and her happiness,” Stafford had said; “and you left her--a young, lovely thing like that. I think you failed her pretty badly, Leadenhall!”

It was Barty’s way to hold his tongue, and he had held his tongue then, but he had thought.

“I tried to please her and I tried to please you,” was what he thought; “and I’m hanged if either of you know what you want. All right--I do!”

So he had set off in a grim and dogged humor. Of course, he was glad--very glad--that Stafford had found Jacko so charming. Of course he did not object to her going about with that fellow named Terrill--certainly not! He trusted Jacko absolutely, and he was glad she had been able to amuse herself a little; only it was a queer sort of gladness. Of course, he wanted to be fair to his little pal.

“Jacko!” he shouted.

His lusty voice died away across the lake, and nothing answered. The canoe was still there, so she couldn’t have gone back. She must have turned off the trail into the woods. It was not a cold night; and there was nothing there that could hurt her. Barty said that over and over again to himself as he turned back--not along the trail, but through the whispering wood.

His flash light threw a valiant little pathway through the surrounding darkness. He stopped every now and then to call her. He limped painfully, and because of his injured foot he had on soft moccasins, not good for going over stones and broken branches; but he could have gone barefoot over red-hot plowshares then, and scarcely known it.

What, nothing here to hurt her--little Jacko, alone in the black shadow of the whispering trees--in the forest, where the old enemies, the nameless and formless things, never wholly forgotten by the most civilized heart, still lurked? He saw the wood not with his own eyes, but with Jacko’s. Little Jacko, with her eager, beautiful gait, her gallant little head held so high, and her pitiful youth and slightness!

“Jacko!” he shouted in anguish. “Jacko!”

He was in a panic now, trying to run, stumbling and falling, whirling the flash light in a wide circle, shouting until his voice was hoarse and strange. There was no fear, however baseless, that he did not feel for her now, no disaster that he did not foresee.

And at last he heard her. Her voice answered his.

“Here, Barty!” she called faintly.

He found her sunk on the ground in a heap, under a tree, white and limp.

“I got lost, Barty,” she said, with a sob. “I’m--sorry!”

He caught her up in his arms and held her strained against his heart. The flash light had fallen to the ground, and he could not see her face.

“Are you hurt?” he cried. “Jacko, are you hurt?”

She flung her arms round his neck and drew down his head. He felt tears on her cheeks. He was filled with a sublime and almost intolerable tenderness for this beloved creature, clinging to him. He had no words. He could only hold her close in his arms and kiss her cold face again and again.

“Barty!” she said. “Your foot! Let me down!”

But he would not. He carried her back to the camp, and he did not stumble or falter once. White and haggard with exhaustion, he came staggering into the friendly firelight with Jacko in his arms, her face hidden on his shoulder, her dark hair hanging loose over his arm.

When he set her down, and she looked at him, she did not regret his pain, his weariness, or the fear he had felt for her. On his face there was a look that she would never forget--an exultation, a sort of splendor that stirred her beyond all measure. This was his hour, the hour that was due him, his hour of supreme effort and glorious victory.

He could not quite suppress a groan as he turned aside, for his foot throbbed horribly; but she knew that he was glad to endure it for her, that it was his right and his pride so to endure for the woman he loved. For the sake of his love she had done this for him. She had strayed away so that he might find her anew, so that they might start all over again, with the past effaced and the future all before them.

Barty came limping toward her with a plate of unduly solid flapjacks that he himself had cooked. He was followed by Stafford with a cup of ferociously strong coffee. Both of them were so anxious, so concerned, so busy doing clumsily what Jacqueline could have done so easily herself. What she longed to do was to throw her arms about Barty’s neck, to tell him that she did not want him to wait on her and serve her, but to let her help him and share everything, good or bad, with him.

But she stifled that longing. As he stood before her, she looked up into his face with a smile--a strange and beautiful smile which he did not quite understand.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

MAY, 1925 Vol. LXXXIV NUMBER 4

Flowers for Miss Riordan

A CAVALIER’S FLORAL TRIBUTE WHICH HELPED ITS RECIPIENT TO ACHIEVE THE FREEDOM OF HER SOUL

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

The gates were opened, and the crowd went shuffling and pushing out of the dim ferry house. Fleet and glittering motor cars shot by, and after them came thundering trucks, and great dray horses with earth-shaking tramp--the whole world going by on parade, until it seemed that only an enchanted ship could hold all of it. Then bells clanged and winches rattled, the gates shut before Miss Riordan’s nose, and off went the boat, with the world aboard, leaving in its wake a strip of foaming water that after a while grew tranquil and a lucent green.

Miss Riordan turned back and began to saunter up and down the ferry house. She wore an annoyed expression. She was a cruel lady, frowning upon the tardiness of her cavalier, who was doubtless rushing to her from somewhere, breathless and humbly apologetic.

“I am here,” she said in effect, “and I may as well wait, but it shall never happen again--never!”

Two boats gone! That meant forty minutes.

“Well, of course, I came too early,” she reflected. “That makes it seem longer; but I just won’t wait after the next one.”

She knew she would, though. He knew it, too--knew he would find her there. He would come when it suited him, and there she would be, waiting for him.

“He makes me sick!” she said to herself, with a sudden rush of tears. “Who does he think he is, anyway? I bet, if everything was known--”

But she hoped the time would never come when everything was known, even if it should effect the well deserved humiliation of Mr. Louis Pirini.

On the Day of Judgment there would be an angel with an immense book. He would ask you questions, and write down your answers in letters of fire; but he would know the right answers beforehand, or have them on file somewhere, so you’d have to be careful what you said. It was a comfort to think, though, that if that time came, you would be purely a soul, without bodily contours, and certainly without age. Miss Riordan was not very clear in mind about her sins, but she knew well enough which were the things that filled her with the greatest shame and guilt--her age and her physical luxuriance.

“Well, anyhow, I don’t look it!” she said forlornly to herself. “He don’t really know. He just tries to tease me--but I don’t care!”

The energy she was obliged to expend in not caring for the humorous remarks of Mr. Louis Pirini was, however, a considerable drain upon her nervous system. Usually she was able to laugh when he did; but sometimes he was too mean, and then she cried--a weakness she dreaded beyond measure. Always, whether she laughed or cried, when he was with her and when he was absent, she was filled with a passionate resentment against him.

Her grievances had grown monstrous; her heart was bursting with them. Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she thought that the only good thing in the world would be to “get even” with him.

But Mr. Pirini was safe as an immortal god from her vengeance. There was no conceivable way in which she could hurt him. She couldn’t retaliate by making unpleasant remarks about his personal appearance, because they both knew that he was superb. She could not shame him by reminding him of all she had done for him--she had tried that once. She couldn’t even tell any one of her own generosity and his vile ingratitude. On the contrary, she felt obliged to lie quite wildly. When she bought anything new, she pretended that Louis had given it to her. When they went out together, she pretended that it was his treat.

“And he just stands there grinning!” she thought. “All I’ve done for him, and look how he acts! Look at last Sunday, down to Coney, when we met Sadie. She’s seen me and Louis going together nearly a year. It was perfectly natural for her to say was him and me going to get married; and what did he up and say, after all I’ve done for him? ‘Sure we are,’ he says, ‘when hell freezes over!’ I’d just like to have told Sadie a thing or two about him!”

Unattainable consolation! She couldn’t ever tell any one, for nobody would understand. She did not even care to bring the matter to the attention of God prematurely, for she feared He would not consider all the evidence, but would give a judgment based upon one or two salient facts; and the facts were somehow so insignificant, compared with her feelings.

Twelve minutes, now, before the next boat. A sort of panic seized her. He mustn’t come and discover her walking up and down like this, as if she were impatient, as if she were eagerly waiting for him. No--she would be found reading something with profound interest, unconscious of the passing of time, of the waste of this Saturday afternoon, so precious to her after a week’s work in the factory.

She sauntered up to the news stand and fluttered over the pages of a magazine. She thought it was “high-class,” and yet it was full of pictures. She paid for it, and sat down on a bench.

“Well, I read a lot of good things in school,” she reflected, always on the defensive. “‘Hiawatha,’ and all that. I was real good in English.”

She turned to an article on Turkey, a country which she thought immoral and interesting, but it was difficult to divert her attention from her feet. Funny, the way they hurt more when you were sitting down than when you were walking!

“Maybe I might have took a half a size longer,” she reflected. “Well, anyways! This shiny paper kind of hurts my eyes. It’s an awful foolish thing to wear glasses--makes you look so much older; only they do say it gives you wrinkles to squint.”

Wistfully she looked at the photograph of a group of Turkish beauties. Certainly they were all stout, but somehow it was a different sort of stoutness; and their eyes, their languorous, ardent eyes.

“Yes, but I bet if everything was known--” thought Miss Riordan.

Just then she became aware that some one was looking at her--some one who had sat down beside her. She began to assume various expressions of interest in her magazine. She frowned, as if absorbed. She raised her eyebrows, amazed. She smiled and shook her head, incredulous. Then, as she turned the page, she cast a furtive sidelong glance, to see who it was.

It was a little old man with a woeful face. His wrinkled brow, his hanging jowls, and his sad, dim old eyes gave him rather the look of a superannuated hound. Perhaps he was pathetic, but not to Miss Riordan. She was very angry. She stared at him in haughty surprise, and turned back to her magazine; but she could still feel his eyes fixed upon her.

“The nerve of the man!” she thought indignantly.

Presently he moved a little nearer and cleared his throat, as if about to speak. This time she gave him a look calculated to destroy; but, just the same, he did speak.

“I see you are reading Travel,” he said.

She glared at him.

“I have had the honor of contributing one or two articles to that publication,” he went on. “Little sketches of my various journeys; but after all--” He smiled. “After all,” he said, “east or west, home is best. I always return to Staten Island with renewed appreciation.”

Miss Riordan was perturbed. She did not wholly understand this speech, but she was impressed, and she was embarrassed. Clearly she had misjudged this man. There was no occasion here for haughty glances. He was venerable.

“Yes,” he continued, “I find a rare combination of beauties in Staten Island. The stirring panorama of the bay, with ships from the four corners of the earth, the drowsy little hamlets, and the hills. The words of our national anthem have always seemed to me peculiarly applicable to the island--‘I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills.’ May I ask if you are a resident?”

“You mean do I live there? Well, no,” said Miss Riordan. “I just go there sometimes, with my friend.”

“Ah!” said he. “There are so many delightful rambles--hilltop vistas which linger long in the memory.”

Miss Riordan and her friend were in the habit of taking the train at St. George and going direct to South Beach. The vistas on that journey had not appealed to her as memorable, nor had her rambles along the boardwalk been especially delightful; but she did not care to say so.

“I like the country,” she observed timidly, and was enchanted to see by his face that this pleased him.

He went on talking--which was what she desired. She would have sat there for hours, listening to him. Never had she heard such words, never imagined such refinement. She was filled with reverence that was almost awe. And when he talked poetry!

He quoted in his tremulous old voice:

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

It was too much! Miss Riordan’s own thoughts did not lie too deep. Her tears welled up and brimmed over. She wiped her eyes with her perfumed handkerchief, and mutely shook her head.

Her companion had long since passed the age of such facile relief. He peered at her in kindly distress, unable to find assuaging words for a grief so inexplicable.

“Please wait a moment!” he said, and with a little difficulty got upon his feet. “Just wait a moment, please! I’ll be back directly.”

She believed him, and while she waited, confident that he would return to her, she thought about this thing in a misty fashion.

Not yet in her life had Miss Riordan attempted to account for her emotions. She felt, and that sufficed. She had no idea why the old gentleman’s discourse upon the natural beauties of Staten Island should have made her weep. She did not know why his talk had so charmed her. She knew only, cared only, that a strange, tearful happiness had come upon her.

“I guess he liked to talk to me!” she thought, with satisfaction beyond measure.

Then she saw him coming toward her again, toddling along in his long overcoat, with a little bouquet of roses in his gloved hand.

“Oh, my goodness!” thought Miss Riordan, beginning to cry again. “Did you ever?”

He sat down beside her, a little out of breath.

“If you’ll allow me,” he said, proffering the flowers. “From one lover of Wordsworth to another. I saw that you were much moved by my little allusion.”

“You hadn’t ought to have done it!” said Miss Riordan, with a sob. “I just don’t know what to say!”

She held the flowers to her nose, and her tears rained upon them. This was her first bouquet. Her next would very likely come when she was no longer able to enjoy its fragrance or shed any more tears.

“A feeling heart!” said the old gentleman. “There! Isn’t that the bell? We’d better make our way on board, madam, or we shall be crowded out.”

“I can’t! I got to wait!” she cried in despair; “but I’ll go with you as far as the gates.”

So she did. When they got there, he removed his hat and held out his hand, standing before her bareheaded and in matchless dignity, in spite of the jostling crowd. She took his hand and squeezed it hard.

“Good-by!” she said. “Do take care of yourself!”

II

She watched the old gentleman as he made his way toward the cabin. Each time some one brushed against him, she cried under her breath:

“Stop that pushing! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“What you mutterin’ about?” asked a voice behind her.

Turning, she confronted her Louis.

“Well!” she exclaimed indignantly. “You’re a nice one, you are! But come on! Hurry up! We can get this boat.”

He caught her arm and held her back.

“No!” he said. “Too late to go down to the island to-day.”

“Too late!” said she. “And me waiting here all the afternoon! What do you mean, too late?”

“When I say too late, I mean too late,” replied Mr. Pirini, with his own special insolence.

“Well!” said Miss Riordan. “I don’t care!”

This speech was surely a cue for exit, but she did not go. She said to herself, as usual, that she just wanted to stay and tell that fellow what she thought of him--which was manifestly impossible, as she had never yet been able to discover what she really did think of him, except that she hated him.

There he stood, with his gray spats and his gray felt hat, worn rakishly, and even new gray gloves. She knew that he had no job, nothing at all to justify his swagger. Very likely he hadn’t enough in his pocket to pay for his dinner. What cared he? He wouldn’t even thank her if she paid for it.

“Now you just look here, Louis!” she began in a trembling voice.

“All right! I’m lookin’!” said he.

His white teeth showed in a broad smile, and his eyes were fixed steadily upon her. Though Miss Riordan, when she looked in the mirror, may have seen an image which somewhat flattered the truth, she had no illusions as to how she appeared in the eyes of Mr. Pirini. She tried to roll the magazine so that her hands should be concealed. She changed the position of her feet.

“All right!” she said. “You can keep on looking!”

“You bin cryin’,” observed her cavalier.

That was too much! Those tears were not to be mentioned by him.

“You mind your own business!” she retorted hotly. “I wasn’t crying over you, anyways!”

She saw that he didn’t believe that.

“Have it your own way,” he said soothingly. “Whadder you say we go an’ get some dinner?”

“No!” replied Miss Riordan, and sat down upon the nearest seat.

She always rejected his suggestions--at first; but, as always, she regretted what she had done. Here was the very situation she had dreaded--herself seated, flushed, struggling against her ever ready tears, while he stood there smiling.

“All right!” he said. “We’ll stay here, then.”

This was another familiar move. How many victories had he won by his patience, his smiling silence! He could wait, and he could hold his tongue, and she could do neither.

“And me waiting here all afternoon!” she burst out. “And then you come and you say it’s too late to go down to the island. Well, what made you come so late?”

He did not answer. Another crowd had begun to move toward the gates, like a herd seized with a migratory impulse. Perhaps something of that ancient instinct stirred now in Miss Riordan. Certainly she had a melancholy sensation of being left behind, abandoned, while her fellow creatures moved on toward a better land--toward a Staten Island green and fair, where in a glen a cataract came foaming down, and wild flowers grew, very much like a landscape which hung up in her furnished room. Well, didn’t she, too, wish to see that lovely spot?

“I’m going to take the next boat!” she announced, rising.

“All right!” said Louis. “I’m not. Good-by!”

She wavered shamefully between the quite real Louis and the imaginary Staten Island.

“I’m going!” she answered in a loud, firm voice, but added: “Unless you say you’re sorry you were so late.”

“Sure! I’m sorry!” answered Louis readily. “Now let’s go an’ get some dinner somewheres. All dressed up to kill, ain’t you? Bought yourself some flowers an’ everything!”

Miss Riordan had temporarily forgotten her bouquet. She glanced down at the pallid blossoms, fainting in her hot hands, and a very curious emotion came over her.

“No, I did not buy them for myself!” she said vehemently. “They were given to me.”

“Sure!” said Louis. “Rudolph Valentino give ’em to you, didn’t he?”

“Now you look here, Louis! A gentleman gave them to me--he bought them for me.”

“Oh, Gawd!” said Louis.

“He did! You stop your laughing!”

But Mr. Pirini was so overwhelmed that he was obliged to drop into the seat beside her, and there he sat, his handsome head thrown back, all his strong white teeth showing in a prodigious and soundless laugh. Miss Riordan turned upon him in a fury.

“You stop that!” she commanded. “You just better believe me! It’s the truth! A gentleman came and sat down beside me and began talking to me, and by and by he got me them flowers.”

“Sure I believe you!” said Louis. “Why wouldn’t I?”

For a moment she could not speak. Her hate, and the insufferable conviction of her impotence, made her heart beat fast and violently. She felt stifled in a desperate struggle against complete submersion. Louis would not believe her. She could not make him believe in her gentleman, and to doubt his existence was to deny her a soul. That the old gentleman had talked poetry to her and given her flowers was the sole proof of her own immortal value.

“I tell you it’s true!” she said in a choked voice.

“Sure!” replied Louis, still grinning.

His unfaith was destroying her. Under his arrogant, smiling glance she was disintegrating. The woman whom the old gentleman had addressed, the woman who longed for the mystic beauties of Staten Island as one longs for Paradise, was being done to death, and there would remain only the creatures she saw in her mirror--this ungainly body, this flushed and troubled face. No! No! She had been worthy of the poetry and the flowers. It was Louis who was too base to see her worth.

III

Her hot anger began to cool, to harden into an emotion which she did not comprehend. She stared back at Louis, at first with scorn, but after a moment with puzzled curiosity. Had he always looked like this? Never any different from this?

“You look so kind of funny to-day!” she observed wonderingly.

“Funny? What d’you mean, funny?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she said, still staring at him. “Just--so kind of--measly.”

His swarthy face turned dark red, and in a low voice he made a forcible retort; but Miss Riordan was past anger. She was looking at her bouquet, lifting up the drooping heads with anxious care.

“I’ll dry ’em in a nice little jar,” she thought. “I guess they’ll keep forever that way.”

Louis was still talking.

“You’d better go away,” she said casually. “I’m going down to the island.”

He got up promptly.

“I’ll go, all right!” said he. “An’ you can git down on your knees an’ beg me, an’ I’ll never come back. Let me tell you--”

“Oh, go on!” said Miss Riordan with mild impatience.

He walked away, swaggering, his gray felt hat to one side, his toes pointed out, his curly hair pushed up at the back of the neck by his high collar. He passed through the turnstile and out of the ferry house, and then, as far as she was concerned, he ceased to exist. Miss Riordan got up and sauntered toward the gates.

“He’s gone,” she thought. “He’d come back if I’d ask him, but I won’t!”

This was true. Mr. Pirini’s charm had been completely dissolved in his laughter. He had refused to believe in her gentleman.

Thinking of that elderly cavalier, her heart swelled with enormous aspirations. Here she was going to the country for a ramble, and carrying a high-class magazine and that mystically precious bouquet. It seemed to her that a monstrous burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Shame, resentment, and miserable anxiety had departed with Mr. Pirini.

She raised the bouquet to her face and sniffed it vigorously.

“I’m going to get a real comfortable pair of shoes!” she said to herself. “A size--two sizes--bigger!”

The freedom of Miss Riordan’s soul was achieved.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JUNE, 1925 Vol. LXXXV NUMBER 1

Sometimes Things Do Happen

HOW THE LIVES OF FOUR YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE WERE UTTERLY RUINED--FOR A TIME, AT LEAST

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Mr. Samuel Pepys set down the happenings of his days with unique candor and spirit, and, by so doing, became immortal. Edward Cane also kept a diary. Like that of Mr. Pepys, it was written in cipher, and it had a good deal about the author’s wife in it; but in other ways it was very different.

Edward was passionately concerned with the future. He made prophecies, and it displeased him that these prophecies were not fulfilled. His was a just and reasonable mind. He knew--none better--how things ought to be, and he was displeased that they were not so.

He had, indeed, given up looking through the earlier pages of his diary, because it hurt too much; but he remembered some of the things. He remembered, if not the actual words, at least the spirit in which he had prophesied about this marriage of his. It was going to be different from all other marriages. Why not, since he and his Mildred were different from all other persons? It was going to be a splendid adventure.

“We shall never become stodgy,” he had written.

Well, as far as that went, they hadn’t. Quite the contrary!

This evening he began his daily record:

I have shut myself up in my--

“In my own room,” he was going to write, but that was not exact. It was Mildred’s room, too. She could come in if she liked. He couldn’t really shut himself up anywhere on earth. He crossed out the last two words, and leaned his head on his hands, struggling valiantly to be just, fair, and exact, and to crush down the extraordinary emotions that outrageous woman aroused in him.

Never, before his marriage, had he felt such fury, such unreasonable, ungovernable exasperation. He had had a well deserved reputation for being a strong, self-controlled, moderate young man. That was one reason why he had risen high in the credit department of a mammoth store--because he could handle angry, cajoling, or desperate customers so firmly and calmly; and here in his own home he was utterly defeated.

He raised his head and looked about him. He saw Mildred’s things everywhere, crowding and jostling his things--even her silly white comb standing up in one of his military brushes.

“Well, what of it?” he asked himself. “I’m orderly and she’s not. I always knew that.”

No use--he could not be philosophic about it. He got up and removed the comb with a jerk. As he did so, he caught sight of his own face in the mirror. It startled him. It was a strained and haggard face.

“I can’t stand this!” he said to himself. “This can’t go on!”

And just at this moment the door burst open and she--the cause of all his exasperation--appeared in the doorway.

“Edward!” she said in a furious, trembling voice. “Will you get that ladder, or won’t you?”

“I will not,” he replied.

His own voice was not altogether steady, but he was much calmer than she. She had been crying--he could see that; and, as he faced her, she began to cry again.

“You beast!” she cried. “You selfish, heartless--”

“Look here!” said Edward. “I can’t--I won’t stand any more of this! I’m sick and tired--”

“And what about me?” she retorted. “After your promising to make me happy!”

That was too much. Edward could have reminded her of things she had promised, but he scorned to do so. Contempt overwhelmed him. She had no scruples. The only thing on earth she cared about was to get her own way; and she wasn’t going to get it--not this time! Her monstrous unfairness, her ruthless egotism, appalled him. He felt anger mounting to his brain, destroying his fine moderation.

“Look here!” he began.

“I won’t!” said she. “If I’d had any idea what you were really like, I’d never have married you, Edward Cane!”

“No doubt!” said Edward frigidly. “However, another woman--”

All he had been going to say was that another woman--any other woman in the world, indeed--would have considered him a fairly good husband; but Mildred chose to take his words in a different spirit.

“Another woman!” said she, and laughed.

“If things happened as they should,” Edward went on, with heightened color, “I’d go away--now. I’d go off--”

“With another woman!” said she, and laughed again.

He was glad to hear the doorbell ring. If he hadn’t gone out of the room just then, he felt that he would certainly have put himself in the wrong. His patience was exhausted.

“Oh, are you leaving me now, Edward?” Mildred called after him mockingly. “Hadn’t you better take a clean collar--or a toothbrush, at least?”

Evidently she hadn’t heard the bell, and he did not condescend to enlighten her. He made up his mind not to speak to her again, no matter what the provocation. He went on down the stairs to the front door, and opened it.

“Edward!” she cried.

Ha! She was giving herself away now! She was worried!

He opened the door wider, and, as he did so, he heard her start down the stairs. It was only a bill, left lying on the veranda. He stepped out to pick it up.

“Edward!” he heard her call. “Eddie!”

A sudden gust of wind blew the door to with a crash, and an equally sudden impulse made him go hastily down the steps and along the path.

The front door opened.

“Eddie!” she called. “Come back this instant!”

He strode up the road and turned the corner.

“Do her good!” he said grimly to himself. “Now I’m out, I’ll just stay out for a while. I’ll smoke, and take a stroll.”

Unfortunately, however, he had changed into an old coat, and had nothing to smoke with him, and no money to buy anything. Also, he was hatless. He shrugged his shoulders with a fine gesture of indifference. He could stroll, anyhow, and think--think this thing out to the bitter end.

It was all bitter, beginning and middle as well as the end. Mildred wished to make a slave of him, to break his spirit, to destroy his manly pride. No--this should not be!

It was a strange, uneasy sort of night--blowing up for rain, he thought. Filmy black clouds went racing across a pallid sky, and the trees rocked and tossed. It was cool, too, for May. He quickened his steps a little.

“I’m upset,” he thought. “I’m more upset than I realized.”

Somehow, the familiar suburban street had a new and almost sinister aspect. The trim houses with their lighted windows looked like houses on the stage--delusions, with no backs to them. Faint and eerie music was coming through some one’s radio. A dog howled, far away. Everything was different.

“This is a fool trick,” he thought suddenly. “I can’t stay out here. I’ll go back and--and simply not answer her.”

II

A taxi came round the corner. The wheels, spinning over the road, sounded like rain. He turned back.

“Sir!” cried a voice. “Please!”

The taxi had stopped, and a woman was leaning out of the window. Was she calling him? It must be so, for there was no one else in sight.

“Can you please tell me where Mrs. Rice lives?” said the woman.

“Er--no,” said he. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know any one of that name here.”

He spoke a little stiffly, because he did not like that voice. It was musical enough, but lacking in calm. She was not discouraged, however.

“If you’d just please look at this--card,” she said. “Perhaps I’ve read the name wrong.”

Now Edward was frankly suspicious. He did not want to approach that taxi, but he had not the moral courage to refuse. He would have preferred to be set upon by bandits, to be blackjacked and robbed, rather than show his reluctance. He stepped off the curb and crossed the road. He knew that something was going to happen.

The woman in the taxi handed him a card; and at the same moment she clutched his collar, and, leaning forward, whispered in his ear:

“Say that Mrs. Rice lives in that house! Pretend to read the card! Quick!”

What could he do? He didn’t want to say anything, but he did not know how to refuse this agitated creature. He took the card, went around to the front of the taxi, and pretended to read the card by the fierce white glare of the headlights.

“Oh!” he said. “Mrs. Bice! I see! She lives there--in that house.”

“Thank you!” said the woman in the taxi.

The instinct of self-preservation warned him to be off then, but he had also another instinct--that of helping other people who were in trouble. Something was obviously wrong here, and, prudent or not, he could not turn his back and walk off. The woman had got out, and stood beside him in the road.

“Please pay him and send him away!” she whispered.

So that was the game!

“I’m sorry,” said Edward blandly, “but I’ve come out without a penny in my pockets.”

“Here!” said she, and thrust a purse into his hand. “Only please get rid of him!”

He saw he had been wrong. With a certain compunction, he approached the driver.

“Five dollars!” said the man.

Edward leaned over and looked at the meter.

“Two forty,” he said.

“She made a special rate with me--” the driver began.

“Two forty,” said Edward briefly.

He opened the little purse, and found it crammed with bills--large bills, some of them--an extraordinary amount of cash. He was searching for change when the driver commenced.

Now Edward, as assistant credit manager, was not unaccustomed to remonstrances from persons who could not get what they wanted; nor was his nature a submissive or timid one. He felt quite able to withstand the driver’s attack; but women are not like that. Bluster impresses them, and this woman was impressed.

“Oh, please!” she cried. “Give him the five dollars! Give him anything! Only do get rid of him!”

After all, it was her money. Edward gave the driver a five-dollar bill, with a low and forcible remark. The engine started up, and off went the taxi. It seemed extraordinarily quiet after it had gone.

“Drunk,” observed Edward.

“I know!” said the woman. “He was perfectly awful!”

She was going to cry, if she had not already begun; and he wanted no more of that.

“Now, then!” he said, in a loud, cheerful voice. “Shall I get you another taxi?”

“Please!” said she.

She was crying now--no doubt about it. What was worse, she took his arm and clung to it.

“If you’ll wait here for a few minutes--” suggested Edward.

“Oh, I can’t!” she cried. “Oh, please don’t go away and leave me all alone!”

He saw himself that it wouldn’t do to leave her standing here in the street while he walked half a mile to the station for a taxi.

“I’ll go into the Baxters’ and telephone for one,” he thought.

But Mrs. Baxter was a particular friend of Mildred’s. She would bother him. She would ask questions. She would want to know what he was doing, wandering about at ten o’clock at night. She would suspect that there had been a quarrel.

The idea was intolerable. He would not go to the Baxters’; and, not having been long in the neighborhood, he knew no one else.

As he stood deliberating, the lights in the house behind them went out, leaving the world very dark. For the moment, he felt a thousand miles from home. He felt marooned, cut off. He couldn’t believe that just around the corner was that six-room house of hollow tile, with all improvements--that house which was mystically more than a house because it was his home. He owned it. In his experience as assistant credit manager he had seen what fatal accidents could happen to defer deferred payments, and he would have none of them. His rule was to pay cash. Mildred had more than once protested against this rule, but in vain.

“You’re always looking ahead and imagining that all sorts of queer, awful things are going to happen,” she had said, only the day before; “but they never do!”

They didn’t, didn’t they? A lot she knew!

“Where can I get a taxi?” asked the voice at his side, and he came out of his reverie with a start.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk to the station,” he said; “unless you happen to pick one up on the way.”

“Oh, dear!” said she. “Is it far? Half a mile? But if I’ve got to walk that far--isn’t there some sort of hotel in the town?”

“Yes--there’s the American House,” Edward told her.

“Then I’ll go there,” said she. “If you’ll just please tell me the way--”

He knew that he must go with her--that she was one of those women who can never go anywhere or do anything alone. Impossible to explain how he knew this, or how, in the dark, and without having even once looked squarely at her, he knew that she was young, pretty, and charmingly dressed. Stifling a sigh, he set off at her side. It had to be.

She thanked him very nicely. He assured her that it was no trouble at all, and then they both fell silent. She sounded as if she were walking quickly, her little high heels clacking smartly on the pavement; but as a matter of fact their progress was slow--a snail’s pace, Edward thought. At this rate, he wouldn’t get back to the house for an hour--that is, if he ever did go back. He said to himself that he had not made up his mind what he would do; but in his heart he knew that he couldn’t help himself. He was a victim of destiny.

“But it is awfully nice of you!” said the fair unknown. “Were you just out taking a walk?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Edward replied gloomily.

“That’s like me,” said she. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care where I go, or what becomes of me!”

This alarmed Edward. After having been married to Mildred for nearly six months, he knew that such people were possible. They really didn’t care where they went or what they did. They were incalculably dangerous and reckless.

“All women,” he thought somberly, “are alike--all of them!”

Perhaps at this moment Mildred was not caring where she went or what became of her.

“I know you must wonder,” the fair unknown continued. “I don’t suppose any one in the world could understand.”

She paused, but Edward gave her no encouragement.

“I really did know a Mrs. Rice who lived somewhere in this neighborhood when I was a little girl,” she resumed. “Such a dear old lady. And somehow, in my desperation, I thought of h-her.” She was wiping her eyes with a small handkerchief. “You must think I’m so weak and s-silly!”

“Oh, no!” said Edward politely.

A fatalistic gloom enveloped him. He felt no curiosity at all. He knew not where he was going, or why; and what chiefly occupied his mind was a profound longing for a smoke and a hat. With a cigar, he felt, he could have regained his philosophic outlook. With a hat, he could have faced this situation more like a man of the world. He had neither, and he was walking off into the night, away from home.

The lights of the town made him anxious that the lady should dry her tears.

“I think it’s going to rain,” he observed in an easy, conversational tone. “Country needs rain badly.”

He might have known that it wouldn’t work. She paid no attention whatever to this remark.

“I only want to hide,” she said. “If I could have found dear old Mrs. Rice! That driver--he was so awful! He was going to drive out into the country and murder me. I saw it in his face. And then you came!”

“I happened to be there,” Edward corrected her.

“Isn’t it strange, the way things happen?” she said in a low, intense voice. “Doesn’t it seem like fate?”

It did. Edward said nothing. He was trying to invent some excuse for getting his arm away from her before they passed any shops where he was known. He failed to do so, however. The lights in all the shops on the main street shone upon him, hatless, with the desperate lady clinging to him.

The portico of the American House was in sight now. They drew nearer and nearer. Ten steps more--

“Quick!” she whispered. She pulled violently at his arm, and in an instant he found himself inside a jeweler’s shop. “He was there--outside the hotel!” she whispered. “If he’d turned his head! He’d surely have killed you! Isn’t that a sweet bracelet?”

This last remark was for the benefit of the young man who had come behind the counter. He seemed pleased, and brought out the bracelet in a velvet box.

“Sweet, isn’t it?” she murmured.

She nudged Edward hard. He glanced at her, and a thrill of terror ran through him. She was smiling archly at him. Her tears had in no way marred a most lovely and piquant face. She was a beautiful and elegant woman, such as Edward had frequently seen in his office. He knew these pampered beings, and their naïve and exorbitant demands.

“Yes,” he replied faintly.

“Get it for me, dear!” she said.

He was stupefied.

“I want it! Get it for me, dear!” she repeated, with the same arch smile; but her elbow dug sharply into his ribs.

“How much?” he asked in a hollow voice.

“Only twenty-five dollars,” she said brightly.

He turned aside, and from her well filled purse took out the requisite amount. The young clerk wrapped up the bracelet and handed it to her. As he did so, she leaned across the counter.

“Is there a back way to get out?” she asked in a low and confidential voice. “They’re out there, looking for us, and we want to give them the slip.”

“Certainly, madam,” said the clerk. “This way!”

He opened a door at the rear of the shop. They followed him along a dark passage, across a yard, through a gate in the fence, and out into another street.

“Er--good night!” said the clerk.

“No!” returned Edward. “Look here!”

But the fair unknown, still clinging to his arm, positively dragged him on.

“Stupid!” she hissed. “Hurry up! Do you want to be killed?”

They turned the corner into a dark alley, and here Edward stopped.

“Look here!” he said sternly. “This can’t go on! I--”

“Don’t you see? He thought we were a bride and groom, trying to get away.”

Edward believed none of this. He did not believe that he was in any danger of being killed by any person whatsoever, or that the clerk had thought what the unknown imagined; but women, as he had noticed before, always believed what they wished to believe.

“I have to live in this town, you know,” he observed.

Of course this observation did not move her. Women never considered the future. They lived, reckless and heedless, in the present moment.

“Where do you want to go now?” he pursued. “It’s getting late.”

“Leave me!” said she. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you for all you’ve done. Go away and leave me!”

“I can’t leave you here--in an alley,” said Edward, repressing a violent irritation.

“What does it matter?” said she. “I don’t care what becomes of me!”

“Well, I do!” said Edward.

“Oh, how sweet of you!” she cried, and began to weep again.

“I mean,” Edward explained hastily, “that I couldn’t leave any woman alone in a place like this.”

“You’re so ch-chivalrous!” she sobbed. “I knew it the moment I heard your voice!”

“I am not chivalrous,” replied Edward firmly; “only--look here! I’ll get a taxi and see you home.”

“I have no home!” she wailed.

“You must live somewhere.”

“I don’t--not any more. Oh, leave me! Leave me! I don’t care!” She clutched his arm again, in that frenzied manner which so startled and annoyed him. “Oh, my hat!” she cried. “It’s raining!”

She was right--the first heavy drops were beginning to fall.

“Oh, my pretty little hat!” she cried.

Now, Edward’s was a just and logical mind, and yet even he had sometimes been illogically moved by trifles. This infantile plaint about a pretty little hat reminded him of certain things Mildred had said, and aroused in him a pity which the stranger’s tragic and mysterious sorrows had hitherto failed to inspire.

“Come on!” he said.

III

Edward was now the leader of the enterprise; he did not know where they were going, but he led the way, down the alley and out into a street which was new to him. It was one of those streets that may so often be found lurking near neat little suburban railway stations--a mean street, dark and deserted. A light burned dimly in a cutthroat barber’s, another light in a shoemaker’s, revealing the shoemaker and his family of pale infants. There was a--what was that?

“The Palace Restaurant--never closed,” a sign said.

They hurried into the Palace Restaurant just as the rain began in earnest.

“You can wait here till it’s over,” said Edward.

He purposely refrained from saying “we,” but he knew that he could not desert the silly, helpless creature. They sat down at a little table near the window, and, when the proprietor came up to them, Edward ordered ham and eggs and coffee.

“I couldn’t eat anything in this horrible place!” whispered his companion.

At first Edward was inclined to agree with her. It was not an appetizing place. The tablecloth was stained, and there was a stale and unpleasant aroma in the air. A glass case displayed a lemon meringue pie and a raisin cake which did not appeal to him.

When the food came, however, he ate it--to his regret, for, after having eaten, his desire for a smoke increased tenfold. He could think of little else. Stern and silent, he sat there thinking of the cigars in the pocket of his other coat, of the box of cigars in his office. He knew this to be a weakness, and he was struggling against it; but the struggle was difficult, and he was in no mood for his companion’s words.

“You’re unhappy--like me,” she said softly.

“No,” said Edward. “No--it’s entirely different.”

“Oh, I understand!” she said.

She went on, about life, and how hard it is when you really feel things, and how alone you are, even in the midst of crowds. He tried not to listen, but he had to hear some of it, and it infuriated him.

“Very likely,” he said; “but I’d like to know your plans. What do you want me to do? Get you a cab, or what?”

She shrank back.

“Oh!” she said. “I see! You mean--I understand! You want to go. Leave me, then! Go! Why should you care what happens to me?”

“It’s after eleven,” was all that Edward answered.

There was a silence.

“Very well!” she said coldly. “I shall take the next train into the city.”

There was another silence. The proprietor had retired, and they had the Palace Restaurant entirely to themselves. The rain was dashing against the windows. The street light outside showed only darkness.

What, Edward wondered, was Mildred doing now? She was capable of anything--of telephoning to the Baxters, to the police. Perhaps she had gone away herself. Perhaps she was wandering about in this storm, searching for her husband. It was a wild and fantastic notion, but that was the sort of thing women did. Look at this one! He did look at her, and she looked at him, with cold scorn.

“Will you be kind enough--” she began.

Just then the door opened and two men came in. They were the editor and the subeditor of the local paper, both of whom Edward knew.

“Hello, Cane!” said the editor. “Just put the paper to bed. What are you doing here?”

“Nothing much,” Edward replied as casually as possible.

The editor turned to the fair unknown.

“How do you like our little town, Mrs. Cane?” he asked. “Once you get to know--”

“I am not Mrs. Cane,” she interrupted frigidly.

“Oh! I--er--yes,” said the editor.

He waited a moment, but no one said anything. Then he and his colleague sat down at a table as far away as they could get.

“Why didn’t you keep still?” said Edward in a low, fierce voice. “He’s editor of the newspaper here.”

“Did you imagine I was that sort of woman?” she returned. “Did you think I would pretend to be the wife of a perfect stranger?”

“No,” said Edward; “but you didn’t need to say anything. He’ll talk--”

“Do you imagine I care?” said she.

Of course she didn’t. Women care only for themselves. Edward could not trust himself to speak, but he thought. He thought.

“I’ll find out who she is,” he said to himself, “so that I can send her back for the money for her ham and eggs.”

A dismal bellow pierced the night.

“The eleven forty pulling out,” observed the editor to his companion.

Edward heard this.

“When’s the next train into the city?” he asked, across the room.

“Five twenty to-morrow morning.”

“Now you see what you’ve done!” said the fair unknown to Edward.

“What I’ve done?” said he, amazed and indignant; but she was far more indignant than he.

“Now what am I going to do?” she demanded. “The last train’s gone. I can’t go into the city, and there’s nowhere here for me to stay.”

“Are you blaming me for--”

“Yes,” said she. “You’re a man. You ought to have--”

“Just what ought I have done?” Edward inquired with biting irony.

“I don’t care!” said she. “Very well! I’m going to stay here all night.”

“You can’t.”

“I’m going to!” said she.

“And I thought Mildred was unreasonable!” Edward reflected.

The image of Mildred rose before him, remarkably vivid. With great justice and moderation he compared her with this unknown individual. All women were not alike. Mildred was different. There was something about her--Sometimes, of course, she was simply outrageous, but, even at that--That time when he had the flu--or when anything went wrong in the office--

“And she’s very young,” thought the just man. “She’s nothing but a kid. Perhaps I should have made allowances.”

“Won’t you smoke?” said a voice.

Glancing up, he saw the fair unknown proffering a silver cigarette case. Edward did not smoke cigarettes, and he had pretty severe theories about people who did so, but this time he was weak. He took one and lighted it. It was a horrible perfumed thing, but it helped him. The fact that he had broken one of his rules helped him, too. He felt more tolerant.

“Don’t you--er--smoke?” he asked his companion.

He thought she was just the sort of person who would; but she shook her head.

“Arthur doesn’t like me to,” she said. Her voice had changed, and her face, too. She was downcast and pale. “I made him get me that case,” she went on. “He hated to, but I made him.”

Tears had come into her eyes again, but this time Edward felt rather sorry for her.

“Don’t cry!” he said kindly--the more so as the two editors had just gone out, in discreet silence.

“I can’t help it!” said she. “My whole life is ruined. You don’t know--oh, you don’t know what a beast I’ve been! And now--now I’ve lost Arthur!”

“Who is Arthur?” Edward asked sympathetically.

“My husband,” said she. The tears were raining down her cheeks. “My dear, kind, wonderful, darling husband! I wanted to punish him, and frighten him, and I ran away. We had a quarrel. My life is ruined, and all because of a penny!”

“A penny?”

“Yes. Arthur said the two sides were called heads and tails, and I said they were called odds and evens. I know he was wrong, but why didn’t I give in? Oh, why didn’t I give in? Both our lives ruined! He’s frightfully jealous. Hell never forgive this--and for a trifle like that!”

“I--” said Edward, and stopped. His face, too, had grown pale. “Ours was about a cat--Mildred’s cat,” he went on. “It got up a tree, and she wanted me to go next door and get a ladder and get it down. I told her it could get down by itself when it was ready. She--”

“How cruel of you!” interrupted his companion.

“It was not cruel,” asserted Edward.

“It was! If you loved Mildred, you’d get dozens of ladders for her.”

“If she loved me, she wouldn’t ask me to make such a monkey of myself,” retorted Edward. “I did it once, and the people next door laughed at me. I heard them.”

“You shouldn’t care,” said the fair unknown severely. “You were entirely in the wrong.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Edward, “you were entirely in the wrong yourself, about that penny.”

“What?” said she.

She rose and faced him with flashing eyes. Edward rose, too. His eyes did not flash, but they were steely. They regarded each other steadily, with magnificent pride.

Suddenly she began to laugh.

“I am glad,” said Edward, “that you find this amusing.”

“Oh, dear!” she said, sinking back into her chair. “Aren’t we pig-headed, both of us?”

“Kindly don’t--” Edward began, but she did not heed him.

“Oh! A penny--and a cat!”

“Well,” said Edward, “perhaps--”

“Come on!” said she, rising again. “Let’s go back and start all over again!”

“I--” Edward began.

“Oh, do come on!” she cried impatiently. “It was Arthur I saw outside the American House--when I pulled you into the jeweler’s, you know. Oh, do hurry! He’s traced me that far--perhaps we’ll find him still there!”

“We?”

“Of course!” she said. “You’ve got to explain everything to Arthur. Come on!”

“But your hat!” Edward reminded her, as a last desperate plea.

“My hat!” she replied with supreme scorn.

So they went out of the Palace Restaurant into the driving rain.

IV

“Whew!” said Edward to himself, wiping his moist brow with a still moister handkerchief. “Whew!”

Arthur had been found in the American House, and he had been difficult to handle. If Edward had not had such a thorough training in his business, he could never have handled the situation in so masterly a fashion. Arthur was a rich young man, and accustomed to being kotowed to. Edward, however, was accustomed to rich people who were accustomed to being kotowed to. Many times he had explained to wealthy and indignant customers facts which they had not cared to consider--that, for instance, the mere possession of enough money to pay one’s bills did not suffice for a credit department; that there must be a certain willingness to use the money for that purpose.

Edward had not kotowed to Arthur. He had been mighty firm with him, though kind, for he had felt sorry for the man. It had been a bad night for Arthur. He had been desperately worried about his wife. Patiently, inexorably, Edward had made him listen to reason, and in the end there was a touching and beautiful reconciliation. Arthur’s wife, with truly admirable unselfishness, had said that it did not matter who was right about the penny. Both of them had declared that they owed everything to Edward and would be his lifelong friends.

He was now at liberty to attend to his own little affair. Having no money to pay for a taxi, he set off on foot in the direction of his home. It was still raining, and as black as the pit, yet he fancied he could feel dawn in the air. Taking out his watch, he saw that it was half past four. He had been away all night. He remembered his last words to Mildred:

“If things happened as they should--”

She had said that they never did, but they had. He was strangely justified, yet he felt no triumph. The rain fell cold upon his uncovered head, and his spirit was cold within him.

“She must have been worrying,” thought Edward.

Indeed, that was an inadequate word for what he knew she must have felt. He thought about Mildred, not in her outrageous moments, but as she was at other times, when she was her unique and incomparable self. He thought about marriage, in a large, general way. He also thought about his own marriage, and what he had intended it to be.

At last he thought about himself. Soaked through to the skin, cold and weary, Edward groped after justice. It was a creditable performance--the more so because he was unaware of it. He groped, and he found a new and startling piece of wisdom.

He quickened his pace. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped, but he did not know that, for the drops still pattered thickly from the trees. As he turned the corner of his own street, he saw in the sky the first streak of dawn--a pale gray creeping up into the black.

His reasonable mind told him that there was no cause here for wonder, yet he did wonder. He stopped for a moment and watched the marvelous dawn--watched it make a fresh and utterly new day and a new world. His own house seemed to grow before his eyes, turning from a shadowy mass into something familiar and yet strange. He had come home--after what extraordinary wanderings!

He advanced, walking on the sodden grass, so that his steps should be noiseless. He entered his neighbor’s garden, thankful that they kept no dog. He took a ladder from the unlocked tool shed, and, carrying it with some difficulty, set it up against a certain tree on his own front lawn.

Then, still noiselessly, he stole up on the veranda, and, stooping, examined the doormat and the darkest corners. Unsatisfied, he went around to the back of the house; and there, against the kitchen door, he found that which he sought--a cat. He wished to tell Mildred that he had brought her cat down from the tree, and he would not lie. It should be true.

The cat was mutinous. She struggled as he held her under his arm, and it was difficult to ascend the ladder. However, he did so. He put the cat on a branch, and let go of her for an instant, in order to get a better hold on her for the descent. She began climbing higher up. He clutched at her, but she eluded him. She was a heavy cat, but she went up a slender branch, which bent perilously beneath her.

“Kitty! Kitty!” whispered Edward. “Oh, you fool!”

Her hind legs had slipped off, and for an instant they were kicking desperately in the air, reminding him of a Zouave in white gaiters.

“Come, kitty!” murmured Edward. “Come on, kitty!”

The creature clawed and clutched desperately, swung under the bending branch, came up on the other side, and began to come down, facing him with wild yellow eyes. He caught her as she came within reach. He thought the touch of a firm human hand would reassure the terrified animal, but it was not so. She appeared to be suspicious and resentful.

As the cat’s claws pierced his shoulder, Edward recoiled, and very nearly fell from the ladder. Probably he uttered some sort of exclamation, as almost anybody would. Anyhow, Mildred’s head appeared at an upper window.

“I’m getting your cat down,” Edward explained.

By the time he had reached the foot of the ladder, with the cat, Mildred had opened the front door. She was carrying something in her arms, which she set down in the shadow of the veranda. She gave it a gentle push with her foot, and it ran off, unseen by Edward.

Edward set down his cat, and she also ran off.

“There you are!” he said.

Mildred came down the steps.

“Oh, Eddie!” she cried.

It was quite light now in the open. He could see her face, and it seemed to him rather wonderful.

“Eddie!” she said. “You’re soaking wet! Oh, Eddie, it was all my fault!”

“I don’t know that it was,” replied Edward meditatively. “Some of it was my fault, I think.”

She came nearer to him.

“Oh, Eddie!” she cried. “It really doesn’t matter one bit whose fault things are, does it?”

He was startled, for that was his own particular bit of wisdom, painfully arrived at. Mildred was a remarkable girl!

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JULY, 1925 Vol. LXXXV NUMBER 2

Miss What’s-Her-Name

AN INEXPERIENCED TRAVELER’S EVENTFUL VOYAGE TO A SUMMER ISLE OF PALM TREES AND SAPPHIRE WATERS

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Miss Smith was a governess. She was not one of those beautiful young governesses so popular in romance, who live in the families of earls or millionaires and suffer all sorts of persecutions. Though young, Miss Smith was not exactly beautiful, and certainly she was not persecuted. On the contrary, the Pattersons were kind to her and thought very highly of her.

She was a brisk, sensible little thing, neat as a new pin, with crisp, curling black hair, clear blue eyes, and a lovely, healthy color. Her dress, her manner, her smile, were brisk and neat and sensible. Everything about her was pleasant--except for one great black shadow at the back of her mind, which she bravely pretended to ignore.

Sometimes, however, this lurking shadow refused to be ignored and crept out, clouding her clear blue eyes, troubling her nice, sensible thoughts, and making her, all in an instant, pale and downcast and dismayed. The shadow was a fear--fear of poverty, fear of defeat and failure, fear, above all, of romance.

Miss Smith’s charming mother and father had been a romantic couple, and she remembered what had happened to them. They had both been too poor and too young and too charming. They had had no business to get married, but they had got married, and their daughter remembered--

She remembered her mother putting a piece of cardboard inside her slipper, because of a great hole in the sole, and her father going down on one knee to kiss the slender little foot. It was very romantic, but Miss Smith had seen tears in her father’s eyes and in her mother’s.

She remembered a terrible quarrel over a boiled egg. There had been only two eggs. She, a little girl, had got one of them for her breakfast, and the other had been set before her father; but he wouldn’t have it. He said that Nora positively needed it; and Nora--her mother--said that she didn’t need it, didn’t want it, and wouldn’t have it.

In the end Mr. Smith had thrown the egg out of the window, where it lay in the mud, with the summer rain beating down on it. He had shouted bitterly that he was no good, because he couldn’t make enough money to buy enough eggs for his family; and the little girl had cried, and her mother had cried, and their poor devoted little servant--their servants were always devoted--had cried, too. It had ended with her father sitting on the arm of her mother’s chair, tenderly stroking that wonderful black hair, and herself sitting on her mother’s lap, while the little servant stood in the doorway, drying her eyes on her apron. Everybody begged everybody else’s pardon, and, after a while, they all laughed; and that very morning a devoted neighbor--for their neighbors were generally devoted, too--sent them a dozen new-laid eggs.

That was the sort of thing which was always happening to them; but Miss Smith remembered, not the gay ending, but the storm itself. Her mother had said, often and often, that her life had been a beautiful one, that she had been blessed above any woman she knew in the love and comradeship of her husband; but Miss Smith remembered too many tears, too many anxieties. She sometimes added, at the end of her prayers:

“And please, dear Lord, don’t let me do anything like that!”

She would not have made that particular prayer with such particular earnestness if she had not known how easy it would be for her to do something like that; but she did know. She knew that the germs of that fatal disease called romance were in her blood, and she had to take frequent doses of a bitter sort of moral quinine to keep them inactive.

One of the best of these cures was in repeating to herself her full name--her poor, pathetic, dreadful name, which she never let any one know. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson were middle-aged and very serious, and Gladys Patterson, though only ten in years, was quite a settled and responsible character; and the life in that sedate West Side house was so calm, so orderly, that there was much time for idle, foolish thoughts. When any such came drifting through her mind, Miss Smith would repeat her name to herself with a stern smile, and would be deeply thankful for the “Smith” part of it, which was so thoroughly unromantic and sensible.

She tried to be thankful all the time. Before going to sleep she would tell herself how thankful she was for this nice, dignified, safe position, where she could probably remain five years longer, if she continued to do her duty. The very thought of having to leave the Pattersons and go out to look for a new position dismayed her; but she comforted herself by the thought that in five years’ time she would be twenty-nine--which is almost thirty--and that she would probably be much more sensible then than she was now.

In the meantime all she asked was that life should let her alone, and she would let it alone. She couldn’t bear the idea of change.

When Mr. Patterson first began talking about a trip to Bermuda, she was so much delighted with the idea that she knew it must be wrong, and became frightened, and hoped and hoped that that wonderful and dangerous thing would never happen. When the trip was definitely settled upon, she was increasingly miserable. Of course it wasn’t her business to give advice to Mr. Patterson, and she never said a word, but she knew that it was foolish. She knew how much better it would be to stay at home and be safe.

When Mr. Patterson talked about crystal caves and sapphire water and angel fishes, when he spoke of blue skies and palm trees and roses in December, she was ready to cry. She knew it was perfectly impossible for such things to exist, and still more impossible that she could ever see them. It was a dream, and dreams are terribly dangerous. She would not buy any new clothes for the trip, and she would not believe in it.

That is how matters stood on that dreadful Saturday morning when Miss Smith cried:

“Oh, I’ve forgotten my ticket!”

II

Certain psychologists say that we forget only what we wish to forget, but it would be a gross libel to say that poor Miss Smith had wanted to forget her ticket. Quite the contrary! She was terribly ashamed of herself, and terribly worried.

“I’ll go back and get it,” she said.

They were all on the pier then, and other passengers, who had not forgotten their tickets, were showing them and going aboard. Trunks and bags were being trundled past. Miss Smith caught a glimpse of the gangplank, a curtain of fine, steady rain, and, behind that curtain, the deck of the ship. There was magic about that ship, as there is about all ships. There was the ship smell, as exciting as gunpowder.

“I’ll rush back and get it!” cried Miss Smith.

That was really the beginning of the whole thing, and quite as strange as any of the other things that happened. For Miss Smith to cry, in that eager voice, that she would “rush,” for Miss Smith to be so flushed and starry-eyed, for Miss Smith to be saying to herself, “Oh, I wouldn’t miss going for anything!”--all this was nothing less than marvelous.

“You’ve just about got time,” said Mr. Patterson severely.

She rushed madly. A taxi had just drawn up outside, and a young man dashed out of it in a frightful hurry. Miss Smith seemed vaguely to remember his face, but it didn’t matter. She was in the taxi almost as soon as his foot touched the ground. She was off. She was urging on the taxi, in silence, with clenched hands. She would not miss that ship. She wanted to go! She would go!

Like a whirlwind she tore up the stairs of the sedate West Side house. She pulled open her bureau drawer so violently that it came out altogether and fell to the floor. There was the ticket. She thrust it into her coat pocket, flew down the stairs, past the astonished servants, hopped into the taxi again, and was off. How thankful she was now that Mr. Patterson, in his characteristic fashion, had insisted upon their going down to the ship in good time!

The rain was coming down steadily. The taxi splashed through puddles, and sometimes skidded a little, but what cared she? She felt triumphant and happy. She felt sure she would not miss the ship; and she did not. The crowd standing on the pier and the crowd standing on the deck, separated by the curtain of rain, saw a flushed and breathless young woman hurry up the gangplank at the very last moment. Up went the plank, a minute later the whistle blew, and they were off.

Still a little breathless, Miss Smith stood by the railing. In the excitement of the moment she felt inclined to wave her hand, or her handkerchief, as the people about her were doing; but that was absurd, for she wasn’t saying good-by to any one, wasn’t leaving any one behind. She turned, instead, to look for the Pattersons.

They were not in sight, and Miss Smith, being a very inexperienced traveler, did not quite know how to find them. As they were all on the same ship, however, this did not worry her very much. She found a steward to lead her to the stateroom that she was to share with Mrs. Patterson and Gladys, and knocked on the door. No one answered. She opened the door and went in. Not a trace of a Patterson there--no baggage except her own suit case. She had had a steamer trunk, too, but it was not there.

Miss Smith sat down in a wicker armchair and waited. She meant to wait patiently, but as a matter of fact she waited delightedly. The throb of the engines set her blood dancing. Everything she saw was fascinating--the three berths so neatly made up, the snugness, the coziness of this little cabin, with the rain falling outside. She knew that she had been very stupid and careless about the ticket, and that Mr. and Mrs. Patterson were surprised and not very well pleased; but even that couldn’t disturb her just now. She was on a ship, sailing the sea!

The sound of a bugle interrupted her reverie. Common sense, and another and stronger inner voice, told her that this must mean lunch. There was a little book hanging up on the wall. She looked in it, and learned that lunch began at half past twelve. It was noon now.

“Perhaps they’ll wait for me in the dining room--I mean, the dining saloon,” thought Miss Smith. “I wonder if I ought to go down there or wait here! I wonder what I ought to do!”

She sat where she was for another very long half hour. Then she washed her hands, straightened her hat, and set forth, rather timidly. She felt that the Pattersons were keeping away from her in order to show their disapproval, and she didn’t altogether blame them.

That apologetic look, that little shadow of a doubtful smile, were singularly becoming to her. What is more, the damp air had made her hair curl quite riotously, and the glow of her recent excitement still lingered on her face. Mr. Powers saw her standing there, looking anxiously about the dining saloon, and he thought he had never seen such a pretty little thing.

III

The fog had closed round them. The engines stopped, and the ship wallowed helplessly in a heavy sea. The great whistle blew warningly, threateningly, but nothing answered. The engines started up again, and the ship moved forward slowly. The captain was maneuvering very cautiously against this worst of all sea enemies.

The passengers, thought Mr. Powers, were as unconcerned as so many babies in a huge perambulator. There they sat, wrapped up in their steamer chairs, reading, or talking, or flirting, or disapproving of flirting, trusting absolutely to that unseen captain. Mr. Powers had traveled so much that he knew that things could happen. He was not apprehensive or nervous, for that was not his nature; but he was alert and interested. He lay back in his own deck chair, his soft hat pulled well down, and under it his dark eyes stared thoughtfully before him at the impenetrable fog. People tramped past him, but he took only a mild interest in them until--

“Again!” he said to himself. “What on earth is that girl doing?”

By “that girl” he meant Miss Smith, who had just hurried by like a leaf in the wind, her face pale and anxious. It was the third time she had hurried by like that, and he felt quite sure that she was not walking for amusement or health. Evidently she was troubled--very much troubled; and Mr. Powers, instead of telling himself that it was none of his business, wanted to help her.

That little figure hastening through the rainy dusk, so pale and troubled, made a strong appeal to his imagination. He did not make light of other people’s difficulties, and was not afraid to meddle in other people’s affairs, either, if he thought he could be of any use. He was not a very cautious or prudent young man, anyhow. He felt thoroughly at home in this world, and on excellent terms with his fellow creatures, and was not at all shy or awkward with them. He was waiting for a chance to speak to this young woman, and it came.

Miss Smith did not appear for some time. Before she passed Mr. Powers again, she had climbed to the upper deck, and had got thoroughly wet and chilled. She was thoroughly disheartened, too, so that there were tears in her eyes, and she couldn’t see very well. In consequence, she stumbled against an empty deck chair.

“Oh! Excuse me!” she said, to nobody at all, and crossed hastily to the rail, ostensibly to look out over it, but really to dry her eyes.

Mr. Powers stood beside her.

“You’re very wet,” he said.

“Oh! No, thank you!” replied Miss Smith politely.

“Don’t mention it,” said he, equally polite; “but you really are. If I were you--”

“But I--I can’t find the people I’m with!” cried Miss Smith, with something like a sob.

She was too miserable to realize that she was actually talking to a strange man. She didn’t even glance at him. She didn’t care what he looked like. He had an agreeable and steady sort of voice, however. Anyhow, the moment had come when she had to tell some one.

“I’ve looked and looked--and I can’t find them!” she went on.

Now some people pretend, out of pompousness and self-importance, never to be surprised by anything, and Mr. Patterson was one of these. If you told him of anything amazing, he would say:

“Ah! Is that so? Well, I’m not at all surprised.”

Some people really are not surprised by anything, because they know what an astounding world this is; and Mr. Powers was one of these. So he said, in a quiet and friendly way:

“Perhaps I can help you. I’ll try.”

Poor little Miss Smith had no objection to his trying. She went below to her cabin, changed into dry clothes from her suit case, and rested. She did everything that Mr. Powers had suggested, and one thing that he had not suggested--which was to shed a few tears, for it was a very distressing situation.

A little after four o’clock she descended to the dining saloon for a cup of tea, and to see Mr. Powers, who was to meet her there and give her his news of the lost Pattersons. She had felt sure that Mr. Powers would be there waiting for her, and he was; yet Miss Smith gave a start at the sight of him.

This benevolent stranger who had so kindly offered to help her was not the bespectacled, middle-aged stranger he ought to have been, but a remarkably good-looking young man. Though he was neatly and quietly dressed, and in no way conspicuous, either in appearance or manner, yet there was something in the nonchalant grace of his tall body, in the expression of his dark, keen face, that was unmistakably--romantic. She felt it, she knew it. As she came toward him, her own expression changed, and she became every inch a governess.

It seemed to be part of Mr. Powers’s mental equipment, however, to judge pretty shrewdly what other people were feeling. He spoke to Miss Smith in quite an impersonal tone.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that the people you’re with aren’t with you. It appears that neither they nor their luggage ever came aboard.”

“Oh!” cried Miss Smith. “But they must have come! They had their tickets, and I left them on the pier, with all their trunks and bags. Oh, can I possibly have got on the wrong ship?”

“No,” said he. “Your name’s on the passenger list, and so are their names; but they’re not aboard.”

“But where are they? They couldn’t have--have fallen overboard?”

“Well,” said Mr. Powers thoughtfully, “three of them together would make quite a splash. I imagine some one would have noticed it.”

“I’ve read about people falling down into holds,” said Miss Smith. “Do you think--”

“I shouldn’t count on that,” said Mr. Powers. “No--it seems pretty clear to me that they changed their minds at the last moment, for some reason, and remained ashore.”

Mr. Patterson change his mind at the last moment? That was the most impossible solution of all.

“It can’t be that,” said Miss Smith, shaking her head. “No! Something has happened!”

Mr. Powers looked down at her in silence for a moment.

“Is it--serious?” he asked. “I mean, does it make very much difference to you, your friends not being here?”

“Difference!” cried Miss Smith. “Why, it--” She stopped short. “You see,” she went on, in an altered tone, “I’m their governess.”

She looked steadily at the stranger as she said this, because she knew that to some persons a governess would be quite a different creature from an independent traveler. If it made a difference to this young man, she thought she would like to know it. As far as she could judge, it did not. He returned her glance in the same friendly, quiet fashion.

“I see!” he said.

Miss Smith was quite sure, however, that he did not see, or even imagine. If he had, he wouldn’t have suggested her sending a radio message to the Pattersons’ house.

“I--no, thanks,” said Miss Smith. “It really wouldn’t do any good. I’m here, and I’ve got to go on. I’ll come back on the same ship.”

For she had her return ticket and nothing else--absolutely nothing else except two quarters, which she found in her coat pocket. When she made her mad dash for the forgotten ticket, she had had a bill clutched in her hand, and the two coins were the change that the driver had given her. She knew that she had had her purse with her on the pier, just before that, but what had become of it she could not tell. Had she dropped it on the pier? Had she intrusted it to the Pattersons? Had she left it in the taxi, or in the house? Anyhow, it was gone. The Pattersons were gone. Her trunk was gone. Here she was, sailing over the Atlantic, with two quarters and a suit case.

She wasn’t going to allow this strange young man to pay for a radio message for her. Besides, what could she say? “Where are you?” “What shall I do?” Impossible! Something had happened--something mysterious, inexplicable. All that she could do now was to go on to Bermuda, come back as fast as possible, and present herself before the Pattersons. Then she would be informed; and she felt pretty sure that she had lost not only her purse but her nice, safe position as well.

The Pattersons had been disgusted with her for forgetting her ticket, and, in their anger, they had set her adrift. Perhaps she would never find them again. She would never get another position, if she couldn’t get a reference from the Pattersons. Her trunk was lost, with almost all her clothes. Things were as bad as they could be.

As she considered this appalling situation, a strange thing happened to Miss Smith. Instead of feeling utterly crushed, a curious sort of elation came over her. She suddenly felt very happy, very light, as if her worldly possessions and prospects had been so many heavy burdens, which had now fallen from her shoulders and left her free.

“We might as well have our tea,” she remarked cheerfully.

There were little fancy cakes on the table, and she liked little fancy cakes. The tea was good, too. It was the most refreshing, invigorating tea she had ever tasted. She had two cups of it. Then she went up on the promenade deck with Mr. Powers, and they walked. It was dark now, and chilly and windy, but she liked that strong, salt wind.

“Where’s your deck chair?” asked Mr. Powers.

“Oh, I don’t know!” said she. “I never asked.”

“I’ll find it for you,” said he, and settled her comfortably in his, with his rug wrapped about her, while he went off.

She watched him going. Then she watched every one else who passed by; and it could not be denied that of all the men whom Miss Smith saw not one was so handsome, so distinguished, so interesting as Mr. Powers.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. The wind had blown away the fog, the ship was forging steadily ahead through the rainy night, and she was on it! Penniless and alone, she was sailing the sea to a coral isle! She, the brisk, sensible Miss Smith who, twenty-four hours ago, had been a governess on the West Side of New York!

“I don’t care!” she said to herself, with a sort of triumph. “I’m young and healthy. I can--”

She didn’t complete the thought, but at that moment she actually felt that she could do pretty nearly anything, and could face the wide world undaunted. It was a very nice sort of feeling.

IV

The weather was rough, and many people who had appeared for lunch were not to be seen at dinner; but Miss Smith came down, quite fresh and rosy. Her suit case could provide nothing better than a blue linen blouse, which she had intended for breakfasts, not dinners. As she dressed, she thought, with a sigh, that she looked very sedate and unattractive; but Mr. Powers did not seem to think so. At least, he looked pleased to see her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I’ve taken a place for you at Herbert’s table. I’ve had Herbert for table steward before, and he’s good.”

Miss Smith did not mind, and she, too, found Herbert a good table steward.

“But I shan’t be able to give him any tip,” she thought. “And when I come back, all alone--”

Resolutely she banished that thought. She remembered how her father and mother used to talk about the folly of “borrowing trouble.” She had often thought that a shiftless sort of maxim, but now she found it wise. Perhaps they themselves had been wiser than she realized, for they had lived joyously in the day that was actually present, not troubling about days that had gone, or about future days which no one can really foresee.

Perhaps, she thought, the people who so anxiously provide for the future are the true romantics; for don’t they invent a future all full of troubles, and then believe firmly in what they have invented? Perhaps the so-called romantic people are the most practical, after all.

It was a good thing that notions like this came into her head, for they helped her to endure the disturbing events of that evening with more calmness than she could have felt if she had been entirely the old Miss Smith. Even as it was, she was not a little upset. She sat in the wicker armchair in her brightly lighted little stateroom. The ship pitched up and down. Her coat, hanging on a hook, flapped like a great bird, and her patent leather suit case slid over to the wall and out again. The thoughts in her mind were quite as uneasy.

“Darcy!” she said to herself. “Darcy! Heavens!”

For Mr. Powers had casually mentioned that his first name was Darcy. He was an Irishman--a mining engineer--and he had lived in South America for several years.

“Oh, Heavens!” said poor Miss Smith again.

For here were all the qualifications for a true hero of romance. And the way he had told her all this! It was on the almost deserted promenade deck, where the storm curtains filled and flapped in the wind, and the rain beat against them, and the scuppers rippled and gurgled like little brooks. Sensible people stayed within, but there these two had sat, side by side. The electric lights overhead had shone fiercely upon Mr. Powers’s dark, eager face, and upon his hair, black as a raven’s wing. He had told her all these things because he wanted her to know about him, because he hoped she would understand and like him. He had almost said so in words, and he had certainly said so with that half smiling, half anxious glance of his.

“I don’t care!” said Miss Smith to herself, with a sob.

She might be silly, but she wasn’t so silly as that. This thing might be an adventure. Indeed, she was willing to admit that it was one, and to see it through gallantly; but an adventure with a “heart interest” in it she would not have!

In desperation she looked about for something to distract her mind. There was nothing to read except the little booklet hanging on the wall and an old copy of Lamb’s “Essays,” which she had brought along partly because she loved it, and partly because it seemed a fitting book for a governess. She took the booklet down. Once more she read the hours for meals, and then:

DECK CHAIRS AND RUGS--Deck chairs and rugs can be hired for the voyage at fixed charges. Payment should be made to the deck steward, who will issue a ticket.

Then payment had been made to the deck steward for her chair and rug, and by Mr. Darcy Powers, and she could not reimburse him!

“I’ll have to be civil to him, at least, after that!” thought Miss Smith.

V

Sunday was the fairest day that ever dawned. Mr. Powers was on deck early. He saw the sun come up, and he was sorry Miss Smith was not there to see it, too. He thought she would have enjoyed the spectacle, and he himself would have enjoyed it more if she had been there.

At half past eight he went down into the dining saloon and looked about. Ten minutes later he descended again. Three times during the half hour he went into the dining saloon and looked about; and at last, at nine o’clock, he sat down and ordered his breakfast.

“Perhaps she’s seasick,” he thought.

Powers, as a rule, like all those who are never seasick, was unsympathetic toward those who were. He was inclined to consider seasickness a rather humorous thing; but in this case he did not think so. He thought of Miss Smith with unreasonable compassion. Sitting there over his very hearty breakfast, he began to worry about her. He thought it was a monstrous thing, an outrage, that she should be seasick. He began to grow angry with the Pattersons for getting themselves lost. They had no right to be so careless about themselves, and to leave Miss Smith all alone.

“She shouldn’t have to be a governess, anyhow--a pretty little thing like that,” he reflected.

Why Miss Smith’s small size or personal appearance should have debarred her from that useful employment he could not have explained, or why he found her so very touching. He had no idea how truly terrible her situation was. He had fancied, indeed, that it might be a good thing for her to have a little holiday from her Pattersons; but he was sorry for her, just the same. He remembered how her curly dark hair blew about her face in the wind, how the ruffled collar of her blouse stood up, how busy her small hands had been in quelling this enchanting disorder.

Mr. Powers sent a steward to inquire after her, and ten minutes later she appeared in person.

“I overslept myself!” she explained cheerfully.

He did not realize what that meant. For years and years Miss Smith had got up at seven o’clock. She had needed no alarm clock, for her sense of duty had never failed to arouse her; and now the sense of duty had slumbered. She was a little shocked at herself, and just a little proud. Coming down to breakfast at half past nine!

“You’ve finished, haven’t you?” she said.

But she knew very well that he would wait with her, and so he did.

“I think you’ll like Bermuda,” he said. “It’s a pretty place. I have an aunt living there, you know. I hope you’ll let me bring her to call on you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but, you see, I shan’t be there,” said Miss Smith. “I’m going right back on this ship.”

“But the ship doesn’t sail again till Saturday, you know.”

“Saturday!” cried Miss Smith. “Doesn’t sail till Saturday!”

“No. At this time of the year there’s only one sailing a week.”

The breakfast had come. Herbert stood by, benevolently watching, but Miss Smith could not eat. She swallowed a cup of coffee and rose.

“I--I think I’ll go up on deck now,” she faltered.

Mr. Powers naturally went with her. He settled her in her deck chair and sat down beside her, and for a long time there was silence.

“Look here!” he said at last. “I’m sorry to see you so upset, Miss Smith; but these people--these Pattersons--can’t be so unreasonable as--”

“Oh, it’s not that!” said she, in a sort of despair. “Only--”

He waited, looking at her face, which had suddenly grown so pale.

“I wish you’d tell me,” he said at length. “I know I’m a stranger to you, but--” He paused. “My aunt’s down there, you know,” he went on. “She might be able to--to advise you.”

Advice! What good would that do? Miss Smith was obliged to live on a strange island from Monday until Saturday on two quarters. She shook her head mutely. She couldn’t talk. She wished Mr. Powers would go away and leave her alone, to think.

After a while, he did. He saw he wasn’t wanted, and he went; but then it was worse than ever.

At half past twelve he came back.

“Won’t you come down to lunch?” he asked.

“I--I don’t feel like eating,” said Miss Smith.

Now, however, she was not so anxious for Mr. Powers to go away and let her think, and he did not go.

“Look here!” he said firmly. “Miss Smith, are you a good judge of character?”

“We-ell, yes,” replied Miss Smith. “Yes, I think so.”

There is no one in the world who does not think the same thing. Just ask anybody!

“Then please look at me,” said Mr. Powers.

She raised her eyes to his face, only for an instant, and then glanced away.

“Do you think I have an honest face?” he asked. “Trustworthy?”

“Ye-es,” said Miss Smith.

“Then won’t you trust me? Tell me what’s wrong. I’m older than you, and I’ve knocked about a lot. I’ve been up against all sorts of difficulties, and I know pretty well how to get out of them. You’re here, all alone. You’re very young and very--” Again he paused. “Very much worried,” he continued; “and if you would tell me--”

Miss Smith stole another glance at his face, and it seemed to her not only trustworthy but intelligent and friendly; so she told him. The sedate and sensible Miss Smith confessed to a strange man that she only had two quarters.

He was silent for a moment, staring before him.

“If I’m any good at all,” he thought, “I’ll handle this thing properly, so that she won’t be hurt or offended or troubled in any way.”

So he said aloud, in just the right tone, calm and good humored:

“I see! Of course you were worried; but it’s all right now. I’ll take you to my aunt, Mrs. Mount. She’ll understand.”

Fortunately Miss Smith was not a sufficiently good judge of character to read Mr. Powers’s mind just then; for he was thinking:

“You poor, sweet little thing! You poor little darling! I’d like to buy the whole island and give it to you! You ought to have everything. You deserve everything, you dear little thing!”

Miss Smith didn’t believe that people ever really thought things like that.

VI

Nor was Darcy Powers so good a judge of character as he fondly imagined; for his aunt did not accept the situation in the right spirit at all. She pretended to do so, and he thought she did, but in her heart she was bitterly angry and hurt. Her nephew was all she had in the world, and she loved him. She had been looking forward to this vacation of his for two years; and then he came driving up with this Miss Smith!

She listened to his explanation with a pleasant smile. Still with a pleasant smile, she conducted Miss Smith to the spare bedroom and was very civil to her. Then her nephew had to go off to see certain old ladies who had known him since childhood and wanted to see him immediately, and Mrs. Mount ceased to smile.

Miss Smith was not worrying any more. Indeed, she had almost stopped thinking altogether. She had got off the boat that morning into a new world. She had got into a carriage with Mr. Powers and driven along a dream road. The colors. The white road, the white walls, the white houses, glistening like sugar in the sun! The pure blue of the sky, the glimpses of the sapphire sea, the glossy green of the palm leaves, the dark green of the cedars, the pink roses, the purple bougainvillea, the scarlet hibiscus!

Mrs. Mount’s cottage was an enchanted cottage, like the one that Hänsel and Gretel found in the wood, standing in a garden glorious with flowers. And Mrs. Mount herself was so handsome and dignified and polite, and this little bedroom was so bright, so sweet, so sunny!

“I’m really here!” thought Miss Smith. “I did come! It’s true!”

She had not even taken off her hat or opened her suit case. She just sat there by the window, lost in an innocent and utterly happy dream. This new world was so beautiful, and every one was so kind to her!

“Darcy is a dear boy,” said a voice from the garden, which she recognized as Mrs. Mount’s; “but this is too much!”

“I heard,” said another voice, unknown to Miss Smith, but belonging to Mrs. Mount’s cousin, Miss Pineville, “that Darcy got off the boat this morning with some stranger--”

“And brought her here!” said Mrs. Mount. “She scraped up an acquaintance with him on shipboard--you know how easy that is--and told him some preposterous tale about being a governess, and having lost her purse and the family she was with. Of course there’s not a word of truth in it. A governess! An adventuress--that’s what she is!”

“Does Darcy--” began the other.

“Oh, Darcy!” interrupted Mrs. Mount impatiently. “He’s completely taken in by her; but I’m going to talk to him later. For instance, there’s her name. She distinctly told me her name was Nina Smith; but she left the book she’d been reading on the sitting room table, and written in it was ‘Little M., from father.’ Nina doesn’t begin with an ‘M,’ does it? And Smith! That’s just the name any one would take as an alias, to avoid suspicion. But you wait! I’ll find out the truth! I won’t have my nephew imposed upon!”

“I’d like to see her,” said the other eagerly. “Perhaps I--”

“I’ll call her out for a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Mount. “But be polite to her, Eliza, until I’ve found out.”

So Mrs. Mount went in and knocked on Miss Smith’s door. There was no answer. She knocked again, and then she opened the door. Miss Smith and her suit case were gone.

At first Mrs. Mount was glad.

“She must have heard what I said to Eliza in the garden,” she told her nephew. “She was frightened and ran away.”

“Frightened?” said he. “Is that how you imagine a sensitive young girl feels when she hears herself slandered and insulted? I brought her here--to you--because I thought you’d understand, and you’ve driven her away. An adventuress? Why, one look at her face might have told you--”

He turned away abruptly, but one look at his face had certainly told Mrs. Mount something. She was no longer glad, but very sorry. She would have told him so, but it was too late. He had gone out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

VII

Miss Smith had done the obvious thing. She could not set off with her suit case and walk home, so she had taken the next best course. She had gone quietly out of the back door, through the garden, and down the road in the direction of the ship, which was, after all, a sort of bridge to home.

It was a long walk, and she had to ask her way, but in the course of time she got there. A young officer was standing under the shed, superintending the unloading of the cargo, and she went up to him.

“You’re one of the officers, aren’t you?” she asked.

He took off his cap and smiled at her. It was such a nice smile that she was able to go on, in a brisk, sensible way:

“I was one of the passengers, you know.”

“Yes,” said he. “I saw you on board.”

“And I want to go back,” said Miss Smith. “I want to go on the ship now, and stay there until it sails.”

He couldn’t help looking astonished.

“But I’m afraid--” he began.

“Well, I’ve got to!” cried Miss Smith, and he saw, with dismay, that there were tears in her eyes. “I’ve g-got to! I have some money in the savings bank in New York, and I can pay whatever it costs as soon as we get back.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said politely; “but I’m afraid--”

He was silent for a moment, thinking of some tactful way of offering his assistance to this young person with tears in her eyes. No one could have felt more sympathetic than he; but Miss Smith, weary and sick at heart, firmly believed that he, too, thought her an adventuress.

“I’m a governess,” she said, in an unexpectedly loud and severe tone. “The family I was coming with somehow missed the ship, and--”

“What?” he cried. “A governess! But wait--look here!”

“Yes, I am!” said she. “I am!”

“Yes, but look here! I was at the gangway, you know, and just before we sailed a young chap came dashing up and gave me a purse--a long brown purse--”

“My purse!”

“‘It’s for Miss--can’t remember the name,’ he said. ‘It’s for Miss What’s-Her-Name, the governess,’ and then he dashed off again.”

“That’s me!” cried Miss Smith, pardonably ungrammatical in her emotion.

“Look here! I’m most awfully sorry!” said the young officer earnestly. “It’s all my fault. I turned it over to the purser and told him that Miss What’s-Her-Name would probably come and ask for it. You see, I never thought you could be a governess, you know. I am sorry!”

“But is it there? Can I get it?”

“Rather!” said he. “Purser’s on board now, getting ready to go ashore. I’ll fetch him.”

Off he went, and was back in no time with the purser and Miss Smith’s pocketbook. There was a note inside it.

MY DEAR MISS SMITH:

At the moment of embarkation I have received a message that my father in Chicago is dangerously ill, and wishes his family with him. I find we have just time to catch the next train. As it is too late to cancel our tickets, it seems advisable that you at least should continue with the trip, so that the entire outlay will not be wasted. You will, I am sure, have an instructive and entertaining account of your experience for Gladys when you rejoin us in New York. You will find your trunk and suit case in your stateroom.

As I do not know what money you may have in hand, I inclose an express money order, to cover whatever expenses may arise.

Wishing you a pleasant and profitable trip, I remain,

Very truly yours, HENRY PATTERSON.

“You see!” cried Miss Smith. “You see, I am--”

But she could not go on. The purser and the second officer--the latter had come up just then--decided that she ought to have a cup of tea, to quiet her nerves, so they all went over to a little tea room in the town.

It was there that Powers found her sitting at the table with two young men, all of them very jolly and cheerful. For a moment she was glad that he should see her like that--no longer forlorn and dejected, but a real human girl. Hat in hand, he stood beside her. He, too, tried to look jolly and cheerful, but he failed; and, looking up at him, Miss Smith felt a sudden sharp stab of regret. The adventure was over.

She introduced him to the two young men, and explained to him about the recovery of her purse.

“Good!” said he. “Then everything’s all right now?”

Of course everything was all right now, and yet--and yet somehow it wasn’t. Something seemed to be wrong. The two young men from the ship seemed to know this. They said they had better be getting along, and, after cordial farewells, they did go along.

Mr. Powers still stood where he was, still trying to look pleased, and still failing to do so; and in a flash Miss Smith understood just how he felt. He had wanted to be the one to make everything come out right, and it was cruel that he had not been. It was their adventure--his and hers. Nobody else had any business to get into it. It was coming out wrong!

Now Miss Smith knew very well that heroines in adventures rarely take a very active part, and that things just happen to them; but she was not quite accustomed to adventures yet, and she was in the habit of doing things for herself. Moreover, Darcy Powers was playing his part very poorly, simply standing there and not suggesting their talking it over.

“I’d like to go back and see Mrs. Mount,” she said firmly.

His face brightened remarkably.

“I didn’t think you’d ever--” he began.

“I’d like to show her that letter and explain--”

“See here!” he interrupted. “It’s not for you to make explanations!”

She liked the way he said that!

“Still,” she said, “I’d rather.”

So they got into a carriage and drove off along that same road; but it was all very different now. The sun had gone down, leaving a soft, dark violet sky. The bright colors were dimmed. It was, she thought, a subdued and rather melancholy world. The adventure was over.

Mr. Powers remarked again how glad he was that everything had come out all right; but, as Miss Smith said nothing in response to this, he was discouraged and fell silent for a time.

“I never thought you’d come back there,” he said at last. “I thought--perhaps you had overheard what my aunt said, and--”

“Yes, I did overhear it,” said Miss Smith, in a calm and reasonable tone; “but, after all, she knew nothing about me. Why should she?”

“Anybody would know that you were--” he began, and stopped.

Miss Smith waited in vain to hear what she was. Turning a corner, they entered a road where the trees arched overhead and the low white walls gleamed ghostlike. A faint breeze rustled the leaves, and the little whistling frogs had set up their music. The lights of Mrs. Mount’s cottage were visible at the end of the road.

A strange pain seized Miss Smith. The lights of that little house, shining out steadily into the tranquil dusk, put her in mind of another cottage--her home, so long ago--and of the mother and father who had lived in it. She thought of the careless laughter, the hope, the courage, the great love, that had made their whole life a delightful adventure. Foolish? Romantic? Unpractical?

“They were the wisest, most wonderful people who ever lived,” she said to herself, with a stifled sob; “and the bravest. They weren’t afraid of life, like me!”

“I wonder what happened to your trunk!” said Mr. Powers.

So that was all he could think of to say!

“I don’t know,” she answered; “and I don’t care, either. I suppose it must have been taken away by mistake with the Pattersons’ luggage.”

“I hope you’ll recover it,” said he.

Another silence, very long.

“I did tell Mrs. Mount one thing that wasn’t quite true,” said Miss Smith.

“What was that?” asked Darcy Powers, and she knew by his voice that he thought whatever she had said was right.

“I told her my first name was Nina--and it isn’t.”

“What is it, then?” he asked.

The carriage had stopped before the gate. He got out and helped her down, and they both stood there until the sound of the horse’s hoofs had died away.

“What is your name?” he asked again.

“It’s a very silly name,” she said. “I never tell it to any one.”

Her hand was on the gate, to open it. His hand closed over hers.

“Please!” he said. “I know you’re going away. I think you’ve begun to go already. Can’t you just let me know that, so that I can think of you by your own dear name?”

“No!” said Miss Smith.

She was really frightened. She knew that if she told him her name, here in this enchanted garden, in the twilight, it would be fatal. The adventure was becoming too much for her. Her own heart was getting too much for her, filled with emotions she could not bear. She was Miss Smith, the governess--the brisk, sensible, unromantic Miss Smith--she tried valiantly to remember that.

“No!” she said again, and pulled away her hand.

Just then the door of the cottage opened, and Mrs. Mount appeared in the lighted doorway.

“Darcy!” she called. “And--oh, Miss Smith! Oh, come in, my dear!”

Her voice had warmth in it, and kindliness. It reminded Miss Smith of her mother, who used to stand in a lighted doorway like that, and call her in from her play. She thought of herself going back to New York to be a governess again. She thought of Mr. Powers--Darcy--left alone in that garden, thinking of her. Was he, after all his kindness, to be left thinking of her as “Miss Smith”?

She turned toward him.

“My name’s really Mavourneen,” she said. “You see, I was the only child, and father and mother--”

“Mavourneen!” said he, and somehow, as he said it, the name was not a silly one at all. “That means--”

“Yes, I know,” she interrupted hastily, and walked quickly up the path toward Mrs. Mount.

Somewhat to the young man’s surprise, Mrs. Mount held out her arms, and Miss Smith went into them; and after all, it was not the end of the adventure, but only the beginning.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER, 1925 Vol. LXXXV NUMBER 4

The Wonderful Little Woman

MRS. FREMBY DEMONSTRATES HER ENERGY, COURAGE, AND EFFICIENCY, WITH SOMEWHAT UNEXPECTED RESULTS

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

The clock struck midnight, but Mrs. Fremby did not even glance up from her work. She had an old skirt, stretched over the transom, so that the landlady could not see that the light was still on. The door was locked. She was safe, and very snug.

Outside, a preposterous storm raged. It was almost the beginning of April, yet it snowed, and the wind howled. Let it! Mrs. Fremby had a forbidden electric heater glowing richly before her. It could not warm the vast and dingy front parlor that she inhabited, but it could and did keep her feet warm. The flame of righteous indignation in her heart helped, too, as she wrote:

At last the American woman has definitely rebelled. She refuses any longer to accept unquestioned the dictates of Paris as to what she shall or shall not wear. This season it is plain to any impartial observer that the influence of the French capital is distinctly on the wane.

Heavens, how she hated Paris! For years and years she had been fighting its insidious influence upon American modes. Even when, in order to earn her daily bread, she was obliged to describe what milady had worn at the Longchamp races, she always managed to get in some clever bit of propaganda--something like this, for instance:

A certain American woman of unimpeachable social standing attracted considerable attention by her costume of this and that, made in New York, and showing in every line a skillful adaptation to the American type.

What if this independent American woman of unimpeachable standing was an invention of Mrs. Fremby’s? Never having been within thousands of miles of Longchamp, she was obliged to invent a little, and this mythical creature was very real to her, and dear. She could absolutely see that “American type,” tall, proud, and beautiful, completely dominating all the Parisiennes.

Mrs. Fremby herself was small. That was her misfortune; but she made the most of herself. Even now, in an old and faded dressing gown, she was a mighty smart, trim little woman, and, if she was not pretty, she had the wit to know it, and to behave accordingly. Her good points were her miniature figure, which was excellent, and her crown of glittering, wiry red hair, which she arranged with much skill. The very foundation of style, she often said, was individuality, and she had it.

“The modes of this season will be marked by--” she was writing, when there was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Fremby got up. Swiftly and noiselessly she detached the heater and thrust it, still red-hot, into a cupboard under the washstand. Then, with a lofty expression of annoyance, she went to open the door; but it was not the landlady--it was Judith Cane.

“My dear!” cried Mrs. Fremby. “Come in!”

Judith came in. Snowflakes were melting upon her furs, her eyelashes were damp, and there was a fine color in her cheeks. She was indeed a superb creature, tall, dark, and beautiful, the physical embodiment of that “American type” who should have attracted considerable attention at Longchamp. Unfortunately, however, she lacked a certain vital quality--animation, Mrs. Fremby would have said, but in the office of the Daily Citizen they called it “bean.” They said in that office that Judith was beautiful but dumb.

Mrs. Fremby, however, was not one to pick flaws in her friends. She was loyal, even to the point of prejudice. She was devoted to Judith, and she acknowledged no faults in her.

“Sit down, my dear child,” she said.

As Judith did so, she locked the door again, and hastened about, making hospitable preparations. She connected the heater again, and also a small electric grill. The light grew perilously dim.

“They ought to put in a larger meter,” observed Mrs. Fremby, with the air of an electrical expert. “I can’t make coffee, my dear. It smells; but we’ll have tea and rolls, and some perfectly delicious Bologna. Isn’t it wretched weather?”

“Yes,” said Judith. “And there I sat, rewriting and rewriting that article about smoking accessories for Mr. Tolley, and in the end he killed it!”

“Beast!” said Mrs. Fremby.

She remembered how Mr. Tolley had once described Judith.

“She is,” he had said, “a space writer--which means that she fills blank space in a blank manner.”

“Never mind!” she went on. “I’ve got a thing here that ought to run to a column, if you pad it a little. We’ll fix it up, and you can turn it in to-morrow. Now, my dear, do tell me!”

“I’ve lost,” said Judith.

“I knew it!” cried Mrs. Fremby. “I felt it all along! What an outrage!”

It was a question here of an orphan child. The child’s mother had been Judith’s sister, and upon the sister’s decease Judith had put in a claim for the custody of the infant. According to all the laws of justice and humanity--as interpreted by Mrs. Fremby--Judith should have got the infant, but another woman, a sister of the mere father, had likewise put in a claim; and as this woman had a very wealthy husband, and a home, and other things which surrogates deem advantageous for infants, and Judith had none of these, the other claimant had triumphed.

“It’s an outrage!” Mrs. Fremby repeated. “You’ll fight it, of course?”

Judith shed a few melancholy tears.

“I don’t know, Evelyn,” she said.

“Don’t know! You must!”

“It’s so expensive, Evelyn. Even if I got the poor little thing, I don’t know what I could do with her. I only made twelve dollars last week.”

Mrs. Fremby recognized in her friend a mood which exasperated her--a large, vague despair and resignation.

“You ought to know that I’ll always help you till you get on your feet,” she said sternly.

“I do know,” said Judith, shedding more tears; “but it seems to take me so long to get on my feet! All I do is--to get on your feet.”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Fremby.

She had, in her heart, no very great illusions about Judith’s ability to earn money, but what did that matter? Judith wanted her niece, and what Judith wanted she ought to have. That was nothing more than justice.

“Judith, I’m going to handle this,” she announced.

“Don’t do anything--awful,” said Judith. “You know, Evelyn, you’re so--”

Mrs. Fremby smiled as if she had received a compliment.

“Leave it to me,” she said. “Just drink your tea, my dear child, and don’t worry.”

So Judith, with a sigh, let slip the burden from her magnificent shoulders.

II

It was a riotous sort of day. The wind went rampaging about Central Park, and the sun laughed down upon the gay confusion of tossing branches, just beginning to grow green. In sheltered spots traces of snow still lingered, but it was melting very fast. The ground was soft, the iron thrall of winter was loosed.

It was not quite the sort of Sunday that Miss Mackellar could approve of. The wind disarranged her hair, and the promise of spring troubled her spirit. Her feet hurt, too. She sat down upon a bench and buttoned her voluminous plaid coat tightly about her, and, as the young child whose governess she was ran around and around the bench, she said “Woo!” each time the child appeared before her.

She did this with all the fervor she could command, for she was fond of the little girl, and she was a conscientious woman; but she knew that she failed. The child was generously giving her every chance to be entertaining while sitting still, and she was not being entertaining. Before long she would be obliged to rise and limp off in quest of ducks and squirrels, who could do better.

“Woo!” she said once more.

“What is it ’at says ‘Woo’?” asked the child. “Bears?”

“Yes, pet--bears. Big, brown, woolly bears.”

“Do bears run after you?”

“No, pet. They sit in their dark, dark caves and say ‘Woo.’”

“I don’t like bears,” said the child flatly.

Miss Mackellar could think of no other retort than a fresh “Woo,” but it was not accepted.

“I like tigers,” said the child; “tigers ’at pounce.”

“Look out, then!” cried a gay voice. “I’m a tiger! And I pounce! Gr-r-r!”

It was a trim, brisk little red-haired woman who had just come around the turn in the path. In fact, like a real tiger, she had been lurking there in ambush for some time, watching and waiting unsuspected.

“Gr-r-r!” she said again, moving forward with gleaming eyes and outstretched claws.

The little girl was delighted. With shrieks of joy she ran behind the bench, pursued by this wholly satisfactory tiger. Around and around they went, the brisk little woman as indefatigable as the child.

But the dejected Miss Mackellar had a conscience which hurt her even more than her shoes. She believed that life was very hard and painful, and that if it wasn’t, then you were certainly doing wrong. She felt that she had no right to sit there and be comfortable.

“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she said to Mrs. Fremby--for the tiger was that lady; “but really I shouldn’t let you. I ought--”

“It’s a pleasure,” Mrs. Fremby assured her. “I am very much in harmony with children. Gr-r-r!” She disappeared around the bench again. “In fact,” she continued, when she reappeared, “I wrote a series of articles once upon ‘Scientific Play.’ Play is really work, you know.”

“Indeed it is!” Miss Mackellar agreed, with a sigh.

“I mean for the child. It is in play that a child develops those qualities of--aha! Gr-r-r!” And again she was gone. “Now then!” she said, addressing the child. “The tiger’s going to hide around the corner, by those bushes, and you’d just better not look for it!”

Miss Mackellar could not help feeling glad that the lively game was now a little removed from her bench. She did not, however, believe in luck, unless it was bad, and she wondered earnestly why this little interlude of peace was granted to her. Perhaps it was to give her a chance to think about serious things. She did so.

But wasn’t it almost too quiet? Hunter and tiger had vanished around the corner. That had happened half a dozen times before, but this time it seemed so long--

Miss Mackellar rose to her feet with a worried frown.

“I shouldn’t let that child out of my sight,” she thought. “I am failing in my duty! They’ll have to come back and stay where I can see them, or”--she sighed--“or I suppose I’ll have to follow where they go.”

She walked around the turn of the path. No one in sight!

She walked on a little. She stopped to listen. Not a sound!

Then she went back to the bench and called:

“Natalie! Natalie!”

It is strange what a sinister effect may be caused by calling a person who does not answer. As soon as she had called, Miss Mackellar grew really frightened. She actually ran up the path, and, meeting a nursemaid with a perambulator, she cried:

“Oh, did you see a little girl with a tiger? No--I mean a little girl in a pink hat and a red-haired woman?”

“Er-huh,” said the nursemaid, staring hard at her. “Just a minute ago--goin’ up that way, to the entrance, walking terrible fast.”

“Oh, Heavens!” cried Miss Mackellar, ashen white. “Oh, stop them, somebody! The child has been kidnaped!”

The nursemaid also turned pale.

“Oh, my!” she exclaimed. “I never! Then I’d better get this baby home, quick as ever I can!”

And she set off with her perambulator at a dangerous rate of speed.

The luckless Miss Mackellar stood in the middle of the path, clasping her trembling hands, and trying in vain to make her panic-stricken brain function lucidly. What she really wanted to do was to scream.

“No, no!” she said to herself. “I must keep calm. Oh, there’s a policeman! But I don’t know--perhaps that’s the wrong thing to do. It might get into the newspapers, if I tell a policeman, and Mr. Donalds is always so angry at newspapers. Oh! Oh! If they had only come to me and told me they were going to steal the child, I’d have been glad to draw all my money out of the savings bank and hide it under a tree for them! That’s what they always seem to want some one to do. Of course I know I wouldn’t have enough, but--oh, my precious Natalie! Oh, Mr. Donalds! Oh, my poor darling Natalie!”

She began to cry.

“I’ll go to Mr. Donalds this instant,” she thought. “I don’t care what happens to me. Let them put me in jail--that’s where I ought to be! It’s all my fault!”

Off she went, as fast as her shaking knees and her fluttering heart permitted; and this is her last personal appearance in this story, for any account of her interview with her employer would be too painful to set before a humane reader.

Only let it be said that she survived--that when Mr. Donalds rushed out of his house on East Seventy-Fourth Street, Miss Mackellar was still breathing. He had at first intended to take her with him, to identify persons and places, but even he could see the uselessness of doing so. She was in no condition to identify anything. She was beginning to rave about the child’s having been carried off by a tiger; so he left her behind.

Like a stone from a catapult he shot out of his house and down the street toward the park. He had no intention of allowing the police to interfere with his private affairs. He believed he knew very well who had stolen the child, and why.

“Very well, madam!” he said to himself. “We shall see!”

III

Mr. Donalds knew that the child would suffer no bodily harm, and he was confident of his ability to snatch her away from contaminating moral influences before serious injury to her character could result. Mr. Donalds never failed. If he did not always accomplish exactly what he set out to do, at least he did something else which seemed to him just as good.

He knew that in this case he would succeed, as usual, and therefore he was able to devote his mind to being angry. His fury rose within him like steam, actually seeming to inflate him, so that he bounced rather than walked. A short, stoutish man he was, with a pale Napoleonic face and a piercing glance--a man of tremendous energy and determination.

Sometimes, however, he was a man of too little patience and deliberation. This morning, for instance, although he had thought to take his hat and his walking stick, he had forgotten to change his slippers. He was wearing red morocco slippers that came up over the ankle, and not only were they conspicuous, but they were too thin for outdoor walking.

However, it was not his way to turn back, and forward he went. He entered the park and proceeded direct to the spot where Miss Mackellar said she had last seen the child. He looked for clews. There were none.

He followed the course which the nursemaid had pointed out to Miss Mackellar, and in due time he arrived at another entrance. There was a cab stand here, in which stood one taxi, with the chauffeur standing beside it, leisurely surveying the world in which we live. Mr. Donalds approached him.

“See here!” he said. “Did you happen to see a red-haired woman and a child in a pink hat come out of the park near here?”

“Yep,” replied the man, without interest.

Mr. Donalds had not lived some fifty years for nothing. He knew how to inspire enthusiasm. He put his hand into his pocket.

“Yes, sir!” answered the driver promptly, in a brisk and earnest tone. “They came out here. I noticed ’em because she was in such a hurry. I thought there was something queer about it. Anyways, she took Wickey’s cab.”

“Where did they go?”

“Couldn’t tell you that, sir. They started up the avenoo; but they might ’a’ bin goin’ anywheres.”

“Where can I find this Wickey?” inquired Mr. Donalds.

“Well, I don’t know, sir. He’ll prob’ly come back here before long. Him and me are buddies, an’ we gen’rally eat lunch together, if we can. O’ course, lots o’ times we can’t. F’r instance, I might have to go out any minute now.”

“What’s the number of his cab?”

“Don’t know, sir--didn’t notice. You see, we don’t always take out the same one. Some days the one you’re used to is laid up.”

Mr. Donalds reflected hastily.

“I suppose I could find out by telephoning to the garage,” he suggested.

“Yes, sir; but they wouldn’t know where he went. Wouldn’t do much good, unless you want to set the cops after him.”

“No,” said Mr. Donalds. “I’ll handle this myself. You’re fairly certain, then, that this Wickey will return here before going to his garage?”

“Expect to see him any minute now, sir.”

“Very well, then--I’ll wait here. I’ll engage your cab. I’ll pay you for your time until this Wickey comes,” said Mr. Donalds.

He climbed into the cab, but he was very restless in there.

“Be sure Wickey doesn’t pass by!” he called out of the window.

“Oh, he’d gimme a hail,” the driver assured him. “Don’t you worry, sir.”

But time was flying. At least, time was undoubtedly flying for the nefarious red-haired woman, but for Mr. Donalds it passed with leaden foot. The chauffeur was smoking what Mr. Donalds was wont to call a “filthy cigarette,” and though he had often declared that such things were not tobacco at all, still the aroma of this one put him painfully in mind of cigars. He had none with him. He grew more and more restless.

At last another cab came up, and its driver descended.

“Is that Wickey?” cried Mr. Donalds.

“No, sir,” answered his especial driver. “‘Nother fellow.”

“Ask him to go somewhere and buy me half a dozen cigars,” said Mr. Donalds. “Tell him to get Havana perfectos.”

This was soon done, and as he began to smoke, Mr. Donalds felt calmer; but a new and more serious craving now assailed him. He was in the habit of lunching promptly at one o’clock, and it was now half past one. The cab was hot with the sun blazing down upon it, and this, combined with the bad effects of boiling rage, sizzling impatience, and fast growing hunger, were impairing Mr. Donalds’s health. He felt positively ill. He threw away his third cigar half finished.

The driver approached the window.

“I’m going to get a bite to eat, sir,” he said. “This here fellow knows Wickey. He’ll stay till I get back.”

“Just a minute!” said Mr. Donalds. “I--er--”

This was intensely distasteful to him, but he knew that without food he could not be at his best.

“Bring me back something to eat,” he said; “something--er--small and not conspicuous, if possible.”

Thus it was that Mr. Donalds, eminent business man and mirror of respectability, might have been seen eating a “hot dog” in a taxicab on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon. He had pulled down the blinds, had taken the first bite, and was discovering that he had never tasted anything so exquisite, so zestful--when the door was opened and a policeman looked in.

“Now, what’s all this?” asked the policeman reproachfully. “This won’t do, you know!”

Mr. Donalds managed to convince the officer that his presence was perfectly legitimate; but the incident disturbed him. He felt himself an outcast from society. He no longer relished the “hot dog,” but he finished it.

Then he was assailed by a fearful thirst, and there is no knowing what might have happened next, if the elusive Wickey had not appeared.

“There he is!” cried Mr. Donalds’s driver. “Hey, Wickey! Come here!”

Wickey approached.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to Mr. Donalds’s questions. “I took ’em out to a place on the Boston Post Road--long run. I jest got back--empty to City Island; then I picked up a fare.”

“Take me to the place where you left the woman,” said Mr. Donalds.

“Sorry, sir,” said Wickey, “but I can’t afford to take the chance of comin’ back empty.”

“Oh, I’ll pay!” shouted Mr. Donalds. “Don’t waste any more time!”

IV

In dust, in gasoline fumes, in an endless procession of cars, Mr. Donalds proceeded on his way. They stopped for gasoline, they stopped while Wickey investigated a knock in the engine, they stopped again and again because the procession stopped. Signs told them to “go slow,” and they went slow, until Mr. Donalds was on the verge of frenzy.

He tried to be calm. He reminded himself that he was a relentless human bloodhound, never to be eluded, and that no matter where the criminals went, were it to the very ends of the earth, they could not escape him. Even these thoughts could not appease him. He was hungry, he was extremely thirsty, and he was displeased with his red morocco slippers.

It is fortunate that he did not know how streaked with dust and perspiration his face was, how rumpled his stubby hair. As it was, when he caught any one staring at him, he believed it was because of the ruthless determination of his expression.

At last Wickey turned off the Post Road and stopped halfway down a lane, before a little old-fashioned cottage which bore this sign:

YE BETSY BARKER TEA HOUSE

“Here’s where she went,” said Wickey.

Mr. Donalds sprang out, and, bidding the man wait, opened the garden gate and advanced up the path. The cottage door was unlatched, and he entered, to find himself in a dim, cool little room, filled with small tables and high-backed settees.

There was no one else in the room. He had come in so quietly, in his slippers, that no doubt he had not been heard. He waited a moment, and then he rapped vigorously upon one of the tables.

Almost immediately there entered a thin little white-haired woman wearing a chintz apron.

“Tea?” she asked in a little bleating voice.

She was such a very respectable sort of little woman, and the atmosphere of the place was so very tranquil, that Mr. Donalds felt somewhat abashed.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I’m looking for a woman with red hair and a child in a pink hat.”

Suddenly the whole thing seemed to him so fantastic that he was almost apologetic--until he observed that the woman’s face grew very pale.

“Ha!” he cried. “I see you know something of this! Then--”

“I--I--I--” she faltered. “You must be mistaken. I--I never heard of them. They’ve gone away.”

“You contradict yourself, madam!” said Mr. Donalds sternly. “Come, tell me what you know--at once!”

“I--I--I--” said she, trembling with an alarm which he could not but think guilty. “Oh! Please go away!”

“Go away!” he repeated, affronted and amazed. “I have come here for the purpose of--”

She began to cry. Mr. Donalds had not been an employer of great numbers of female stenographers for years and years without learning to withstand tears. In fact, he had formed the notion that women generally cried whenever they had made a mistake, and that it was a feminine way of apologizing.

“Come, come!” he said. “Tell me where the child is--immediately!”

But all she did was to back into a corner and go on crying. Mr. Donalds was not profoundly moved. On the contrary, he was irritated.

“I shall search the premises,” he announced, and made for the door.

The woman came after him, calling in a loud and terrified voice:

“Evelyn! Evelyn! Evelyn! Quick!”

This was undoubtedly a warning, and Mr. Donalds went forward very rapidly. He reached the foot of a narrow, boxed-in stairway, and had his foot on the bottom step, when, with a rustle of skirts and a click of high heels, down rushed a little human whirlwind, with such impetuosity that he had just time to spring aside.

“What do you mean by this?” the whirlwind demanded. “What’s he been doing, Betsy?”

“He--he--he--” bleated the other.

Mr. Donalds was silent, staring at this new one. She had red hair. She had, moreover, the air of one who is capable of anything. He felt absolutely certain that she was the kidnaper; and he decided that he would confute, abash, and alarm her by a sudden onslaught.

“Come!” he shouted. “Where is the child? Quick! No nonsense! Where is the child?”

“Do you imagine I’m going to tell you?” said she.

He was very much taken aback and shocked by this unaccountable display of effrontery.

“Then you do not deny it?”

“Certainly not!” she replied calmly. “I admit it.”

“Then stand aside! I shall search the house!”

“By all means,” said she. “The more time you waste over it, the better for me.”

Now, there might be some truth in this. He hesitated, scowling, staring at the criminal, who returned his stare without flinching. He saw that he had no ordinary person to deal with. This was a master mind.

“I shall call the police,” he said, but he didn’t mean it.

“Pray do!” said she.

It was Mr. Donalds’s belief that those who could not be bullied must be bribed; so he changed his tone.

“Madam,” he said, “my sole object is the recovery of the child. To accomplish this, I am willing--”

“Come into the tea room, Mr. Henderson,” she interrupted, “and we’ll discuss the matter. I can assure you that the child is quite safe and happy, and that you will accomplish nothing by violence. No, Mr. Henderson--the best thing you can do is to come to terms with me.”

“My name is not Henderson,” he began, but she had gone past him into the tea room, and he followed.

“Tea, Betsy dear!” said she. “For two, please!”

“No!” said Mr. Donalds. “I do not want tea!”

“And sandwiches,” went on the red-haired woman, unperturbed. “And cake, if you please, Betsy dear. Sit down, Mr. Henderson!”

“I shall stand,” said he, and stand he did, with his arms folded.

The woman sat down, and she said nothing. Mr. Donalds appreciated the cleverness of this silence. By saying nothing at all she had him at a disadvantage, for she did not mind waiting, and he did. He was obliged to begin.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Well!” she returned briskly.

There was another silence--quite a long one.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Donalds, at last, “that you have some sort of terms to suggest. Let me hear them!”

“Certainly,” said she; “but here’s our tea. How nice! Thank you, Betsy dear!”

Mr. Donalds remained silent until the timid Betsy had set the tea out on the table and once more retired.

“Now!” he said grimly. “The terms, madam--the terms!”

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied in a grave tone, “I wish you would sit down and take a cup of tea--and a sandwich. They’re very nourishing sandwiches. I made them myself; and you need nourishment and refreshment. You are tired, and in an extremely nervous condition.”

This was almost more than Mr. Donalds could bear. He struggled with his indignation for a moment, and then gave a short laugh.

“No doubt my pitiful condition distresses you very greatly,” he observed, with biting sarcasm.

“It does,” said she. “I am a good judge of character, and, since I have actually seen you, I am inclined to believe that you are not really a bad or heartless man. I feel now that what you have done, you have done more through lack of understanding than from deliberate cruelty.”

“Upon my word!” said Mr. Donalds.

He was dazed. He sank heavily into a chair opposite her, and stared at her; and she actually smiled at him--smiled gravely but kindly.

“Good!” said she. “Now we can talk like two reasonable human beings. Milk and sugar?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said he, as if in a dream. “I don’t want it, anyhow.”

“I don’t care much for tea myself,” she told him; “but it is refreshing. A sandwich? If you don’t like cheese, I’ll get you--”

“I do like cheese,” he admitted.

“Most men do,” said she. “My poor husband was so fond of it! He was a newspaper man, and when he came home late I would make him a nice little Welsh rarebit, and he’d have that and a glass of beer. That was years ago, of course, when you could get beer.”

She sighed, but Mr. Donalds understood that the sigh was only for her late husband, not for any other vanished joys.

“I do like to see a man comfortable!” she suddenly remarked.

He believed her. Extraordinary and preposterous as it was, he believed that she really wished him to be comfortable. She had prepared a cup of tea for him, and she watched him while he drank it and ate a sandwich--yes, two or three sandwiches--with the air of a solicitous hostess.

“Another cup?” she asked. “And now won’t you smoke?”

“Thank you,” said he.

He lit a cigar and took a few puffs. He really felt very much better now. The tea and the sandwiches had done him good, and the atmosphere of the place was most restful. The sun was sinking. Already the corners of the room were shadowy, and a shaft of mellow light from the window illumined the woman’s glittering hair in a singular fashion. Seen thus, and through a faint haze of tobacco smoke, she looked not exactly pretty, but certainly attractive, so straight was she, so trim, so smart, so self-possessed.

Mr. Donalds came to his senses with a start.

“The terms, madam!” he said--not savagely now, but firmly.

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied, “I shouldn’t like you to misunderstand me. Perhaps it is a weakness, but I shouldn’t like you to think that my motives were unworthy.”

“I--” he began, and stopped himself just in time. “I don’t think so,” he had been about to say, but that would never do; so he said nothing.

“I give you my word,” she continued, in a voice almost sorrowful, “that I personally have nothing whatever to gain by this. My only object has been to secure justice for others.”

“Justice!” repeated Mr. Donalds. “You call it justice to--”

“I do,” said she. “Now please listen. First”--she paused--“first, that poor creature--that governess--”

“Ha!” cried Mr. Donalds. “Miss Mackellar! So she is a party to this!”

“No, she isn’t. She’s simply a victim, and I don’t wish her to suffer for what isn’t her fault. Any one could see what she is,” the red-haired woman went on with great earnestness. “She’s perfectly helpless. She’s a victim of life--of man.”

“I’m sure I--” he began indignantly.

“I’m sure you’ve frightened her. I’m sure you’ve discharged her.”

“Naturally!”

“Well, then, the first article of our agreement must be this,” said she. “Miss--Mackellar, you said? Miss Mackellar is to have an annuity of one thousand dollars a year.”

“No!” shouted Mr. Donalds. “No! I refuse!”

“Then it’s a deadlock,” said she, and poured herself another cup of tea.

A silence.

“You assure me that the woman is absolutely innocent of any participation in the kidnaping?” demanded Mr. Donalds.

“Absolutely! Any one could see that. She’s only a poor, muddled, tired little woman who does her best. She needs help, and you can very well afford to do this for her.”

“Very well!” said Mr. Donalds. “I agree to this--outrage!”

To tell the truth, the red-haired woman’s description of Miss Mackellar had rather touched him.

“Will you write it down, please?” said she. “Just say that you will provide an annuity of one thousand dollars a year for Miss Mackellar, as from the 10th of April, 1925.”

She spoke in an efficient, businesslike tone, which somehow gave an air of plausibility to this incredible proposal, and he obeyed. He wrote on a page of his notebook, signed it, and put it on the table before him.

“And now,” she went on, “you will agree to settle upon Judith, for life, an income of--”

“Judith!” he cried. “This is too much!”

“Write this,” she said calmly, “and I shall at once take you to the child.”

“This is blackmail!” he cried. “This is extortion!”

“Mr. Henderson,” she replied sternly, “don’t you think, in your heart, that you ought to do this for Judith? Think, Mr. Henderson! Think of all that poor Judith--”

“Who the devil is Judith?” he roared. “I never heard of her!”

“Mr. Henderson!”

“My name is not Henderson--I told you that before! My name is Donalds--William Donalds, importer. Here! Here’s a card!”

From his pocket he pulled not one card, but many, and they fell all over the table.

“Donalds!” he repeated. “Now you know with whom you have to deal. This farce must end! This--”

He stopped, because such an extraordinary change had come over the woman. Her face had grown alarmingly white, and she was staring at him with a sort of horror.

“You--you must be Mr. Henderson!” she said faintly.

“I will not be!” he shouted. “I refuse! Nothing can induce me to assume a false name! You have kidnaped my grandchild--”

“Your niece, you mean.”

“I don’t! I mean my grandchild. I have no niece. I--”

“Wait a minute!” she interrupted. She rose to her feet and stood, holding the back of the chair. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that there’s been--some terrible mistake!”

“You mean--the child? Quick! Something has happened to the child?”

“No,” she said. “No--it’s just--me.”

Criminal though she was, he could not help feeling sorry for her.

“Madam, you are ill,” he said. “Sit down again!”

She shook her head.

“Mr. Donalds,” she said. “I--I must apologize. I’m afraid--it’s the wrong child!”

“The wrong--”

“Yes. Please come!”

She went out of the room, and he followed her up the stairs. She opened the door of a room, and there, on a bed, he saw his grandchild, sleeping peacefully.

“No!” he whispered. “No--it’s the right child!”

“It isn’t the one I meant,” said she.

He looked at her.

“Then you are not acting on behalf of my scoundrelly nephew, Masterton Donalds?” he said.

“I never heard of him.”

“But I thought--he has made certain threats that he would attempt to force me to make him an allowance. I thought--”

“No,” said the red-haired woman in a very low voice. “Take her! I’m sorry. It was all a mistake!”

V

Judith was waiting in Mrs. Fremby’s room. She had been told to come there at six o’clock, in order to hear some news. She had come, and had found the room empty. Judith’s nature, however, was not an impatient one. She waited, full of a calm confidence in her friend. She ate the entire contents of a bag of chocolates that she found on the table, she tried on Mrs. Fremby’s hats, and then she sat down to read Mrs. Fremby’s latest article, which began thus:

Paris no longer reigns undisputed over American modes. There is a distinct tendency--

The door opened, and Mrs. Fremby entered. As was her habit, she locked the door behind her. Then she smiled. It was a pretty sickly smile, but Judith was not observant.

“Hello, Judith!” she said.

“Hello, Evelyn!” answered Judith. “What is the news you said you’d have for me?”

Mrs. Fremby took off her hat and coat, and sat down.

“My dear,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you to-night. Later on--”

Judith’s beautiful eyes filled with tears of disappointment.

“Oh, Evelyn!” she said. “I did hope there’d be something--something about little Doris, or at least an order for an article. I only have two dollars, Evelyn!”

“I’ll lend you a little money,” said Mrs. Fremby.

She spoke absent-mindedly, for she was calculating. The cost of that taxi had been terrific--and all for nothing! She was tired and downcast and miserable; but it was not her way to allow others to know such things. She reflected that after Judith was gone she could be as miserable as much and as long as she liked, but in the meantime--courage!

It was never a difficult matter to divert Judith’s mind, and within a few minutes Mrs. Fremby had got her to talking about the spring costume she wished she could buy. It was scarcely necessary to listen. Mrs. Fremby was able to indulge in her own far from cheery thoughts.

There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Fremby rose and opened it promptly. It was the landlady. Let it be! There were no surreptitious cooking or heating processes going forward just now.

“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, Mrs. Fremby,” said the landlady, with perfect affability. “He’s waiting down in the hall.”

“I’ll see him,” said Mrs. Fremby. “Just a minute, Judith!”

With a firm step she left the room. At heart, though, she was by no means easy. She felt sure that this visitor was Mr. Donalds, and she was not very anxious to see him again.

It was Mr. Donalds. As she descended the stairs, she saw him standing, hat in hand, in the dimly lit hall, and her heart sank still lower. He was not a man to be trifled with. He was--

“Not a handsome man at all,” thought Mrs. Fremby; “but distinguished-looking.”

He came toward her. Their eyes met. They did not smile.

“Madam,” said he, “I obtained your name and address from the--ah--person in the tea room.”

“She ought to have known better,” observed Mrs. Fremby.

“I succeeded in convincing her that I intended no harm,” he went on; “and I wish to assure you that I bear no ill will.”

Mrs. Fremby softened.

“I gave you a great deal of quite unnecessary trouble and anxiety,” she said. “I regret it very much; but--perhaps I ought to explain. You see, there is a friend of mine--Judith Cane--who has a little niece, her own sister’s child; and the father’s people have taken the little girl away from her. It’s shameful! Judith loves the child so much!”

“But surely the law might be resorted to in such--”

“The law!” said Mrs. Fremby scornfully. “They’ve got the law on their side; but what I wanted was justice--for Judith, I thought I’d steal the child, and force them to do something for Judith.”

“But the risk!” cried Mr. Donalds. “Did you realize the risk you--”

“I don’t care about risks,” said Mrs. Fremby calmly. “Nobody would dare to do anything to me!”

Mr. Donalds knew well how absurd this statement was, yet he was impressed. The dauntlessness of this little woman!

“Judith knows nothing about it,” she continued; “and I don’t intend her to know until the thing’s done.”

“Madam! Mrs. Fremby! You don’t mean that you propose to do this again?”

“Certainly I do.”

“No!” he protested. “That must not be! You don’t realize--”

“Yes, I do,” she interrupted. “It’s the only way; and this afternoon I saw that you--even a man like you--you were willing to make all sorts of concessions. Oh, I do wish!” she exclaimed. “I do wish you had been the right one!”

“Er--why?” asked Mr. Donalds, with a modest, downcast glance.

“Because we got on so well. I could discuss things with you. You were so reasonable--about that poor Miss Mackellar, for instance.”

“Mrs. Fremby,” he said solemnly, “I consider that you were in the right about Miss Mackellar. I mean to carry out your wishes in that matter.”

“No!” she replied incredulously. “You can’t mean that, after I caused you so much worry and--”

“You did me good,” said he. “I don’t mind admitting it. The example of your--your heroism--”

“Oh, no!”

“Your heroism,” he repeated doggedly, “and your unselfish devotion to the interests of others--What is more, my grandchild is--is enthusiastic in your praise. Mrs. Fremby, allow me to say that you are a wonderful woman!”

Mrs. Fremby was deeply touched.

“Mr. Donalds,” she said, “for you to say that--after what has happened--is magnanimous!”

“I mean it,” said he; “but I most earnestly implore you not to do it again. The risk is--appalling! It is possible--it is highly probable--that I can be of some assistance to this friend of yours, this--er--Miss Judith. Whatever I can do, Mrs. Fremby, I will--anything authorized by law,” he added a trifle anxiously.

“Mr. Donalds!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. Donalds! This is--oh, this is really too much! I never--I never in my life--”

He thought she was going to cry. She thought so too, for a moment, but with a pretty severe effort she recovered herself. She smiled. That smile completely finished Mr. Donalds.

“Mrs. Fremby,” he said, “one thing more. I believe I told you that I was an importer--”

“I know. I’ve heard of your firm.”

“Mrs. Fremby, I should be honored--it would be a favor to me--if you would come to our showroom to-morrow morning and pick out for yourself any one of the new model gowns from Paris--”

“Paris!” cried Mrs. Fremby. “Never!” Mr. Donalds was startled by her impassioned tone. “I wouldn’t wear a Paris gown--not for anything!”

“Wouldn’t wear a Paris gown!” he repeated, overcome. “I never before heard of a lady--”

Mrs. Fremby held out her hand, and he took it.

“You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate your generosity,” she said. “It’s just a matter of principle.”

Again their eyes met.

“Wonderful little woman!” said he.

It was amazing, the difference that one word of six letters made in that phrase. Mrs. Fremby became quite confused.

“What can I do,” continued Mr. Donalds, still holding her hand, “to mark my profound appreciation?”

Appreciation of what? Of Mrs. Fremby’s kidnaping his grandchild? Strange that so practical a man as Mr. Donalds should become so curiously obtuse about the clearest moral issues! Mrs. Fremby was undeniably a lawless, reckless, dangerous sort of creature.

“Mrs. Fremby,” said he, “will you do me the honor of dining with me to-morrow evening?”

“Thank you, Mr. Donalds, I will,” she replied, grave but very gracious.

And you may believe it or not, but neither of them doubted for a moment that it was an honor which she conferred upon him.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

OCTOBER, 1925 Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 1

As Patrick Henry Said

THE UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED DR. JOE TO CHANGE SOME OF HIS IDEAS ON THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL LIBERTY

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“Mean to tell me she won’t let you go?” demanded Dr. Joe, in his big voice.

“No,” said young Bennett stoutly, “I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Of course she’d let me go; only, if I did, there’d be no one--well, no one to look after the furnace or--”

“Merciful powers!” said Dr. Joe, staring at his friend in pity and wonder. “So that’s what it’s done to you!” he thought. “Can’t take two weeks off for a hunting trip with your old friend! Can’t call your soul your own!”

He was determined not to say a word of this, though.

“If the man’s happy,” he thought, “the thing for me is to be tactful.”

And no one could have convinced him that he was not tactful. He got up, a formidable figure of a man, more than six feet in height and stalwart in proportion. He was under thirty-five, yet no one ever spoke of him as a young man, any more than people called him a handsome man, in spite of the fine regularity of his massive features. He was simply Dr. Joe. There was no one like him.

“Well, my boy,” he said, in a soothing way, “I’ll be off now. Got half a dozen calls to make before lunch. See you--”

“Look here, Joe! I want you to come to dinner with us on Sunday.”

“Can’t do it!” replied Dr. Joe, in alarm.

“You’ve got to do it, Joe. She wants to meet you, and I want you to see--what she’s done for me.”

“Seen that already!” thought Dr. Joe, but, true to his policy of tactfulness, he kept the thought to himself. “Some other time, old man,” he said.

“You know you can come on Sunday if you want to,” insisted Bennett.

Dr. Joe did know that. What is more, he knew that Bennett knew it.

“And I’ll have to go some time,” he thought ruefully, so he said: “All right, old man--Sunday it is!”

It was a genuine sacrifice. Although Sunday was six days off, the thought of it recurred to him from time to time during the morning, and bothered him. He hated to be pinned down to a definite engagement. His day’s work was always heavy, and, when it was done, he liked to go home. If no calls came for him in the evening, he was glad to drop in to see a friend, for he was a sociable sort of fellow, but he very much disliked feeling that he had to go, that he was expected somewhere at a definite time. He liked, in short, to feel free.

“Breath of life to me,” he reflected. “As Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death. There’s Bennett--married--tied down like that--dare say he’s happy, but it wouldn’t suit me. No, sir! I’ve got to have my liberty. Come and go as I please--meals when it suits me--come home tired--put on an old coat and light my pipe--that’s the life for me!”

Leaving the enslaved Bennett in his office, Dr. Joe drove off about his business. He flew along the quiet country roads in his little car. He would stop before a house and run up the steps. He never rang bells. If a door was locked, he knocked vigorously upon it. If it was not locked, he flung it open and walked in; and he had never yet failed to find a welcome inside. His step was by no means light, yet no one, not even the most querulous and nervous patient, had ever complained of that. He was Dr. Joe. He expected every one to be glad to see him, and every one was.

Things went well that morning. All the patients he visited were doing nicely, and the weather was superb--a cool, bright October day. He drove home for lunch in a very cheerful humor. He was contented and hungry.

As he neared his own house, however, a faint cloud came over his satisfaction. He hoped that Mrs. MacAdams, his housekeeper, would not give him that stew again to-day.

“Don’t like to say anything to her,” he thought; “but seems to me we’re having that stew pretty often these days. It’s not--well, it’s all right, of course, but--”

He went up the steps of the veranda and burst open his own front door with a magnificent crash. That was his signal to Mrs. MacAdams to put his lunch on the table.

He did not turn his head in the direction of the waiting room, though he knew that people were in there. His office hours were from two to four, and patients had no business to come at one o’clock. He often said, with vehemence, that he would see no one--absolutely no one--before two o’clock; but he did. He said he would eat his lunch in peace; but he didn’t. He always had to hurry.

So he was going sternly toward the dining room, without even glancing in at the waiting room, when an extraordinary sight arrested him. There was some one sitting in the hall!

This was altogether too much. Bad enough for patients to come long before office hours, and haunt him while he ate his lunch, but to come out into the hall to waylay him!

He gave this person a severe glance. He got in return a glance which somehow disconcerted him--a cool, amused, very steady glance. He stopped short. The intruder was a woman. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, her hands lying extended on the arms, and her feet planted solidly before her, side by side. It was an Egyptian sort of attitude.

There was nothing else about her, however, to suggest old Egypt. That wrinkled, weather-beaten face with the long upper lip, half doleful, half humorous, and those twinkling little gray eyes, were unmistakably Irish; and Dr. Joe had rather a weakness for that race. Moreover, she was shabbily dressed--a thing difficult for him to resist--and her hair was gray. His just resentment vanished.

“See here!” he said reproachfully. “You ought to be in the waiting room. Patients aren’t allowed to sit out here.”

She rose.

“I am not one o’ thim,” she said. “It’s business I’ve come to see ye about.”

“Selling something?” asked Dr. Joe.

If she was, he meant to buy it.

“I am not,” she answered calmly. “I came to see ye about the bye.”

“Buying what?”

“I mean the young bye--the lad--” she began, when Mrs. MacAdams appeared in the doorway of the dining room.

“Your lunch is on the table, doctor,” she announced, in a faint, sad voice. “I told that person--”

“I’ll wait,” said the person.

Dr. Joe waved his hand toward Mrs. MacAdams, and, as if he had been a wizard, she vanished. It was never her policy to argue with her employer.

“I don’t understand you,” said Dr. Joe to the Irishwoman. “What is it you want?”

He spoke almost gently, for something in this shabby, gray-haired stranger touched him. He didn’t care to eat his lunch and leave her sitting in the hall.

“Come here, Frankie!” said she.

From a shadowy corner, where he had been standing unobserved, came a small boy--a very small boy, thin and wiry, with red hair and a pale, freckled face; a sulky-looking little boy, very neatly dressed in a sailor suit and a cap which proclaimed him as belonging to the United States Navy.

“Take off yer cap, me lad,” said she, “and say good day to the doctor.”

Frankie snatched off the cap, but speak he would not.

“He’s a fantastical bye,” she explained. “Ye’d never believe the notions he has. What’s in his mind now is he wants to be a doctor; and I’ve come to see will ye make a doctor of him?”

Dr. Joe began to laugh, but he stopped when he saw the woman’s face.

“But you see--” he said. “A child of that age--how old is he?”

“He is eight.”

“He can’t know what he wants!”

“He knows,” she asserted tranquilly. “It’s a doctor he wants to be. I’ve been told yourself is the best doctor in it at all, and I’ve brought the bye to ye to see will ye lave him study with ye.”

The doctor struggled against another outburst of laughter.

“I’m afraid--” he began.

“His father’ll be paying whativer is right for the larnin’,” said the woman. She paused a moment. “His father is a grand, rich man,” she went on. “Him an’ his wife is travelin’ in foreign lands, and they’ve lift the bye with me. It’s his nurse I am. Katie is me name.”

“See here, Katie!” said Dr. Joe, very kindly. “The child’s far too young. Later on, perhaps--”

“Doctor dear!” she interrupted with intense earnestness. “Will ye not lave him try? He’s to school in the mornin’s. Will ye not lave him be with ye in the afternoons, to be watchin’ the way ye’ll be healin’ the sick? Ye’d not know by lookin’ at him all that’s in his head. If ye’ll talk to him, drawin’ it out of him, ye’ll see!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question,” said Dr. Joe firmly. “When the boy’s parents come back, I’ll talk to them, and--”

“The one day!” said she. “Lave him stop here with ye the one day!”

“I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but--”

She came a step forward, with a look of piteous entreaty on her wrinkled face.

“The one day, doctor dear!” she cried. “Ye’ll do that for an ould woman! He’s fed. He’ll need no more till I’ll come for him at six o’clock. All o’ thim tellin’ me what a grand, kind man ye were, at all--and me ould enough to be yer mother!”

“I can’t!” said Dr. Joe, very much distressed. “It’s ridiculous!”

“Sure, what trouble will it be for yer honor?” she pleaded. “An’ Frankie only the small young child he is--just wantin’ to watch ye! Lave him come with ye the one day, doctor dear! His father’ll--”

“No!” shouted Dr. Joe. “Sorry! Can’t!”

He made a rush for the dining room and closed the door behind him.

II

This was the most absurd and unreasonable request that had ever been made of him--which was saying a good deal, for his generosity was well known, and full advantage was taken of it. And yet, somehow, the incident touched and troubled him. He couldn’t forget the passionate earnestness of the old Irishwoman.

“Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense!” he said half aloud, and sat down at the table.

Before him stood a plate of that stew. He tasted it.

“It’s--cold,” he observed, in an apologetic tone.

In his heart he was afraid of Mrs. MacAdams. She was such a resigned, subdued woman, and always so completely in the right, that he felt vaguely guilty every time he saw her.

“I thought you would be in a hurry, doctor,” she said faintly. “I had no idea you would stay out in the hall so long, talking to that person.”

“No, no, of course you didn’t,” Dr. Joe hastily assured her. “Quite all right, Mrs. MacAdams. Many of ’em in the waiting room?”

“I believe I opened the door six times,” she answered, with angelic patience.

He felt guiltier than ever. The feeling that he was a tyrant to Mrs. MacAdams mingled with a wretched conviction that he had been unduly abrupt with the poor old woman in the hall, until he saw himself as an utterly heartless bully. He couldn’t bear it.

“I just want to see,” he murmured, with an ingratiating smile, and, getting up, opened the dining room door.

Katie was gone. The high-backed chair was occupied by the little red-haired boy, who sat there with his head thrown back and his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Now see here!” said Dr. Joe indignantly. “Did she--did your nurse go off and leave you here?”

“Yes, she did,” answered Frankie.

“Well, you can’t stay here,” the doctor told him.

Without a word Frankie rose, took up his cap, and walked off down the passage.

“Here, wait a minute!” called Dr. Joe. “You can’t go off like that!”

Frankie stopped and turned.

“You told me I couldn’t stay,” he said.

The child’s manner was not in any way defiant or impertinent, but he certainly was not abashed. He stood, cap in hand, looking straight into the doctor’s face; and though he was by no means a handsome child, being slight, pale, and undersized for his years, there was something in that straightforward glance which Dr. Joe found very attractive.

“See here, my boy!” he said. “What put the idea of being a doctor into your head, anyhow?”

“It just came,” said Frankie. “When I was in the hospital. When I had pneumonia last winter. In New York. The internes used to talk to me. And I liked it.”

“Didn’t like the pneumonia, did you?” asked Dr. Joe.

“I didn’t care,” said Frankie. “I liked to be there. I liked--” He paused. “I liked the smell of the hospital,” he continued earnestly.

“You’re a funny kid!” said Dr. Joe, laughing.

Frankie did not seem to care for this. He turned away again and made for the door, and this time Dr. Joe stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t care!” said the boy.

Now the words themselves had very little significance; it was the spirit behind them that conquered Dr. Joe. The boy was obviously frightened by that heavy hand on his shoulder. He was only eight, and he lived in a child’s world. He had no understanding of these all-powerful grown people, who laughed or flew into tempers for no reason at all. He thought Dr. Joe was angry, and he was frightened--his eyes showed that; but his mouth set in a firm, sulky line, and once more he declared that he didn’t care.

“By Jove!” cried Dr. Joe. “I will take you!”

III

It was the first time Dr. Joe had ever been alone with a child. Of course he had visited innumerable sick children, and had been very popular with them, but he was ashamed now to remember the sort of things he had said to other children of Frankie’s age.

“Talked about bunnies and pussy cats!” he thought. “Must have made a regular idiot of myself. This child’s exceptional, though.”

That comforted him. He was convinced by this time that there was not and never had been another child like Frankie. He couldn’t have explained this, and he wouldn’t have tried.

He firmly believed that he was a notable judge of human nature. He often said that he could read a character at a glance; but, as a matter of fact, what he really felt was usually a sudden and vehement prejudice, and it was a prejudice he felt now, in favor of Frankie. He had talked to him--“drawn him out,” as Katie had suggested, and he found the child not only intelligent, but an independent, clear-sighted, honest, sturdy little spirit.

“We’ll go home now,” said Dr. Joe. “We’ll step on the gas, too. It’s going to rain.”

He looked up at the sky. The brightness of the autumn day had vanished long ago, and the clouds were driving up fast before a steady, bleak wind. He tucked the rug carefully about Frankie. A very little fellow he was, after all, for all his cleverness--a queer little fellow.

“Mustn’t let him get chilled,” he thought.

With that in view, he drove at breakneck speed along the roads that lay white before him in the stormy dusk, past houses where warm little lights were beginning to gleam in the windows. It was the hour of home-coming--and it suddenly occurred to Dr. Joe that he and Frankie hadn’t much to go home to. Frankie had only a nurse waiting for him, and the doctor had only Mrs. MacAdams.

“Nonsense!” said Dr. Joe to himself.

The storm couldn’t be dismissed as nonsense, however. Before they were halfway home it came upon them, a fierce downpour, drumming on the leather top of the car, dashing against the wind shield, crushing down into the mud the last valiant green things by the wayside. The headlights shone mistily into a world all darkness and confusion.

It was no new thing to Dr. Joe. It was simply a storm, and he was accustomed to being out in all weathers; but Frankie was of an age when one is, unfortunately, only too carefully protected from the elements, and he was thrilled. He wriggled joyously under the rug.

“The grand time I’m havin’!” he said.

Dr. Joe smiled to himself at the touch of brogue--picked up from the boy’s nurse, no doubt; but he had to keep his mind on his driving.

There were many turns in the road, and the mud was slippery. He was glad when at last he turned into his own driveway. He hustled Frankie out of the car and up the steps, burst open the front door, and entered his own hall.

And there was a girl.

Now, if Dr. Joe had been the sort of man to be overcome by the sight of a pretty face, he would never have been a bachelor at thirty-three; but he wasn’t that sort of man, and it was not the prettiness of this girl that made so great an impression upon him. It was the look on her face.

He had never seen quite that look on a woman’s face before, that magical and beautiful look of welcome. She came hurrying down the hall, and her step was eager, her eyes were shining. She was smiling and holding out her hands; and Dr. Joe felt that he had, for the first time since he could remember, really come home. He didn’t know or care who she was, or how she had got there, but only that she seemed somehow familiar and dear, and he was happy because he found her here.

He would have taken her outstretched hands--but the boy was ahead of him. Frankie ran up to the girl.

“Hello, Molly!” he said casually.

Dr. Joe saw then that the smile and the welcome and all the magic had been for Frankie, not for him. The girl turned to him, and she was a different girl--a polite, composed young creature.

“I’ve come to take Frankie home,” she said. “Thank you very much, doctor.”

For a moment he was too disappointed, too dejected, to answer. He was only a doctor; people were glad to see him only because they thought he could make them well. Nobody had ever looked at him as Molly looked at Frankie, and nobody ever would. What was there waiting for him when he got home? A lot of patients who wouldn’t give him time to eat his meals, and Mrs. MacAdams. His house was dark and dusty and cheerless, and the aroma of that stew still lingered in the air.

“Don’t mention it!” he said gloomily.

She waited a moment, holding Frankie by the hand. If he had looked at her, he would have recognized her expression, for it was the expression worn by mothers, aunts, and all female relatives of young children, and it meant that she was waiting to hear what a unique and wonderful child Frankie was; but Dr. Joe was lost in his unusually dismal thoughts. He was roused from them only by the sound of her voice.

“Well, thank you again!” she said. “Come, Frankie! We’ll have to hurry.”

Then he remembered what the weather was.

“No!” he said. “You can’t go out in this storm. No--I’ll take you home in my car.”

Perhaps, on Frankie’s account, the girl would have accepted this offer, but just at this moment the dining room door opened and Mrs. MacAdams appeared.

“Your dinner is on the table, doctor,” she said, in a severe and deeply wounded tone.

“In a minute,” said Dr. Joe. “I’m going out first.”

“Oh, no!” cried the girl. “No, please! No, we really won’t let you! We’ll sit here till the rain lets up. I have an umbrella. Please, doctor, don’t keep your dinner waiting!”

“I don’t care about my dinner,” said Dr. Joe.

Mrs. MacAdams coughed.

“Doctor,” said the girl, “if you let your dinner get cold, after you’ve been so good to Frankie, I’ll never forgive myself!”

He couldn’t help smiling at her tremendous earnestness, yet it pleased him. He looked down at her and she looked up at him, and he was still more pleased. Hers was the sort of prettiness that he liked best of all--not the fragile, exquisite, rather alarming kind, but the simple, honest, gentle sort--the home sort.

She was little and slender, but she looked strong. She had blue eyes, and they were beautifully kind; she had black hair that curled, and a mouth that was generous and firm. What is more, Dr. Joe remembered the look she had given Frankie when he came in. He knew what she was capable of; he thought she was a wonderful girl.

“See here!” he said. “Stay and have a bite with me--you and Frankie--and I’ll take you home afterward.”

Mrs. MacAdams coughed again. Goodness knows what meaning she intended to convey, what warnings and reproaches, but certainly the effect was very different from what she had wished. That cough awoke in Dr. Joe a firm determination to ask whom he pleased, when he pleased, to his own board. It also caused the girl to make a curious remark.

“Dr. Joe,” she said, “Frankie’s nurse, that you saw this afternoon--she’s my grandmother.”

Now no one had ever heard Dr. Joe mention the word “democracy,” and he never thought about it, either. If you had questioned him, he would have told you, with considerable vigor, that he did not believe all men to be equal. He saw human beings at all the crises of their lives, and he knew that they weren’t equal. He saw people who were heroic in suffering, and he admired them; he saw people who were not heroic, and he pitied them, and that was about as far as he went in judging his fellow creatures. As for dividing people according to their wealth, or their social standing, or their education, that never entered his head; so that he hadn’t the faintest notion that he was being tested, or that the girl was being plucky.

“I see!” he said cheerfully. “Now, then, Mrs. MacAdams! Can you scratch up something for these two young people to eat?”

Mrs. MacAdams did not like being asked to “scratch up” anything, and she did not like these young people.

“I shall do my best, doctor,” she promised in a rather chilly tone.

It is regrettable to be obliged to say that she didn’t keep her promise. Even Mrs. MacAdams could have done better, had she tried.

Dr. Joe didn’t notice this, though. He was filled with delight at his dinner party. He bustled about, pulling chairs up to the table, and turning on more lights. His big, hearty voice was plainly audible to the patients in the waiting room, and they wondered how he could be so cheerful when they were not.

“Now, then!” he said.

He was sitting at the head of the table, and Miss Ryan--that was her name--was at the foot, with Frankie between them, and the whole thing seemed to him extraordiarily jolly. There was something on his plate, and he was about to eat it, when he observed Miss Ryan lay her hand on Frankie’s arm and whisper to him.

“I don’t care!” said Frankie, aloud. “I’m hungry!”

Miss Ryan’s face grew scarlet, and Dr. Joe frowned.

“Come now, my boy!” he said. “This won’t do!”

“I’m hungry!” said Frankie, with something like a sob. “Bread an’ butter isn’t enough!”

“But hasn’t he got--what has he got, anyhow?” inquired Dr. Joe, puzzled.

“I don’t know,” said Miss Ryan; “but--I’d rather he didn’t eat it.”

She was terribly distressed, but she was resolute.

“It is cold sliced pot roast,” said Mrs. MacAdams, in an awful voice.

A painful silence ensued.

“I’m hungry, Molly!” cried Frankie at last, in a most mutinous voice. “I don’t care what it is! I’m--”

“Frankie!” said she. “You shan’t eat it, and that’s all there is to it.” She took away the child’s plate. “I’m sorry,” she explained to Dr. Joe, in an unsteady voice, “but we have to be very careful about what he eats; and all that fat--”

“See here, Mrs. MacAdams!” said Dr. Joe entreatingly. “Can’t you rake up something for the child--milk--oatmeal--something of the sort?”

“Doctor,” said Mrs. MacAdams, “I can neither rake up nor scratch up anything else. This is the dinner I had prepared--for you. I was not informed that there would be”--she paused--“a party of guests.”

Then Dr. Joe had a bright idea--the sort of idea that would never have occurred to any one else.

“Tell you what!” he said. “Poor kid’s hungry. You know what suits him. Perhaps you could find something if you looked around in the kitchen, Miss Ryan, eh?”

He didn’t realize what he had done, but Miss Ryan did. She looked at Mrs. MacAdams with the nicest, most friendly sort of smile, but she got from that lady a look that roused all her native spirit.

“All right!” she said. “Thank you, Dr. Joe--I will!”

And she rose and went into the kitchen. Mrs. MacAdams did not follow, nor did she make an offer to help Miss Ryan. Perhaps she felt that this girl was one who did not require much help; perhaps she had other reasons. Anyhow, she stood there in the dining room, perfectly silent. Frankie was silent, too, and very sulky. Dr. Joe was silent, and no longer happy. His dinner party was not successful.

He wondered. He wondered why he had so many dishes made from roasts, and so seldom the roasts themselves. He wondered why the tablecloth was neither dirtier nor cleaner. If it was never changed, it would certainly have been worse than it was. It must, therefore, be clean sometimes; but he couldn’t remember having ever seen it so.

IV

It seemed a long time before Miss Ryan came back, but the delay was justified. Upon a tray she bore three plates. What there was in two of them Dr. Joe never knew, but what she set before him was a miracle. Cheese and eggs and toast were part of it, but there must have been other things.

His spirits revived, and so did Frankie’s. He made jokes, and Frankie laughed at them. So did Miss Ryan, but in a different way. Dr. Joe suspected that something was amiss with her, and later, when he was helping her on with her coat, he felt sure of it. The light in the hall was dim, and he bent nearer. It was true--there were tears in her eyes.

He said nothing at the moment. He waited until he had got them snugly stowed into the car, Miss Ryan beside him, with Frankie on her lap.

“What’s wrong, Miss Ryan?” he asked, in his blunt way.

“Why, nothing!” she answered brightly.

He knew there was, though. She wasn’t the sort of girl to have tears in her eyes for nothing. He thought about it for awhile, and then he came to a conclusion.

“Miss Ryan,” he inquired, “what do you do?”

In his wide experience of other people’s troubles, he had learned the terrible and pitiful importance of jobs, or the lack of them.

“Well, doctor,” she replied, “I play the piano in the music department of the Novelty Bazaar.”

“In the basement,” said Dr. Joe. “That’s not much of a job.”

He was acquainted with the Novelty Bazaar and its system of ventilation.

“Oh, it might be worse,” she returned cheerfully.

“Not very much,” said Dr. Joe.

Again he was silent, thinking of Miss Ryan at work in the basement of the Novelty Bazaar.

“I’m going to get you another job,” he announced abruptly.

“I wish you’d get yourself another housekeeper!” she cried, with a vehemence that startled him. “I never saw--anything so--awful. It’s a sh-shame!”

“See here!” said he, astounded. “You’re not crying about that?”

“I’m not c-crying at all,” replied Miss Ryan, with dignity. “Only--when I saw that kitchen--and that dinner--it’s cruel!”

This made him laugh.

“Cruel?” he said. “Mrs. MacAdams cruel? Poor old soul! She’s--”

“It is cruel,” said Miss Ryan, “when you’re so busy and so--wonderfully kind and good.”

He had been called kind and good often enough before in his life, but it had never sounded like this. He looked at Molly Ryan. The interior of the little car was well lighted, so that he could see her clearly, sitting there beside him, with Frankie in her strong young arms, and those blue eyes of hers misty. Kind? He wasn’t the only one.

“It’s down this street,” she told him. “There--that’s the house--with the white fence.”

He stopped the car before the house--such a poor, forlorn little house it was--and Miss Ryan tried to set Frankie on his feet; but Frankie would not stand. Limp and dazed with sleep, he sank down on the floor of the car.

“I’ll carry him,” said Dr. Joe. “Come on! We’ll make a dash for it.”

So they did make a dash for it, through the pelting rain, to the veranda of the poor little house, and Miss Ryan rang the bell. Nothing happened. She waited a moment, rang again, and then opened the door with a latchkey.

Dr. Joe followed her inside, still carrying Frankie. She had lighted an oil lamp on the table, and, as he came in out of the stormy darkness, there was a picture he did not soon forget. It was a very little room, and a very humble one; it was not tastefully furnished; indeed, regarded in detail, it was quite the contrary; but it was a home. It was clean and neat and blessedly tranquil in the lamplight. It was a house with a heart--and Molly Ryan was in it.

Frankie came to life now.

“Where’s Katie?” he demanded.

“She’s left a note,” said Molly. “I don’t understand. She’s never gone out so late before; but perhaps some of the people she works for sent for her.”

The girl looked perplexed and troubled. Dr. Joe was perplexed, too.

“People she works for?” he repeated. “Thought she was the boy’s nurse.”

“She is,” answered Molly; “only while he’s at school she--she does other things.”

“What other things?”

For a moment Molly looked dignified, and as if she would not answer, but she thought better of it. She looked up at Dr. Joe with the straightforward glance that he liked so well.

“She does day’s work, Dr. Joe--scrubbing and cleaning.”

“But see here--I don’t understand this! Do you mean to tell me that the boy’s parents have gone off and left him with his nurse, and haven’t given her any money to look after the child?”

“She does look after him!” cried Miss Ryan hotly. “He goes to the Lessell Academy. He’s getting the best education and the best care--”

“I’m sure of that,” interrupted Dr. Joe. “What I don’t understand is why his nurse has to go out scrubbing by the day. Why does the child live here? Why don’t his parents--”

“They can’t help it!” said Miss Ryan. Her cheeks were flaming, her blue eyes alight. “They’ve done the best they can. They’re the--the finest, most splendid people in the world. They--they just are!”

Dr. Joe respected her loyal defense; but he didn’t agree with her. He felt pretty sure now that Katie and this girl were burdened with the entire support of the boy, that they went shabby while he was well dressed, that they worked, scrubbing floors and playing the piano in the Novelty Bazaar, while Frankie went to an expensive private school. To his thinking, there was no possible excuse for parents who would do such a thing.

“See here!” he said. “I’ve got to go now--patients waiting for me. Send Frankie to me again to-morrow. No trouble to me. Fact is, I rather like to have him.”

Miss Ryan held out her hand, and Dr. Joe took it. He didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t very well ask her to come to see him, and he didn’t quite know how to suggest coming to see her; so he only gripped her little hand and said nothing, and it made him very unhappy. He wanted to see her, not just some time in the indefinite future, but the very next day and all other days. Going away from her was going away from home.

V

The next day was a dismal day by nature, and Mrs. MacAdams did nothing to make it better. She gave Dr. Joe the worst breakfast he had yet had, and she presented a curious and disturbing appearance. She had a bandage around her throat and another around her left wrist, and a plug of cotton wool in one ear. Time was when Dr. Joe would have made kindly inquiries about these matters, but not now. He had learned that her troubles were all due to opening the door for patients, to answering the telephone, or to going up and down the stairs; and as he couldn’t remove the cause, he was obliged to ignore the symptoms.

Nevertheless it disturbed him and made him feel guilty, and he set off to make his rounds in an unusually downcast mood. He did not forget that he had promised Molly Ryan to find her another job. Indeed, he forgot nothing at all about Molly--not even the way her dark hair curled above her ears; but his morning was too busy and hurried, and he had no chance to serve her. And this made him feel worse.

When he came home at lunch time, he did not run up the steps. He walked, and this gave him an opportunity to observe that the glass in the door was grimy and the curtain covering it limp and spotted. He was about to fling open the door when, to his surprise, it was opened for him. It was opened by Miss Ryan, hatless, and wearing an apron.

“Lots of people in the waiting room,” she whispered. “Your lunch is all ready.”

“See here!” he cried, astounded, but she had hurried off down the passage.

He followed her into the dining room. There was a clean cloth on the table, and its radiance dazzled him. There was a wonderful aroma in the air.

“Sit down!” said she, and vanished into the kitchen.

He did sit down, dazed and helpless. In a minute back she came, with a broiled steak such as no man had ever eaten before, and fried potatoes, and tomato salad, and other things.

“Please eat it while it’s nice and hot,” she said.

“See here!” cried Dr. Joe again. “What are you doing here?”

“Begin to eat, then!” she insisted sternly. “Well, you see, you must have dropped your notebook out of your pocket last night. I found it on the veranda this morning, and I thought I’d better bring it to you. When I came, that Mrs. MacAdams--well, she marched upstairs and got her hat and coat, and she said--”

Miss Ryan paused.

“Well, what did she say?” the doctor asked.

“All sorts of nasty, silly things,” answered Molly, growing very red. “Anyhow, she went out of the house and said she was never coming back if--”

“If what?”

“Oh, nothing!” said Miss Ryan hastily. “Only--she went. Some one had to get your lunch, so I stayed.”

“You--stayed!” Dr. Joe repeated, as if stunned. “You--stayed!”

Miss Ryan grew redder than ever.

“It wasn’t anything to do,” she said. “I couldn’t go to work, anyway, on account of Frankie, because grandma hasn’t come back yet.” Her face changed. “I can’t help thinking it’s queer,” she went on anxiously. “I can’t help worrying. She never did such a thing before. She just left a note.”

The girl hesitated for a moment. Then from the pocket of her apron she drew out a piece of wrapping paper and handed it to him. On it was printed, in pencil:

i have to go away a wile--gran.

Miss Ryan watched Dr. Joe while he read it; then their eyes met.

“She’s the finest woman God ever made,” said Molly quietly. “She’s done everything in the world for me. She’s worked and slaved so that I could have an education--and all the things she’s never been able to have.”

Dr. Joe understood all that she meant him to understand, and he loved her for it. Yes, he admitted that he loved her. He knew it wasn’t the proper time to love her; he had only seen her twice. But he did, just the same.

“Molly Ryan!” he said.

Even the tips of Miss Ryan’s ears grew red.

“I--I can’t think about anything but grandma just now,” she said. “I’m--I’m so worried about her!”

“I’ll look after her,” said Dr. Joe. “I’ll see that she doesn’t go out scrubbing any more. I’ll look after Frankie, too; and if you’ll only let me--”

“There’s the doorbell!” cried Molly.

“I’ll go!” said Dr. Joe.

“Oh, do please eat your nice hot lunch!” said she.

“Won’t have you waiting on me!” he returned.

They both reached the doorway at the same instant, and there was not room there for the broad-shouldered doctor and any one else; so he turned, and they faced each other.

“Won’t you let me help you?” he said. “I don’t know how to explain--it has come so suddenly. Of course, I know you don’t--of course, you can’t--but--”

“It’s the lunch,” said Miss Ryan. “You’re so glad to get a decent meal.”

“It’s not!” he denied indignantly. “It’s--if you’d only just come here twice a day, and stand in the hall and smile when I come in!”

Then they both began to laugh.

“It’s not a joke, though,” said Dr. Joe.

“I know it,” said she. “I didn’t mean to be silly and horrid; only, until grandma comes back--”

The doorbell rang again. This time Molly got ahead of him, and ran down the passage.

“Grandma!” she cried, as she opened the door.

Katie entered with a bland smile.

“Good day to ye, doctor!” she said.

Dr. Joe was remarkably glad to see her again.

“Well!” he said, with a smile. “You’ve been causing a good deal of anxiety--”

“It’s sorry I am for that,” she broke in; “but it couldn’t be helped at all.”

“But where--” Molly began.

“Whisht now!” said Katie. “It’s about Frankie I’ve come. Ye had the bye with ye yesterday; and what did ye think of him, doctor dear?”

“I was talking to Miss Ryan about that,” replied Dr. Joe seriously. “I’d just told her that I’d be glad to look after the boy, and--”

“D’ye mean it, doctor dear? D’ye mean ye’ll make a doctor out of him?” she cried.

“If that’s what he wants when--”

Katie looked steadily at him for a minute, then she turned toward the door.

“My work’s done,” she said. “Ye’ve tould me ye’d make a doctor of him, an’ ye’ll do it. Good day to ye, doctor dear!”

“Here! Wait a minute!” he called. “I’d like to speak to you. Come in and have lunch with me.”

Katie stopped and faced him again, and he was aware of a fine dignity in her.

“Ye’d ask an ould woman like me to sit down at the table with ye?” she inquired gravely.

Dr. Joe flushed a little.

“I have asked you,” he said.

Her keen little eyes were still fixed on his face.

“Then ye’re not one o’ thim that--then ye’d not think the worse of Frankie if his parents wasn’t the grand, rich people they are?”

“See here!” said Dr. Joe. “You have some mighty queer ideas!”

“It is not myself has the queer ideas,” said she. “It’s others has thim. I’m an ould woman, an’ I have seen a lot. If Frankie’s parents wasn’t Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Depew of New York, he’d niver have been took into that academy; but they writ a latter, the two o’ thim, and he is there.”

“Granny!” cried Molly.

“Whisht now!” said the other. “I know well what I’m doin’. Didn’t I see the way it wint with me own bye? If Frankie was to be the greatest doctor that ever lived, he’d niver be the equal o’ that bye. He come here from the ould country, and not a penny in his pockets. It was in his head he’d be a doctor; so he worked in the days and studied in the nights. Thim that had money had all their time for the studyin’, and they wint ahead of him. Five years he took for that they’d do in two, him workin’ in a garage in the days. Thin what does he do but get married? A fine girl she was, too--a fine girl. ‘She’ll help me,’ says he, ‘for she’s had a grand education.’ A school-teacher she was, a fine girl. Thin Molly was born, and the two o’ thim schemin’ and plannin’ the way she’d be a doctor’s daughter, and the grand time she’d have of it. Thin the war came and he wint, like the rest o’ thim, and in the end of it he was kilt; and it wasn’t so long before the poor girl died, too.” Katie was silent for a moment. “But it’s different with Frankie,” she said. “He’ll have a grand chance!”

“He will,” said Dr. Joe. “He would, even if his parents weren’t Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Depew of New York.”

She gave the doctor a startled, sidelong glance.

“But they are!” she insisted.

“Certainly, if you say so,” agreed Dr. Joe; “but I can’t help thinking that it’s rather a pity. A father like that boy of yours, for instance, would be some one he could be proud of.”

“And an ould grandmother that scrubs floors?”

“I couldn’t think of a much better one,” said Dr. Joe, pretending not to notice that she was hastily wiping her eyes.

“Whatever way it is,” she said, “I had me mind made up Frankie should get his chance. And now ye’ve promised me, doctor dear, and I can go off home to me brother in the ould country.”

“Granny!” cried Molly. “But what about me? You can’t--”

The old woman laid her hand on Molly’s shoulder.

“Ye’ll get on, acushla,” she said gently. “I want to go back to the ould country, and to what frinds is left me there. You’ll get on, you and Frankie, the both o’ ye. Where is the bye?”

“He’s in the kitchen, eating his lunch. But, granny--”

“Lave him come here,” said she, “so I can have a word with him.”

When Molly had gone, she turned again to the doctor.

“Studyin’ music, she was, and goin’ to be one o’ thim--thim that gives concerts an’ all,” she told him; “but I couldn’t go on with it. Frankie’s a bye, and it’s a bye has to have the chance.”

“You may be sure that if there’s anything I can do for her,” said Dr. Joe, “I will.”

“Well, there might be something,” said Katie judicially. Then Dr. Joe was astounded to see a grin on the old woman’s face--not a smile, but a broad grin. “Doctor dear,” she continued, “didn’t I pick ye out, the day I saw ye in the clinic, an’ me there with Mrs. O’Day? Didn’t I know if ye once set eyes on the two o’ thim--Frankie and Molly--ye’d be a frind to thim? I’m an ould woman. I cannot do much more for thim. I wint off to Mrs. O’Day’s last night, the way ye’d get better acquainted with thim. Sure, ye’re not angry with me, doctor dear?”

He was not.

* * * * *

On Sunday morning Mrs. Bennett telephoned to Dr. Joe, to remind him that he had promised to come to dinner that night. She knew by his tone that he had forgotten all about it.

“But--yes, of course,” he said. “I--yes; but see here! I--I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask Molly.”

“Molly, Dr. Joe?”

“Yes,” he answered, with immense pride. “Girl I’m going to marry next month. Can’t very well make any arrangements without consulting Molly, you know!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER, 1925 Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 2

The Worst Joke in the World

A STORY WHICH THROWS A NEW AND INTERESTING LIGHT UPON THE TIME-HONORED PROBLEM OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Mrs. Champney was putting the very last things into her bag, and Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane sat watching her. The room in which she had lived for nearly four years was already strange and unfamiliar. The silver toilet articles were gone from the bureau. The cupboard door stood open, showing empty hooks and shelves. The little water colors of Italian scenes had vanished from the walls, and the books from the table. All those things were gone which had so charmed and interested Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.

They were old ladies, and to them Jessica Champney at fifty was not old at all. With her gayety, her lively interest in life, and her dainty clothes, she seemed to them altogether young--girlish, even, in her enthusiastic moments, and always interesting. They loved and admired her, and were heavy-hearted at her going.

“You’ve forgotten the pussy cat, Jessica,” Mrs. Maxwell gravely remarked.

“Oh, so I have!” said Mrs. Champney.

Hanging beside the bureau was a black velvet kitten with a strip of sandpaper fastened across its back, and underneath it the inscription:

SCRATCH MY BACK

It was intended, of course, for striking matches. As Mrs. Champney never had occasion to strike a match, this little object was not remarkably useful. Nor, being a woman of taste, would she have admitted that it was in the least ornamental; but it was precious to her--so precious that a sob rose in her throat as she took it down from the wall.

She showed a bright enough face to the old ladies, however, as she carried the kitten across the room and laid it in the bag. She had often talked to these old friends about her past--about her two heavenly winters in Italy, about her girlhood “down East,” about all sorts of lively and amusing things that she had seen and done; but she had said very, very little about the period to which the velvet kitten belonged.

It had been given to her in the early days of her married life by a grateful and adoring cook. It had hung on the wall of her bedroom in that shabby, sunny old house in Connecticut where her three children had been born. She could not think of that room unmoved, and she did not care to talk of it to any one.

Not that it was sad to remember those bygone days. There was no trace of bitterness in the memory. It was all tender and beautiful, and sometimes she recalled things that made her laugh through the tears; but even those things she couldn’t talk about.

There was, for instance, that ridiculous morning when grandpa had come to see the baby, the unique and miraculous first baby. He had sat down in a chair and very gingerly taken the small bundle in his arms, and the chair had suddenly broken beneath his portly form. Down he crashed, his blue eyes staring wildly, his great white mustache fairly bristling with horror, the invaluable infant held aloft in both hands. If she had begun to tell about that, in the very middle of it another memory might have come--a recollection of the day when she had sat in that same room, the door locked, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes staring ahead of her at the years that must be lived without her husband, her friend and lover.

She had thought she could not bear that, but she had borne it; and the time had come when the memory of her husband was no longer an anguish and a futile regret, but a benediction. She had lived a happy life with her children. They were all married now, and in homes of their own, and she was glad that it should be so.

These four years alone had been happy, too. Her children wrote to her and visited her, and their family affairs were a source of endless interest. She had all sorts of other interests, too. She made friends readily; she was an energetic parish worker; she loved to read; she enjoyed a matinée now and then, or a concert, and the conversation of Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Deane.

With all her heart she had relished her freedom and her dignity. Her children were always asking her to come and live with one or the other of them, but she had always affectionately refused. She believed that it wasn’t wise and wasn’t right.

She had stayed on in this comfortable, old-fashioned boarding house in Stamford, cheerful and busy. It had been a delight beyond measure to her to send a little check now and then to one of her children, a present to a grandchild, some pretty thing that she had embroidered or crocheted to her daughters-in-law. Her elder son’s wife had written once that she was a “real fairy godmother,” and Mrs. Champney never forgot that. It was exactly what she wanted to be to them all--a gay, sympathetic, gracious fairy godmother.

But she wasn’t going to be one any longer. What her lawyer called a “totally unforeseen contingency” had arisen, and all her life was changed. He was a young man, that lawyer. His father had been Mrs. Champney’s lawyer and friend in his day, and she had, almost as a matter of course, given the son charge of her affairs when the elder man died.

She had not wanted either of her sons to look after things for her. She didn’t like even to mention financial matters to people she loved. Indeed, she had been a little obstinate about this. And now this “totally unforeseen contingency” had come, to sweep away almost all of her income, and with it the independence, the dignity, that were to her the very breath of life.

If it had been possible, she would not have told her children. She had said nothing when she had received that letter from the lawyer--such an absurd and pitiful letter, full of a sort of angry resentment, as if she had been unjustly reproaching him. She had gone to see him at once. She had been very quiet, very patient with him, and had asked very few questions about what had happened. She simply wanted to know exactly what there was left for her, and she learned that she would have fifteen dollars a month.

So she had been obliged to write to her children, and they had all wanted her immediately; but she chose her second son, because he lived nearest, and she hadn’t enough money for a longer journey. Now she was ready to go to his house.

She locked the bag and gave one more glance around the empty room.

“Well!” she said cheerfully. “That seems to be all!”

Mrs. Maxwell rose heavily from her chair.

“Jessica,” she said, not very steadily, “we’re going to miss you!”

Mrs. Deane also rose.

“Whoever else takes this room,” she added sternly, “it won’t be you--and I don’t care what any one says, either!”

Mrs. Champney put an arm about each of them and smiled at them affectionately. She was, in their old eyes, quite a young woman, full of energy and courage, trim and smart in her dark suit and her debonair little hat; but she had never before felt so terribly old and discouraged.

She couldn’t even tell these dear old friends that she would see them again soon, for in order to see them she would have either to get the money for the railway ticket from her son, or else to invite them to her daughter-in-law’s house. It hurt her to leave them like this--and it was only the beginning.

At this point the landlady came toiling up the stairs.

“The taxi’s here, Mrs. Champney,” she said, with a sigh. “My, how empty the room does look!”

So Mrs. Champney kissed the old ladies and went downstairs. The two servants were waiting in the hall to say good-by to her. She smiled at them. Then the landlady opened the front door, and Mrs. Champney went out of the house, still smiling, went down the steps, and got into the taxi.

She sat up very straight in the cab, a valiant little figure, dressed in her best shoes, with spotless white gloves, and her precious sable stole about her shoulders--and such pain and dread in her heart! There was no one in the world who could quite understand what she felt in this hour. To other people she was simply leaving a boarding house where she had lived all by herself, and going to a good home where she was heartily welcome, to a son whom she loved, a daughter-in-law of whom she was very fond, and a grandchild who was almost the very best of all her grandchildren; but to Mrs. Champney the journey was bitter almost beyond endurance.

She loved her children with all the strength of her soul, but she had been wise in her love. She had tried always to be a little aloof from them, never to be too familiar, never to be tiresome. She had given them all she had, all her love and care and sympathy, and she had wanted nothing in return. She wished them to think of her, not as weak and helpless, but as strong and enduring, and always ready to give. And now--

“Now I’m going to be a mother-in-law,” she said to herself. “Oh, please God, help me! Help me not to be a burden to Molly and Robert! Help me to stand aside and to hold my tongue! Oh, please God, help me not to be a mother-in-law!”

II

Mrs. Champney had arranged matters so as to reach the house just at dinner time. She even hoped that she might be a little late, so that there wouldn’t be any time at all to sit down and talk. She had never dreaded anything as she dreaded that first moment, the crossing of that threshold. Her hands and feet were like ice, her thin cheeks were flushed, anticipating it. She wanted to enter in an agreeable little stir and bustle, to be cheerful, to be casual; but Robert and Molly were too young for that. They would be too cordial.

“I don’t expect them to want me,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “They can’t want me. If they’d only just not try--not pretend!”

She did not know Molly very well. She had seen her a good many times--Molly and the incomparable baby--but that had been in the days when Mrs. Champney was a fairy godmother, with all sorts of delightful gifts to bestow. Robert’s wife had been a little shy with her. A kind, honest girl, Mrs. Champney had thought her, good to look at in her splendid health and vitality, but not very interesting. And now she had to come into poor Molly’s house!

She was pleased to see that her train was late. She had not told them what train she would take. Perhaps they wouldn’t keep dinner waiting. When she got there, perhaps they would be sitting at the table. Then she could hurry in, full of cheerful apologies, and sit down with them, and there wouldn’t be that strained, terrible moment she so much dreaded.

A vain hope! For, as she got out of the train, her heart sank to see Robert there waiting for her--Robert with his glummest face, Robert at his worst.

There was no denying that Robert had a worst. He was never willful and provoking, as his adorable sister could be upon occasion. He was never stormy and unreasonable, like his elder brother; but he could be what Mrs. Champney privately called “heavy,” and that was, for her, one of the most dismaying things any one could be. She saw at the first glance that he was going to be heavy now.

“Mother!” he said, in a tone almost tragic.

“But, my dear boy, how in the world did you know I’d get this train?” she asked gayly. “I didn’t write--”

“I’ve been waiting for an hour,” he answered. “You said ‘about dinner time,’ and I certainly wasn’t going to let you come from the station alone. This way--there’s a taxi waiting.”

Mrs. Champney was ashamed of herself. Robert was the dearest boy, so stalwart, so trustworthy, so handsome in his dark and somber fashion, and so touchingly devoted to her! After all, wasn’t it far better to be a little too heavy than too light and insubstantial? As he got into the cab beside her, she slipped her arm through his and squeezed it.

“You dear boy, to wait like that!” she said.

“Mother!” he said again. “By Heaven, I could wring that fellow’s neck! Speculating with your money--”

“Don’t take it like that, Robert. It’s all over and done with now.”

“No, it’s not!” said he. “It’s--the thing is, you’ve been used to all sorts of little--little comforts and so on; and just at the present time I’m not able to give you--”

“Please don’t, Robert!” she cried. “It hurts me!”

He put his arm about her shoulders.

“You’re not going to be hurt,” he said grimly; “not by any one, mother!”

His tone and his words filled her with dismay.

“Robert,” she said firmly, “I will not be made a martyr of!”

“A victim, then,” Robert insisted doggedly. “You’ve been tricked and swindled by that contemptible fellow; but Frank and I are going to see that it’s made right!”

“Oh, Robert! You’re not going to do anything to that poor, miserable, distracted man?”

“Nothing we can do. You gave the fellow a free hand, and he took advantage of it. No, I mean that Frank and I are going to make it up to you, mother.”

He might as well have added “at any cost.” Mrs. Champney winced in spirit, but at the same time she loved him for his blundering tenderness, his uncomprehending loyalty. He meant only to reassure her, but he made it all so hard, so terribly hard! She felt tears well up in her eyes. How could she go through with this gallantly if he made it so hard?

Then, suddenly, there came to her mind the memory of a winter afternoon, long, long ago, when Frank and Robert had been going out to skate. She had heard alarming reports about the ice, and she had run after them, bareheaded, into the garden. She could see that dear garden, bare and brown in the wintry sunshine; she could see her two boys, stopping and turning toward her as she called.

Frank had laughingly assured her that there was no danger at all. That was Frank’s way. She didn’t believe him, yet his sublime confidence in himself and his inevitable good luck somehow comforted her; and then Robert had said:

“Well, look here, mother--we’ll promise not to go near the middle of the pond at the same time. Then, whatever happens, you’ll have one of us left anyhow--see?”

And that was Robert’s way. The very thought of it stopped the dreaded invasion of tears and made her smile to herself in the dark. Such a splendidly honest way--and so devastating!

The taxi had stopped now, and Robert helped her out in a manner that made her feel very, very old and frail.

“Wait till I pay the driver, mother,” he said. “Don’t try to go alone--it’s too dark.”

So Mrs. Champney waited in the dark road outside that strange little house. Her son was paying for the cab; her son was going to assist her up the path; she was old and helpless and dependent.

Then the front door opened, and Molly stood there against the light.

“Hello, mother dear!” she called, in that big, rich, beautiful voice of hers. “Hurry in! It’s cold!”

Mrs. Champney did hurry in, and Molly caught her in both arms and hugged her tight.

“Just don’t mind very much how things are, will you?” she whispered. “My housekeeping’s pretty awful, you know!”

Tears came to Mrs. Champney’s eyes again, because this was such a blessed sort of welcome.

“As if I’d care!” she said.

“Let me show your room--and Bobbetty,” said Molly.

She took the bag from Robert, who had just come in, and ran up the stairs. Mrs. Champney followed her. All the little house seemed warm and bright with Molly’s beautiful, careless spirit. It wasn’t strange or awkward. It was like coming home; and the room that Molly had got ready for her was so pretty!

“Dinner’s all ready,” said Molly; “but--if you’ll just take one look at Bobbetty. He’s--when he’s asleep, he’s--”

Words failed her.

Mrs. Champney got herself ready as quickly as she could, and followed Molly down the hall to a closed door. Molly turned the handle softly, and they stepped into a little room that was like another world, all dark and still, with the wind blowing in at an open window.

“Nothing wakes him up!” whispered Molly proudly, and turned on a green-shaded electric lamp that stood on the bureau.

Mrs. Champney went over to the crib and looked down at the child who lay there--the child who was her child, flesh of her flesh, and was yet another woman’s child. He was beautiful--more beautiful than any of her children had been. He lay there like a little prince. His face, olive-skinned and warmly flushed on the cheeks, wore a look of careless arrogance, his dark brows were level and haughty, his mouth was richly scornful; and yet, for all this pride of beauty, she could not help seeing the baby softness and innocence and helplessness of him.

He might lie there like a little prince, but he was caged in an iron crib, he wore faded old flannel pyjamas, and beside him, where it had slipped from the hand that still grasped it in dreams, lay such an unprincely toy! Mrs. Champney, bending over to examine it, found it to be a rubber ball squeezed into a white sock.

It seemed to Mrs. Champney that she could never tire of looking at that beautiful baby. She hadn’t half finished when Molly touched her arm and whispered “Robert,” and, turning out the light, led her husband’s mother across the dark, windy room out into the hall again.

“I heard Robert getting restless downstairs,” she explained.

Side by side they descended the stairs. Mrs. Champney was happy, with that particular happiness which the companionship of babies brought to her. She had friends who were made unhappy by the sight of babies. They said that they couldn’t help looking ahead and imagining the sorrows in store for the poor little things. But to Mrs. Champney this seemed morbid and quite stupid, because, when the sorrows came, the babies would no longer be babies, but grown people, and as well able as any one else to deal with them.

No--babies were not melancholy objects to Mrs. Champney. On the contrary, they filled her with a strong and tender delight, because of her knowledge that whatever troubles came to them, she could surely help; because, for babies, a kiss is a cure for so much, and a song can dry so many baby tears; because love, which must so often stand mute and helpless before grown-up misery, can work such marvels for little children.

She was happy, then, until she reached the foot of the stairs--and not again for a long time.

Robert was waiting for them there. He came forward, with a faint frown, and pushed into place two hairpins that were slipping out of Molly’s hair. It was the most trifling action, yet it seemed to Mrs. Champney very significant. He didn’t like to see those hairpins falling out, didn’t like to see Molly’s lovely, shining hair in disorder. He noticed things of that sort, and he cared. He cared too much. There had been a look of annoyance and displeasure on his face that distressed Mrs. Champney.

Fussiness, she thought, was one of the most deplorable traits a man could have. It was only another name for pettiness, and that was something no member of her family had ever displayed. Could it be possible that Robert, the most uncompromising and high-minded of all her children, was developing in that way--and with such a wife as Molly?

She watched her son with growing uneasiness during the course of the dinner. It was a splendidly cooked dinner. The roast veal was browned and seasoned to perfection, the mashed potatoes were smooth and light, there were scalloped tomatoes and a salad of apples and celery, and a truly admirable lemon meringue pie; but Robert frowned because the potatoes were in an earthenware bowl, and the plates did not match. When the splendid pie appeared, in the tin dish in which it had been baked, he sprang up and carried it out into the kitchen, to return with it damaged, but lying properly on a respectable dish.

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Robert!” Molly said, each time that Robert found something wrong; and there was such generous contrition in her honest face that Mrs. Champney wanted to get up and shake her son.

What did those silly little things matter? How could he even see them, with Molly before his eyes?

“She’s beautiful,” thought Mrs. Champney. “She wouldn’t be beautiful in a photograph. I suppose she’d look quite plain; but when you’re with her--when she smiles--it’s like a blessing!”

III

It was not a comfortable meal for any of them, and Mrs. Champney was glad when it was finished. She offered to help Molly with the dishes, and she really wanted to do so; but when Molly refused, and she saw that Robert didn’t like the idea, she did not persist. She went into the little sitting room with Robert, and he settled her in an armchair, putting behind her shoulders a plump cushion that made her neck ache. He lit his pipe and began to move about restlessly.

“You know,” he began abruptly, “Molly’s not really--slovenly.”

“Robert!” cried Mrs. Champney. “What nonsense!”

“Yes, I know,” he said doggedly; “but I don’t want you to think--”

Mrs. Champney did not hear the rest of his speech. She was vaguely aware that he was making excuses for Molly, but she did not stop him. He had said enough. He had given her the key, and now she could understand.

This was not pettiness, and Robert was not fussy. It was because he loved Molly so much that he could not endure to have another person see in her what might be construed as faults. If he had been alone with Molly, he wouldn’t have cared, he wouldn’t even have noticed these things. It was because his mother had come, and he was afraid.

It is an old and a deep-rooted thing, the child’s faith in the mother’s judgment. If the mother has been honest and wise, if the child has been never deceived or disappointed by her, then, no matter how old he grows, or how far he may go from her, that old and deep-rooted faith lives in him. Robert, at twenty-six, was surer of himself than he was ever likely to be again. He was certain that all his ideas were his own, and that no living creature could influence him; yet he was terribly afraid of what his mother might think of Molly.

For, after all, his mother was the standard, and the home she had made for him in his boyhood must forever be the standard of homes. She would see that this home of Molly’s was not like that. She would think--

“You needn’t worry, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Champney gently. “I’m sure I’ll understand Molly.”

And no more than that. It wouldn’t do to tell him what she really thought of Molly. It would sound exaggerated and insincere. It would startle him, and it might conceivably make him contrary; so she held her tongue.

Presently Molly came in from the kitchen, flushed and smiling, and sank into a chair.

“Take off that apron, old girl,” said Robert.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Molly. “I always forget!”

Robert took it away into the kitchen.

“Too tired for a song, Molly?” he asked when he returned.

“Of course I’m not!” said she, getting up again.

She was tired, though, and a little nervous, and Mrs. Champney felt sorry for her; but Robert would have it so. His mother must see what Molly could do. He lay back in his chair, smoking, with an air of regal indifference, as if he were a young sultan who had commanded this performance but was not much interested in it; but as a matter of fact he was twice as nervous as Molly.

He had spoken to his mother before about Molly’s singing, and Mrs. Champney had thought of it as an agreeable accomplishment for a son’s wife, but this performance amazed her. This was not a parlor accomplishment, this big, glorious voice, true and clear, effortless because so perfectly managed. This was an art, and Molly was an artist.

“Molly!” she cried, when the song was done. “Molly, my dear! I don’t know what to say!”

Molly flushed with pleasure.

“I do love music,” she said. “I often hope Bobbetty will care about it.”

“That was a darned silly song, though,” observed Robert.

Molly turned away hastily.

“I know it was!” she said cheerfully.

But Mrs. Champney had seen the tears come into her eyes. Molly was hurt. She didn’t understand, and unfortunately Mrs. Champney did. She knew that Robert had been trying to tell his mother that Molly could do even better than this--that she could, if she chose, sing the most prodigious songs. He was afraid that his mother would judge and condemn Molly for that darned silly song about “the flowers all nodding on yonder hill.”

“That’s what being a mother-in-law really means,” said Mrs. Champney to herself. “It means being the third person, the one who stands outside and sees everything--all the poor, pitiful little faults and weaknesses. Love won’t help. The more I love them, the more I can’t help seeing, and they’ll know--they’ll always know. When Robert is impatient, Molly will know that I’ve noticed it, and she’ll think she has to notice it, too. When Molly is careless, Robert will imagine that I’m blaming her, and he’ll feel ashamed of her. That’s why mothers-in-law make trouble. It’s not because they always interfere, or because they’re troublesome and domineering. It’s because they see all the little things that nobody ought to see--the little things that would never grow important if a third person wasn’t there. I used to feel so sorry for mothers-in-law. I used to think it was a vulgar, heartless joke about their making trouble. A joke? Oh, it’s the worst, most horrible joke in the world--because it’s true!”

IV

Mrs. Champney did not sleep well that night. When she first turned out the light, a strange sort of panic seized her. She felt trapped, shut in, here in this unfamiliar room, in this house where she had no business to be, and yet could not leave. She got up and turned on the light, and that was better, for she could think more clearly in the light. She propped herself up on the pillows, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and sat there, trying to find the way out.

“There always is a way out,” she thought. “It’s never necessary to do a thing that injures other people. I must not stay here, or with any of my children. If I think quietly and sensibly, I can--”

There was a knock at the door.

“Are you all right, mother?” asked Robert’s voice. “I saw your light.”

“Perfectly all right, dear boy!” she answered brightly. “I’m very comfortable. Good night!”

“Sure?” he asked.

She wanted to jump up and go to him and kiss him--her dear, solemn, anxious Robert; but that wouldn’t do. Never, never, while she had a trace of dignity and honor, would she turn to her children for reassurance. She was the mother. She could not always be strong, but she could at least hide her weakness from her children. She could endure her bad moments alone.

“Quite sure!” she answered, and snapped out the light. “There! I’m going to sleep! Good night, my own dear, dear boy!”

“Good night, mother!” he answered.

His voice touched her so! If only she could let go, and be frail and helpless, and allow her children to take care of her! They would be so glad to do it--they would be so dear and kind!

“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now. You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any number of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”

And then, as if by inspiration, she thought of Emily Lyons.

The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years, but she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a little pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life to charitable work--an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought, rather a forlorn one.

Her pity fled in haste, however, when she saw Emily.

A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet, sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever, and yet Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember was a thin, freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and hesitating manner--an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair and popular Jessica. This was such a very different Emily--a person of importance, of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive office at her command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help being impressed by offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.

She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing way, but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence of this new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that she had worn her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the heels of her new shoes were not so high.

She told Emily that she wanted something to do.

“Do you mean charitable work, Jessica?” asked Miss Lyons.

“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a--a financial disaster. Of course, my children are only too willing, but--”

“They’re all married, aren’t they?” asked Emily.

Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs. Champney into a sort of bitterness.

“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law, Emily.”

Miss Lyons did not smile. She was silent for a time, looking down at her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked up.

“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I could give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but--”

“But what?” asked Mrs. Champney, after waiting a minute.

“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience,” said Miss Lyons.

“I’ve done a good deal of parish work,” said Mrs. Champney anxiously.

She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience--that her sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she had done.

“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found, though, that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined to be a little oversensitive when it comes to business.”

Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said that she hoped she wasn’t silly.

“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”

And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at the Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the world; but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves, she actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert about it.

The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt depressed, and tired and--yes, crushed--that was the word for it. She was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.

She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily, she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town. Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed unreal, and even a little fantastic.

She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself, somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy godmother--with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to bestow a little gift now and then.

She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought one of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said it was a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog, because of its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a frank and kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the train, going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for they were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely do this.

Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while Molly cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after his bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a large bib tied under his chin. A model child--yet, in the sidelong glance of his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was not to be touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a thoughtful and alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he would continue being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and violently to demand the bowwow.

Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow, and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib, clasping the bow-wow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of interesting things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt quite ashamed of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to sleep.

He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness, but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice continuing the story of a wild horsy who stampled on six policemens. Bobbetty was not yet three, but he had personality.

She was smiling as she went down the stairs--until she saw Robert. He came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him. She had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard beyond all measure.

She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her, with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much more than that--so much more!

Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert, making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life, with food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself was going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.

She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the table, she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.

It was even worse than she had feared. Robert grew very white.

“You mean--a job?” he asked.

“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it on commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home industries, and--”

“But you’re going to get paid for it?” asked Robert.

“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the work, too. I’ve always--”

“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”

“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,” replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.

There was a long silence.

“All right!” said Robert briefly.

She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much for her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her, and she would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all that he had to offer. She would take nothing.

“I’ve always led--such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert--”

“I do!” he said grimly.

“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t! You--”

She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw everything and--

She started at the touch of Molly’s hand on her arm.

“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and Mrs. Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.

V

Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood, there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life, when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There was the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil middle age, and there was her business life.

She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her youth. It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new and bitter wisdom.

The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other home-going commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps to the street, to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough. By the time she got there the car was full, and she drew back and let it go. She never was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been transferred into a world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was hopelessly outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.

She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent and energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities; but now, standing on the corner and looking after the car--

“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a trembling lip.

She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week. She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and making change--how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and most important customers--how stupid she had been about understanding the Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered the weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott was not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like a discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.

“Doddering!” Mrs. Champney repeated.

She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less than a mile--a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.

This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had already learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the fact that she was fifty, and utterly tired and miserable. It was superfluous, it was cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the street where Robert’s little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter with resentment.

“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”

But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those who would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly saw at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have dinner brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still more difficult to endure.

“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney, with great politeness.

What she wanted to do was to stamp her foot and cry:

“Let me alone! Let me alone! To-morrow is Saturday, and the next day is Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”

She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until ten o’clock.

“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she thought, “where I can be as tired as I like!”

When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five hundred, so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful hurry to get to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and Molly, and went upstairs.

Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got into bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired gray head on the pillow, that she cried.

She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it; but sleep came before she had driven it away--a heavy and sorrowful sleep, colored with the mist of tears.

She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was coming through into the shadowy world of dreams--something imperious and menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing her to do so. She heard something calling.

She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”--a sound which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.

“Mother! Mother! I want you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no one answered him. “I want you, mother!”

“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of anger.

She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its heartbreaking cry:

“Mother! Mother!”

Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door--Molly with her magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.

“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him up--said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”

“But he’s--so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.

“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.

Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was pale and desperate.

“No, Molly!” he said. “Dr. Pinney told us definitely--”

“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr. Pinney, indeed!”

She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of his crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into her own room.

VI

Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs. Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain, and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him--waited breathless, to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.

Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.

“Gramma!” he said contentedly, and sat up.

“We must be very quiet, not to wake mother,” said Mrs. Champney.

“Why?” asked Bobbetty.

In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he needed her--that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.

Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.

Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed, she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.

The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.

There was a wonderful perfume in the air--the intangible sweetness of spring--and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew it. Bobbetty could share it with her--he and he alone.

He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up, without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.

Then she drew the chairs up to the table--and made her great discovery.

“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why, I’m not the third person at all!”

She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her with a dazed look.

“There were three already--I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together. They’ll never be alone together any more--there’s Bobbetty. I can help so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much! Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed!”

She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.

“Bobbetty!” she said. “Do you know something?”

“Yes, I do!” shouted the child.

But Mrs. Champney told him, anyhow.

“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law. There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word. Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or--”

Molly appeared before her, evidently in great distress.

“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”

Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting like molten lava.

“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems--such a waste of time. I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”

Molly stared for a moment. Then she ran to the foot of the stairs.

“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s going to stay home!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

DECEMBER, 1925 Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 3

As Is

HOW MAUDE’S AUNT DEMONSTRATED THAT SHE WASN’T YOUNG, LIKE HER CHARMING NIECE, AND DIDN’T CARE TO BE SILLY

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Miss Carter fished out the last doughnut from the kettle of bubbling fat, laid it on a sheet of brown paper, and sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

“They’re extra good this time!” she said to herself.

She stood looking down at them. There they lay in rows and rows, feathery light, richly crisp and brown.

“Oh, my!” she cried. “I do wish I could eat just one!”

But even one doughnut would be treachery to Maude.

“You’ll ruin your figure and your digestion by eating between meals, Auntie Sue,” Maude had said. “Promise me you won’t!”

Miss Carter had refused to promise, but she had said that she would try, and she did try. She turned her back upon this temptation, with a faint sigh, and gave a last glance round the kitchen.

Nothing more for her to do here! It was as spotless as a chemist’s laboratory. Indeed, that was what Maude wanted it to be like. She said that a kitchen ought to be a home laboratory, and she wanted it all white and bleak and stern.

Even a high white stool had been provided for Miss Carter. She found it very convenient for many purposes, but she did like a rocking-chair, and she had apologetically brought one down from the attic. To please Maude she had painted it white, so that it also had a somewhat severe look; but when there was nobody else in the house, Miss Carter always got out that nice, downy old red silk cushion from the hall cupboard, put it into the chair, and sat down and rocked comfortably while she shelled peas or hulled berries, and so on.

The cushion always disappeared before Maude got home, because it would distress her. If she were to see it, she would surely go out the very next day and buy a scientific, up-to-date one--perhaps one like those hard, shiny things that dentists have in their chairs.

Maude disapproved of old, soft, comfortable things, and called them “slipshod.” She hated all that was not exact and efficient. It was misery for her to hear Miss Carter talk about putting in “a pinch” of cinnamon, instead of one-eighth of a teaspoonful, and the mention of “a lump of butter the size of an egg” appalled her.

She had bought Miss Carter glass measuring cups, quart measures, pint measures, scales, and sets of spoons of all sizes; and yet, in the making of these very doughnuts, Miss Carter had used that old blue teacup for measuring, and she had put in many “pinches” of things. It made her feel guilty to think of it, but she really couldn’t help it. At forty--

Now there was another treacherous thought! Maude never allowed her to be forty.

“Never think of yourself as forty,” Maude often said, “and you won’t feel forty.”

But in her secret heart Miss Carter wished that she could just comfortably be forty. It seemed to her a remarkably nice age to be. Indeed, she felt proud of it. When she went to buy a hat, and the saleswoman said something nice about her splendid head of hair, Miss Carter liked to say:

“It’s not bad for a woman of forty, if I do say it myself!”

She didn’t say this any more, because it worried Maude, but there were times when she defiantly thought it. It gave so much zest to life. For instance, that evening when they came back from the picnic, and every one else was so tired, and she wasn’t, one bit, even if she was for--

As she left the kitchen and the tantalizing aroma of the doughnuts, another perfume came floating in at the open front door. It was the scent of those dear little pinks and verbenas in the garden.

“I guess I’ll go out and sit on the porch for half an hour,” thought Miss Carter.

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