Edith Wharton ..........................................................................................................................................1

The Descent of Man ................................................................................................................................2

I................................................................................................................................................................2

II ..............................................................................................................................................................4

III .............................................................................................................................................................7

IV ............................................................................................................................................................8

V ............................................................................................................................................................10

VI ..........................................................................................................................................................11

The Other Two ......................................................................................................................................14

I..............................................................................................................................................................14

II .............................................................................................................................................................16

III ............................................................................................................................................................19

IV...........................................................................................................................................................22

V .............................................................................................................................................................24

Expiation ...............................................................................................................................................27

I..............................................................................................................................................................27

II. ............................................................................................................................................................30

III. ...........................................................................................................................................................34

IV...........................................................................................................................................................37

V. ............................................................................................................................................................39

The Lady's Maid's Bell .........................................................................................................................42

I .............................................................................................................................................................42

II .............................................................................................................................................................45

III ...........................................................................................................................................................49

IV...........................................................................................................................................................51

The Mission of Jane ..............................................................................................................................55

I..............................................................................................................................................................55

II .............................................................................................................................................................58

III ............................................................................................................................................................59

IV...........................................................................................................................................................61

V .............................................................................................................................................................62

VI...........................................................................................................................................................65

The Reckoning ......................................................................................................................................67

I .............................................................................................................................................................67

II .............................................................................................................................................................72

III ...........................................................................................................................................................76

The Letter ..............................................................................................................................................81

I..............................................................................................................................................................81

II .............................................................................................................................................................83

The Dilettante. ........................................................................................................................................91

The Quicksand ......................................................................................................................................98

I..............................................................................................................................................................98

II ...........................................................................................................................................................101

III ..........................................................................................................................................................104

A Venetian Night's Entertainment ......................................................................................................109

I ..........................................................................................................................................................109

II .........................................................................................................................................................113

III .........................................................................................................................................................117

WHEN Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods the air of rejuvenation he brought

with him was due less to the influences of the climate than to the companionship he had enjoyed on his

travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appeared to set out alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact

accompanied him, and if his heart beat high it was simply at the pitch of his adventure: for the Professor had

No one who has not tried the experiment can divine its exhilaration. Professor Linyard would not have

changed places with any hero of romance pledged to a fleshandblood abduction. The most fascinating

female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up a good deal of room in the present and

overlap inconveniently into the future; whereas an idea can accommodate itself to a single molecule of the

brain or expand to the circumference of the horizon. The Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality

of adaptability. As the express train whirled him away from the somewhat inelastic circle of Mrs. Linyard's

affections, his idea seemed to be sitting opposite him, and their eyes met every moment or two in a glance of

joyous complicity; yet when a friend of the family presently joined him and began to talk about college

matters, the idea slipped out of sight in a flash, and the Professor would have had no difficulty in proving that

But if, from the outset, he found his idea the most agreeable of fellowtravellers, it was only in the aromatic

solitude of the woods that he tasted the full savour of his adventure. There, during the long cool August days,

lying full length on the pineneedles and gazing up into the sky, he would meet the eyes of his companion

bending over him like a nearer heaven. And what eyes they were! clear yet unfathomable, bubbling with

inexhaustible laughter, yet drawing their freshness and sparkle from the central depths of thought! To a man

who for twenty years had faced an eye reflecting the obvious with perfect accuracy, these escapes into the

inscrutable had always been peculiarly inviting; but hitherto the Professor's mental infidelities had been

restricted by an unbroken and relentless domesticity. Now, for the first time since his marriage, chance had

given him six weeks to himself, and he was coming home with his lungs full of liberty.

It must not be inferred that the Professor's domestic relations were defective: they were in fact so complete

that it was almost impossible to get away from them. It is the happy husbands who are really in bondage; the

little rift within the lute is often a passage to freedom. Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he had

sought in it; a comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of rising to sentimental crises had made him

scrupulously careful not to shirk the practical obligations of the bond. He took as it were a sociological view

of his case, and modestly regarded himself as a brick in that foundation on which the state is supposed to rest.

Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared about entomology, or had taken sides in the war over the transmission of

acquired characteristics, he might have had a less impersonal notion of marriage; but he was unconscious of

any deficiency in their relation, and if consulted would probably have declared that he didn't want any woman

bothering with his beetles. His real life had always lain in the universe of thought, in that enchanted region

which, to those who have lingered there, comes to have so much more colour and substance than the painted

curtain hanging before it. The Professor's particular veil of Maia was a narrow strip of homespun woven in a

This unseen universe was thronged with the most seductive shapes: the Professor moved Sultanlike through

a seraglio of ideas. But of all the lovely apparitions that wove their spells about him, none had ever worn

quite so persuasive an aspect as this latest favourite. For the others were mostly rather grave companions,

seriousminded and elevating enough to have passed muster in a Ladies' Debating Club; but this new fancy

of the Professor's was simply one embodied laugh. It was, in other words, the smile of relaxation at the end of

a long day's toil: the flash of irony that the laborious mind projects, irresistibly, over labour conscientiously

performed. The Professor had always been a hard worker. If he was an indulgent friend to his ideas, he was

also a stern taskmaster to them. For, in addition to their other duties, they had to support his family: to pay

the butcher and baker, and provide for Jack's schooling and Millicent's dresses. The Professor's household

was a modest one, yet it tasked his ideas to keep it up to his wife's standard. Mrs. Linyard was not an exacting

wife, and she took enough pride in her husband's attainments to pay for her honours by turning Millicent's

dresses and darning Jack's socks, and going to the College receptions year after year in the same black silk

with shiny seams. It consoled her to see an occasional mention of Professor Linyard's remarkable monograph

on the Ethical Reactions of the Infusoria, or an allusion to his investigations into the Unconscious

Still there were moments when the healthy indifference of Jack and Millicent reacted on the maternal

sympathies; when Mrs. Linyard would have made her husband a railwaydirector, if by this transformation

she might have increased her boy's allowance and given her daughter a new hat, or a set of furs such as the

other girls were wearing. Of such moments of rebellion the Professor himself was not wholly unconscious.

He could not indeed understand why any one should want a new hat; and as to an allowance, he had had

much less money at college than Jack, and had yet managed to buy a microscope and collect a few

"specimens"; while Jack was free from such expensive tastes! But the Professor did not let his want of

sympathy interfere with the discharge of his paternal obligations. He worked hard to keep the wants of his

family gratified, and it was precisely in the endeavor to attain this end that he at length broke down and had

To cease from work was not to cease from thought of it; and in the unwonted pause from effort the Professor

found himself taking a general survey of the field he had travelled. At last it was possible to lift his nose from

the loom, to step a moment in front of the tapestry he had been weaving. From this first inspection of the

pattern so long wrought over from behind, it was natural to glance a little farther and seek its reflection in the

public eye. It was not indeed of his special task that he thought in this connection. He was but one of the great

army of weavers at work among the threads of that cosmic woof; and what he sought was the general

When Professor Linyard first plied his microscope, the audience of the man of science had been composed of

a few fellowstudents, sympathetic or hostile as their habits of mind predetermined, but versed in the jargon

of the profession and familiar with the point of departure. In the intervening quarter of a century, however,

this little group had been swallowed up in a larger public. Every one now read scientific books and expressed

an opinion on them. The ladies and the clergy had taken them up first; now they had passed to the

schoolroom and the kindergarten. Daily life was regulated on scientific principles; the daily papers had their

"Scientific Jottings"; nurses passed examinations in hygienic science, and babies were fed and dandled

The very fact that scientific investigation still had, to some minds, a flavour of heterodoxy, gave it a perennial

interest. The mob had broken down the walls of tradition to batten in the orchard of forbidden knowledge.

The inaccessible goddess whom the Professor had served in his youth now offered her charms in the

marketplace. And yet it was not the same goddess after all, but a pseudoscience masquerading in the garb

of the real divinity. This false goddess had her ritual and her literature. She had her sacred books, written by

false priests and sold by millions to the faithful. In the most successful of these works, ancient dogma and

modern discovery were depicted in a close embrace under the limelights of a hazy transcendentalism; and

the tableau never failed of its effect. Some of the books designed on this popular model had lately fallen into

the Professor's hands, and they filled him with mingled rage and hilarity. The rage soon died: he came to

regard this mass of pseudoliterature as protecting the truth from desecration. But the hilarity remained, and

flowed into the form of his idea. And the idea the divine, incomparable idea was simply that he should

avenge his goddess by satirizing her false interpreters. He would write a skit on the "popular" scientific book;

he would so heap platitude on platitude, fallacy on fallacy, false analogy on false analogy, so use his superior

knowledge to abound in the sense of the ignorant, that even the gross crowd would join in the laugh against

its augurs. And the laugh should be something more than the distension of mental muscles; it should be the

trumpetblast bringing down the walls of ignorance, or at least the little stone striking the giant between the

THE Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would command prompt access to the publisher's

sanctuary; but the young man who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was clear that

Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a specific figure to the purveyors of popular literature.

But the publisher was an old friend; and when the card had finally drifted to his office on the languid tide of

The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been right in bringing his manuscript to Ned

Harviss. He and Harviss had been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one of the wildest

spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly turns out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands

and fathers. The Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was aware that many of his most reckless

comrades had been transformed into prudent capitalists or cowed wageearners; but he was almost sure that

he could count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so keen a perception of relative values, could hardly have

The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as if he had been fattened on popular fiction;

and his fat was full of optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his office a long train

of spotless heroines laden with the maiden tribute of the hundredth thousand volume.

Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his early enormities, and capped his visitor's

tentative allusions by such flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his manuscript without a

The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm it all depends I'm afraid you're a little too

scientific for us. We have a big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the concentrated essences. In

your case, of course, I should be delighted to stretch a point; but in your own interest I ought to tell you that

The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that science was so profitable; we find our

"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have a fancy to have you publish this thing."

"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name goes with a certain public and I

rather like the originality of our bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us both." His

creases deepened at the thought, and he shone encouragingly on the Professor's leavetaking.

Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to town. He had been looking forward with

immense zest to this second meeting; Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured himself

following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his friend's progress through the manuscript. He was

proud of the adroitness with which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had maintained to the last the

pretense of a serious work, in order to give the keener edge to his reader's enjoyment. Not since

undergraduate days had the Professor tasted such a draught of pure fun as his anticipations now poured for

This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the office like a successful novelist, and

"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already you'll excuse my not waiting to consult you? There

will be no difficulty about terms, I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the autumn market. My dear

Linyard, why didn't you tell me?" His voice sank to a reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own

The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of letting you find out?"

"Well it was a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars. "I don't know when I've had a bigger

sensation. It was so deucedly unexpected and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the right

Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a doubt of it; but of course I was quite

There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses and looked at his friend. "Well ?" he

"Well ?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah I see; you mean that that's what explains it. The swing of

the pendulum, and so forth. Well, I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed myself, for

example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow I hadn't expected it of you."

The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the official congratulation of his tone; but the

"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven do you think this thing is?" And he

Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent eye on the document.

"Why, your apologia your confession of faith, I should call it. You surely must have seen which way you

"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were not?" Harviss leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on

his visitor's worn coatsleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there was the least

unkindness in my allusion to your change of front. What is growth but the shifting of the standpoint? Why

should a man be expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at our age? It never occurred to

me that you could feel the least delicacy in admitting that you have come round a little have fallen into

But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to expand; and from them there issued a

Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his desk; it was evident that he was prepared for

"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor. "I'll I'll quiet down in a minute; you needn't

ring for the young man." He dropped into his chair again, and grasped its arms to steady his shaking. "This is

the best laugh I've had since college," he brought out between his paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up

Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My dear Linyard," he said at length, "I don't

The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which he managed to fling out "But that's

"Why, what the book is meant to be." His laughter subsided again and he sat gazing thoughtfully at the

"If I am the mark, you certainly have," said Harviss, with a glance at the clock.

The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. "The book is a skit," he said, rising.

Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. "I don't pretend to be up in such recondite forms of

humour," he said, still stiffly. "Of course you address yourself to a very small class of readers."

"Oh, infinitely small," admitted the Professor, extending his hand toward the manuscript.

Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. "That is," he continued, "if you insist on an ironical

The publisher smiled faintly. "Well isn't the book susceptible of another? If I read it without seeing "

"why shouldn't the rest of the world?" declared Harviss boldly. "I represent the Average Reader that's

my business, that's what I've been training myself to do for the last twenty years. It's a mission like another

the thing is to do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows who are publishers in

business hours and dilettantes the rest of the time. Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary

in business as in religion. But that's not the point I was going to say that if you'll let me handle this book

"A serious piece of work the expression of your convictions. I tell you there's nothing the public likes as

much as convictions they'll always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is just on

the line of popular interest. You've got hold of a big thing. It's full of hope and enthusiasm: it's written in the

religious key. There are passages in it that would do splendidly in a Birthday Book things that popular

preachers would quote in their sermons. If you'd wanted to catch a big public you couldn't have gone about it

in a better way. The thing's perfect for my purpose I wouldn't let you alter a word of it. It'll sell like a

WHEN the Professor left Harviss's office, the manuscript remained behind. He thought he had been taken by

the huge irony of the situation by the enlarged circumference of the joke. In its original form, as Harviss

had said, the book would have addressed itself to a very limited circle: now it would include the world. The

elect would understand; the crowd would not; and his work would thus serve a double purpose. And, after all,

nothing was changed in the situation; not a word of the book was to be altered. The change was merely in the

publisher's point of view, and in the "tip" he was to give the reviewers. The Professor had only to hold his

These arguments found a strong reinforcement in the large premium which expressed Harviss's sense of his

opportunity. As a satire, the book would have brought its author nothing; in fact, its cost would have come

out of his own pocket, since, as Harviss assured him, no publisher would have risked taking it. But as a

profession of faith, as the recantation of an eminent biologist, whose leanings had hitherto been supposed to

be toward a cold determinism, it would bring in a steady income to author and publisher. The offer found the

Professor in a moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the necessity of postponing

a course of wellpaid lectures, had combined to diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an

advance of a thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible. It was still as a joke that he

persisted in regarding the transaction; and though he had pledged himself not to betray the real intent of the

book, he held in petto the notion of some day being able to take the public into his confidence. As for the

initiated, they would know at once: and however long a face he pulled, his colleagues would see the tongue in

his cheek. Meanwhile it fortunately happened that, even if the book should achieve the kind of triumph

prophesied by Harviss, it would not appreciably injure its author's professional standing. Professor Linyard

was known chiefly as a microscopist. On the structure and habits of a certain class of coleoptera he was the

most distinguished living authority; but none save his intimate friends knew what generalizations on the

destiny of man he had drawn from these special studies. He might have published a treatise on the Filioque

without disturbing the confidence of those on whose approval his reputation rested; and moreover he was

sustained by the thought that one glance at his book would let them into its secret. In fact, so sure was he of

this that he wondered the astute Harviss had cared to risk such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably

reflected that even in this reverberating age the opinions of the laboratory do not easily reach the street; and

The determining cause of his consent was the fact that the book was already in press. The Professor knew

little about the workings of the press, but the phrase gave him a sense of finality, of having been caught

himself in the toils of that mysterious engine. If he had had time to think the matter over, his scruples might

have dragged him back; but his conscience was eased by the futility of resistance.

MRS. LINYARD did not often read the papers; and there was therefore a special significance in her

approaching her husband one evening after dinner with a copy of the New York Investigator in her hand. Her

expression lent solemnity to the act: Mrs. Linyard had a limited but distinctive set of expressions, and she

"Tell you of what?" returned the Professor, reddening to the margin of his baldness.

"That you had published a book I might never have heard of it if Mrs. Pease hadn't brought me the paper."

Her husband rubbed his eyeglasses with a groan. "Oh, you would have heard of it," he said gloomily.

Mrs. Linyard stared. "Did you wish to keep it from me, Samuel?" And as he made no answer, she added with

irresistible pride: "Perhaps you don't know what beautiful things have been said about it."

He took the paper with a reluctant hand. "Has Pease been saying beautiful things about it?"

The author heaved a sigh of relief. His book, as Harviss had prophesied, had caught the autumn market: had

caught and captured it. The publisher had conducted the campaign like an experienced strategist. He had

completely surrounded the enemy. Every newspaper, every periodical, held in ambush an advertisement of

"The Vital Thing." Weeks in advance the great commander had begun to form his lines of attack. Allusions to

the remarkable significance of the coming work had appeared first in the scientific and literary reviews,

spreading thence to the supplements of the daily journals. Not a moment passed without a quickening touch

to the public consciousness: seventy millions of people were forced to remember at least once a day that

Professor Linyard's book was on the verge of appearing. Slips emblazoned with the question: Have you read

"The Vital Thing"? fell from the pages of popular novels and whitened the floors of crowded streetcars. The

query, in large lettering, assaulted the traveller at the railway bookstall, confronted him on the walls of

"elevated" stations, and seemed, in its ascending scale, about to supplant the interrogations as to soap and

On the day of publication, the Professor had withdrawn to his laboratory. The shriek of the advertisements

was in his ears, and his one desire was to avoid all knowledge of the event they heralded. A reaction of

selfconsciousness had set in, and if Harviss's cheque had sufficed to buy up the first edition of "The Vital

Thing" the Professor would gladly have devoted it to that purpose. But the sense of inevitableness gradually

subdued him, and he received his wife's copy of the Investigator with a kind of impersonal curiosity. The

review was a long one, full of extracts: he saw, as he glanced over them, how well they would look in a

volume of "Selections." The reviewer began by thanking his author "for sounding with no uncertain voice

that note of ringing optimism, of faith in man's destiny and the supremacy of good, which has too long been

silenced by the whining chorus of a decadent nihilism. . . . It is well," the writer continued, "when such

reminders come to us not from the moralist but from the man of science when from the desiccating

atmosphere of the laboratory there rises this glorious cry of faith and reconstruction."

The review was minute and exhaustive. Thanks no doubt to Harviss's diplomacy, it had been given to the

Investigator's "best man," and the Professor was startled by the bold eye with which his emancipated fallacies

confronted him. Under the reviewer's handling they made up admirably as truths, and their author began to

understand Harviss's regret that they should be used for any less profitable purpose.

The Investigator, as Harviss phrased it, "set the pace," and the other journals followed, finding it easier to let

their critical manofallwork play a variation on the first reviewer's theme than to secure an expert to "do"

the book afresh. But it was evident that the Professor had captured his public, for all the resources of the

profession could not, as Harviss gleefully pointed out, have carried the book so straight to the heart of the

nation. There was something noble in the way in which Harviss belittled his own share in the achievement,

and insisted on the inutility of shoving a book which had started with such headway on.

"All I ask you is to admit that I saw what would happen," he said with a touch of professional pride. "I knew

you'd struck the right note I knew they'd be quoting you from Maine to San Francisco. Good as fiction?

"Will it?" said the Professor with a slight shudder. He was resigned to an ephemeral triumph, but the thought

"I should say so! Why, you fit in everywhere science, theology, natural history and then the

allforthebest element which is so popular just now. Why, you come right in with the HowtoRelax

series, and they sell way up in the millions. And then the book's so full of tenderness there are such lovely

things in it about flowers and children. I didn't know an old Dryasdust like you could have such a lot of

sentiment in him. Why, I actually caught myself snivelling over that passage about the snowdrops piercing

the frozen earth; and my wife was saying the other day that, since she's read "The Vital Thing," she begins to

think you must write the "WhatCheer Column in the Inglenook." He threw back his head with a laugh which

ended in the inspired cry: "And, by George, sir, when the thing begins to slow off we'll start somebody

writing against it, and that will run us straight into another hundred thousand."

MRS. LINYARD'S knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had been trying to persuade the

Professor to be taken by flashlight at his study table for the Christmas number of the Inglenook. On this point

the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the unwonted smile with which he welcomed his wife's

The lady from the Inglenook took the hint with professional promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the

The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his wife's question: "Do they pay you for

The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly," he said, wondering at her expression.

"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the other day "

Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really believe your success has turned his head."

"It's only that Jack has has borrowed some money which he can't repay. But you mustn't think him

altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the success of your book he has been asked about so much it's given

the children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they go the first question asked is, 'Are

you any relation of the author of "The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud of the book; but it entails

The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the studytable which he had just

successfully defended from the camera of the Inglenook. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a

"I don't know that the Inglenook would help much," he said, "but I suppose this might."

"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the RoundtheGasLog column of The Woman's World. I believe that

journal has a larger circulation than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."

He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been so easy to relieve recent domestic

difficulties by the timely production of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs. Linyard

out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's

suggestion that he should follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had sworn not to

lend more than a passive support to the fraud of "The Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from

Mrs. Linyard prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on the Scientific Sermons.

The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his family happy; and it was his own

business if his reward for so doing was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital Thing"

gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged his own existence and opened new doors into other

lives. The Professor, during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only two types of women: the fond

and foolish, whom one married, and the earnest and intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he infinitely

preferred the former, even for conversational purposes. But as a social instrument woman was unknown to

him; and it was not till he was drawn into the world on the tide of his literary success that he discovered the

deficiencies in his classification of the sex. Then he learned with astonishment of the existence of a third

type: the woman who is fond without foolishness and intellectual without earnestness. Not that the Professor

inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal

interest which some of his new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of

serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal without being domestic.

Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly, and emphasis was the only indelicacy, the

Professor found himself constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was unpleasant at first;

but gradually he slipped into the habit of hearing it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women

Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his family relations. His photograph in the

Inglenook, to which the lady of the notebook had succeeded in appending a vivid interview, carried his

fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing"; and the Professor found himself the man of the hour.

He soon grew used to the functions of the office, and gave out hundreddollar interviews on every subject,

from labourstrikes to Babism, with a frequency which reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer.

Presently his head began to figure in the advertising pages of the magazines. Admiring readers learned the

name of the only breakfastfood in use at his table, of the ink with which "The Vital Thing" had been written,

the soap with which the author's hands were washed, and the tissuebuilder which fortified him for further

effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to millions of readers, and his head passed in due course

THE Professor, all the while, was leading a double life. While the author of "The Vital Thing" reaped the

fruits of popular approval, the distinguished microscopist continued his laboratory work unheeded save by the

few who were engaged in the same line of investigations. His divided allegiance had not hitherto affected the

quality of his work: it seemed to him that he returned to the laboratory with greater zest after an afternoon in

a drawingroom where readings from "The Vital Thing" had alternated with plantation melodies and tea. He

had long ceased to concern himself with what his colleagues thought of his literary career. Of the few whom

he frequented, none had referred to "The Vital Thing"; and he knew enough of their lives to guess that their

silence might as fairly be attributed to indifference as to disapproval. They were intensely interested in the

Professor's views on beetles, but they really cared very little what he thought of the Almighty.

The Professor entirely shared their feelings, and one of his chief reasons for cultivating the success which

accident had bestowed on him, was that it enabled him to command a greater range of appliances for his real

work. He had known what it was to lack books and instruments; and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand

which summoned them to his aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a discovery:

balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The

conjecture was the result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would take months more of

comparison and classification. But at the end of the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself

that assurance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes a lifetime seem the mere comma

between premiss and deduction. But he had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It

was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and criticism of his associates, that he

could test their final value; and this inner assurance was confirmed by the only friend whose confidence he

Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs. Linyard's eyes to the triumph of "The Vital

Thing," was the repository of her husband's scientific experiences. What he thought of "The Vital Thing" had

never been divulged; and he was capable of such vast exclusions that it was quite possible that pervasive

work had not yet reached him. In any case, it was not likely to affect his judgment of the author's professional

"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease's summingup. "I'm sure you've got hold

of something big; but to see it clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my advice chuck

It's time you wrote a book, anyhow! The words smote the Professor with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could

have wept over their significance. But his friend's other phrase reminded him with a start of Harviss. "You

have got hold of a big thing " it had been the publisher's first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a

world of meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which the powers who fought for the

Professor were destined to wage their final battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome.

The next day he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for an advance on the new popular edition of

"The Vital Thing." He had determined to drop a course of supplementary lectures at the University, and to

give himself up for a year to his book. To do this, additional funds were necessary; but thanks to "The Vital

The publisher received him as cordially as usual; but the response to his demand was not as prompt as his

"Of course we'll be glad to do what we can for you, Linyard; but the fact is, we've decided to give up the idea

"Why, yes we've done pretty well by 'The Vital Thing,' and we're inclined to think it's your turn to do

The Professor looked at him blankly. "What can I do for it?" he asked "what more" his accent added.

"Why, put a little new life in it by writing something else. The secret of perpetual motion hasn't yet been

discovered, you know, and it's one of the laws of literature that books which start with a rush are apt to slow

down sooner than the crawlers. We've kept 'The Vital Thing' going for eighteen months but, hang it, it

ain't so vital any more. We simply couldn't see our way to a new edition. Oh, I don't say it's dead yet but

"Do? Why write another like it go it one better: you know the trick. The public isn't tired of you by any

means; but you want to make yourself heard again before anybody else cuts in. Write another book write

two, and we'll sell them in sets in a box: The Vital Thing Series. That will take tremendously in the holidays.

Try and let us have a new volume by October I'll be glad to give you a big advance if you'll sign a

"Well, what's the matter with taking my advice you're not going out of literature, are you?"

Harviss looked at him with equal gravity. "Well, I'm sorry for that," he said, "because it takes you out of our

bailiwick. But I suppose you've made enough money out of 'The Vital Thing' to permit yourself a little

harmless amusement. When you want more cash come back to us only don't put it off too long, or some

other fellow will have stepped into your shoes. Popularity don't keep, you know; and the hotter the success

He leaned back, cheerful and sententious, delivering his axioms with conscious kindliness.

The Professor, who had risen and moved to the door, turned back with a wavering step.

"I said October but call it a month later. You don't need any pushing nowadays."

"And you'd have no objection to letting me have a little advance now? I need some new instruments for

Harviss extended a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, that's talking I'll write the cheque while you wait; and I

daresay we can start up the cheap edition of 'The Vital Thing' at the same time, if you'll pledge yourself to

In the street, the Professor stood staring about him, uncertain and a little dazed.

"After all, it's only putting it off for six months," he said to himself; "and I can do better work when I get my

He smiled and raised his hat to the passing victoria of a lady in whose copy of "The Vital Thing" he had

WAYTHORN, on the drawingroom hearth, waited for his wife to come down to dinner.

It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so

old, to be sure his glass gave him little more than the fiveandthirty years to which his wife confessed

but he had fancied himself already in the temperate zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a

tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial doorposts floating

They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs.

Waythorn's first marriage. The little girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the day of

her mother's wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke the news that she was ill with typhoid, but

declared that all the symptoms were favorable. Lily could show twelve years of unblemished health, and the

case promised to be a light one. The nurse spoke as reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn

had adjusted herself to the situation. She was very fond of Lily her affection for the child had perhaps

been her decisive charm in Waythorn's eyes but she had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl

had inherited, and no woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry. Waythorn was therefore quite

prepared to see her come in presently, a little late because of a last look at Lily, but as serene and

wellappointed as if her goodnight kiss had been laid on the brow of health. Her composure was restful to

him; it acted as ballast to his somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over the child's bed

he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness: her very step would prognosticate recovery.

His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than circumstance, and he had been drawn to her

by the unperturbed gayety which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women's activities are

growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was said about her; for, popular as she was, there had always

been a faint undercurrent of detraction. When she had appeared in New York, nine or ten years earlier, as the

pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had unearthed somewhere was it in Pittsburgh or Utica?

society, while promptly accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own discrimination.

Inquiry, however, established her undoubted connection with a socially reigning family, and explained her

recent divorce as the natural result of a runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was known of Mr.

Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted, and for

a few years the Varicks were the most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and

stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even Varick's stanchest supporters admitted that

he was not meant for matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were of a nature to bear the inspection of the

New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue, and in the semi widowhood of this

second separation Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide her wrongs to some of

the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was known that she was to marry Waythorn there was a

momentary reaction. Her best friends would have preferred to see her remain in the role of the injured wife,

which was as becoming to her as crape to a rosy complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed, and it was not

even suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor. Still, people shook their heads over him, and

one grudging friend, to whom he affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly: "Yes

Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall Street phrase, he had "discounted" them. He

knew that society has not yet adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the adaptation takes

place every woman who uses the freedom the law accords her must be her own social justification. Waythorn

had an amused confidence in his wife's ability to justify herself. His expectations were fulfilled, and before

the wedding took place Alice Varick's group had rallied openly to her support. She took it all imperturbably:

she had a way of surmounting obstacles without seeming to be aware of them, and Waythorn looked back

with wonder at the trivialities over which he had worn his nerves thin. He had the sense of having found

refuge in a richer, warmer nature than his own, and his satisfaction, at the moment, was humorously summed

up in the thought that his wife, when she had done all she could for Lily, would not be ashamed to come

The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment expressed by Mrs. Waythorn's charming

face when she presently joined him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected to

assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn thought he had never seen her look so nearly worried.

"No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn hesitated. "But something tiresome has

He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a paper between them.

Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed to have remained in the outer

darkness from which his wife had been rescued, and Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he

had given up his business in Utica and followed her to New York in order to be near his little girl. In the days

of his wooing, Waythorn had often met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and smiling, on her way "to see papa."

"I'm afraid he has the right. . . . You'll see. . . ." She made a proffer of the letter.

Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring about the softly lighted room, which a

Waythorn turned to his wife. "Come you must be tired. It's beastly, but try to forget about it," he said,

Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers, between the rosy candleshades, he

He turned to the butler. "The champagne at once, please. Mrs. Waythorn is tired."

In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her own were quite clear and untroubled: he

WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett was not likely to come till the

afternoon, but the instinct of flight drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day he had thoughts of

dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he reflected that before he opened it again it would have

admitted another man who had as much right to enter it as himself, and the thought filled him with a physical

He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself crushed between two layers of pendulous

humanity. At Eighth Street the man facing him wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn glanced up

and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of

recognition on Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all why not? They had always been on good

terms, and Varick had been divorced before Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a

word on the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at their side was miraculously left

"Lord I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned back, looking unconcernedly at Waythorn.

"No. I've been away I only got back last night." Waythorn felt himself reddening in anticipation of the

"Ah yes; to be sure. And Sellers's attack came on two days ago. I'm afraid he's pretty bad. Very awkward

for me, as it happens, because he was just putting through a rather important thing for me."

"Ah?" Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in "important things." Hitherto he

had dabbled only in the shallow pools of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually concern

It occurred to him that Varick might be talking at random, to relieve the strain of their propinquity. That

strain was becoming momentarily more apparent to Waythorn, and when, at Cortlandt Street, he caught sight

of an acquaintance, and had a sudden vision of the picture he and Varick must present to an initiated eye, he

"I hope you'll find Sellers better," said Varick civilly, and he stammered back: "If I can be of any use to you

At his office he heard that Sellers was in fact ill with the gout, and would probably not be able to leave the

"I'm sorry it should have happened so, Mr. Waythorn," the senior clerk said with affable significance. "Mr.

Sellers was very much upset at the idea of giving you such a lot of extra work just now."

"Oh, that's no matter," said Waythorn hastily. He secretly welcomed the pressure of additional business, and

was glad to think that, when the day's work was over, he would have to call at his partner's on the way home.

He was late for luncheon, and turned in at the nearest restaurant instead of going to his club. The place was

full, and the waiter hurried him to the back of the room to capture the only vacant table. In the cloud of

cigarsmoke Waythorn did not at once distinguish his neighbors; but presently, looking about him, he saw

Varick seated a few feet off. This time, luckily, they were too far apart for conversation, and Varick, who

faced another way, had probably not even seen him; but there was an irony in their renewed nearness.

Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat despatching his hurried luncheon he looked

across half enviously at the other's leisurely degustation of his meal. When Waythorn first saw him he had

been helping himself with critical deliberation to a bit of Camembert at the ideal point of liquefaction, and

now, the cheese removed, he was just pouring his cafe double from its little twostoried earthen pot. He

poured slowly, his ruddy profile bent above the task, and one beringed white hand steadying the lid of the

coffeepot; then he stretched his other hand to the decanter of cognac at his elbow, filled a liqueurglass,

Waythorn watched him in a kind of fascination. What was he thinking of only of the flavor of the coffee

and the liqueur? Had the morning's meeting left no more trace in his thoughts than on his face? Had his wife

so completely passed out of his life that even this odd encounter with her present husband, within a week

after her remarriage, was no more than an incident in his day? And as Waythorn mused, another idea struck

him: had Haskett ever met Varick as Varick and he had just met? The recollection of Haskett perturbed him,

and he rose and left the restaurant, taking a circuitous way out to escape the placid irony of Varick's nod.

It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the footman who opened the door looked at him

"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him off, hurrying upstairs.

He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife. When he reached the drawingroom she

was there, fresh and radiant. Lily's day had been good; the doctor was not coming back that evening.

At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the resulting complications. She listened

sympathetically, adjuring him not to let himself be overworked, and asking vague feminine questions about

the routine of the office. Then she gave him the chronicle of Lily's day; quoted the nurse and doctor, and told

him who had called to inquire. He had never seen her more serene and unruffled. It struck him, with a curious

pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the

After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the coffee and liqueurs on a low table before her and

left the room. She looked singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark leather of one of

That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward her, applying a match to his cigar.

Well, the thing was over for a week, at any rate. He would try not to think of it. She looked up at him, a trifle

He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the coffeepot. The lamplight struck a gleam

from her bracelets and tipped her soft hair with brightness. How light and slender she was, and how each

gesture flowed into the next! She seemed a creature all compact of harmonies. As the thought of Haskett

receded, Waythorn felt himself yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were his, those white hands

with their flitting motions, his the light haze of hair, the lips and eyes. . . .

She set down the coffeepot, and reaching for the decanter of cognac, measured off a liqueurglass and

TEN DAYS later, Mr. Sellers, still housebound, asked Waythorn to call on his way downtown.

The senior partner, with his swaddled foot propped up by the fire, greeted his associate with an air of

Waythorn waited, and the other went on, after a pause apparently given to the arrangement of his phrases:

"The fact is, when I was knocked out I had just gone into a rather complicated piece of business for Gus

"Well it's this way: Varick came to me the day before my attack. He had evidently had an inside tip from

somebody, and had made about a hundred thousand. He came to me for advice, and I suggested his going in

"Oh, the deuce!" Waythorn exclaimed. He saw in a flash what had happened. The investment was an alluring

one, but required negotiation. He listened intently while Sellers put the case before him, and, the statement

"I'm afraid I can't as yet. The doctor is obdurate. And this thing can't wait. I hate to ask you, but no one else in

Waythorn stood silent. He did not care a farthing for the success of Varick's venture, but the honor of the

That afternoon, apprised by telephone, Varick called at the office. Waythorn, waiting in his private room,

wondered what the others thought of it. The newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's marriage, had

acquainted their readers with every detail of her previous matrimonial ventures, and Waythorn could fancy

Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being undignified, and Waythorn was conscious of

cutting a much less impressive figure. Varick had no head for business, and the talk prolonged itself for

nearly an hour while Waythorn set forth with scrupulous precision the details of the proposed transaction.

"I'm awfully obliged to you," Varick said as he rose. "The fact is I'm not used to having much money to look

after, and I don't want to make an ass of myself " He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing that

there was something pleasant about his smile. "It feels uncommonly queer to have enough cash to pay one's

Waythorn winced at the allusion. He had heard it rumored that a lack of funds had been one of the

determining causes of the Varick separation, but it did not occur to him that Varick's words were intentional.

It seemed more likely that the desire to keep clear of embarrassing topics had fatally drawn him into one.

"We'll do the best we can for you," he said. "I think this is a good thing you're in."

"Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you " Varick broke off, embarrassed. "I suppose the

"If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again," said Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the

The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed Waythorn grew used to the idea of Haskett's

weekly visit. The first time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as to the visit on

his return. She replied at once that Haskett had merely seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor did not wish

The following week Waythorn was again conscious of the recurrence of the day, but had forgotten it by the

time he came home to dinner. The crisis of the disease came a few days later, with a rapid decline of fever,

and the little girl was pronounced out of danger. In the rejoicing which ensued the thought of Haskett passed

out of Waythorn's mind and one afternoon, letting himself into the house with a latchkey, he went straight to

In the library he found a small effacedlooking man with a thinnish gray beard sitting on the edge of a chair.

The stranger might have been a pianotuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are

summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic machinery. He blinked at Waythorn through

a pair of goldrimmed spectacles and said mildly: "Mr. Waythorn, I presume? I am Lily's father."

Waythorn flushed. "Oh " he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off, disliking to appear rude. Inwardly

he was trying to adjust the actual Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences.

"Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose the nurse has been told?"

"I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of speaking, as though life had worn down

"I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he said; and as he opened the door he added with

an effort: "I'm glad we can give you a good report of Lily." He winced as the we slipped out, but Haskett

"Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn nodded and passed out.

In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the womanish sensibility which made him

suffer so acutely from the grotesque chances of life. He had known when he married that his wife's former

husbands were both living, and that amid the multiplied contacts of modern existence there were a thousand

chances to one that he would run against one or the other, yet he found himself as much disturbed by his brief

encounter with Haskett as though the law had not obligingly removed all difficulties in the way of their

Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not suffered half so much from his two

meetings with Varick. It was Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so intolerable. He

"This way, please," he heard the nurse say. Haskett was being taken upstairs, then: not a corner of the house

but was open to him. Waythorn dropped into another chair, staring vaguely ahead of him. On his

dressingtable stood a photograph of Alice, taken when he had first known her. She was Alice Varick then

how fine and exquisite he had thought her! Those were Varick's pearls about her neck. At Waythorn's

instance they had been returned before her marriage. Had Haskett ever given her any trinkets and what

had become of them, Waythorn wondered? He realized suddenly that he knew very little of Haskett's past or

present situation; but from the man's appearance and manner of speech he could reconstruct with curious

precision the surroundings of Alice's first marriage. And it startled him to think that she had, in the

background of her life, a phase of existence so different from anything with which he had connected her.

Varick, whatever his faults, was a gentleman, in the conventional, traditional sense of the term: the sense

which at that moment seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning to Waythorn. He and Varick had the

same social habits, spoke the same language, understood the same allusions. But this other man . . . it was

grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that Haskett had worn a madeup tie attached with an elastic.

Why should that ridiculous detail symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own

paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him, became as it were the key to Alice's past. He

could see her, as Mrs. Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a pianola, and a copy of

"Ben Hur" on the centretable. He could see her going to the theatre with Haskett or perhaps even to a

"Church Sociable" she in a "picture hat" and Haskett in a black frockcoat, a little creased, with the

madeup tie on an elastic. On the way home they would stop and look at the illuminated shopwindows,

lingering over the photographs of New York actresses. On Sunday afternoons Haskett would take her for a

walk, pushing Lily ahead of them in a white enameled perambulator, and Waythorn had a vision of the

people they would stop and talk to. He could fancy how pretty Alice must have looked, in a dress adroitly

constructed from the hints of a New York fashionpaper; how she must have looked down on the other

women, chafing at her life, and secretly feeling that she belonged in a bigger place.

For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in which she had shed the phase of

existence which her marriage with Haskett implied. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every

inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period of her life. If she had denied being married to

Haskett she could hardly have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this obliteration of the self which had

Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her motives. What right had he to create a fantastic

effigy of her and then pass judgment on it? She had spoken vaguely of her first marriage as unhappy, had

hinted, with becoming reticence, that Haskett had wrought havoc among her young illusions. . . . It was a pity

for Waythorn's peace of mind that Haskett's very inoffensiveness shed a new light on the nature of those

illusions. A man would rather think that his wife has been brutalized by her first husband than that the

Haskett, subdued and apologetic, stood before Waythorn in the library, revolving his shabby hat in his hand.

Waythorn, surprised in his armchair over the evening paper, stared back perplexedly at his visitor.

"You'll excuse my asking to see you," Haskett continued. "But this is my last visit, and I thought if I could

have a word with you it would be a better way than writing to Mrs. Waythorn's lawyer."

Waythorn rose uneasily. He did not like the French governess either; but that was irrelevant.

"I am not so sure of that," he returned stiffly; "but since you wish it I will give your message to my wife."

The latter sighed. "I don't know as that will help much. She didn't like it when I spoke to her."

"Not since the first day I came to see Lily right after she was taken sick. I remarked to her then that I

Waythorn made no answer. He remembered distinctly that, after that first visit, he had asked his wife if she

had seen Haskett. She had lied to him then, but she had respected his wishes since; and the incident cast a

curious light on her character. He was sure she would not have seen Haskett that first day if she had divined

that Waythorn would object, and the fact that she did not divine it was almost as disagreeable to the latter as

"I don't like the woman," Haskett was repeating with mild persistency. "She ain't straight, Mr. Waythorn

she'll teach the child to be underhand. I've noticed a change in Lily she's too anxious to please and she

don't always tell the truth. She used to be the straightest child, Mr. Waythorn " He broke off, his voice a

Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't quite see what I can do."

Haskett hesitated. Then he laid his hat on the table, and advanced to the hearthrug, on which Waythorn was

standing. There was nothing aggressive in his manner; but he had the solemnity of a timid man resolved on a

"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can remind Mrs. Waythorn that, by the

decree of the courts, I am entitled to have a voice in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went on more

deprecatingly: "I'm not the kind to talk about enforcing my rights, Mr. Waythorn. I don't know as I think a

man is entitled to rights he hasn't known how to hold on to; but this business of the child is different. I've

The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect ways, he had been finding out about

Haskett; and all that he had learned was favorable. The little man, in order to be near his daughter, had sold

out his share in a profitable business in Utica, and accepted a modest clerkship in a New York manufacturing

house. He boarded in a shabby street and had few acquaintances. His passion for Lily filled his life. Waythorn

felt that this exploration of Haskett was like groping about with a darklantern in his wife's past; but he saw

now that there were recesses his lantern had not explored. He had never inquired into the exact circumstances

of his wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the surface all had been fair. It was she who had obtained the

divorce, and the court had given her the child. But Waythorn knew how many ambiguities such a verdict

might cover. The mere fact that Haskett retained a right over his daughter implied an unsuspected

compromise. Waythorn was an idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant contingencies till he

found himself confronted with them, and then he saw them followed by a special train of consequences. His

next days were thus haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by conjuring them up in his wife's

When he repeated Haskett's request a flame of anger passed over her face; but she subdued it instantly and

The word grated on Waythorn. "That is neither here nor there. It's a bare question of rights."

Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is," he repeated, "what authority has he over

She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am willing to see him I thought you

In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's claims. Perhaps it was not the first time she had

"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if Haskett has a right to be consulted you must

She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as a victim.

Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure that he would not. But the governess was

dismissed, and from time to time the little man demanded an interview with Alice. After the first outburst she

accepted the situation with her usual adaptability. Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the pianotuner,

and Mrs. Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with that domestic familiar. Waythorn could

not but respect the father's tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett might be "up

to" something, that he had an object in securing a foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure

of Haskett's singlemindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild contempt for such advantages as his

relation with the Waythorns might offer. Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable, and his

Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and Varick's affairs hung on Waythorn's hands. The

negotiations were prolonged and complicated; they necessitated frequent conferences between the two men,

and the interests of the firm forbade Waythorn's suggesting that his client should transfer his business to

Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn

dreaded his geniality; but in the office he was concise and clearheaded, with a flattering deference to

Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so affably established, it would have been absurd for the

two men to ignore each other in society. The first time they met in a drawingroom, Varick took up their

intercourse in the same easy key, and his hostess's grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it. After

that they ran across each other frequently, and one evening at a ball Waythorn, wandering through the

remoter rooms, came upon Varick seated beside his wife. She colored a little, and faltered in what she was

saying; but Varick nodded to Waythorn without rising, and the latter strolled on.

In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't know you spoke to Varick."

Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time he happened to be standing near me; I didn't know what to

do. It's so awkward, meeting everywhere and he said you had been very kind about some business."

She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly. "I thought it would be less awkward to

Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her own no theory about her relation

to these men? She had accepted Haskett did she mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as she had

said, and her instinct was to evade difficulties or to circumvent them. With sudden vividness Waythorn saw

how the instinct had developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe" a shoe that too many feet had worn. Her

elasticity was the result of tension in too many different directions. Alice Haskett Alice Varick Alice

Waythorn she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of

THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns' acceptance of Varick. Harassed

hostesses were grateful to them for bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as a

miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist the diversion of throwing Varick and his

former wife together, and there were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But Mrs.

Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided Varick nor sought him out. Even

Waythorn could not but admit that she had discovered the solution of the newest social problem.

He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had fancied that a woman can shed her

past like a man. But now he saw that Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which forced her

into continued relation with it, and by the traces it had left on her nature. With grim irony Waythorn

compared himself to a member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's personality and his

predecessors were his partners in the business. If there had been any element of passion in the transaction he

would have felt less deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands like a change of

weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses; for

resisting Hackett, for yielding to Varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of

a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut her.

And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort

with the small change of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less store upon the

coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap

revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages which accrued from it, to ask

himself if it were not better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one

who had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For it was an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions,

eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew

exactly how to manage the lights, and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to

trace the source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which had combined to produce his

domestic happiness: he perceived that Haskett's commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while

Varick's liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues; so that he was

directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring.

From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased to satirize himself because time dulled

the irony of the situation and the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat on the hall

table had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat was often seen there now, for it had been decided

that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his boardinghouse. Waythorn,

having acquiesced in this arrangement, had been surprised to find how little difference it made. Haskett was

never obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware of his identity. Waythorn did

not know how often he saw Alice, but with himself Haskett was seldom in contact.

One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father was waiting to see him. In the library he

found Haskett occupying a chair in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to him for not

"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted to see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and

"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that morning given over the drawingroom

He opened his cigarcase and held it out to his visitor, and Haskett's acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage

in their intercourse. The spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his guest to draw up his chair to the

fire. He meant to find an excuse to leave Haskett in a moment; but he was tired and cold, and after all the

The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar smoke when the door opened and Varick

walked into the room. Waythorn rose abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house, and

the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular inopportuneness of his arrival, gave a new edge to

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must apologize for tumbling in on you in this

way, but I was too late to catch you down town, and so I thought " He stopped short, catching sight of

Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a

moment he recovered himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in silence, and Waythorn was

The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the deuce are you bringing this here for?"

"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the drawingroom, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would

have tea in the library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a reflection on Waythorn's

"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman proceeded to open the folding teatable and set

out its complicated appointments. While this interminable process continued the three men stood motionless,

watching it with a fascinated stare, till Waythorn, to break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a

He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick helped himself with a smile. Waythorn

looked about for a match, and finding none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the background,

held his ground mildly, examining his cigartip now and then, and stepping forward at the right moment to

The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could just say half a word to you about

But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and his wife appeared on the threshold.

She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a fragrance from the boa which she

"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught sight of Varick. Her smile deepened,

veiling a slight tremor of surprise. "Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure.

As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her smile faded for a moment, but she

"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a shade less cordially.

The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most selfpossessed, dashed into an

"We I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered, brickred from chin to nape.

Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to intrude; but you appointed five o'clock

"I'm so sorry I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She stood drawing her gloves off,

propitiatory and graceful, diffusing about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost its

grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly, "I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea."

She dropped into her low chair by the teatable, and the two visitors, as if drawn by her smile, advanced to

Her unruffled aspect she was the kind of woman whose emotions never communicate themselves to her

clothes and the conventional background of the New York drawingroom, with its pervading implication

of an imminent teatray and of an atmosphere in which the social functions have become purely reflex, lent

to her declaration a relief not lost on her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from the other side of the fireplace, agreed

"Bores!" cried Mrs. Fetherel impatiently. "If I shuddered at them>, I should have a chronic ague!"

She leaned forward and laid a sparkling finger on her cousin's shabby black knee. "I mean the newspaper

Mrs. Fetherel's look of apprehension sat oddly on her small features, which had an air of neat symmetry

somehow suggestive of being set in order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there were rumors

that it was her cousin) had once said that Paula Fetherel would have been very pretty if she hadn't looked so

Mrs. Clinch received her confidence with a smile. "Well," she said, "I suppose you were prepared for the

Mrs. Fetherel blushed brightly. "It isn't their coming," she owned "it's their coming now."

Mrs. Clinch leaned back and shaped her lips to a whistle which deflected in a laugh. "Well!" she said.

"Who has taken the most unexpected tone one might almost say out of perversity."

"Oh, perversity " Mrs. Clinch murmured, observing her cousin between lids wrinkled by amusement.

Mrs. Fetherel threw out her answer with the desperate gesture of a woman who lays bare the traces of a

"Oh, you may laugh," Mrs. Fetherel insisted, "but it's no joke to me. In the first place, John's liking the book

is so so such a false note it puts me in such a ridiculous position; and then it has set him watching

for the reviews who would ever have suspected John of knowing that books were reviewed? Why, he's

actually found out about the Clipping Bureau, and whenever the postman rings I hear John rush out of the

library to see if there are any yellow envelopes. Of course, when they do come he'll bring them into the

drawingroom and read them aloud to everybody who happens to be here and the Bishop is sure to

Mrs. Clinch repressed her amusement. "The picture you draw is a lurid one," she conceded, "but your

modesty strikes me as abnormal, especially in an author. The chances are that some of the clippings will be

"Well, I mean they don't all belong to the wellknown SocietyforthePersecutionofRisingAuthors.

Some of them have even been known to defy its regulations and say a good word for a new writer."

"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Fetherel, with the laugh her cousin's epigram exacted. "But you don't quite see my

point. I'm not at all nervous about the success of my book my publisher tells me I have no need to be

The butler and footman at this moment appeared with the teatray, and when they had withdrawn, Mrs.

Fetherel, bending her brightly rippled head above the kettle, continued in a murmur of avowal, "The title,

"I didn't choose it for that reason!" the author protested. "I should have preferred something quieter less

pronounced; but I was determined not to shirk the responsibility of what I had written. I want people to know

"Well," said Mrs. Clinch, "that's a degree of conscientiousness that I've never met with before. So few books

fulfil the promise of their titles that experienced readers never expect the fare to come up to the menu."

"'Fast and Loose' will be no disappointment on that score,"her cousin significantly returned. "I've handled the

"You simply make my mouth water! And to think I haven't been able to read it yet because every spare

minute of my time has been given to correcting the proofs of 'How the Birds Keep Christmas'! There's an

Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose to experienced authors there's always

something absurd in the nervousness of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake; I've put so much of

myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being misunderstood . . . of being, as it were, in advance of my time

. . . like poor Flaubert. . . . I know you'll think me ridiculous . . . and if only my own reputation were at stake,

I should never give it a thought . . . but the idea of dragging John's name through the mire . . ."

Mrs. Clinch, who had risen and gathered her cloak about her,stood surveying from her genial height her

"That's another of my difficulties! I had to. There would have been no merit in publishing such a book under

an assumed name; it would have been an act of moral cowardice. 'Fast and Loose' is not an ordinary novel. A

writer who dares to show up the hollowness of social conventions must have the courage of her convictions

and be willing to accept the consequences of defying society. Can you imagine Ibsen or Tolstoy writing

under a false name?" Mrs. Fetherel lifted a tragic eye to her cousin. "You don't know, Bella, how often I've

envied you since I began to write. I used to wonder sometimes you won't mind my saying so? why,

with all your cleverness, you hadn't taken up some more exciting subject than natural history; but I see now

"Is that what you're afraid of?" asked Mrs. Clinch, as she grasped the bulging umbrella which rested against

her chair. "My dear, if I had ever had the good luck to be denounced by the press, my brougham would be

waiting at the door for me at this very moment, and I shouldn't have to ruin this umbrella by using it in the

rain. Why, you innocent, if I'd ever felt the slightest aptitude for showing up social conventions, do you

suppose I should waste my time writing 'Nests Ajar' and 'How to Smell the Flowers'? There's a fairly steady

demand for pseudoscience and colloquial ornithology, but it's nothing, simply nothing, to the ravenous call

for attacks on social institutions especially by those inside the institutions!"

There was often, to her cousin, a lack of taste in Mrs.Clinch's pleasantries, and on this occasion they seemed

Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed. "Perhaps that's just as well,"she returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The

surprise will be all the pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously; especially if you can

"Bella, how can you? I sometimes think you say such things expressly to tease me; and yet I should think you

of all women would understand my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed to me that the

message I had to deliver was not for myself alone, but for all the other women in the world who have felt the

hollowness of our social shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the idols of the market, but have lacked

either the courage or the power to proclaim their independence; and I have fancied,Bella dear, that, however

severely society might punish me for revealing its weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy of those who,

Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free her ample shoulders from any drop of the

"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll find, my dear, that women who've had any

wading to do are rather shy of stirring up mud. It sticks especially on white clothes."

Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped

her teaspoon with a clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she exclaimed, "and I know it's

It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced by Mrs. Fetherel's butler, now made an

entry that may best be described as not inadequate to the expectations the announcement raised. The Bishop

always entered a room well; but,when unannounced, or preceded by a Low Church butler who gave him his

surname, his appearance lacked the impressiveness conferred on it by the due specification of his diocesan

dignity. The Bishop was very fond of his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one of the traits he most valued in her was

Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself

open to her uncle's criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of going into five or ten

editions, while the fruits of his own episcopal leisure "The Wail of Jonah" (twenty cantos in blank verse),

and "Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora Memorial Window" inexplicably languished

on the back shelves of a publisher noted for his dexterity in pushing "devotional goods." Even this

indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned,had his niece thought fit to turn to him for support

and advice at the painful juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became necessary for her to invite

Mr. Clinch to look out for another situation. Mr. Clinch's misconduct was of the kind especially designed by

Providence to test the fortitude of a Christian wife and mother, and the Bishop was absolutely distended with

seasonable advice and edification; so that when Bella met his tentative exhortations with the curt remark that

she preferred to do her own housecleaning unassisted, her uncle's grief at her ingratitude was not untempered

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bishop's warmest greetings were always reserved for Mrs. Fetherel; and

on this occasion Mrs. Clinch thought she detected, in the salutation which fell to her share, a pronounced

suggestion that her own presence was superfluous a hint which she took with her usual imperturbable

Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge from conversation by offering him a cup

of tea. The Bishop accepted with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment,tea is but a

subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and knowing that the surest way of distracting

attention from one's own affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she hastily asked if her

"On business yes " said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had to see my publisher, who has been

"Ah your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense of her inability to recall the name or

nature of the work in question, and a mental vow never again to be caught in such ignorance of a colleague's

"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis which revealed his detection of her

"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful story of the poor consumptive girl who had

"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a beautiful memorial window to her

"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during her long struggle with poverty and

disease." The Bishop gave the satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A touching

subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice;at least, so my friends assured me."

"Why, yes I remember there was a splendid review of it in the 'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by

"Yes by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean Gollinger, was under very

particular obligations to me. Mrs. Gollinger is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my book

was unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned fare, and the approval of a thoughtful

churchwoman carries less weight than the sensational comments of an illiterate journalist." The Bishop lent a

meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the risk of horrifying you, my dear," he added, with a slight laugh,

"I will confide to you that my best chance of a popular success would be to have my book denounced by the

"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze. "Such a thing is inconceivable to you,

of course; but I am only repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic could be induced I

mean, if a critic were to be found, who called in question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own

health and that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window to her grandfather, it would probably

raise a general controversy in the newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen thousand within

the next year. If he described her as morbid or decadent, it might even run to twenty thousand;but that is more

than I permit myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any general charge of immorality." The

Bishop sighed again. "I need hardly tell you that I am actuated by no mere literary ambition. Those whose

opinion I most value have assured me that the book is not without merit; but, though it does not become me

to dispute their verdict, I can truly say that my vanity as an author is not at stake. I have, however, a special

reason for wishing to increase the circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly'; it was written for a purpose a

"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence, my little book might be the means of

filling it. All our wealthy parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for this "`reason that, in

writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my appeal more especially to the less wellendowed, hoping by the

example of my heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums throughout the entire diocese, and perhaps

beyond it. I am sure," the Bishop feelingly concluded, "the book would have a widespread influence if

His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in Mrs.Fetherel's vibrating nervecenters. "I never

He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have

Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her involuntary selfbetrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she

"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to brush away her scruples, "I came here partly

"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and it must be quite cold. Let me give you

"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland inexorableness with which, in his younger days,

he had been known to continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at his watch "my

reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too late to induce you to change the title."

The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me,dear child; don't for a moment imagine that I

take it to be in anyway indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for that. My first idea was

that it had probably been forced on you by an unscrupulous publisher I know too well to what ignoble

compromises one may be driven in such cases! . . ." He paused, as though to give her the opportunity of

confirming this conjecture,but she preserved an apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though taking up the

second point in his sermon "Or, again, the name may have taken your fancy without your realizing all that

it implies to minds more alive than yours to offensive innuendoes. It is ahem excessively suggestive,

and I hope I am not too late to warn you of the false impression it is likely to produce on the very readers

whose approbation you would most value. My friend Mrs. Gollinger, for instance "

Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in theory a woman of independent views; and if in

practise she sometimes failed to live up to her standard, it was rather from an irresistible tendency to adapt

herself to her environment than from any conscious lack of moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had

excited in her that sense of opposition which such admonitions are apt to provoke; but as he went on she felt

herself gradually enclosed in an atmosphere in which her theories vainly gasped for breath. The Bishop had

the immense dialectical advantage of invalidating any conclusions at variance with his own by always

assuming that his premises were among the necessary laws of thought. This method, combined with the habit

of ignoring any classifications but his own, created an element in which the first condition of existence was

the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so that his niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs.Gollinger's

Mechlin cap spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow and the "Revue de Paris" at her elbow

turning into a copy of the "Reredos." She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware of the

significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her

novel, and that the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class of readers for whose

susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words were almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion

conveyed by the Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic murmur, "Oh, uncle, you

mustn't think I never meant " How much farther this current of reaction might have carried her, the

historian is unable to computer, for at this point the door opened and her husband entered the room.

"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're

Though the trials of married life have been classified and catalogued with exhaustive accuracy, there is one

form of conjugal misery which has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is the suffering of the

versatile woman whose husband is not equally adapted to all her moods. Every woman feels for the sister

who is compelled to wear a bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but how much sympathy is given to

her whose husband refuses to harmonize with the pose of the moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been

done to the misunderstood wife whose husband persists in understanding her; to the submissive helpmate

whose taskmaster shuns every opportunity of browbeating her; and to the generous and impulsive being

whose bills are paid with philosophic calm. Mrs. Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt from trials of

this nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by pronounced brutality or indifference, had at least the

negative merit of being her intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware of the usefulness of a

valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can form an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman

may turn such deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had made the most of her

opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to every one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate

such a woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he did his best to invalidate this advantage by

admiring her without pretending to understand her. What she most suffered from was this fatuous approval:

the maddening sense that, however she conducted herself, he would always admire her. Had he belonged to

the class whose conversational supplies are drawn from the domestic circle, his wife's name would never

have been off his lips; and to Mrs. Fetherel's sensitive perceptions his frequent silences were indicative of the

It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation that had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship.

She had fancied that even the most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at least negatively, an

attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness

of her act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact complicated by an irrepressible tendency to

be fond of him; and there was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that justified the most explicit

These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the book with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his

friends, he sent a copy to his mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the reviewers. It was

perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that made his wife doubly alive to his special defects; so that his

inopportune entrance was aggravated by the very sound of his voice and the hopeless aberration of his smile.

Nothing, to the observant, is more indicative of a man's character and circumstances than his way of entering

a room. The Bishop of Ossining, for instance, brought with him not only an atmosphere of episcopal

authority, but an implied opinion on the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and on the attitude of the church

toward divorce; while the appearance of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an immediate impression of

domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that there was a wellfilled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she

did not sew on his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that task; that they both went to church

regularly, and that they dined with his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock.

All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with which he now raised the yellow envelope

above Mrs. Fetherel's clutch; and knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be silly,she said, with a dry

Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted.

"Read it? Of course not it's just this minute come. I say,Bishop, you're not going ?"

"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his chair with an indulgent smile.

His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense detain you," she entreated.

"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as one of his sermons won't take me five

minutes to read. Here, listen to this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism and decadent

depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer to open one more volume saturated with the fetid

Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his

niece, who kept her gaze fixed on the teacup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his hand.

"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder is proportionately great when he lights on a novel

as sweetly inoffensive as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a new hand at

fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure,

fresh view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader's moral susceptibilities. Let no one be

induced by its distinctly misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of domestic life,

which, in spite of a total lack of force in characterdrawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be

It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the plebeian aroma of heated tramcars and

muddy streetcrossings into the violetscented atmosphere of her cousin's drawingroom.

"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a silkcushioned berg�re, "I've read it at

Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid hand, looked up without speaking.

Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a buttered teacake; then she glanced again at

Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically, "want to hear it mentioned again!"

Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat

"Nothing ?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another teacake, but feeling the inappropriateness of the

impulse in an atmosphere so charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything has been said?" She

"They've been odious odious " Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief.

Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of taking no more tea, crossed over to her

"It is a bore at first," she conceded; "but you'll be surprised to see how soon one gets used to it."

Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied from what you said before the book came

"I? Oh, well you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn't quite as bad as I expected "

Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly

"He wrote me I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared him he wanted me to change it; but

when he'd read the book he wrote that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his friends."

"The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but professional jealousy."

"Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it

"Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at the cold remains of her teacake. "Let me

see,"she said, suddenly; "do you happen to remember if the first review came out in an important paper?"

"That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves

a lot of trouble. Now if you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you "

"He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was to have it denounced on the ground of

"H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She turned an illuminated eye on her cousin.

Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must stand or fall on its own merits," she said

"Bosh! That view is as extinct as the postchaise and the packetship it belongs to the time when people

read books. Nobody does that now; the reviewer was the first to set the example, and the public were only too

thankful to follow it. At first they read the reviews; now they read only the publishers' extracts from them.

Even these are rapidly being replaced by paragraphs borrowed from the vocabulary of commerce. I often

have to look twice before I am sure if I am reading a departmentstore advertisement or the announcement of

a new batch of literature. The publishers will soon be having their 'fall and spring openings' and their 'special

importations for HorseShow Week.' But the Bishop is right, of course nothing helps a book like a

rousing attack on its morals;and as the publishers can't exactly proclaim the impropriety of their own wares,

Mrs. Fetherel shook her head hopelessly. "There is so much more interest in literature in England than here."

"Well, we've got to make the supply create the demand. The Bishop could run your novel up into the hundred

"I'm awfully sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't help being thankful that there's no demand

for pessimism in the field of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a Sparrow,' or 'How the Plants

Mrs. Fetherel, driving up to the Grand Central Station one morning about five months later, caught sight of

the distinguished novelist, Archer Hynes, hurrying into the waitingroom ahead of her. Hynes, on his side,

recognizing her brougham, turned back to greet her as the footman opened the carriagedoor.

Mrs. Fetherel blushed with pleasure. Hynes had given her two columns of praise in the Sunday "Meteor," and

"Why not? There's a special ceremony in the cathedral the chantry window is to be unveiled."

"The chantry window? How picturesque! What is a chantry? And why do you want to see it unveiled? Are

"Oh, no." Mrs. Fetherel hesitated. "I'm going simply to please my uncle," she said, at last.

"The Bishop the Bishop of Ossining? Why, wasn't he the chap who made that ridiculous attack on your

book? Is that prehistoric ass your uncle? Upon my soul, I think you're mighty forgiving to travel all the way

Mrs. Fetherel's smile flowed into a gentle laugh. "Oh, I've never allowed that to interfere with our friendship.

My uncle felt dreadfully about having to speak publicly against my book it was a great deal harder for him

than for me but he thought it his duty to do so. He has the very highest sense of duty."

"Well," said Hynes, with a shrug, "I don't know that he didn't do you a good turn. Look at that!"

They were standing near the bookstall, and he pointed to a placard surmounting the counter and emblazoned

with the conspicuous announcement: "Fast and Loose. New Edition with Author's Portrait. Hundred and

Mrs. Fetherel frowned impatiently. "How absurd! They've no right to use my picture as a poster!"

"There's our train," said Hynes; and they began to push their way through the crowd surging toward one of

As they stood wedged between circumferent shoulders, Mrs.Fetherel became conscious of the fixed stare of a

pretty girl who whispered eagerly to her companion: "Look Myrtle! That's Paula Fetherel right behind us I

"Gracious where?" cried the other girl, giving her head a twist which swept her Gainsborough plumes

The first speaker's words had carried beyond her companion's ear, and a lemoncolored woman in spectacles,

who clutched a copy of the "Journal of Psychology" on one drabcottongloved hand,stretched her

"Have I the privilege of addressing the distinguished author of 'Fast and Loose'? If so, let me thank you in the

name of the Woman's Psychological League of Peoria for your magnificent courage in raising the standard of

"You can tell us the rest in the car," said a fat man,pressing his goodhumored bulk against the speaker's arm.

Mrs. Fetherel, blushing, embarrassed and happy,slipped into the space produced by this displacement, and a

She was a little late, and the other chairs were already filled by a company of elderly ladies and clergymen

who seemed to belong to the same party, and were still busy exchanging greetings and settling themselves in

One of the ladies, at Mrs. Fetherel's approach, uttered an exclamation of pleasure and advanced with

outstretched hand. "My dear Mrs. Fetherel! I am so delighted to see you here. May I hope you are going to

the unveiling of the chantry window? The dear Bishop so hoped that you would do so! But perhaps I ought to

introduce myself. I am Mrs. Gollinger" she lowered her voice expressively "one of your uncle's oldest

friends, one who has stood close to him through all this sad business, and who knows what he suffered when

Mrs. Fetherel, who had smiled and colored slightly at the beginning of this speech, received its close with a

"Oh, pray don't mention it," she murmured. "I quite understood how my uncle was placed I bore him no ill

"He understood that, and was so touched by it! He has often told me that it was the hardest task he was ever

called upon to perform and, do you know, he quite feels that this unexpected gift of the chantry window is

"Yes; he really does. When the funds for the window were so mysteriously placed at his disposal, just as he

had begun to despair of raising them, he assured me that he could not help connecting the fact with his

"And now," continued Mrs. Gollinger, with cumulative rapture "now that you are about to show, by

appearing at the ceremony today, that there has been no break in your friendly relations, the dear Bishop's

happiness will be complete. He was so longing to have you come to the unveiling!"

"Ah, that is so beautifully forgiving of you!" cried Mrs.Gollinger, enthusiastically. "But then, the Bishop has

always assured me that your real nature was very different from that which if you will pardon my saying

so seems to be revealed by your brilliant but er rather subversive book. 'If you only knew my niece,

dear Mrs. Gollinger,' he always said, 'you would see that her novel was written in all innocence of heart;' and

to tell you the truth, when I first read the book I didn't think it so very, very shocking. It wasn't till the dear

Bishop had explained tome but, dear me, I mustn't take up your time in this way when so many others are

Mrs. Fetherel glanced at her in surprise, and Mrs. Gollinger continued, with a playful smile: "You forget that

your face is familiar to thousands whom you have never seen. We all recognized you the moment you entered

the train, and my friends here are so eager to make your acquaintance even those" her smile deepened

"who thought the dear Bishop not quite unjustified in his attack on your remarkable novel."

A religious light filled the chantry of Ossining Cathedral,filtering through the linen curtain which veiled the

central window, and mingling with the blaze of tapers on the richly adorned altar.

In this devout atmosphere, agreeably laden with the incenselike aroma of Easter lilies and forced lilacs, Mrs.

Fetherel knelt with a sense of luxurious satisfaction. Beside her sat Archer Hynes, who had remembered that

there was to be a church scene in his next novel, and that his impressions of the devotional environment

needed refreshing. Mrs. Fetherel was very happy. She was conscious that her entrance had sent a thrill

through the female devotees who packed the chantry, and she had humor enough to enjoy the thought that,

but for the good Bishop's denunciation of her book, the heads of his flock would not have been turned so

eagerly in her direction. Moreover, as she had entered she had caught sight of a society reporter, and she

knew that her presence, and the fact that she was accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously proclaimed

in the morning papers. All these evidences of the success of her handiwork might have turned a calmer head

than Mrs. Fetherel's; and though she had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still filled her inwardly

The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her

next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory

denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her

vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plaguespots of society, and she was

resolved that there should be no doubt as to the purpose of her new book. Experience had shown her that

where she had fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding in guarded terms to the

drawingroom shovel. She was determined not to repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her

coming novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale, however likely it was to receive

She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst into song and the ceremony of the

unveiling began. The Bishop, almost always felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex,was never more so than

when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his cherished purposes. There was a peculiar mixture of

Christian humility and episcopal exultation in the manner with which he called attention to the Creator's

promptness in responding to his demand for funds, and he had never been more happily inspired than in

Though no hint of the donor's identity had been allowed to escape him, it was generally understood that the

Bishop knew who had given the window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense the possible

announcement of a name. None came, however,though the Bishop deliciously titillated the curiosity of his

flock by circling ever closer about the interesting secret. He would not disguise from them, he said, that the

heart which had divined his inmost wish had been a woman's is it not to woman's intuitions that more than

half the happiness of earth is owing? What man is obliged to learn by the laborious process of experience,

woman's wondrous instinct tells her at a glance; and so it had been with this cherished scheme, this

unhopedfor completion of their beautiful chantry. So much, at least, he was allowed to reveal;and indeed,

had he not done so, the window itself would have spoken for him, since the first glance at its touching subject

and exquisite design would show it to have originated in a woman's heart. This tribute to the sex was received

with an audible sigh of contentment, and the Bishop, always stimulated by such evidence of his sway over his

Yes a woman's heart had planned the gift, a woman's hand had executed it, and, might he add, without too

far withdrawing the veil in which Christian beneficence ever loved to drape its acts might he add that,

under Providence, a book, a simple book, a mere tale, in fact, had had its share in the good work for which

At this unexpected announcement, a ripple of excitement ran through the assemblage, and more than one

head was abruptly turned in the direction of Mrs. Fetherel, who sat listening in an agony of wonder and

confusion. It did not escape the observant novelist at her side that she drew down her veil to conceal an

uncontrollable blush, and this evidence of dismay caused him to fix an attentive gaze on her, while from her

"A book a simple book " the Bishop's voice went on above this flutter of mingled emotions. "What is a

book? Only a few pages and a little ink and yet one of the mightiest instruments which Providence has

devised for shaping the destinies of man . .. one of the most powerful influences for good or evil which the

The air seemed intolerably close to Mrs. Fetherel, and she drew out her scentbottle, and then thrust it

hurriedly away, conscious that she was still the center of an unenviable attention. And all the while the

"And of all forms of literature, fiction is doubtless that which has exercised the greatest sway, for good or ill,

over the passions and imagination of the masses. Yes, my friends, I am the first to acknowledge it no

sermon, however eloquent, no theological treatise, however learned and convincing, has ever inflamed the

heart and imagination like a novel a simple novel. Incalculable is the power exercised over humanity by

the great magicians of the pen a power ever enlarging its boundaries and increasing its responsibilities as

popular education multiplies the number of readers. . . . Yes, it is the novelist's hand which can pour balm on

countless human sufferings, or inoculate mankind with the festering poison of a corrupt imagination. . . ."

Mrs. Fetherel had turned white, and her eyes were fixed with a blind stare of anger on the largesleeved

"And too often, alas, it is the poison and not the balm which the unscrupulous hand of genius proffers to its

unsuspecting readers. But, my friends, why should I continue? None know better than an assemblage of

Christian women, such as I am now addressing,the beneficent or baleful influences of modern fiction; and

so,when I say that this beautiful chantry window of ours owes its existence in part to the romancer's pen"

the Bishop paused, and bending forward, seemed to seek a certain face among the countenances eagerly

addressed to his "when I say that this pen,which for personal reasons it does not become me to celebrate

Mrs. Fetherel at this point half rose, pushing back her chair,which scraped loudly over the marble floor; but

Hynes involuntarily laid a warning hand on her arm, and she sank down with a confused murmur about the

" When I confess that this pen, which for once at least has proved itself so much mightier than the sword,

is that which was inspired to trace the simple narrative of 'Through a Glass Brightly'" Mrs. Fetherel

looked up with a gasp of mingled relief and anger "when I tell you, my dear friends, that it was your

Bishop's own work which first roused the mind of one of his flock to the crying need of a chantry window, I

think you will admit that I am justified in celebrating the triumphs of the pen, even though it be the modest

The Bishop paused impressively, and a faint gasp of surprise and disappointment was audible throughout the

chantry. Something very different from this conclusion had been expected, and even Mrs. Gollinger's lips

curled with a slightly ironic smile. But Archer Hynes's attention was chiefly reserved for Mrs. Fetherel,whose

face had changed with astonishing rapidity from surprise to annoyance, from annoyance to relief, and then

The address concluded, the actual ceremony of the unveiling was about to take place, and the attention of the

congregation soon reverted to the chancel, where the choir had grouped themselves beneath the veiled

window, prepared to burst into a chant of praise as the Bishop drew back the hanging. The moment was an

impressive one, and every eye was fixed on the curtain. Even Hynes's gaze strayed to it for a moment, but

soon returned to his neighbor's face; and then he perceived that Mrs. Fetherel, alone of all the persons

present, was not looking at the window. Her eyes were fixed in an indignant stare on the Bishop; a flush of

anger burned becomingly under her veil, and her hands nervously crumpled the beautifully printed program

Hynes broke into a smile of comprehension. He glanced at the Bishop, and back at the Bishop's niece; then,

as the episcopal hand was solemnly raised to draw back the curtain, he bent and whispered in Mrs. Fetherel's

"Why, you gave it yourself! You wonderful woman, of course you gave it yourself!"

Mrs. Fetherel raised her eyes to his with a start. Her blush deepened and her lips shaped a hasty "No"; but the

denial was deflected into the indignant murmur "It wasn't his silly book that did it anyhow!"

IT was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I'd been three months in hospital, and when I came out I looked so

weak and tottery that the two or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of my money was

gone, and after I'd boarded for two months, hanging about the employmentagencies, and answering any

advertisement that looked any way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting hadn't made me fatter,

and I didn't see why my luck should ever turn. It did though or I thought so at the time. A Mrs. Railton, a

friend of the lady that first brought me out to the States, met me one day and stopped to speak to me: she was

one that had always a friendly way with her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white, and when I told

her, "Why, Hartley," says she, "I believe I've got the very place for you. Come in tomorrow and we'll talk

The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she'd in mind was a niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a

youngish lady, but something of an invalid, who lived all the year round at her countryplace on the Hudson,

"Now, Hartley," Mrs. Railton said, in that cheery way that always made me feel things must be going to take

a turn for the better "now understand me; it's not a cheerful place i'm sending you to. The house is big and

gloomy; my niece is nervous, vaporish; her husband well, he's generally away; and the two children are

dead. A year ago, I would as soon have thought of shutting a rosy active girl like you into a vault; but you're

not particularly brisk yourself just now, are you? and a quiet place, with country air and wholesome food and

early hours, ought to be the very thing for you. Don't mistake me," she added, for I suppose I looked a trifle

downcast; "you may find it dull, but you won't be unhappy. My niece is an angel. Her former maid, who died

last spring, had been with her twenty years and worshipped the ground she walked on. She's a kind mistress

to all, and where the mistress is kind, as you know, the servants are generally goodhumored, so you'll

probably get on well enough with the rest of the household. And you're the very woman I want for my niece:

quiet, wellmannered, and educated above your station. You read aloud well, I think? That's a good thing;

my niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of a companion: her last was, and I can't

"Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I'll telegraph her at once and you can take

the afternoon train. She has no one to wait on her at present, and I don't want you to lose any time."

I was ready enough to start, yet something in me hung back; and to gain time I asked, "And the gentleman,

"The gentleman's almost always away, I tell you," said Mrs. Ralston, quicklike "and when he's there,"

I took the afternoon train and got out at D station at about four o'clock. A groom in a dogcart was

waiting, and we drove off at a smart pace. It was a dull October day, with rain hanging close overhead, and

by the time we turned into the Brympton Place woods the daylight was almost gone. The drive wound

through the woods for a mile or two, and came out on a gravel court shut in with thickets of tall

blacklooking shrubs. There were no lights in the windows, and the house did look a bit gloomy.

I had asked no questions of the groom, for I never was one to get my notion of new masters from their other

servants: I prefer to wait and see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that I had got into the

right kind of house, and that things were done handsomely. A pleasantfaced cook met me at the back door

and called the housemaid to show me up to my room. "You'll see madam later," she said. "Mrs. Brympton

I hadn't fancied Mrs. Brympton was a lady to have many visitors, and somehow the words cheered me. I

followed the housemaid upstairs, and saw, through a door on the upper landing, that the main part of the

house seemed wellfurnished, with dark panelling and a number of old portraits. Another flight of stairs led

us up to the servants' wing. It was almost dark now, and the housemaid excused herself for not having

brought a light. "But there's matches in your room," she said, "and if you go careful you'll be all right. Mind

I looked ahead as she spoke, and halfway down the passage, I saw a woman standing. She drew back into a

doorway as we passed, and the housemaid didn't appear to notice her. She was a thin woman with a white

face, and a darkish stuff gown and apron. I took her for the housekeeper and thought it odd that she didn't

speak, but just gave me a long look as she went by. My room opened into a square hall at the end of the

passage. Facing my door was another which stood open: the housemaid exclaimed when she saw it.

"Laws, no," said the housemaid, crosslike. "That's nobody's room. It's empty, I mean, and the door hadn't

She opened my door and led me into a neat room, nicely furnished, with a picture or two on the walls; and

having lit a candle she took leave, telling me that the servants'hall tea was at six, and that Mrs. Brympton

I found them a pleasantspoken set in the servants' hall, and by what they let fall I gathered that, as Mrs.

Railton had said, Mrs. Brympton was the kindest of ladies; but I didn't take much notice of their talk, for I

was watching to see the pale woman in the dark gown come in. She didn't show herself, however, and I

wondered if she ate apart; but if she wasn't the housekeeper, why should she? Suddenly it struck me that she

might be a trained nurse, and in that case her meals would of course be served in her room. If Mrs. Brympton

was an invalid it was likely enough she had a nurse. The idea annoyed me, I own, for they're not always the

easiest to get on with, and if I'd known, I shouldn't have taken the place. But there I was, and there was no use

pulling a long face over it; and not being one to ask questions, I waited to see what would turn up.

When tea was over, the housemaid said to the footman: "Has Mr. Ranford gone?" and when he said yes, she

Mrs. Brympton was lying down in her bedroom. Her lounge stood near the fire and beside it was a shaded

lamp. She was a delicatelooking lady, but when she smiled I felt there was nothing I wouldn't do for her.

She spoke very pleasantly, in a low voice, asking me my name and age and so on, and if I had everything I

"Not with you I wouldn't be, madam," I said, and the words surprised me when I'd spoken them, for I'm not

She seemed pleased at that, and said she hoped I'd continue in the same mind; then she gave me a few

directions about her toilet, and said Agnes the housemaid would show me next morning where things were

"I am tired tonight, and shall dine upstairs," she said. "Agnes will bring me my tray, that you may have time

Well that was certainly strange: a lady's maid having to be fetched by the housemaid whenever her lady

wanted her! I wondered if there were no bells in the house; but the next day I satisfied myself that there was

one in every room, and a special one ringing from my mistress's room to mine; and after that it did strike me

as queer that, whenever Mrs. Brympton wanted anything, she rang for Agnes, who had to walk the whole

But that wasn't the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I found out that Mrs. Brympton had no

nurse; and then I asked Agnes about the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said

she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be sure, it was dusk when we went down

the passage, and she had excused herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough to

know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been a friend of the cook's, or of one of the

othe* womenservants: perhaps she had come down from town for a night's visit, and the servants wanted it

kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their servants' friends in the house overnight. At any rate,

In a day or two, another odd thing happened. I was chatting one afternoon with Mrs. Blinder, who was a

friendly disposed woman, and had been longer in the house than the other servants, and she asked me if I was

quite comfortable and had everything I needed. I said I had no fault to find with my place or with my

mistress, but I thought it odd that in so large a house there was no sewingroom for the lady's maid.

At that she grew confused, and said hurriedly that the servants' rooms had all been changed about last year,

That struck me as peculiar, but I went on as if I hadn't noticed: "Well, there's a vacant room opposite mine,

To my astonishment, Mrs. Blinder went white, and gave my hand a kind of squeeze. "Don't do that, my dear,"

said she, tremblinglike. "To tell you the truth, that was Emma Saxon's room, and my mistress has kept it

"The one that was with her so many years?" said I, remembering what Mrs. Railton had told me.

"No better walked the earth," said Mrs. Blinder. "My mistress loved her like a sister."

Mrs. Blinder got up and gave me a kind of angry stare. "I'm no great hand at describing," she said; "and I

believe my pastry's rising." And she walked off into the kitchen and shut the door after her.

I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came that he was arriving one

afternoon, and a change passed over the whole household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs.

Mrs. Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she snapped at the kitchenmaid in a way

quite unusual with her; and Mr. Wace, the butler, a serious, slowspoken man, went about his duties as if he'd

been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great Biblereader, Mr. Wace was, and had a beautiful assortment

of texts at his command; but that day he used such dreadful language that I was about to leave the table, when

he assured me it was all out of Isaiah; and I noticed that whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to the

About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I found Mr. Brympton. He was standing on

the hearth; a big fair bullnecked man, with a red face and little badtempered blue eyes: the kind of man a

young simpleton might have thought handsome, and would have been like to pay dear for thinking it.

He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice. I knew what the look meant, from having

experienced it once or twice in my former places. Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to his

wife; and I knew what that meant, too. I was not the kind of morsel he was after. The typhoid had served me

"This is my new maid, Hartley," says Mrs. Brympton in her kind voice; and he nodded and went on with

In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that

Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house drew a long breath when he drove

away. As for my mistress, she put on her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out for a

walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that for a minute, before her color faded, I could

She had met Mr. Ranford in the grounds, and the two came back together, I remember, smiling and talking as

they walked along the terrace under my window. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ranford, though I had

often heard his name mentioned in the hall. He was a neighbor, it appeared, living a mile or two beyond

Brympton, at the end of the village; and as he was in the habit of spending his winters in the country he was

almost the only company my mistress had at that season. He was a slight tall gentleman of about thirty, and I

thought him rather melancholylooking till I saw his smile, which had a kind of surprise in it, like the first

warm day in spring. He was a great reader, I heard, like my mistress, and the two were forever borrowing

books of one another, and sometimes (Mr. Wace told me) he would read aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour,

in the big dark library where she sat in the winter afternoons. The servants all liked him, and perhaps that's

more of a compliment than the masters suspect. He had a friendly word for every one of us, and we were all

glad to think that Mrs. Brympton had a pleasant companionable gentleman like that to keep her company

when the master was away. Mr. Ranford seemed on excellent terms with Mr. Brympton too; though I couldn't

but wonder that two gentlemen so unlike each other should be so friendly. But then I knew how the real

As for Mr. Brympton, he came and went, never staying more than a day or two, cursing the dulness and the

solitude, grumbling at everything, and (as I soon found out) drinking a deal more than was good for him.

After Mrs. Brympton left the table he would sit half the night over the old Brympton port and madeira, and

once, as I was leaving my mistress's room rather later than usual, I met him coming up the stairs in such a

state that I turned sick to think of what some ladies have to endure and hold their tongues about.

The servants said very little about their master; but from what they let drop I could see it had been an

unhappy match from the beginning. Mr. Brympton was coarse, loud and pleasureloving; my mistress quiet,

retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold. Not that she was not always pleasantspoken to him: I thought her

wonderfully forbearing; but to a gentleman as free as Mr. Brympton I daresay she seemed a little offish.

Well, things went on quietly for several weeks. My mistress was kind, my duties were light, and I got on well

with the other servants. In short, I had nothing to complain of; yet there was always a weight on me. I can't

say why it was so, but I know it was not the loneliness that I felt. I soon got used to that; and being still

languid from the fever, I was thankful for the quiet and the good country air. Nevertheless, I was never quite

easy in my mind. My mistress, knowing I had been ill, insisted that I should take my walk regular, and often

invented errands for me: a yard of ribbon to be fetched from the village, a letter posted, or a book returned

to Mr. Ranford. As soon as I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I looked forward to my walks through the

bare moistsmelling woods; but the moment I caught sight of the house again my heart dropped down like a

stone in a well. It was not a gloomy house exactly, yet I never entered it but a feeling of gloom came over me.

Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did she walk an hour at noon on the south

terrace. Excepting Mr. Ranford, we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from D about once

a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction about my mistress, and though he

never told me what her illness was, I thought, from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning, that it

might be the heart that ailed her. The season was soft and unwholesome, and in January we had a long spell

of rain. That was a sore trial to me, I own, for I couldn't go out, and sitting over my sewing all day, listening

to the drip, drip of the eaves, I grew so nervous that the least sound made me jump. Somehow, the thought of

that locked room across the passage began to weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long rainy nights, I fancied I

heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of course, and the daylight drove such notions out of my head.

Well, one morning Mrs. Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me she wished me to go to

town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then how low my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my

first sight of the crowded streets and the cheerfullooking shops quite took me out of myself. Toward

afternoon, however, the noise and confusion began to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet

of Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the dark woods, when I ran across an

old acquaintance, a maid I had once been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number of

years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in the interval. When I mentioned where I was

"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there

"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be

She shook her head. "It's not the country I'm thinking of. All I know is she's had four maids in the last six

months, and the last one, who was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the house."

"No she wouldn't give me her reason. But she says to me, Mrs. Ansey, she says, if ever a young woman as

you know of thinks of going there, you tell her it's not worth while to unpack her boxes."

"Not her! She's the kind that mothers engage when they've gay young gentlemen at college."

Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in my head, and my heart sank lower

than ever as I drove up to Brympton in the dusk. There was something about the house I was sure of it

When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I saw at a glance that there had been a

disturbance of some kind. Mrs. Blinder's hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr. Wace

quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a word to me then, but when I went up to my

"Oh, my dear," says she, taking my hand, "I'm so glad and thankful you've come back to us!"

That struck me, as you may imagine. "Why," said I, "did you think I was leaving for good?"

"No, no, to be sure," said she, a little confused, "but I can't abear to have madam left alone for a day even."

She pressed my hand hard, and, "Oh, Miss Hartley," says she, "be good to your mistress, as you're a Christian

A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. Hearing Mr. Brympton's voice in her room, I went round

by the dressingroom, thinking I would lay out her dinnergown before going in. The dressingroom is a

large room with a window over the portico that looks toward the gardens. Mr. Brympton's apartments are

beyond. When I went in, the door into the bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr. Brympton saying angrily:

"Well whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as a family vault "

With that I rattled the toiletthings, to give my mistress warning and she rose and called me in.

The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace's manner at supper that things must be going badly.

He quoted the prophets something terrible, and worked on the kitchenmaid so that she declared she wouldn't

go down alone to put the cold meat in the icebox. I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to

bed I was halftempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to sit up awhile over a game of cards.

But I heard her door closing for the night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun again, and

the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain. I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my

friend in town had said. What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left . . .

After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell had rung. I sat up, terrified by the

unusual sound, which seemed to go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I couldn't find

the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out of bed. I began to think I must have been dreaming; but

I looked at the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering.

I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another sound. This time it was the door of the

locked room opposite mine softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it frightened me so

that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor

being carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a woman's step. I turned cold with the

thought of it, and for a minute or two I dursn't breathe or move. Then I came to my senses.

"Alice Hartley," says I to myself, "someone left that room just now and ran down the passage ahead of you.

The idea isn't pleasant, but you may as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to answer her bell

Well I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I should never get to the end of the passage or

reach Mrs. Brympton's room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and quiet as the

grave. When I reached my mistress's door the silence was so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming,

There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment the door was opened by Mr.

Brympton. He started back when he saw me, and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage.

At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that he had been drinking, and answered as

"You may all go in, for what I care," says he, and, pushing by me, walked down the hall to his own bedroom.

I looked after him as he went, and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober man.

I found my mistress lying very weak and still, but she forced a smile when she saw me, and signed to me to

pour out some drops for her. After that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick, and her eyes

"I was dreaming," she said. "You may go, now, Hartley, and thank you kindly. I'm quite well again, you see."

THERE was no more sleep for me that night, and I was thankful when daylight came.

Soon afterward, Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. I was afraid she was ill again, for she seldom sent for me

before nine, but I found her sitting up in bed, pale and drawnlooking, but quite herself.

"Hartley," says she quickly, "will you put on your things at once and go down to the village for me? I want

this prescription made up " here she hesitated a minute and blushed "and I should like you to be back

"And stay a moment " she called me back as if an idea had just struck her "while you're waiting for

It was a twomile walk to the village, and on my way I had time to turn things over in my mind. It struck me

as peculiar that my mistress should wish the prescription made up without Mr. Brympton's knowledge; and,

putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with much else that I had noticed and suspected, I

began to wonder if the poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of ending it. The

idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the

chemist's counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at me so hard that it brought

"Mr. Limmel," I says, trying to speak indifferent, "will you run your eye over this, and tell me if it's quite

"I mean if a person was to take too much of it by mistake of course " says I, my heart in my throat.

"Lord bless you, no. It's only limewater. You might feed it to a baby by the bottleful."

I gave a great sigh of relief, and hurried on to Mr. Ranford's. But on the way another thought struck me. If

there was nothing to conceal about my visit to the chemist's, was it my other errand that Mrs. Brympton

wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought frightened me worse than the other. Yet the two

gentlemen seemed fast friends, and I would have staked my head on my mistress's goodness. I felt ashamed

of my suspicions, and concluded that I was still disturbed by the strange events of the night. I left the note at

Mr. Ranford's and, hurrying back to Brympton, slipped in by a side door without being seen, as I thought.

An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress's breakfast, I was stopped in the hall by Mr.

"Come, come," he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead, "didn't I see you scuttling home

I'm a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out readymade. "No, sir, you didn't," said I, and

He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you think I was drunk last night?" he asked

He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have of me!" I heard him mutter as he

Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize how the events of the night had shaken me. I

couldn't pass that locked door without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of it, and walk down

the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to Mrs. Blinder or to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house

who appeared to have an inkling of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if I questioned them they

would deny everything, and that I might learn more by holding my tongue and keeping my eyes open. The

idea of spending another night opposite the locked room sickened me, and once I was seized with the notion

of packing my trunk and taking the first train to town; but it wasn't in me to throw over a kind mistress in that

I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewingmachine broke down. It was one I had found in the house, a

good machine, but a trifle out of order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma Saxon's death. I

stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working at the machine a drawer which I had never been able to

open slid forward and a photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at it in a maze. It was a woman's

likeness, and I knew I had seen the face somewhere the eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me

I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed to be thumping in the top of my head, and

I felt as if I should never get away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs. Blinder. She was taking

I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've seen that face before."

Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the lookingglass. "Dear me! I must have been asleep," she says.

"My front is all over one ear. And now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock striking four,

and I must go down this very minute and put on the Virginia ham for Mr. Brympton's dinner."

TO all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The only difference was that Mr. Brympton

stayed on, instead of going off as he usually did, and that Mr. Ranford never showed himself. I heard Mr.

Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting in my mistress's room before dinner.

"Where's Ranford?" says he. "He hasn't been near the house for a week. Does he keep away because I'm

"Well," he went on, "two's company and three's trumpery; I'm sorry to be in Ranford's way, and I suppose I

shall have to take myself off again in a day or two and give him a show." And he laughed at his own joke.

The very next day, as it happened, Mr. Ranford called. The footman said the three were very merry over their

tea in the library, and Mr. Brympton strolled down to the gate with Mr. Ranford when he left.

I have said that things went on as usual; and so they did with the rest of the household; but as for myself, I

had never been the same since the night my bell had rung. Night after night I used to lie awake, listening for

it to ring again, and for the door of the locked room to open stealthily. But the bell never rang, and I heard no

sound across the passage. At last the silence began to be more dreadful to me than the most mysterious

sounds. I felt that someone were cowering there, behind the locked door, watching and listening as I watched

and listened, and I could almost have cried out, "Whoever you are, come out and let me see you face to face,

Feeling as I did, you may wonder I didn't give warning. Once I very nearly did so; but at the last moment

something held me back. Whether it was compassion for my mistress, who had grown more and more

dependent on me, or unwillingness to try a new place, or some other feeling that I couldn't put a name to, I

lingered on as if spellbound, though every night was dreadful to me, and the days but little better.

For one thing, I didn't like Mrs. Brympton's looks. She had never been the same since that night, no more

than I had. I thought she would brighten up after Mr. Brympton left, but though she seemed easier in her

mind, her spirits didn't revive, nor her strength either. She had grown attached to me, and seemed to like to

have me about; and Agnes told me one day that, since Emma Saxon's death, I was the only maid her mistress

had taken to. This gave me a warm feeling for the poor lady, though after all there was little I could do to help

After Mr. Brympton's departure, Mr. Ranford took to coming again, though less often than formerly. I met

him once or twice in the grounds, or in the village, and I couldn't but think there was a change in him too; but

The weeks passed, and Mr. Brympton had now been a month absent. We heard he was cruising with a friend

in the West Indies, and Mr. Wace said that was a long way off, but though you had the wings of a dove and

went to the uttermost parts of the earth, you couldn't get away from the Almighty. Agnes said that as long as

he stayed away from Brympton, the Almighty might have him and welcome; and this raised a laugh, though

We were all glad to hear that the West Indies were a long way off, and I remember that, in spite of Mr.

Wace's solemn looks, we had a very merry dinner that day in the hall. I don't know if it was because of my

being in better spirits, but I fancied Mrs. Brympton looked better too, and seemed more cheerful in her

manner. She had been for a walk in the morning, and after luncheon she lay down in her room, and I read

aloud to her. When she dismissed me I went to my own room feeling quite bright and happy, and for the first

time in weeks walked past the locked door without thinking of it. As I sat down to my work I looked out and

saw a few snowflakes falling. The sight was pleasanter than the eternal rain, and I pictured to myself how

pretty the bare gardens would look in their white mantle. It seemed to me as if the snow would cover up all

The fancy had hardly crossed my mind when I heard a step at my side. I looked up, thinking it was Agnes.

"Well, Agnes " said I, and the words froze on my tongue; for there, in the door, stood Emma Saxon.

I don't know how long she stood there. I only know I couldn't stir or take my eyes from her. Afterward I was

terribly frightened, but at the time it wasn't fear I felt, but something deeper and quieter. She looked at me

long and long, and her face was just one dumb prayer to me but how in the world was I to help her?

Suddenly she turned, and I heard her walk down the passage. This time I wasn't afraid to follow I felt that

I must know what she wanted. I sprang up and ran out. She was at the other end of the passage, and I

expected her to take the turn toward my mistress's room; but instead of that she pushed open the door that led

to the backstairs. I followed her down the stairs, and across the passageway to the back door. The kitchen and

hall were empty at that hour, the servants being off duty, except for the footman, who was in the pantry. At

the door she stood still a moment, with another look at me; then she turned the handle, and stepped out. For a

minute I hesitated. Where was she leading me to? The door had closed softly after her, and I opened it and

looked out, halfexpecting to find that she had disappeared. But I saw her a few yards off, hurrying across the

courtyard to the path through the woods. Her figure looked black and lonely in the snow, and for a second

my heart failed me and I thought of turning back. But all the while she was drawing me after her; and

Emma Saxon was in the woodpath now. She walked on steadily, and I followed at the same pace, till we

passed out of the gates and reached the highroad. Then she struck across the open fields to the village. By

this time the ground was white, and as she climbed the slope of a bare hill ahead of me I noticed that she left

no footprints behind her. At sight of that, my heart shrivelled up within me, and my knees were water.

Somehow, it was worse here than indoors. She made the whole countryside seem lonely as the grave, with

Once I tried to go back; but she turned and looked at me, and it was as if she had dragged me with ropes.

After that I followed her like a dog. We came to the village, and she led me through it, past the church and

the blacksmith's shop, and down the lane to Mr. Ranford's. Mr. Ranford's house stands close to the road: a

plain oldfashioned building, with a flagged path leading to the door between boxborders. The lane was

deserted, and as I turned into it, I saw Emma Saxon pause under the old elm by the gate. And now another

fear came over me. I saw that we had reached the end of our journey, and that it was my turn to act. All the

way from Brympton I had been asking myself what she wanted of me, but I had followed in a trance, as it

were, and not till I saw her stop at Mr. Ranford's gate did my brain begin to clear itself. It stood a little way

off in the snow, my heart beating fit to strangle me, and my feet frozen to the ground; and she stood under the

I knew well enough that she hadn't led me there for nothing. I felt there was something I ought to say or do

but how was I to guess what it was? I had never thought harm of my mistress and Mr. Ranford, but I was

sure now that, from one cause or another, some dreadful thing hung over them. She knew what it was; she

It turned me faint to think of speaking to her; but I plucked up heart and dragged myself across the few yards

between us. As I did so, I heard the housedoor open, and saw Mr. Ranford approaching. He looked

handsome and cheerful, as my mistress had looked that morning, and at sight of him the blood began to flow

"Why, Hartley," said he, "what's the matter? I saw you coming down the lane just now, and came out to see if

you had taken root in the snow." He stopped and stared at me. "What are you looking at?" he says.

I turned toward the elm as he spoke, and his eyes followed me; but there was no one there. The lane was

A sense of helplessness came over me. She was gone, and I had not been able to guess what she wanted. Her

last look had pierced me to the marrow; and yet it had not told me! All at once, I felt more desolate than when

she had stood there watching me. It seemed as if she had left me all alone to carry the weight of the secret I

couldn't guess. The snow went round me in great circles, and the ground fell away from me. . . .

A drop of brandy and the warmth of Mr. Ranford's fire soon brought me to, and I insisted on being driven

back at once to Brympton. It was nearly dark, and I was afraid my mistress might be wanting me. I explained

to Mr. Ranford that I had been out for a walk and had been taken with a fit of giddiness as I passed his gate.

When I dressed Mrs. Brympton for dinner she remarked on my pale looks and asked what ailed me. I told her

I had a headache, and she said she would not require me again that evening, and advised me to go to bed.

It was a fact that I could scarcely keep on my feet; yet I had no fancy to spend a solitary evening in my room.

I sat downstairs in the hall as long as I could hold my head up; but by nine I crept upstairs, too weary to care

what happened if I could but get my head on a pillow. The rest of the household went to bed soon afterward;

they kept early hours when the master was away, and before ten I heard Mrs. Blinder's door close, and Mr.

It was a very still night, earth and air all muffled in snow. Once in bed I felt easier, and lay quiet, listening to

the strange noises that come out in a house after dark. Once I thought I heard a door open and close again

below: it might have been the glass door that led to the gardens. I got up and peered out of the window; but it

was in the dark of the moon, and nothing visible outside but the streaking of snow against the panes.

I went back to bed and must have dozed, for I jumped awake to the furious ringing of my bell. Before my

head was clear I had sprung out of bed, and was dragging on my clothes. It is going to happen now, I heard

myself saying; but what I meant I had no notion. My hands seemed to be covered with glue I thought I

should never get into my clothes. At last I opened my door and peered down the passage. As far as my

candleflame carried, I could see nothing unusual ahead of me. I hurried on, breathless; but as I pushed open

the baize door leading to the main hall my heart stood still, for there at the head of the stairs was Emma

For a second I couldn't stir; but my hand slipped from the door, and as it swung shut the figure vanished. At

the same instant there came another sound from below stairs a stealthy mysterious sound, as of a

There was no answer, and I knocked again. This time I heard some one moving in the room; the bolt slipped

back and my mistress stood before me. To my surprise I saw that she had not undressed for the night. She

"What is this, Hartley?" she says in a whisper. "Are you ill? What are you doing here at this hour?"

"You are mistaken," she said harshly; "I didn't ring. You must have been dreaming." I had never heard her

But as she spoke I heard sounds again in the hall below: a man's step this time; and the truth leaped out on

A dreadful look came over her, and without a word, she dropped flat at my feet. I fell on my knees and tried

to lift her: by the way she breathed I saw it was no common faint. But as I raised her head there came quick

steps on the stairs and across the hall: the door was flung open, and there stood Mr. Brympton, in his

travellingclothes, the snow dripping from him. He drew back with a start as he saw me kneeling by my

"What the devil is this?" he shouted. He was less highcolored than usual, and the red spot came out on his

He laughed unsteadily and pushed by me. "It's a pity she didn't choose a more convenient moment. I'm sorry

At that my heart turned over. I don't know what I thought or feared; but I sprang up and caught him by the

"It seems that's done for me," says he, and caught hold of the dressingroom door.

At that moment I heard a slight noise inside. Slight as it was, he heard it too, and tore the door open; but as he

did so he dropped back. On the threshold stood Emma Saxon. All was dark behind her, but I saw her plainly,

and so did he. He threw up his hands as if to hide his face from her; and when I looked again she was gone.

He stood motionless, as if the strength had run out of him; and in the stillness my mistress suddenly raised

herself, and opening her eyes fixed a look on him. Then she fell back, and I saw the deathflutter pass over

We buried her on the third day, in a driving snowstorm. There were few people in the church, for it was bad

weather to come from town, and I've a notion my mistress was one that hadn't many near friends. Mr.

Ranford was among the last to come, just before they carried her up the aisle. He was in black, of course,

being such a friend of the family, and I never saw a gentleman so pale. As he passed me, I noticed that he

leaned a trifle on a stick he carried; and I fancy Mr. Brympton noticed it too, for the red spot came out sharp

on his forehead, and all through the service he kept staring across the church at Mr. Ranford, instead of

When it was over and we went out to the graveyard, Mr. Ranford had disappeared, and as soon as my poor

mistress's body was underground, Mr. Brympton jumped into the carriage nearest the gate and drove off

without a word to any of us. I heard him call out, "To the station," and we servants went back alone to the

LETHBURY, surveying his wife across the dinner table, found his transient conjugal glance arrested by an

Her answering look seemed to deprecate his charging her with the extravagance of wasting a new gown on

him, and he now perceived that the change lay deeper than any accident of dress. At the same time, he

noticed that she betrayed her consciousness of it by a delicate, almost frightened blush. It was one of the

compensations of Mrs. Lethbury's protracted childishness that she still blushed as prettily as at eighteen. Her

body had been privileged not to outstrip her mind, and the two, as it seemed to Lethbury, were destined to

Since she never did, he always wondered at her bringing this out as a fresh grievance against him; but his

wonder was unresentful, and he said goodhumoredly: "You sparkle so that I thought you had on your

"It must be," he continued, "that you've been to a dressmaker's opening. You're absolutely brimming with

She stared again, this time at the adjective. His adjectives always embarrassed her: their unintelligibleness

"In short," he summed up, "you've been doing something that you're thoroughly ashamed of."

Lethbury leaned back with a smile of enjoyment. When there was nothing better going he always liked to

She was becoming breathless and ejaculatory. "Of course you'll laugh you laugh at everything!"

"That rather blunts the point of my derision, doesn't it?" he interjected; but she rushed on without noticing:

Most of his wife's opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint pleasure in tracing their descent. She was

proud of their age, and saw no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable. Some, of course,

were so fine that she kept them for state occasions, like her greatgrandmother's Crown Derby; but from the

lady known as Aunt Sophronia she had inherited a stout set of everyday prejudices that were practically as

good as new; whereas her husband's, as she noticed, were always having to be replaced. In the early days she

had fancied there might be a certain satisfaction in taxing him with the fact; but she had long since been

silenced by the reply: "My dear, I'm not a rich man, but I never use an opinion twice if I can help it."

She was reduced, therefore, to dwelling on his moral deficiencies; and one of the most obvious of these was

his refusal to take things seriously. On this occasion, however, some ulterior purpose kept her from taking up

"I'm not in the least ashamed!" she repeated, with the air of shaking a banner to the wind; but the domestic

"That," said Lethbury judicially, "encourages me to infer that you ought to be, and that, consequently, you've

been giving yourself the unusual pleasure of doing something I shouldn't approve of."

She met this with an almost solemn directness. "No," she said. "You won't approve of it. I've allowed for

"Ah," he exclaimed, setting down his liqueurglass. "You've worked out the whole problem, eh?"

If it was seldom given her to surprise him, she had attained the distinction for once.

"Of course!" she cried, with the virtuous resentment of the woman who has never allowed dogs in the house.

Lethbury's puzzled stare broke into a fresh smile. "A baby I sha'n't approve of? Well, in the abstract I don't

Again she frowned at the adjective; but she had reached a pitch of exaltation at which such obstacles could

"Ah, then it's concrete. It exists. In this harsh world it draws its breath in pain "

"Good Lord!" he said. If there had been the least hint of hallucination in her transparent gaze but no: it

was as clear, as shallow, as easily fathomable as when he had first suffered the sharp surprise of striking

It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew that there is nothing more cryptic than the

He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were not realities, and continued gently: "But

"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want " her voice wavered, and her eyes with it. "I have always wanted so

But he had not seen before. It seemed curious, now, that he had never thought of her taking it in that way, had

never surmised any hidden depths beneath her outspread obviousness. He felt as though he had touched a

There was a moment's silence, moist and tremulous on her part, awkward and slightly irritated on his.

"You've been lonely, I suppose?" he began. It was odd, having suddenly to reckon with the stranger who

"It was not your fault. A man has so many occupations; and women who are clever or very handsome I

suppose that's an occupation too. Sometimes I've felt that when dinner was ordered I had nothing to do till the

"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "I never told you but when I chose that rosebud paper for the front

"It would be such a pretty paper for a baby to wake up in. That was years ago, of course; but it was

rather an expensive paper . . . and it hasn't faded in the least . . ." she broke off incoherently.

"No and so I thought . . . as we don't use the room for anything . . . now that Aunt Sophronia is dead . . . I

thought I might . . . you might . . . oh, Julian, if you could only have seen it just waking up in its crib!"

"Oh, no not yet," she said, with her rare laugh the girlish bubbling of merriment that had seemed one

of her chief graces in the early days. It occurred to him that he had not given her enough things to laugh about

lately. But then she needed such very elementary things: it was as difficult to amuse her as a savage. He

She hesitated a moment: he saw her gather her courage for a supreme effort. Then she said slowly, gravely, as

"I'm so lonely without a little child and I thought perhaps you'd let me adopt one. . . . It's at the hospital . .

. its mother is dead . . . and I could . . . pet it, and dress it, and do things for it . . . and it's such a good baby . .

. you can ask any of the nurses . . . it would never, never bother you by crying . . ."

Lethbury accompanied his wife to the hospital in a mood of chastened wonder. It did not occur to him to

oppose her wish. He knew, of course, that he would have to bear the brunt of the situation: the jokes at the

club, the inquiries, the explanations. He saw himself in the comic role of the adopted father, and welcomed it

as an expiation. For in his rapid reconstruction of the past he found himself cutting a shabbier figure than he

cared to admit. He had always been intolerant of stupid people, and it was his punishment to be convicted of

stupidity. As his mind traversed the years between his marriage and this unexpected assumption of paternity,

he saw, in the light of an overheated imagination, many signs of unwonted crassness. It was not that he had

ceased to think his wife stupid: she was stupid, limited, inflexible; but there was a pathos in the struggles of

her swaddled mind, in its blind reachings toward the primal emotions. He had always thought she would have

been happier with a child; but he had thought it mechanically, because it had so often been thought before,

because it was in the nature of things to think it of every woman, because his wife was so eminently one of a

species that she fitted into all the generalizations on the sex. But he had regarded this generalization as merely

typical of the triumph of tradition over experience. Maternity was no doubt the supreme function of primitive

woman, the one end to which her whole organism tended; but the law of increasing complexity had operated

in both sexes, and he had not seriously supposed that, outside the world of Christmas fiction and anecdotic

art, such truisms had any special hold on the feminine imagination. Now he saw that the arts in question were

Lethbury was in fact going through a rapid process of readjustment. His marriage had been a failure, but he

had preserved toward his wife the exact fidelity of act that is sometimes supposed to excuse any divagation of

feeling; so that, for years, the tie between them had consisted mainly in his abstaining from making love to

other women. The abstention had not always been easy, for the world is surprisingly wellstocked with the

kind of woman one ought to have married but did not; and Lethbury had not escaped the solicitation of such

alternatives. His immunity had been purchased at the cost of taking refuge in the somewhat rarified

atmosphere of his perceptions; and his world being thus limited, he had given unusual care to its details,

compensating himself for the narrowness of his horizon by the minute finish of his foreground. It was a world

of fine shadings and the nicest proportions, where impulse seldom set a blundering foot, and the feast of

reason was undisturbed by an intemperate flow of soul. To such a banquet his wife naturally remained

uninvited. The diet would have disagreed with her, and she would probably have objected to the other guests.

But Lethbury, miscalculating her needs, had hitherto supposed that he had made ample provision for them,

and was consequently at liberty to enjoy his own fare without any reproach of mendicancy at his gates. Now

he beheld her pressing a starved face against the windows of his life, and in his imaginative reaction he

In the hospital, the imaginative process continued with increasing force. He looked at his wife with new eyes.

Formerly she had been to him a mere bundle of negations, a labyrinth of dead walls and bolted doors. There

was nothing behind the walls, and the doors led nowhither: he had sounded and listened often enough to be

sure of that. Now he felt like a traveller who, exploring some ancient ruin, comes on an inner cell, intact amid

the general dilapidation, and painted with images which reveal the forgotten uses of the building.

His wife stood by a white crib in one of the wards. In the crib lay a child, a year old, the nurse affirmed, but

to Lethbury's eye a mere dateless fragment of humanity projected against a background of conjecture. Over

this anonymous particle of life Mrs. Lethbury leaned, such ecstasy reflected in her face as strikes up, in

Correggio's Nightpiece, from the child's body to the mother's countenance. it was a light that irradiated and

dazzled her. She looked up at an inquiry of Lethbury's, but as their glances met he perceived that she no

longer saw him, that he had become as invisible to her as she had long been to him. He had to transfer his

Lethbury, at first, had resisted the idea of a legal adoption; but when he found that his wife's curiously limited

imagination prevented her regarding the child as hers till it had been made so by process of law, he promptly

withdrew his objection. On one point only he remained inflexible; and that was the changing of the waif's

name. Mrs. Lethbury, almost at once, had expressed a wish to rechristen it: she fluctuated between Muriel

and Gladys, deferring the moment of decision like a lady wavering between two bonnets. But Lethbury was

"Don't they always say that?" asked Lethbury patiently. He was prepared to be inexhaustibly patient now that

Lethbury winced: he had tried, all along, to keep his mind off the question of antecedents.

"Well, let her prove it," he said, with a rising sense of exasperation. He wondered how he could ever have

allowed himself to be drawn into such a ridiculous business; for the first time he felt the full irony of it. He

had visions of coming home in the afternoon to a house smelling of linseed and paregoric, and of being

greeted by a chronic howl as he went up stairs to dress for dinner. He had never been a clubman, but he saw

The worst of his anticipations were unfulfilled. The baby was surprisingly well and surprisingly quiet. Such

infantile remedies as she absorbed were not potent enough to be perceived beyond the nursery; and when

Lethbury could be induced to enter that sanctuary, there was nothing to jar his nerves in the mild pink

presence of his adopted daughter. Jars there were, indeed: they were probably inevitable in the disturbed

routine of the household; but they occurred between Mrs. Lethbury and the nurses, and Jane contributed to

In the reaction from his first impulse of atonement, Lethbury noted with sharpened perceptions the effect of

the change on his wife's character. He saw already the error of supposing that it could work any

transformation in her. It simply magnified her existing qualities. She was like a dried sponge put in water: she

expanded, but she did not change her shape. From the standpoint of scientific observation it was curious to

see how her stored instincts responded to the pseudomaternal call. She overflowed with the petty maxims of

the occasion. One felt in her the epitome, the consummation, of centuries of animal maternity, so that this

little woman, who screamed at a mouse and was nervous about burglars, came to typify the cavemother

It was less easy to regard philosophically the practical effects of her borrowed motherhood. Lethbury found

with surprise that she was becoming assertive and definite. She no longer represented the negative side of his

life; she showed, indeed, a tendency to inconvenient affirmations. She had gradually expanded her

assumption of motherhood till it included his own share in the relation, and he suddenly found himself

regarded as the father of Jane. This was a contingency he had not foreseen, and it took all his philosophy to

accept it; but there were moments of compensation. For Mrs. Lethbury was undoubtedly happy for the first

time in years; and the thought that he had tardily contributed to this end reconciled him to the irony of the

At first he was inclined to reproach himself for still viewing the situation from the outside, for remaining a

spectator instead of a participant. He had been allured, for a moment, by the vision of severed hands meeting

over a cradle, as the whole body of domestic fiction bears witness to their doing; and the fact that no such

conjunction took place he could explain only on the ground that it was a borrowed cradle. He did not dislike

the little girl. She still remained to him a hypothetical presence, a query rather than a fact; but her nearness

was not unpleasant, and there were moments when her tentative utterances, her groping steps, seemed to

loosen the dry accretions enveloping his inner self. But even at such moments moments which he invited

and caressed she did not bring him nearer to his wife. He now perceived that he had made a certain place

in his life for Mrs. Lethbury, and that she no longer fitted into it. It was too late to enlarge the space, and so

she overflowed and encroached. Lethbury struggled against the sense of submergence. He let down barrier

after barrier, yielded privacy after privacy; but his wife's personality continued to dilate. She was no longer

herself alone: she was herself and Jane. Gradually, in a monstrous fusion of identity, she became herself,

himself and Jane; and instead of trying to adapt her to a spare crevice of his character, he found himself

He continued to tell himself that he was satisfied if his wife was happy; and it was not till the child's tenth

Jane had been a preternaturally good child. During the eight years of her adoption she had caused her

fosterparents no anxiety beyond those connected with the usual succession of youthful diseases. But her

unknown progenitors had given her a robust constitution, and she passed unperturbed through measles,

chickenpox and whoopingcough. If there was any suffering it was endured vicariously by Mrs. Lethbury,

whose temperature rose and fell with the patient's, and who could not hear Jane sneeze without visions of a

marble angel weeping over a broken column. But though Jane's prompt recoveries continued to belie such

premonitions, though her existence continued to move forward on an even keel of good health and good

conduct, Mrs. Lethbury's satisfaction showed no corresponding advance. Lethbury, at first, was disposed to

add her disappointment to the long list of feminine inconsistencies with which the sententious observer of life

builds up his favorite induction; but circumstances presently led him to take a kindlier view of the case.

Hitherto his wife had regarded him as a negligible factor in Jane's evolution. Beyond providing for his

adopted daughter, and effacing himself before her, he was not expected to contribute to her wellbeing. But

as time passed he appeared to his wife in a new light. It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the

intellect, Mrs. Lethbury was the first to declare her deficiencies to proclaim them, even, with a certain

virtuous superiority. She said she did not pretend to be clever, and there was no denying the truth of the

assertion. Now, however, she seemed less ready, not to own her limitations, but to glory in them. Confronted

"I have always been stupid, you know," she said to Lethbury with a new humility, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't

know what is best for Jane. I'm sure she has a wonderfully good mind, and I should reproach myself if I didn't

give her every opportunity." She looked at him helplessly. "You must tell me what ought to be done."

Lethbury was not unwilling to oblige her. Somewhere in his mental lumberroom there rusted a theory of

education such as usually lingers among the impedimenta of the childless. He brought this out, refurbished it,

and applied it to Jane. At first he thought his wife had not overrated the quality of the child's mind. Jane

seemed extraordinarily intelligent. Her precocious definiteness of mind was encouraging to her inexperienced

preceptor. She had no difficulty in fixing her attention, and he felt that every fact he imparted was being

etched in metal. He helped his wife to engage the best teachers, and for a while continued to take an

exofficial interest in his adopted daughter's studies. But gradually his interest waned. Jane's ideas did not

increase with her acquisitions. Her young mind remained a mere receptacle for facts: a kind of coldstorage

from which anything that had been put there could be taken out at a moment's notice, intact but congealed.

She developed, moreover, an inordinate pride in the capacity of her mental storehouse, and a tendency to pelt

her public with its contents. She was overheard to jeer at her nurse for not knowing when the Saxon

Heptarchy had fallen, and she alternately dazzled and depressed Mrs. Lethbury by the wealth of her

chronological allusions. She showed no interest in the significance of the facts she amassed: she simply

collected dates as another child might have collected stamps or marbles. To her fostermother she seemed a

prodigy of wisdom; but Lethbury saw, with a secret movement of sympathy, how the aptitudes in which Mrs.

"She is getting too clever for me," his wife said to him, after one of Jane's historical flights, "but I am so glad

Lethbury groaned in spirit. He did not look forward to Jane's companionship. She was still a good little girl:

but there was something automatic and formal in her goodness, as though it were a kind of moral calisthenics

that she went through for the sake of showing her agility. An early consciousness of virtue had moreover

constituted her the natural guardian and adviser of her elders. Before she was fifteen she had set about

reforming the household. She took Mrs. Lethbury in hand first; then she extended her efforts to the servants,

with consequences more disastrous to the domestic harmony; and lastly she applied herself to Lethbury. She

proved to him by statistics that he smoked too much, and that it was injurious to the optic nerve to read in

bed. She took him to task for not going to church more regularly, and pointed out to him the evils of

desultory reading. She suggested that a regular course of study encourages mental concentration, and hinted

To her adopted mother her suggestions were equally pertinent. She instructed Mrs. Lethbury in an improved

way of making beef stock, and called her attention to the unhygienic qualities of carpets. She poured out

distracting facts about bacilli and vegetable mould, and demonstrated that curtains and pictureframes are a

hotbed of animal organisms. She learned by heart the nutritive ingredients of the principal articles of diet,

and revolutionized the cuisine by an attempt to establish a scientific average between starch and phosphates.

Four cooks left during this experiment, and Lethbury fell into the habit of dining at his club.

Once or twice, at the outset, he had tried to check Jane's ardor; but his efforts resulted only in hurting his

wife's feelings. Jane remained impervious, and Mrs. Lethbury resented any attempt to protect her from her

daughter. Lethbury saw that she was consoled for the sense of her own inferiority by the thought of what

Jane's intellectual companionship must be to him; and he tried to keep up the illusion by enduring with what

As Jane grew up, he sometimes avenged himself by wondering if his wife was still sorry that they had not

called her Muriel. Jane was not ugly; she developed, indeed, a kind of categorical prettiness that might have

been a projection of her mind. She had a creditable collection of features, but one had to take an inventory

of them to find out that she was goodlooking. The fusing grace had been omitted.

Mrs. Lethbury took a touching pride in her daughter's first steps in the world. She expected Jane to take by

her complexion those whom she did not capture by her learning. But Jane's rosy freshness did not work any

perceptible ravages. Whether the young men guessed the axioms on her lips and detected the encyclopaedia

in her eye, or whether they simply found no intrinsic interest in these features, certain it is, that, in spite of her

mother's heroic efforts, and of incessant calls on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first season, had

dropped hopelessly out of the running. A few duller girls found her interesting, and one or two young men

came to the house with the object of meeting other young women; but she was rapidly becoming one of the

social supernumeraries who are asked out only because they are on people's lists.

The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with the idea that Jane had failed because she

was too clever. Jane probably shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no consciousness of failure.

She had developed a pronounced taste for society, and went out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after

winter, while Mrs. Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions on oblivious hostesses. To Lethbury

there was something at once tragic and exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one conciliatory, the

other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the elusive prize of popularity. He even began to feel a

personal stake in the pursuit, not as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his wife. He saw that the latter was

the victim of Jane's disappointment: that Jane was not above the crude satisfaction of "taking it out" of her

mother. Experience checked the impulse to come to his wife's defence; and when his resentment was at its

Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that the visiting ceased, and that the

dressmaker's bills diminished. At the same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up

charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated

himself on the change; but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day she was

sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she was always there. At first she and Mrs.

Lethbury sat in the drawingroom together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but presently Jane formed

the habit of joining him there, and he began to suspect that he was included among the objects of her

Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very seriousminded lately," she said. "She

imagines that she used to neglect you, and she is trying to make up for it. Don't discourage her," she added

Such a plea delivered Lethbury helpless to his daughter's ministrations: and he found himself measuring the

hours he spent with her by the amount of relief they must be affording her mother. There were even moments

But Lethbury was no hero, and he had nearly reached the limit of vicarious endurance when something

wonderful happened. They never quite knew afterward how it had come about, or who first perceived it; but

"Of course," she said, "he comes here because of Elise." The young lady in question, a friend of Jane's, was

possessed of attractions which had already been found to explain the presence of masculine visitors.

He saw a faint light in his wife's eyes; but she remarked carelessly: "Mr. Budd would be a very good match

Lethbury could hardly repress a chuckle: he was so exquisitely aware that she was trying to propitiate the

For a few weeks neither said a word; then Mrs. Lethbury once more reverted to the subject.

"Ah," said Lethbury with heroic indifference; and his wife hastily changed the subject.

Mr. Winstanley Budd was a young man who suffered from an excess of manner. Politeness gushed from him

in the driest seasons. He was always performing feats of drawingroom chivalry, and the approach of the

most unobtrusive female threw him into attitudes which endangered the furniture. His features, being of the

cherubic order, did not lend themselves to this role; but there were moments when he appeared to dominate

them, to force them into compliance with an aquiline ideal. The range of Mr. Budd's social benevolence made

its object hard to distinguish. He spread his cloak so indiscriminately that one could not always interpret the

gesture, and Jane's impassive manner had the effect of increasing his demonstrations: she threw him into

At first he filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it became apparent that his most dazzling effects

were directed exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked away from each other.

They pretended not to notice the frequency of Mr. Budd's visits, they struggled against an imprudent

inclination to leave the young people too much alone. Their conclusions were the result of indirect

observation, for neither of them dared to be caught watching Mr. Budd: they behaved like naturalists on the

In his efforts not to notice Mr. Budd, Lethbury centred his attentions on Jane; and Jane, at this crucial

moment, wrung from him a reluctant admiration. While her parents went about dissembling their emotions,

she seemed to have none to conceal. She betrayed neither eagerness nor surprise; so complete was her

unconcern that there were moments when Lethbury feared it was obtuseness, when he could hardly help

Meanwhile the velocity of Mr. Budd's gyrations increased with the ardor of courtship: his politeness became

incandescent, and Jane found herself the centre of a pyrotechnical display culminating in the "set piece" of an

Mrs. Lethbury imparted the news to her husband one evening after their daughter had gone to bed. The

announcement was made and received with an air of detachment, as though both feared to be betrayed into

unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended, could not repress the inquiry, "Have they decided on a

Mrs. Lethbury's superior command of her features enabled her to look shocked. "What can you be thinking

"Of course of course " stammered Lethbury "but nowadays people marry after such short

Lethbury sank back with a gasp. Was it genius or was it madness? He felt incompetent to decide; and Mrs.

"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive temperament might might be easily

The period of Mr. Budd's probation could scarcely have cost him as much mental anguish as it caused his

Mrs. Lethbury, by various ruses, tried to shorten the ordeal, but Jane remained inexorable; and each morning

Lethbury came down to breakfast with the certainty of finding a letter of withdrawal from her discouraged

When at length the decisive day came, and Mrs. Lethbury, at its close, stole into the library with an air of

chastened joy, they stood for a moment without speaking; then Mrs. Lethbury paid a fitting tribute to the

Lethbury could not repress a warning gesture; but even as it escaped him, he realized that his wife's grief was

"Of course, of course," he said, vainly sounding his own emotional shallows for an answering regret. And yet

He had fancied that these sufferings would be effaced by the milder atmosphere of their last weeks together;

but felicity did not soften Jane. Not for a moment did she relax her dominion: she simply widened it to

include a new subject. Mr. Budd found himself under orders with the others; and a new fear assailed

Lethbury as he saw Jane assume prenuptial control of her betrothed. Lethbury had never felt any strong

personal interest in Mr. Budd; but, as Jane's prospective husband, the young man excited his sympathy. To

"I'm afraid he may find Jane a little exacting," she said, after an evening dedicated to a stormy discussion of

the wedding arrangements. "She really ought to make some concessions. If he wants to be married in a black

frockcoat instead of a dark gray one " She paused and looked doubtfully at Lethbury.

Lethbury made an impatient gesture. "What are you afraid of? His finding her out or his not finding her out?"

Her husband mused for a moment; then he said with an air of cheerful hypocrisy: "After all, Budd is old

But the next day Mrs. Lethbury surprised him. Late in the afternoon she entered the library, so breathless and

"Told him." She nodded toward the door. "He's just gone. Jane is out, and I had a chance to talk to him

There was a pause. Lethbury made a call on his hoarded philosophy. He saw Jane suddenly reinstated in her

evening seat by the library fire; but an answering chord in him thrilled at his wife's heroism.

"He . . . he said . . . that we . . . had never understood Jane . . . or appreciated her . . ." The final syllables were

lost in her handkerchief, and she left him marvelling at the mechanism of a woman.

After that, Lethbury faced the future with an undaunted eye. They had done their duty at least his wife had

done hers and they were reaping the usual harvest of ingratitude with a zest seldom accorded to such

reaping. There was a marked change in Mr. Budd's manner, and his increasing coldness sent a genial glow

through Lethbury's system. It was easy to bear with Jane in the light of Mr. Budd's disapproval.

There was a good deal to be borne in the last days, and the brunt of it fell on Mrs. Lethbury. Jane marked her

transition to the married state by an appropriate but incongruous display of nerves. She became sentimental,

hysterical and reluctant. She quarrelled with her betrothed and threatened to return the ring. Mrs. Lethbury

had to intervene, and Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But the blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's

chivalry was proof against all his bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty. Lethbury feared

that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed to urge him to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared

with the ring on her finger, and consented to try on the weddingdress; but her uncertainties, her reactions,

When it dawned, Lethbury was still in an ecstasy of apprehension. Feeling reasonably sure of the principal

actors, he had centred his fears on incidental possibilities. The clergyman might have a stroke, or the church

might burn down, or there might be something wrong with the license. He did all that was humanly possible

to avert such contingencies, but there remained that incalculable factor known as the hand of God. Lethbury

In the church it almost had him by the nape. Mr. Budd was late; and for five immeasurable minutes Lethbury

and Jane faced a churchful of conjecture. Then the bridegroom appeared, flushed but chivalrous, and

explaining to his fatherinlaw under cover of the ritual that he had torn his glove and had to go back for

"You'll be losing the ring next," muttered Lethbury; but Mr. Budd produced this article punctually, and a

At the weddingbreakfast Lethbury caught his wife's eye fixed on him in mild disapproval, and understood

that his hilarity was exceeding the bounds of fitness. He pulled himself together, and tried to subdue his tone;

but his jubilation bubbled over like a champagneglass perpetually refilled. The deeper his draughts, the

It was at the brim when, in the wake of the dispersing guests, Jane came down in her travellingdress and fell

"I can't leave you!" she wailed, and Lethbury felt as suddenly sobered as a man under a douche. But if the

bride was reluctant her captor was relentless. Never had Mr. Budd been more dominant, more aquiline.

Lethbury's last fears were dissipated as the young man snatched Jane from her mother's bosom and bore her

The brougham rolled away, the last milliner's girl forsook her post by the awning, the red carpet was folded

up, and the house door closed. Lethbury stood alone in the hall with his wife. As he turned toward her, he

noticed the look of tired heroism in her eyes, the deepened lines of her face. They reflected his own

symptoms too accurately not to appeal to him. The nervous tension had been horrible. He went up to her, and

There had been a time when such a suggestion would have surprised her to the verge of disapproval; but now

"Oh, that would be so nice," she murmured with a great sigh of relief and assuagement.

"THE marriage law of the new dispensation will be: Thou shalt not be unfaithful to thyself."

A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement

Westall, as her husband descended from his improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group

of ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The New Ethics" had drawn about him an eager following of the

mentally unemployed those who, as he had once phrased it, liked to have their brainfood cut up for them.

The talks had begun by accident. Westall's ideas were known to be "advanced," but hitherto their advance had

not been in the direction of publicity. He had been, in his wife's opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not

to let his personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, however, he had shown a puzzling

tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the

relation of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had persuaded him to

give his afterdinner opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a series of talks at the Van Sideren

The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on the fact that they had a studio. Van

Sideren's pictures were chiefly valuable as accessories to the mise en scene which differentiated his wife's

"afternoons" from the blighting functions held in long New York drawingrooms, and permitted her to offer

their friends whiskeyandsoda instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the most

of the kind of atmosphere which a layfigure and an easel create; and if at times she found the illusion hard

to maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly overcame

such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some extraneous reenforcement of the "artistic"

impression. It was in quest of such aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, somewhat to his wife's

surprise, into a flattered participation in her fraud. It was vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the

audacities were artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage immoral was somehow as distinguished

as a painter who depicted purple grass and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were tired of the conventional

Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; she might indeed have claimed her

husband as a disciple. In the early days of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to proclaim

himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax him with moral cowardice, with a failure to live

up to the convictions for which their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first burst of

propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently.

She could hardly account for the change, yet being a woman who never allowed her impulses to remain

unaccounted for, she tried to do so by saying that she did not care to have the articles of her faith

misinterpreted by the vulgar. In this connection, she was beginning to think that almost every one was vulgar;

certainly there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust the defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it

was precisely at this point that Westall, discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to descend from the

It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed upon herself Mrs. Westall's

wandering resentment. In the first place, the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid" Mrs. Westall

found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary simply "horrid" to think of a young girl's

being allowed to listen to such talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional cocktail did

not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which made her appear the victim, rather than the

accomplice, of her parents' vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something ought to be

done that some one ought to speak to the girl's mother. And just then Una glided up.

"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with large limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I

The girl shone on her. "About the higher life the freer expansion of the individual the law of fidelity to

"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what it's all about!"

Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't you, then?" she murmured.

Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always or altogether! But I should like some tea, please."

Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As Julia received her cup she scrutinized

the girl more carefully. It was not such a girlish face, after all definite lines were forming under the rosy

haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be sixandtwenty, and wondered why she had not married. A

nice stock of ideas she would have as her dower! If they were to be a part of the modern girl's trousseau

Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one else had been speaking a stranger

who had borrowed her own voice: she felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism.

Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and Una's tea too sweet, she set down her cup, and looked

about for Westall: to meet his eyes had long been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but

only, as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger flight. She followed the flight, and it

carried her to a corner to which Una had withdrawn one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren

attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at

the girl's side. She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the depreciatory smile

which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of

On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her

arm. "Did I open their eyes a bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily.

"Why, haven't you all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of his tone. "I somehow fancied you'd

rather blamed me for not talking more openly before You've made me feel, at times, that I was

She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What made you decide not to any longer?"

She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why the wish to please you!" he answered, almost too

"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden rush of physical weariness.

Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally hot and then that confounded

cigarette smoke he had noticed once or twice that she looked pale she mustn't come to another

Saturday. She felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his concern for her, the

feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the

hansom, and her hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let them fall. It was so

That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the subject of his talk. He combined a man's

dislike of uncomfortable questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew that if he

"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put the case badly?"

"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go on with it?"

She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening her sense of helplessness.

"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his surprise was genuine gave an air of

Her eyes wandered about the familiar drawingroom which had been the scene of so many of their evening

confidences. The shaded lamps, the quietcolored walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers

scattered here and there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sevres, recalled, she hardly knew why, the

apartment in which the evenings of her first marriage had been passed a wilderness of rosewood and

upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant above the mantelpiece, and a Greek slave in "statuary

marble" between the foldingdoors of the back drawingroom. It was a room with which she had never been

able to establish any closer relation than that between a traveller and a railway station; and now, as she

looked about at the surroundings which stood for her deepest affinities the room for which she had left

that other room she was startled by the same sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The prints, the

flowers, the subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial refinement that had no relation

He drew his armchair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. The light of a readinglamp fell on his

finely drawn face, which had a kind of surfacesensitiveness akin to the surfacerefinement of its setting.

"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to stand for." He paused a moment. "The

The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then she was sure now that he had his reasons! In the

ten years of their marriage, how often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was

founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to examine its foundation? The

foundation is there, of course the house rests on it but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was

she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the situation now and then, on recapitulating the

reasons which justified her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the religion of

personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel the need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted

her marriage as frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive needs of the heart, and

"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory that the greatest possible publicity should

She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances on the public one is addressing. The set of people that the

Van Siderens get about them don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply by

"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and learned the truth from each other."

"I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that young girls should be present at at such

"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such things never are discussed before

young girls; but that is beside the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience today

Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of

"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the marriage tie."

She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind of a girl?"

"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young girls. Una was in a state of the most

Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me

is immensely flattering to my oratorical talent but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you that Miss

Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. She's quite capable of doing it herself."

"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly from his wife.

If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to Julia Westall when she left her first

husband. Every one was ready to excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John

Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the thought that it would no longer be

There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had accused the other of the offence

euphemistically described as "statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their allegiance to

a State which recognized desertion as a cause for divorce, and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of

desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's second marriage did not make traditional

morality stir in its sleep. It was known that she had not met her second husband till after she had parted from

the first, and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor one. Though Clement Westall was

acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it was generally felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his

reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could there

If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat cruder and less complex than her

own elucidation of the matter, both explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible.

The only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was something deeper than a social

disqualification. She had once said, in ironical defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her from

the necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not then realized at what cost the immunity was

purchased. John Arment was impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he made it

impossible for those about him to be other than himself. By an unconscious process of elimination he had

excluded from the world everything of which he did not feel a personal need: had become, as it were, a

climate in which only his own requirements survived. This might seem to imply a deliberate selfishness; but

there was nothing deliberate about Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this childish

element in his nature which sometimes for a moment unsettled his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that

he was simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is usual, the laborious process of

growing up? He had the kind of sporadic shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man that he is "no

fool"; and it was this quality that his wife found most trying. Even to the naturalist it is annoying to have his

deductions disturbed by some unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how much more so to the wife

whose estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment of her husband!

Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of

feeling, of suffering, perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's sensibilities naturally declined to

linger. She so fully understood her own reasons for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as

comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic moments, by the look of perplexity, too

These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too concrete a misery to be surveyed

philosophically. If she had been unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it had

been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia was wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her

husband's personality seemed to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting off the air, till

she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by

some worldold conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the

slow lifelong acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature.

She, for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the pretence

that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end,

though they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree outgrows the iron brace

It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met Clement Westall. She had seen at once that

he was "interested," and had fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her back into

the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril she had, with an almost crude precipitancy,

revealed her opinions to him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted by the

frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst

audacities did not seem to surprise him: he had thought out all that she had felt, and they had reached the

same conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one might soon

become galling to the other. That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon

as their necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There

would be no farther need of the ignoble concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of personal

delicacy and moral pride, by means of which imperfect marriages were now held together. Each partner to the

contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of selfdevelopment, on pain of

losing the other's respect and affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but must

struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage

was a frank recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to keep faith

with themselves, and not to live together for a moment after complete accord had ceased to exist between

It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that they had married. The ceremony was an

unimportant concession to social prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need be an

imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any diminution of selfrespect. The nature of

their attachment placed them so far beyond the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to discuss them

with an open mind; and Julia's sense of security made her dwell with a tender insistence on Westall's promise

to claim his release when he should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows seemed to make them, in a

sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in the forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they

This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her theoretical attitude toward marriage. It

was unconsciously, insidiously, that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed another

conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct of passionate dependency and possessorship that

now made her blood revolt at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they had called it, in

their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination rather this rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with

another's being! Another? But he was not other! He and she were one, one in the mystic sense which alone

gave marriage its significance. The new law was not for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a

mockery of union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on her own case. . . . She sent

She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative to her fears. She did not know what she

feared; but that made her anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject of his

Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a softening of his quick manner, a touch of

shyness in his consideration, that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because she looked

badly because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic that he showed this deference to her

wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh

The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday the morning post brought a note

from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there

was to be some music after his "talk"? Westall was just leaving for his office when his wife read the note. She

He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall have to cut my game of racquets. Well, I

Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chairback against which she leaned.

"I why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his surprise was not quite unfeigned. The

"Last week? Oh " He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought you were nervous then; you sent

Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair with a choking throat, her words, her

He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and sat down. "What is it that you hate?"

"I can't bear to have you speak as if as if our marriage were like the other kind the wrong kind.

When I heard you there, the other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming that

husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they were tired or had seen some one else

"You have ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke off. "You no longer believe that husbands and

"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes I still believe that but how can we judge for others?

He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of our creed that the special circumstances

produced by marriage were not to interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty." He paused a moment.

She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal turn to the argument.

He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hairsplitting. What you mean is that, the doctrine having

"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does it matter to us?"

Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before his wife with something of the

He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened by her heartbeats.

For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a torturing acuteness of vision. Every

detail of her surroundings pressed upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the

hardness of the chairarms that she grasped, were a separate wound to each sense.

"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the other should wish to be released."

She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position nervously; then he said, with a touch of

The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement,"

A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and pushed it back.

There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on the mantelshelf. Close to his hand

stood a little cup of jade that he had given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered vaguely

She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how he had left the room, or how long

afterward she had sat there. The fire still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the wall.

Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that she had fulfilled the very letter of their

bargain. There had been no crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or evasion. She

Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked about her, trying to recover her hold on

reality. Her identity seemed to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is my room

this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house? She could almost hear the walls laugh

She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room frightened her. She remembered, now,

having heard the front door close a long time ago: the sound suddenly reechoed through her brain. Her

husband must have left the house, then her husband? She no longer knew in what terms to think: the

simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The

clock struck ten it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that she had not ordered dinner . . . or

were they dining out that evening? Dinner dining out the old meaningless phraseology pursued her!

She must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a some one dissociated from all the

familiar routine of the past, whose wants and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the ways

The clock struck another hour eleven. She stood up again and walked to the door: she thought she would

go up stairs to her room. Her room? Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow

hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves

lay on the hall table. The same staircarpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French print, in its

narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm;

without, the same untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she could attempt to

think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the lounge, a stupor creeping over her. . .

Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the interval a wild marching and

countermarching of emotions, arguments, ideas a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon

themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if

only she could master the inner tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a whim, a fancy; the

law itself would side with her, would defend her. The law? What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner

of her own choice: she had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined victim of the code she had

devised. But this was grotesque, intolerable a mad mistake, for which she could not be held accountable!

The law she had despised was still there, might still be invoked . . . invoked, but to what end? Could she ask

it to chain Westall to her side? She had been allowed to go free when she claimed her freedom should she

show less magnanimity than she had exacted? Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony one does

not strike an attitude when one is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel, cajole . . . she would yield

anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The law could not help her her

own apostasy could not help her. She was the victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though some

giant machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and was grinding her to atoms. . .

It was afternoon when she found herself outofdoors. She walked with an aimless haste, fearing to meet

familiar faces. The day was radiant, metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal

the shortcomings of our streetcleaning and the excesses of our architecture. The streets looked bare and

hideous; everything stared and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's address.

She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a

warning. it was too late to save herself but the girl might still be told. The hansom rattled up Fifth

Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang

the bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and selfpossessed. She knew now exactly what she

The ladies were both out . . . the parlormaid stood waiting for a card. Julia, with a vague murmur, turned

away from the door and lingered a moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the

cabdriver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He touched his hat and drove off, leaving

her alone in the long empty street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where she

was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness had returned. Once she found herself in the

afternoon torrent of Broadway, swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with a succession of

A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since morning. She turned into a side street of

shabby houses, with rows of ashbarrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the sign

Ladies' Restaurant: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the dusty pane like petrified food in an

ethnological museum. She entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table

for her near the window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch

of celery in a thick tumbler and a saltcellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a long time

waiting for it. She was glad to be away from the noise and confusion of the streets. The lowceilinged room

was empty, and two or three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the background staring at her and

whispering together. At last the tea was brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it

hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like an elixir. She was almost dizzy with

She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once more working clearly. She felt as

vigorous, as decisive, as when she had stood on the Van Siderens' doorstep but the wish to return there

had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt the humiliation to which it might have exposed

her. . . The pity of it was that she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, and she

realized that she could not remain much longer in the restaurant without attracting notice. She paid for her tea

and went out into the street. The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement shop cast an oblong of

gaslight across the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was something sinister about the aspect of the street,

and she hastened back toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour.

At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream of carriages. At last a policeman

caught sight of her and signed to her that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, but

she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the farther corner. There she paused again for a

moment; but she fancied the policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest side

street. . . After that she walked a long time, vaguely. . . Night had fallen, and now and then, through the

windows of a passing carriage, she caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera

Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a moment, breathing quickly. She had turned

the corner without noticing whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in which she

had once lived her first husband's house. The blinds were drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the

windows and the transom above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a man walked

by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middleaged gait, his head sunk a little

between the shoulders, the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. He crossed the

street, went up the steps of the house, drew forth a latchkey, and let himself in. . .

There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the arearail at the corner, her eyes fixed

on the front of the house. The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still throbbed in

her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness. Presently she heard another step draw near, and

moving quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse which had

carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the electric bell then she felt suddenly weak and

tremulous, and grasped the balustrade for support. The door opened and a young footman with a fresh

inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her.

"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to see me for a moment?"

The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for dinner, madam."

Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me I will not detain him long," she said. She spoke

quietly, authoritatively, in the tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on the

Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she returned carelessly.

The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant the door opened from within and John

Arment stepped into the hall. He drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with the

shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his temples and reddening the lobes of his thick

It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change in his appearance. He had thickened,

coarsened, settled down into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious thought was

that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her

Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and her look acted as a warning. The

instinctive shrinking from a "scene" predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will

He followed her into the drawingroom and closed the door. Julia, as she advanced, was vaguely aware that

the room at least was unchanged: time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the

chimneybreast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner room. The place was alive with

memories: they started out from every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the

rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these impressions to her brain, her

whole conscious effort was centred in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would refuse to

hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, words and arguments running

into each other in the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust

out before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said

The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind a voice that suspended judgment,

rather, awaiting unforeseen developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a

deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a cold embarrassed politeness.

"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see you. There is something I must tell you."

Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said. "I should have supposed that any

"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they could help me this time."

Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question of help of course "

It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby devil called with a

subscriptionbook. Perhaps he thought she wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy or

even in money. . . The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to perplexity. All his

facial changes were slow, and she remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering

scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel. "There is a question of help," she

said in a softer key: "you can help me; but only by listening. . . I want to tell you something. . ."

Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier to write?" he suggested.

She shook her head. "There is no time to write . . . and it won't take long." She raised her head and their eyes

The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit of the room. Arment looked toward

"No but you will in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!" Instinctively she had shifted her

position putting herself between him and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short

breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything I thought we were perfectly happy. . . Suddenly he told

me he was tired of me . . . there is a girl he likes better. . . He has gone to her. . ." As she spoke, the lurking

anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her

Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This this is very unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the

"You saw that the law couldn't help you didn't you?" she went on. "That is what I see now. The law

represents material rights it can't go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law . . . the obligation that love

creates . . . being loved as well as loving . . . there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered . . . is

there?" She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see now . . . what

I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired . . . but I was not tired; and I don't understand why he is.

That's the dreadful part of it the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it meant. But I've been thinking

of it all day, and things have come back to me things I hadn't noticed . . . when you and I. . ." She moved

closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. "I see now that you

Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be lifted between them. Arment's lip

She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You wondered you tried to tell me but

no words came. . . You saw your life falling in ruins . . . the world slipping from you . . . and you couldn't

She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I know now I know," she repeated.

She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive

me . . . for not understanding that you didn't understand. . . That's all I wanted to say." She rose with a vague

"Then will you shake hands for goodby?" She felt his hand in hers: it was nerveless, reluctant.

She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment took an impulsive step forward; but

just then the footman, who was evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let her

out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, and she found herself outside in the

For many years he had lived withdrawn from the world in which he had once played so active and even

turbulent a part. The study of Tuscan art was his only pursuit, and it was to help him in the classification of

his notes and documents that I was first called to his villa. Colonel Alingdon had then the look of a very old

man, though his age can hardly have exceeded seventy. He was small and bent, with a finely wrinkled face

which still wore the tan of youthful exposure. But for this dusky redness it would have been hard to

reconstruct from the shrunken recluse, with his low fastidious voice and carefully tended hands, an image of

that young knight of adventure whose sword had been at the service of every uprising which stirred the

Though I was more of a proficient in Colonel Alingdon's later than his earlier pursuits, the thought of his

soldiering days was always coming between me and the pacific work of his old age. As we sat collating

papers and comparing photographs, I had the feeling that this dry and quiet old man had seen even stranger

things than people said: that he knew more of the inner history of Europe than half the diplomatists of his

I was not alone in this conviction; and the friend who had engaged me for Colonel Alingdon had appended to

his instructions the injunction to "get him to talk." But this was what no one could do. Colonel Alingdon was

ready to discuss by the hour the date of a Giottesque triptych, or the attribution of a disputed master; but on

It was perhaps because I recognized this silence and respected it that it afterward came to be broken for me.

Or it was perhaps merely because, as the failure of Colonel Alingdon's sight cut him off from his work, he

felt the natural inclination of age to revert from the empty present to the crowded past. For one cause or

another he did talk to me in the last year of his life; and I felt myself mingled, to an extent inconceivable to

the mere reader of history, with the passionate scenes of the Italian struggle for liberty. Colonel Alingdon had

been mixed with it in all its phases: he had known the last Carbonari and the Young Italy of Mazzini; he had

been in Perugia when the mercenaries of a liberal Pope slaughtered women and children in the streets; he had

"They say the Italians didn't know how to fight," he said one day, musingly "that the French had to come

down and do their work for them. People forget how long it was since they had had any fighting to do. But

they hadn't forgotten how to suffer and hold their tongues; how to die and take their secrets with them. The

Italian war of independence was really carried on underground: it was one of those awful silent struggles

which are so much more terrible than the roar of a battle. It's a deuced sight easier to charge with your

regiment than to lie rotting in an Austrian prison and know that if you give up the name of a friend or two

you can go back scotfree to your wife and children. And thousands and thousands of Italians had the choice

He sat silent, his meditative fingertips laid together, his eyes fixed on the past which was the now only thing

I had not spoken quite at random. I had always heard that there had been as much of love as of war in Colonel

Alingdon's early career, and I hoped that my question might give a personal turn to his reminiscences.

"The women?" he repeated. "They were braver for they had more to bear and less to do. Italy could never

His eye had kindled and I detected in it the reflection of some vivid memory. It was then that I asked him

The question was such a vague one that I hardly knew why I had put it, but to my surprise he answered

"The bravest thing I ever saw done by a woman," he said, "was brought about by an act of my own and

one of which I am not particularly proud. For that reason I have never spoken of it before there was a time

when I didn't even care to think of it but all that is past now. She died years ago, and so did the Jack

Alingdon she knew, and in telling you the story I am no more than the mouthpiece of an old tradition which

He leaned back, his clear blind gaze fixed smilingly on me, and I had the feeling that, in groping through the

labyrinth of his young adventures, I had come unawares upon their central point.

I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian friends in England. As an English officer

I had no difficulty in getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the refuge of the Italian

fugitives, and I was known to be working in their interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never

enjoyed life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal going on good music, balls and theatres.

Milan kept up her gayety to the last. The English were shocked by the insouciance of a race who could dance

under the very nose of the usurper; but those who understood the situation knew that Milan was playing

I was in the thick of it all it was just the atmosphere to suit a young fellow of nineandtwenty, with a

healthy passion for waltzing and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was fool enough

to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard of her, of course: you know the share she had in

the great work. In a different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had been to an earlier

generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible. She was quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she

was a widow of thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years previously, soon after their

marriage. The marriage had been notoriously unhappy, and his death was a release to Donna Candida. Her

family were of Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon after the execution of Ciro Menotti and his

companions. You remember the details of that business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most adroit villains

in Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting the Italian states under his rule. It was a vision of Italian

liberation of a sort. A few madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro Menotti was one of them. You know the

end. The Duke of Modena, who had counted on Louis Philippe's backing, found that that astute sovereign had

betrayed him to Austria. Instantly, he saw that his first business was to get rid of the conspirators he had

created. There was nothing easier than for a Hapsburg Este to turn on a friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his

life for the Duke and the Duke took it. You may remember that, on the night when seven hundred men

and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke was seen looking on at the slaughter from an arcade across

Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen, Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of

Donna Candida. The Verna family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at that time, of the

mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his sister. Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties.

He had never recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile, without seeing his wife and children

again. Countess Verna had been an ardent patriot in her youth, but the failure of the first attempts against

Austria had discouraged her. She thought that in losing her husband she had sacrificed enough for her

country, and her one idea was to keep Emilio on good terms with the government. But the Verna blood was

not tractable, and his father's death was not likely to make Emilio a good subject of the Estes. Not that he had

as yet taken any active share in the work of the conspirators: he simply hadn't had time. At his trial there was

nothing to show that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but he had been seen once or twice coming out of

what the ducal police called "suspicious" houses, and in his desk were found some verses to Italy. That was

The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her son's death were too abominable, to

unendurable. If he had risked his life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his losing it. But he

was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had

been sacrificed to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for victims, and the Countess Verna was not to

As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan. There they lived in seclusion till

Candida's marriage. During her girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut herself up in

the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the

dead. At the moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had been reading Petrarch's Ode to

l'antico valor Ne Vitalici cor non e ancor morto had lodged like a bullet in her brain. From the day of her

marriage she began to take a share in the silent work which was going on throughout Italy. Milan was at that

time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco threw herself into it with all the passion which her

unhappy marriage left unsatisfied. At first she had to act with great reserve, for her husband was a prudent

man, who did not care to have his habits disturbed by political complications; but after his death there was

nothing to restrain her, except the exquisite tact which enabled her to work night and day in the Italian cause

When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a tragic woman, prematurely bowed, like an

image of death in the background of the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her son's death, had

become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense than Candida. The mother's first thought was that her dead

must be avenged, the daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different motives they worked for the

same end. Candida felt for the Countess that protecting tenderness with which Italian children so often regard

their parents, a feeling heightened by the reverence which the mother's sufferings inspired. Countess Verna,

as the wife and mother of martyrs, had done what Candida longed to do: she had given her utmost to Italy.

There must have been moments when the selfabsorption of her grief chilled her daughter's ardent spirit; but

"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had suffered after Emilio's death. "All the

circumstances were too unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother; as if she had

been singled out to suffer more than any of the others. All the other families received some message or token

of farewell from the prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry a letter another sent a lock of hair

by the chaplain. But Emilio made no sign, sent no word. My mother felt as though he had turned his back on

us. She used to sit for hours, saying again and again, 'Why was he the only one to forget his mother?' I tried to

comfort her, but it was useless: she had suffered too much. Now I never reason with her; I listen, and let her

ease her poor heart. Do you know, she still asks me sometimes if I think he may have left a letter if there

is no way of finding out if he left one? She forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have sent bribes

and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who came near him. The answer is always the same

no one has ever heard of a letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of writing. Who

knows what was passing through his poor bewildered brain? But it would have been a great help to my

mother to have a word from him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should have forged a letter."

I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence must have aggravated the Countess's grief.

Precious as a message from a dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness have to the Italians

a peculiar significance. The Latin race is rhetorical: it possesses the gift of deathbed eloquence, the knack of

saying the effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters which the Italian patriots sent home from their

prisons or from the scaffold are not the halting farewells that anguish would have wrung from a less

expressive race: they are veritable "compositions," saved from affectation only by the fact that fluency and

sonority are a part of the Latin inheritance. Such letters, passed from hand to hand among the bereaved

families, were not only a comfort to the survivors but an incentive to fresh sacrifices. They were the "seed of

the martyrs" with which Italy was being sown; and I knew what it meant to the Countess Verna to have no

such treasure in her bosom, to sit silent while other mothers quoted their sons' last words.

I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in love with Donna Candida; and no doubt you

have guessed the reason. She was in love with some one else. It was the old situation of Heine's song. That

other loved another loved Italy, and with an undivided passion. His name was Fernando Briga, and at that

time he was one of the foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middleclass Modenese family. His father was

a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed in his profession and unwilling to compromise it by meddling in politics.

His irreproachable attitude won the confidence of the government, and the Duke conferred on him the sinister

office of physician to the prisons of Modena. It was this Briga who attended Emilio Falco, and several of the

Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in safety. He was studying medicine, and

every one supposed him to be absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening into one of

Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to history, so I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in

Milan, and had become one of the leading figures in the liberal group which was working for a coalition with

Piedmont. Like all the ablest men of his day, he had cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the house of

Savoy. The Austrian government had an eye on him, but he had inherited his father's prudence, though he

used it for nobler ends, and his discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause than a dozen enthusiasts

could have accomplished. No one understood this better than Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution,

and he trusted her with secrets which he would not have confided to many men. Her drawingroom was the

centre of the Piedmontese party, yet so clever was she in averting suspicion that more than one hunted

Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love her, and she knew it. Still, she was young,

she was handsome, and he loved no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate friends she

made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not reticent in such matters, and Donna Candida was proud

of loving a hero. You will see at once that I had no chance; but if she could not give up hope, neither could I.

Perhaps in her desire to secure my services for the cause she may have shown herself overkind; or perhaps I

was still young enough to set down to my own charms a success due to quite different causes. At any rate, I

persuaded myself that if I could manage to do something conspicuous for Italy I might yet make her care for

me. With such an incentive you will not wonder that I worked hard; but though Donna Candida was full of

One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her with having led me on; and when she

defended herself, I retaliated by taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that, and said it was

enough to love a hero, even without hope of return; and as she said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant,

so unattainably the woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped me: was she so sure then that Briga

was a hero? I remember her proud silence and our wretched parting. I went away feeling that at last I had

Soon after, as it happened, came the Five Days, and Milan was free. I caught a distant glimpse of Donna

Candida in the hospital to which I was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one and in

twentyfour hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she might send for me, but she did not, and I was

too sulky to make the first advance. A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion in Modena, and

not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over there with one or two men whom the Modenese liberals had

called in to help them. When we arrived the precious Duke had been swept out and a provisional government

set up. One of my companions, who was a Modenese, was made a member, and knowing that I wanted

something to do, he commissioned me to look up some papers in the ducal archives. It was fascinating work,

for in the pursuit of my documents I uncovered the hidden springs of his late Highness's paternal

administration. The principal papers relative to the civil and criminal administration of Modena have since

been published, and the world knows how that estimable sovereign cared for the material and spiritual

Well in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers marked: "Taken from political

prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year of Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was

thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I came across one which was docketed:

"Given by Doctor Briga's son to the warder of His Highness's prisons." Doctor Briga's son? That could be no

other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But how came such a paper into his hands, and how had it

passed from them into those of the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened the letter I felt the

Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle of hell all hearts are not closed to pity,

and I have been given the hope that these last words of farewell may reach you. . . ." My eyes ran on over

pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored Candida . . . let her never forget the cause for which

her father and brother perished . . . let her keep alive in her breast the thought of Spielberg and Reggio. Do

not grieve that I die so young . . . though not with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit, and am

worthy to be enrolled in the sacred phalanx . . ." and so on. Before I reached the signature I knew the letter

I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant

to do my head was in a whirl. I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a lad of

fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during Emilio Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps

aware of the lad's liberal sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the letter. But why had Briga

given it up to the warder? That was the puzzling question. The docket said: " Given by Doctor Briga's son"

but it might mean "taken from." Fernando might have been seen to receive the letter and might have been

searched on leaving the prison. But that would not account for his silence afterward. How was it that, if he

knew of the letter, he had never told Emilio's family of it? There was only one explanation. If the letter had

been taken from him by force he would have had no reason for concealing its existence; and his silence was

clear proof that he had given it up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope of standing well with the authorities. But

then he was a traitor and a coward; the patriot of 'fortyeight had begun life as an informer! But does innate

character ever change so radically that the lad who has committed a base act at fifteen may grow up into an

honorable man? A good man may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak into a hero?

You may fancy how I answered my own questions. . . . If Briga had been false and cowardly then, was he not

sure to be false and cowardly still? In those days there were traitors under every coat, and more than one

brave fellow had been sold to the police by his best friend. . . . You will say that Briga's record was

unblemished, that he had exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by his friends too steadfastly,

to permit of a rational doubt of his good faith. So reason might have told me in a calmer moment, but she was

not allowed to make herself heard just then. I was young, I was angry, I chose to think I had been unfairly

treated, and perhaps at my rival's instigation. It was not unlikely that Briga knew of my love for Donna

Candida, and had encouraged her to use it in the good cause. Was she not always at his bidding? My blood

boiled at the thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I went straight to Donna Candida.

I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The triumph of the liberals in Modena had

revived public interest in the unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen years earlier,

had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The victors of 'fortyeight wished to honor the vanquished of

'thirtytwo. All the families exiled by the ducal government were hastening back to recover possession of

their confiscated property and of the graves of their dead. Already it had been decided to raise a monument to

Menotti and his companions. There were to be speeches, garlands, a public holiday: the thrill of the

commemoration would run through Europe. You see what it would have meant to the poor Countess to

appear on the scene with her boy's letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on the back of

the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's farewell would be published in all the journals

of Europe: the finding of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal those fatal words on the

back? At the moment, it seemed to me that fortune could not have given me a handsomer chance of

destroying my rival than in letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of having suppressed.

My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what could I do but give the letter to Donna

Candida? To keep it back was out of the question; and with the best will in the world I could not have erased

Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in thinking it lucky that the paper had fallen into my

Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but she held out her hand with a smile of

pardon, and asked what news I brought from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she were

"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to her. I had purposely turned the superscription

She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light struck up from it into her face as she read a

radiance that smote me to the soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her and efface the name

Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and kissed them. "Oh, thank you

I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch of her lips hardened me.

She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness what consolation you have brought my poor

mother! This will take the bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you know, she

had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's

letter.' At heart she was always sure that he had written I suppose some blessed instinct told her so." She

In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me. "Tell me where you found it," she

My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did not take it from him."

I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was given up to the warder of the prison by the

She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga? But that is Fernando," she said.

I had expected an outcry of horror; if she had uttered it I could have forgiven her anything. But I heard,

instead, an incredulous exclamation: my statement was really too preposterous! I saw that her mind had

flashed back to our last talk, and that she charged me with something too nearly true to be endurable.

"My brother's letter? Given to the prison warder by Fernando Briga? My dear Captain Alingdon on what

Her incredulity had in it an evident implication of bad faith, and I was stung to a quick reply.

She continued to gaze at me a moment: then she obeyed. I don't think I ever admired her more than I did then.

As she read the name a tremor crossed her face; and that was all. Her mind must have reached out instantly to

the farthest consequences of the discovery, but the long habit of selfcommand enabled her to steady her

muscles at once. If I had not been on the alert I should have seen no hint of emotion.

For a while she looked fixedly at the back of the letter; then she raised her eyes to mine.

Her composure irritated me. She had rallied all her forces to Briga's defence, and I felt as though my triumph

"Probably one of the clerks of the archives," I answered. "It is written in the same hand as all the other

I supposed her quick intelligence had seized this from the first; but I saw now that it came to her as a shock.

She stood motionless, clenching the letter in her hands, and I could guess the rapid travel of her thoughts.

Suddenly she came up to me. "Colonel Alingdon," she said, "you have been a good friend of mine, though I

think you have not liked me lately. But whether you like me or not, I know you will not deceive me. On your

honor, do you think this memorandum may have been written later than the letter?"

I hesitated. If she had cried out once against Briga I should have wished myself out of the business; but she

"On my honor," I said, "I think it hardly possible. The ink has faded to the same degree."

"It may have been written by an enemy," I went on, wishing to clear myself of any appearance of malice.

She shook her head. "He was barely fifteen and his father was on the side of the government. Besides, this

would have served him with the government, and the liberals would never have known of it."

This was unanswerable and still not a word of revolt against the man whose condemnation she was

"To thinking that Signor Briga could have begun his career as a patriot by betraying a friend."

I had brought her to the test at last, but my eyes shrank from her face as I spoke. There was a dead silence,

She lifted her head, and I saw that my triumph was to be short. She stood erect, a few paces from me, resting

"Of course he can explain," she said; "do you suppose I ever doubted it? But " she paused a moment,

"I understand," she repeated. It was she, now, who sought my eyes and held them. "It is quite simple he

This was a little too oracular to be received with equanimity. I suppose I smiled.

"He could not have done otherwise," she repeated with tranquil emphasis. "He merely did what is every

Italian's duty he put Italy before himself and his friends." She waited a moment, and then went on with

growing passion: "Surely you must see what I mean? He was evidently in the prison with his father at the

time of my poor brother's death. Emilio perhaps guessed that he was a friend or perhaps appealed to him

because he was young and looked kind. But don't you see how dangerous it would have been for Briga to

bring this letter to us, or even to hide it in his father's house? It is true that he was not yet suspected of

liberalism, but he was already connected with Young Italy, and it is just because he managed to keep himself

so free of suspicion that he was able to do such good work for the cause." She paused, and then went on with

a firmer voice. "You don't know the danger we all lived in. The government spies were everywhere. The laws

were set aside as the Duke pleased was not Emilio hanged for having an ode to Italy in his desk? After

Menotti's conspiracy the Duke grew mad with fear he was haunted by the dread of assassination. The

police, to prove their zeal, had to trump up false charges and arrest innocent persons you remember the

case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were smuggled into people's houses they were condemned to

death on the paid evidence of brigands and galleyslaves. The families of the revolutionists were under the

closest observation and were shunned by all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had been

seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected. If he had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its

discovery might have ruined his family as well as himself. It was his duty to consider all these things. In

those days no man could serve two masters, and he had to choose between endangering the cause and failing

I stood listening, fascinated by the rapidity and skill with which she had built up the hypothesis of Briga's

defence. But before she ended a strange thing happened her argument had convinced me. It seemed to me

Perhaps I winced a little at being thus coupled with her hero; at any rate, some last impulse of resistance

made me say: "I should be quite convinced, if Briga had only spoken of the letter afterward. If brave people

understand each other, I cannot see why he should have been afraid of telling you the truth."

"You are right," she said; "he need not have been afraid. But he does not know me as I know him. I was

I stiffened instantly, suspecting a purpose behind her praise. "I have given you small proof of it!" I said.

She seemed surprised. "In bringing me this letter? What else could you do?" She sighed deeply. "You can

She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most difficult point in our interview.

She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well he was a cruel friend. What he did was

I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at least tell the Countess "

Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother don't make it more difficult for me!"

"Don't you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She has suffered so much! And I can't risk

that for in her anger she might speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to show the

letter. Don't you see that, even now, a word of this might ruin him? I will trust his fate to no one. If Italy

She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great refusal; then she turned to the writingtable

at which she had been seated when I came in. Her sealingtaper was still alight, and she held her brother's

I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose to my lips.

"Don't you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is my gift to Italy," she said.

IT was on an impulse hardly needing the arguments he found himself advancing in its favor, that Thursdale,

The "as usual" was his own qualification of the act; a convenient way of bridging the interval in days and

other sequences that lay between this visit and the last. It was characteristic of him that he instinctively

excluded his call two days earlier, with Ruth Gaynor, from the list of his visits to Mrs. Vervain: the special

conditions attending it had made it no more like a visit to Mrs. Vervain than an engraved dinner invitation is

like a personal letter. Yet it was to talk over his call with Miss Gaynor that he was now returning to the scene

of that episode; and it was because Mrs. Vervain could be trusted to handle the talking over as skilfully as the

interview itself that, at her corner, he had felt the dilettante's irresistible craving to take a last look at a work

On the whole, he knew no one better fitted to deal with the unexpected than Mrs. Vervain. She excelled in the

rare art of taking things for granted, and Thursdale felt a pardonable pride in the thought that she owed her

excellence to his training. Early in his career Thursdale had made the mistake, at the outset of his

acquaintance with a lady, of telling her that he loved her and exacting the same avowal in return. The latter

part of that episode had been like the long walk back from a picnic, when one has to carry all the crockery

one has finished using: it was the last time Thursdale ever allowed himself to be encumbered with the debris

of a feast. He thus incidentally learned that the privilege of loving her is one of the least favors that a

charming woman can accord; and in seeking to avoid the pitfalls of sentiment he had developed a science of

evasion in which the woman of the moment became a mere implement of the game. He owed a great deal of

delicate enjoyment to the cultivation of this art. The perils from which it had been his refuge became naively

harmless: was it possible that he who now took his easy way along the levels had once preferred to gasp on

the raw heights of emotion? Youth is a highcolored season; but he had the satisfaction of feeling that he had

entered earlier than most into that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every halftone has its value.

As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable to Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good

many women not to betray their feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to work in. She had

been surprisingly crude when he first knew her; capable of making the most awkward inferences, of plunging

through thin ice, of recklessly undressing her emotions; but she had acquired, under the discipline of his

reticences and evasions, a skill almost equal to his own, and perhaps more remarkable in that it involved

keeping time with any tune he played and reading at sight some uncommonly difficult passages.

It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent; but the result justified the effort. At the crucial

moment she had been perfect: her way of greeting Miss Gaynor had made him regret that he had announced

his engagement by letter. it was an evasion that confessed a difficulty; a deviation implying an obstacle,

where, by common consent, it was agreed to see none; it betrayed, in short, a lack of confidence in the

completeness of his method. It had been his pride never to put himself in a position which had to be quitted,

as it were, by the back door; but here, as he perceived, the main portals would have opened for him of their

own accord. All this, and much more, he read in the finished naturalness with which Mrs. Vervain had met

Miss Gaynor. He had never seen a better piece of work: there was no overeagerness, no suspicious warmth,

above all (and this gave her art the grace of a natural quality) there were none of those damnable implications

whereby a woman, in welcoming her friend's betrothed, may keep him on pins and needles while she laps the

lady in complacency. So masterly a performance, indeed, hardly needed the offset of Miss Gaynor's

doorstep words "To be so kind to me, how she must have liked you!" though he caught himself

wishing it lay within the bounds of fitness to transmit them, as a final tribute, to the one woman he knew who

was unfailingly certain to enjoy a good thing. It was perhaps the one drawback to his new situation that it

might develop good things which it would be impossible to hand on to Margaret Vervain.

The fact that he had made the mistake of underrating his friend's powers, the consciousness that his writing

must have betrayed his distrust of her efficiency, seemed an added reason for turning down her street instead

of going on to the club. He would show her that he knew how to value her; he would ask her to achieve with

him a feat infinitely rarer and more delicate than the one he had appeared to avoid. Incidentally, he would

also dispose of the interval of time before dinner: ever since he had seen Miss Gaynor off, an hour earlier, on

her return journey to Buffalo, he had been wondering how he should put in the rest of the afternoon. It was

absurd, how he missed the girl. . . . Yes, that was it; the desire to talk about her was, after all, at the bottom of

his impulse to call on Mrs. Vervain! It was absurd, if you like but it was delightfully rejuvenating. He

could recall the time when he had been afraid of being obvious: now he felt that this return to the primitive

emotions might be as restorative as a holiday in the Canadian woods. And it was precisely by the girl's

candor, her directness, her lack of complications, that he was taken. The sense that she might say something

rash at any moment was positively exhilarating: if she had thrown her arms about him at the station he would

not have given a thought to his crumpled dignity. It surprised Thursdale to find what freshness of heart he

brought to the adventure; and though his sense of irony prevented his ascribing his intactness to any

conscious purpose, he could but rejoice in the fact that his sentimental economies had left him such a large

Mrs. Vervain was at home as usual. When one visits the cemetery one expects to find the angel on the

tombstone, and it struck Thursdale as another proof of his friend's good taste that she had been in no undue

haste to change her habits. The whole house appeared to count on his coming; the footman took his hat and

overcoat as naturally as though there had been no lapse in his visits; and the drawingroom at once enveloped

him in that atmosphere of tacit intelligence which Mrs. Vervain imparted to her very furniture.

It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances, Mrs. Vervain should herself sound the first

It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art. The difficulty of classifying it disturbed

"Why not?" he said, restoring the book. "Isn't it my hour?" And as she made no answer, he added gently,

She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth. "It's a way of giving it more flavor!"

Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the imprudence of saying, "Why should you

"I don't recognize it," he said. "Unless you make me " he added, with a note that slightly stirred her

"In having one more thing to like you for your letting Miss Gaynor see why I had already so many." He

flattered himself that this turn had taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase.

Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose. "Was it that you came for?" she asked, almost gaily.

"That will be very interesting especially if you have seen her since her second visit to me."

"Her second visit?" Thursdale pushed his chair back with a start and moved to another. "She came to see you

"I didn't have to she wrote and asked me last night. But no doubt you have seen her since."

Thursdale sat silent. He was trying to separate his words from his thoughts, but they still clung together

He regained his composure. "Of course she'll write: very often, I hope. You know I'm absurdly in love," he

She tilted her head back, looking up at him as he leaned against the chimneypiece. He had leaned there so

often that the attitude touched a pulse which set up a throbbing in her throat. "Oh, my poor Thursdale!" she

"I suppose it's rather ridiculous," he owned; and as she remained silent, he added, with a sudden break "Or

Her answer was another question. "Have you been back to your rooms since you left her?"

"Ah, yes you could: there was no reason " Her words passed into a silent musing.

His paleness shook her, and she raised a hand of reassurance. "Nothing has happened perhaps that is just

the worst of it. You always hated, you know," she added incoherently, "to have things happen: you never

"Well, that was what she came here for: I supposed you had guessed. To know if anything had happened."

"Had happened?" He gazed at her slowly. "Between you and me?" he said with a rush of light.

The words were so much cruder than any that had ever passed between them that the color rose to her face;

"You know girls are not quite as unsophisticated as they used to be. Are you surprised that such an idea

Mrs. Vervain went on, smoothly: "I supposed it might have struck you that there were times when we

"Perhaps it certainly never belongs to the woman who has shared it. But one learns such truths only by

"Of course but supposing her act a natural one " he floundered lamentably among his innuendoes

"Well, then ?" escaped him, in crude satisfaction; but as she did not complete the sentence he went on

with a faltering laugh: "She can hardly object to the existence of a mere friendship between us!"

Thursdale stood perplexed. He had seen, on the previous day, no trace of jealousy or resentment in his

betrothed: he could still hear the candid ring of the girl's praise of Mrs. Vervain. If she were such an abyss of

insincerity as to dissemble distrust under such frankness, she must at least be more subtle than to bring her

doubts to her rival for solution. The situation seemed one through which one could no longer move in a

penumbra, and he let in a burst of light with the direct query: "Won't you explain what you mean?"

Mrs. Vervain sat silent, not provokingly, as though to prolong his distress, but as if, in the attenuated

phraseology he had taught her, it was difficult to find words robust enough to meet his challenge. It was the

first time he had ever asked her to explain anything; and she had lived so long in dread of offering

elucidations which were not wanted, that she seemed unable to produce one on the spot.

Thursdale colored again. "Free?" he stammered, with a sense of physical disgust at contact with such

"Yes if I had quite done with you." She smiled in recovered security. "It seems she likes clear outlines;

"Well and when I told her that you had never belonged to me, she wanted me to define my status to

Thursdale sat gazing at her intently; his hand was not yet on the clue. "And even when you had told her that

"Even when I had told her that I had had no status that I had never stood anywhere, in any sense she

"Something more? Between between you and me? Is it a conundrum?" He laughed awkwardly.

"Girls are not what they were in my day; they are no longer forbidden to contemplate the relation of the

"So it seems!" he commented. "But since, in this case, there wasn't any " he broke off, catching the dawn

He flung himself down despairingly. "I give it up! What did you tell her?" he burst out with sudden

"The exact truth. If I had only known," she broke off with a beseeching tenderness, "won't you believe that I

"To save you to hide you from her to the last! As I've hidden you from myself all these years!" She stood

up with a sudden tragic import in her movement. "You believe me capable of that, don't you? If I had only

guessed but I have never known a girl like her; she had the truth out of me with a spring."

"Had never never in all these years! Oh, she knew why she measured us both in a flash. She didn't

suspect me of having haggled with you her words pelted me like hail. 'He just took what he wanted

sifted and sorted you to suit his taste. Burnt out the gold and left a heap of cinders. And you let him you

let yourself be cut in bits' she mixed her metaphors a little 'be cut in bits, and used or discarded, while

all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him! But he's Shylock and you have bled to death of

the pound of flesh he has cut out of you.' But she despises me the most, you know far the most " Mrs.

The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room: they seemed out of harmony with its setting of

afternoon intimacy, the kind of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor might intrude without perceptibly

lowering the atmosphere. It was as though a grand operasinger had strained the acoustics of a private

Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess. Half the room was between them, but they seemed to stare close at

"She did not speak much of you: she is proud. But I gather that while she understands love or indifference,

her eyes have never been opened to the many intermediate shades of feeling. At any rate, she expressed an

unwillingness to be taken with reservations she thinks you would have loved her better if you had loved

some one else first. The point of view is original she insists on a man with a past!"

"So I suggested: but she has her eyes on his particular portion of it. She insists on making it a test case. She

wanted to know what you had done to me; and before I could guess her drift I blundered into telling her."

Thursdale drew a difficult breath. "I never supposed your revenge is complete," he said slowly.

He heard a little gasp in her throat. "My revenge? When I sent for you to warn you to save you from being

"You're very good but it's rather late to talk of saving me." He held out his hand in the mechanical gesture

"How you must care! for I never saw you so dull," was her answer. "Don't you see that it's not too late for

me to help you?" And as he continued to stare, she brought out sublimely: "Take the rest in imagination!

Let it at least be of that much use to you. Tell her I lied to her she's too ready to believe it! And so, after

His stare hung on her, widening to a kind of wonder. She gave the look back brightly, unblushingly, as

though the expedient were too simple to need oblique approaches. It was extraordinary how a few words had

swept them from an atmosphere of the most complex dissimulations to this contact of naked souls.

It was not in Thursdale to expand with the pressure of fate; but something in him cracked with it, and the rift

He returned her gaze. "I might, I suppose, without being out of character. Only, don't you see that if your plan

"To sacrifice you wouldn't make me different. I shall go on being what I have always been sifting and

"You would let her take her chance? But I can't, you see. I must take my punishment alone."

She drew her hand away, sighing. "Oh, there will be no punishment for either of you."

Thursdale faced about from the threshold with fresh life in his look. "No letter? You don't mean "

"I mean that she's been with you since I saw her she's seen you and heard your voice. If there is a letter,

He turned back to the door, forcing an answer to her smile. "But in the mean while I shall have read it," he

The door closed on him, and she hid her eyes from the dreadful emptiness of the room.

AS Mrs. Quentin's victoria, driving homeward, turned from the Park into Fifth Avenue, she divined her son's

tall figure walking ahead of her in the twilight. His long stride covered the ground more rapidly than usual,

and she had a premonition that, if he were going home at that hour, it was because he wanted to see her.

Mrs. Quentin, though not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a sixth sense enabling her to detect the

faintest vibrations of her son's impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in possession of

this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help

overhearing Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her discoveries to herself, the tact to take for

granted nothing that lay below the surface of their spoken intercourse: she knew that most people would

rather have their letters read than their thoughts. For this superfeminine discretion Alan repaid her by

being Alan. There could have been no completer reward. He was the key to the meaning of life, the

justification of what must have seemed as incomprehensible as it was odious, had it not allsufficingly ended

in himself. He was a perfect son, and Mrs. Quentin had always hungered for perfection.

Her house, in a minor way, bore witness to the craving. One felt it to be the result of a series of eliminations:

there was nothing fortuitous in its blending of line and color. The almost morbid finish of every material

detail of her life suggested the possibility that a diversity of energies had, by some pressure of circumstance,

been forced into the channel of a narrow dilettanteism. Mrs. Quentin's fastidiousness had, indeed, the flaw of

being too onesided. Her friends were not always worthy of the chairs they sat in, and she overlooked in her

associates defects she would not have tolerated in her bricabrac. Her house was, in fact, never so

distinguished as when it was empty; and it was at its best in the warm firelit silence that now received her.

Her son, who had overtaken her on the doorstep, followed her into the drawingroom, and threw himself

into an armchair near the fire, while she laid off her furs and busied herself about the tea table. For a while

neither spoke; but glancing at him across the kettle, his mother noticed that he sat staring at the embers with a

look she had never seen on his face, though its arrogant young outline was as familiar to her as her own

thoughts. The look extended itself to his negligent attitude, to the droop of his long fine hands, the dejected

tilt of his head against the cushions. It was like the moral equivalent of physical fatigue: he looked, as he

himself would have phrased it, deadbeat, played out. Such an air was so foreign to his usual bright

indomitableness that Mrs. Quentin had the sense of an unfamiliar presence, in which she must observe

herself, must raise hurried barriers against an alien approach. It was one of the drawbacks of their excessive

She was accustomed to let his thoughts circle about her before they settled into speech, and she now sat in

At length, without turning his eyes from the fire, he said: "I'm so glad you're a nice oldfashioned intuitive

He nodded. "She's been thinking hard. It was very painful to me, at least; and I don't believe she

enjoyed it: she said she didn't." He stretched his feet to the fire. "The result of her cogitations is that she won't

have me. She arrived at this by pure ratiocination it's not a question of feeling, you understand. I'm the

only man she's ever loved but she won't have me. What novels did you read when you were young, dear?

I'm convinced it all turns on that. If she'd been brought up on Trollope and WhyteMelville, instead of

Tolstoi and Mrs. Ward, we should have now been vulgarly sitting on a sofa, trying on the engagementring."

Mrs. Quentin at first was kept silent by the mother's instinctive anger that the girl she has not wanted for her

"Against the paper. She objects to me in my official capacity as owner of the Radiator."

"She had found a solution, of course she overflows with expedients. I was to chuck the paper, and we

were to live happily ever afterward on canned food and virtue. She even had an alternative ready women

are so full of resources! I was to turn the Radiator into an independent organ, and run it at a loss to show the

public what a model newspaper ought to be. On the whole, I think she fancied this plan more than the other

it commended itself to her as being more uncomfortable and aggressive. It's not the fashion nowadays to

Mrs. Quentin said to herself, "I didn't know how much he cared!" Aloud she murmured, "You must give her

"My dear mother, those she has are brandnew; that's the trouble with them. She's tremendously uptodate.

She takes in all the moral fashionpapers, and wears the newest thing in ethics."

Her resentment lost its way in the intricacies of his metaphor. "Is she so very religious?"

"You dear archaic woman! She's hopelessly irreligious; that's the difficulty. You can make a religious woman

believe almost anything: there's the habit of credulity to work on. But when a girl's faith in the Deluge has

been shaken, it's very hard to inspire her with confidence. She makes you feel that, before believing in you,

it's her duty as a conscientious agnostic to find out whether you're not obsolete, or whether the text isn't

Mrs. Quentin was again silent. The two moved in that atmosphere of implications and assumptions where the

lightest word may shake down the dust of countless stored impressions; and speech was sometimes more

She seemed to use her words cautiously, like weapons that might slip and inflict a cut. "What she suggests."

Her son, raising himself, turned to look at her for the first time. Their glance met in a shock of

comprehension. He was with her against the girl, then! Her satisfaction overflowed in a murmur of

"One's self," he emended. "That's what I tell her. What's the use of my giving up the paper if I keep my point

"Oh, the paper for the present. She undertakes to modify the point of view afterward. All she asks is that I

Mrs. Quentin sat gazing into her untouched cup. Her son's first words had produced in her the hallucinated

sense of struggling in the thick of a crowd that he could not see. It was horrible to feel herself hemmed in by

influences imperceptible to him; yet if anything could have increased her misery it would have been the

His answer carried the shock of an evocation. "I merely asked her what she thought of you."

For a moment Mrs. Quentin's cheek showed the lingering light of girlhood: praise transmitted by her son

His mother, stiffening, made a circuitous return: "She never comes here. How can she know me?"

"She's so poor! She goes out so little." He rose and leaned against the mantelpiece, dislodging with

impatient fingers a slender bronze wrestler poised on a porphyry base, between two warmtoned Spanish

He shrugged his shoulders. "Mrs. Fenno has the scope of a wax doll. Her rule of conduct is taken from her

"The result is the same? Not exactly. She admires you oh, immensely!" He replaced the bronze and turned

to his mother with a smile. "Aren't you on some hospital committee together? What especially strikes her is

your way of doing good. She says philanthropy is not a line of conduct, but a state of mind and it appears

As, in the vague diffusion of physical pain, relief seems to come with the acuter pang of a single nerve, Mrs.

Quentin felt herself suddenly eased by a rush of anger against the girl. "If she loved you " she began.

The two were again silent, facing each other in the disarray of a common catastrophe as though their

thoughts, at the summons of danger, had rushed naked into action. Mrs. Quentin, at this revealing moment,

saw for the first time how many elements of her son's character had seemed comprehensible simply because

they were familiar: as, in reading a foreign language, we take the meaning of certain words for granted till the

context corrects us. Often as in a given case, her maternal musings had figured his conduct, she now found

herself at a loss to forecast it; and with this failure of intuition came a sense of the subserviency which had

hitherto made her counsels but the anticipation of his wish. Her despair escaped in the moan, "What is it you

"Show her tell her make her understand that the paper has always been a thing outside your life that

hasn't touched you that needn't touch her. Only, let her hear you watch you be with you she'll

"Let her give them to you! If she can when she sees you. . . ." His impatient hand again displaced the

On the Fenno threshold a sudden sense of the futility of the attempt had almost driven Mrs. Quentin back to

her carriage; but the door was already opening, and a parlormaid who believed that Miss Fenno was in led

the way to the depressing drawingroom. It was the kind of room in which no member of the family is likely

to be found except after dinner or after death. The chairs and tables looked like poor relations who had repaid

their keep by a long career of grudging usefulness: they seemed banded together against intruders in a sullen

conspiracy of discomfort. Mrs. Quentin, keenly susceptible to such influences, read failure in every angle of

the upholstery. She was incapable of the vulgar error of thinking that Hope Fenno might be induced to marry

Alan for his money; but between this assumption and the inference that the girl's imagination might be

touched by the finer possibilities of wealth, good taste admitted a distinction. The Fenno furniture, however,

presented to such reasoning the obtuseness of its blackwalnut chamferings; and something in its attitude

suggested that its owners would be as uncompromising. The room showed none of the modern attempts at

palliation, no apologetic draping of facts; and Mrs. Quentin, provisionally perched on a greenreps Gothic

sofa with which it was clearly impossible to establish any closer relations, concluded that, had Mrs. Fenno

needed another seat of the same size, she would have set out placidly to match the one on which her visitor

To Mrs. Quentin's fancy, Hope Fenno's opinions, presently imparted in a clear young voice from the opposite

angle of the Gothic sofa, partook of the character of their surroundings. The girl's mind was like a large light

empty place, scantily furnished with a few massive prejudices, not designed to add to any one's comfort but

too ponderous to be easily moved. Mrs. Quentin's own intelligence, in which its owner, in an artistically

shaded halflight, had so long moved amid a delicate complexity of sensations, seemed in comparison

suddenly close and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the glare of the young girl's candor, the older

woman found herself stumbling in an unwonted obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself into a sense of

irritation against her listener. Mrs. Quentin knew that the momentary value of any argument lies in the

capacity of the mind to which it is addressed, and as her shafts of persuasion spent themselves against Miss

Fenno's obduracy, she said to herself that, since conduct is governed by emotions rather than ideas, the really

strong people are those who mistake their sensations for opinions. Viewed in this light, Miss Fenno was

certainly very strong: there was an unmistakable ring of finality in the tone with which she declared,

Mrs. Quentin's answer veiled the least shade of feminine resentment. "I told Alan that, where he had failed,

Hope Fenno laid on her visitor's an almost reverential hand. "Dear Mrs. Quentin, it's the impression you make

Mrs. Quentin waited a moment: she was perfectly aware that, where her feelings were concerned, her sense

of humor was not to be relied on. "Do I make such an odious impression?" she asked at length, with a smile

Mrs. Quentin looked at her thoughtfully. "Would it be permissible, I wonder, for an older woman to suggest

that, at your age, it isn't always a misfortune to have what one calls one's judgment temporarily obscured?"

"Ah, he is not others," she murmured, with an accent that touched the older woman.

Mrs. Quentin pressed her point. "You judge yourself, then, as you would be in my position and your

"How can you think it? It's because I appreciate the difference in our point of view that I find it so difficult to

Mrs. Quentin rose with a sigh. "My child, in my day love was less subtle." She added, after a moment, "Alan

"Just as your goodness does, your sweetness, your immense indulgence in letting me discuss things with you

Mrs. Quentin's smile was not without irony. "You must remember that I do it for Alan."

"That's what I love you for!" the girl instantly returned; and again her tone touched her listener.

"Isn't it to ideas that all the sacrifices that were worth while have been made?"

Mrs. Quentin took her hand. "I believe you are," she answered. "And it isn't true that I speak only for Alan.

Perhaps I did when I began; but now I want to plead for you too against yourself." She paused, and then

went on with a deeper note: "I have let you, as you say, speak your mind to me in terms that some women

might have resented, because I wanted to show you how little, as the years go on, theories, ideas, abstract

conceptions of life, weigh against the actual, against the particular way in which life presents itself to us

to women especially. To decide beforehand exactly how one ought to behave in given circumstances is like

deciding that one will follow a certain direction in crossing an unexplored country. Afterward we find that we

must turn out for the obstacles cross the rivers where they're shallowest take the tracks that others have

beaten make all sorts of unexpected concessions. Life is made up of compromises: that is what youth

refuses to understand. I've lived long enough to doubt whether any real good ever came of sacrificing

beautiful facts to even more beautiful theories. Do I seem casuistical? I don't know there may be losses

either way . . . but the love of the man one loves . . . of the child one loves . . . that makes up for everything. .

She had spoken with a thrill which seemed to communicate itself to the hand her listener had left in hers. Her

eyes filled suddenly, but through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last desperate denial:

Mrs. Quentin, in the late spring afternoon, had turned in at the doors of the Metropolitan Museum. She had

been walking in the Park, in a solitude oppressed by the everpresent sense of her son's trouble, and had

suddenly remembered that some one had added a Beltraffio to the collection. It was an old habit of Mrs.

Quentin's to seek in the enjoyment of the beautiful the distraction that most of her acquaintances appeared to

find in each other's company. She had few friends, and their society was welcome to her only in her more

superficial moods; but she could drug anxiety with a picture as some women can soothe it with a bonnet.

During the six months that had elapsed since her visit to Miss Fenno she had been conscious of a pain of

which she had supposed herself no longer capable: as a man will continue to feel the ache of an amputated

arm. She had fancied that all her centres of feeling had been transferred to Alan; but she now found herself

subject to a kind of dual suffering, in which her individual pang was the keener in that it divided her from her

son's. Alan had surprised her: she had not foreseen that he would take a sentimental rebuff so hard. His

disappointment took the uncommunicative form of a sterner application to work. He threw himself into the

concerns of the Radiator with an aggressiveness that almost betrayed itself in the paper. Mrs. Quentin never

read the Radiator, but from the glimpses of it reflected in the other journals she gathered that it was at least

not being subjected to the moral reconstruction which had been one of Miss Fenno's alternatives.

Mrs. Quentin never spoke to her son of what had happened. She was superior to the cheap satisfaction of

avenging his injury by depreciating its cause. She knew that in sentimental sorrows such consolations are as

salt in the wound. The avoidance of a subject so vividly present to both could not but affect the closeness of

their relation. An invisible presence hampered their liberty of speech and thought. The girl was always

between them; and to hide the sense of her intrusion they began to be less frequently together. It was then that

Mrs. Quentin measured the extent of her isolation. Had she ever dared to forecast such a situation, she would

have proceeded on the conventional theory that her son's suffering must draw her nearer to him; and this was

precisely the relief that was denied her. Alan's uncommunicativeness extended below the level of speech, and

his mother, reduced to the helplessness of deadreckoning, had not even the solace of adapting her sympathy

to his needs. She did not know what he felt: his course was incalculable to her. She sometimes wondered if

she had become as incomprehensible to him; and it was to find a moment's refuge from the dogging misery of

The long line of mellow canvases seemed to receive her into the rich calm of an autumn twilight. She might

have been walking in an enchanted wood where the footfall of care never sounded. So deep was the sense of

seclusion that, as she turned from her prolonged communion with the new Beltraffio, it was a surprise to find

A young lady who had risen from the central ottoman stood in suspended flight as Mrs. Quentin faced her.

The girl advanced with a blush. As it faded, Mrs. Quentin noticed a change in her. There had always been

something bright and bannerlike in her aspect, but now her look drooped, and she hung at halfmast, as it

were. Mrs. Quentin, in the embarrassment of surprising a secret that its possessor was doubtless unconscious

Miss Fenno's eye travelled incuriously over the mystic blue reaches of the landscape. "I suppose so," she

assented; adding, after another tentative pause, "You come here often, don't you?"

"This Beltraffio is new, you know," Mrs. Quentin continued. "What a wonderful background, isn't it? Is he a

The girl glanced again at the dusky canvas, as though in a final endeavor to extract from it a clue to the

consolations of art. "I don't know," she said at length; "I'm afraid I don't understand pictures." She moved

Mrs. Quentin looked at her. "Let me drive you home," she said, impulsively. She was feeling, with a shock of

surprise, that it gave her, after all, no pleasure to see how much the girl had suffered.

Mrs. Quentin dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of withdrawal, and a momentary wave of

antagonism seemed to sweep the two women apart. Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again addressed

"Mrs. Quentin," the girl faltered, "I really came here because I saw your carriage." Her eyes sank, and then

fluttered back to her hearer's face. "I've been horribly unhappy!" she exclaimed.

Mrs. Quentin was silent. If Hope Fenno had expected an immediate response to her appeal, she was

disappointed. The older woman's face was like a veil dropped before her thoughts.

"I've thought so often," the girl went on precipitately, "of what you said that day you came to see me last

autumn. I think I understand now what you meant what you tried to make me see. . . . Oh, Mrs. Quentin,"

she broke out, "I didn't mean to tell you this I never dreamed of it till this moment but you do

remember what you said, don't you? You must remember it! And now that I've met you in this way, I can't

help telling you that I believe I begin to believe that you were right, after all."

Mrs. Quentin had listened without moving; but now she raised her eyes with a slight smile. "Do you wish me

The girl flushed, but her glance braved the smile. "Would he still care to hear it?" she said fearlessly.

Mrs. Quentin took momentary refuge in a renewed inspection of the Beltraffio; then, turning, she said, with a

During this exchange of words the two speakers had drifted unconsciously toward one of the benches. Mrs.

Quentin glanced about her: a custodian who had been hovering in the doorway sauntered into the adjoining

gallery, and they remained alone among the silvery Vandykes and flushed bituminous Halses. Mrs. Quentin

Miss Fenno dropped beside her. In both women the stress of emotion was too strong for speech. The girl was

"I knew you had. That made it so much worse for me that I should have been the cause of your suffering

Mrs. Quentin drew a deep breath. "Not for Alan only," she said. Miss Fenno turned on her a wondering

glance. "Not for Alan only. That pain every woman expects and knows how to bear. We all know our

children must have such disappointments, and to suffer with them is not the deepest pain. It's the suffering

apart in ways they don't understand." She breathed deeply. "I want you to know what I mean. You were

Mrs. Quentin went on in a voice of passionate lucidity. "I knew it then I knew it even while I was trying to

argue with you I've always known it! I didn't want my son to marry you till I heard your reasons for

Mrs. Quentin shook her head sadly, and the girl, gaining courage from this mute negation, cried with an

"It's because you thought me hard, obstinate narrowminded? Oh, I understand that so well! My

selfrighteousness must have seemed so petty! A girl who could sacrifice a man's future to her own moral

vanity for it was a form of vanity; you showed me that plainly enough how you must have despised

me! But I am not that girl now indeed I'm not. I'm not impulsive I think things out. I've thought this

out. I know Alan loves me I know how he loves me and I believe I can help him oh, not in the

ways I had fancied before but just merely by loving him." She paused, but Mrs. Quentin made no sign. "I

see it all so differently now. I see what an influence love itself may be how my believing in him, loving

him, accepting him just as he is, might help him more than any theories, any arguments. I might have seen

this long ago in looking at you as he often told me in seeing how you'd kept yourself apart from

from Mr. Quentin's work and his been always the beautiful side of life to them kept their faith alive

in spite of themselves not by interfering, preaching, reforming, but by just loving them and being there

" She looked at Mrs. Quentin with a simple nobleness. "It isn't as if I cared for the money, you know; if I

"Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the pictures. "My poor child," she broke out,

"Yes from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as I mean to prevent your doing, when I

The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's startled exclamation "Oh, Mrs. Quentin "

"Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind of pinkandwhite idiot he ought to

have married? It's because I see you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies, as I was

that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing

rigidly forward, her eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of one who tries to press the

"When I met Alan's father," she went on, "I knew nothing of his his work. We met abroad, where I had

been living with my mother. That was twentysix years ago, when the Radiator was less less notorious

than it is now. I knew my husband owned a newspaper a great newspaper and nothing more. I had

never seen a copy of the Radiator; I had no notion what it stood for, in politics or in other ways. We were

married in Europe, and a few months afterward we came to live here. People were already beginning to talk

about the Radiator. My husband, on leaving college, had bought it with some money an old uncle had left

him, and the public at first was merely curious to see what an ambitious, stirring young man without any

experience of journalism was going to make out of his experiment. They found first of all that he was going

to make a great deal of money out of it. I found that out too. I was so happy in other ways that it didn't make

much difference at first; though it was pleasant to be able to help my mother, to be generous and charitable,

to live in a nice house, and wear the handsome gowns he liked to see me in. But still it didn't really count

it counted so little that when, one day, I learned what the Radiator was, I would have gone out into the streets

barefooted rather than live another hour on the money it brought in. . . ." Her voice sank, and she paused to

steady it. The girl at her side did not speak or move. "I shall never forget that day," she began again. "The

paper had stripped bare some family scandal some miserable bleeding secret that a dozen unhappy people

had been struggling to keep out of print that would have been kept out if my husband had not Oh, you

"Yes, I must I must! You must be made to understand." She drew a deep breath. "My husband was not

like Alan. When he found out how I felt about it he was surprised at first but gradually he began to see

or at least I fancied he saw the hatefulness of it. At any rate he saw how I suffered, and he offered to give

up the whole thing to sell the paper. It couldn't be done all of a sudden, of course he made me see that

for he had put all his money in it, and he had no special aptitude for any other kind of work. He was a

born journalist like Alan. It was a great sacrifice for him to give up the paper, but he promised to do it

in time when a good opportunity offered. Meanwhile, of course, he wanted to build it up, to increase the

circulation and to do that he had to keep on in the same way he made that clear to me. I saw that we

were in a vicious circle. The paper, to sell well, had to be made more and more detestable and disgraceful. At

first I rebelled but somehow I can't tell you how it was after that first concession the ground

seemed to give under me: with every struggle I sank deeper. And then then Alan was born. He was such a

delicate baby that there was very little hope of saving him. But money did it the money from the paper. I

took him abroad to see the best physicians I took him to a warm climate every winter. In hot weather the

doctors recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I owed his life to the Radiator.

And when he began to grow stronger the habit was formed the habit of luxury. He could not get on

without the things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped under monotony and

discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel, every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted

"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going. There was no more talk of giving

up the Radiator. He never reproached me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the

thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the paper altogether to take what it gave as though I

didn't know where it came from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to speak, purify

money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a great deal in charity I indulged myself very little at first.

All the money that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But gradually, as my boy grew up, the

problem became more complicated. How was I to protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in? I

couldn't preach by example couldn't hold up his father as a warning, or denounce the money we were

living on. All I could do was to disguise the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside to build a

wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and interests another way, hide the Radiator

from him as a smiling woman at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast! Just as Alan was entering college his

father died. Then I saw my way clear. I had loved my husband and yet I drew my first free breath in years.

For the Radiator had been left to Alan outright there was nothing on earth to prevent his selling it when he

came of age. And there was no excuse for his not selling it. I had brought him up to depend on money, but the

paper had given us enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last we could turn on the monster that had

nourished us. I felt a savage joy in the thought I could hardly bear to wait till Alan came of age. But I had

never spoken to him of the paper, and I didn't dare speak of it now. Some false shame kept me back, some

vague belief in his ignorance. I would wait till he was twentyone, and then we should be free.

"I waited the day came, and I spoke. You can guess his answer, I suppose. He had no idea of selling the

Radiator. It wasn't the money he cared for it was the career that tempted him. He was a born journalist,

and his ambition, ever since he could remember, had been to carry on his father's work, to develop, to surpass

it. There was nothing in the world as interesting as modern journalism. He couldn't imagine any other kind of

life that wouldn't bore him to death. A newspaper like the Radiator might be made one of the biggest powers

on earth, and he loved power, and meant to have all he could get. I listened to him in a kind of trance. I

couldn't find a word to say. His father had had scruples he had none. I seemed to realize at once that

argument would be useless. I don't know that I even tried to plead with him he was so bright and hard and

inaccessible! Then I saw that he was, after all, what I had made him the creature of my concessions, my

connivances, my evasions. That was the price I had paid for him I had kept him at that cost!

"Well I had kept him, at any rate. That was the feeling that survived. He was my boy, my son, my very

own till some other woman took him. Meanwhile the old life must go on as it could. I gave up the

struggle. If at that point he was inaccessible, at others he was close to me. He has always been a perfect son.

Our tastes grew together we enjoyed the same books, the same pictures, the same people. All I had to do

was to look at him in profile to see the side of him that was really mine. At first I kept thinking of the

dreadful other side but gradually the impression faded, and I kept my mind turned from it, as one does

from a deformity in a face one loves. I thought I had made my last compromise with life had hit on a

"And then he met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying, but not a girl like you. I thought he

would choose a sweet thing who would never pry into his closets he hated women with ideas! But as soon

as I saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He is so much stronger than his father he is

full of the most monstrous convictions. And he has the courage of them, too you saw last year that his

love for you never made him waver. He believes in his work; he adores it it is a kind of hideous idol to

which he would make human sacrifices! He loves you still I've been honest with you but his love

wouldn't change him. It is you who would have to change to die gradually, as I have died, till there is only

one live point left in me. Ah, if one died completely that's simple enough! But something persists

remember that a single point, an aching nerve of truth. Now and then you may drug it but a touch

wakes it again, as your face has waked it in me. There's always enough of one's old self left to suffer with. . .

Miss Fenno sat motionless, her eyes on the ground. Twilight was falling on the gallery a twilight which

seemed to emanate not so much from the glass dome overhead as from the crepuscular depths into which the

faces of the pictures were receding. The custodian's step sounded warningly down the corridor. When the girl

THIS is the story that, in the diningroom of the old Beacon Street house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge

Anthony Bracknell, of the famous East India firm of Bracknell Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn to

the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was throwing its gauzy web of sound across the Common), used to relate

"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his

father's East Indiaman, the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of towers and

It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of age, and bound on the grand tour

aboard the crack merchantman of old Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled into

shape. Venice! The name, since childhood, had been a magician's wand to him. In the hall of the old

Bracknell house at Salem there hung a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought

home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and palaces, of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of

St. Peter's Church in Rome; and, in a corner the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks hung a

busy merry populous scene, entitled: St. Mark's Square in Venice. This picture, from the first, had singularly

taken little Tony's fancy. His unformulated criticism on the others was that they lacked action. True, in the

view of St. Peter's an experiencedlooking gentleman in a fullbottomed wig was pointing out the fairly

obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at

the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled

lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at once more, Tony was sure, than had

ever happened in Boston in a twelvemonth or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were

people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a particoloured

throng of gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who stalked through

the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people seemed to be

diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys,

distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slipperylooking fellows in black

the whole with such an air of ease and goodhumour that one felt the cutpurses to be as much a part of the

As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost its magic; but not so the early

imaginings it had excited. For the old picture had been but the springboard of fancy, the first step of a

cloudladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name of Venice remained associated; and all

that observation or report subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober warranty of

fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between reality and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender

Venice glass, goldpowdered as with lilypollen or the dust of sunbeams, that, standing in the corner cabinet

betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed, among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly.

There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same sunpollen, so threadlike, impalpable,

that it slipped through the fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which seemed held

in air as if by magic. Magic! That was the word which the thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place,

Tony felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in which two and two might make

five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion give the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a

young heart that did not, once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, at least, had felt

the longing from the first hour when the axioms in his hornbook had brought home to him his heavy

responsibilities as a Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before him, as the distant

The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bearleader, was just putting a hand to the third clause of

the fourth part of a sermon on FreeWill and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled overboard.

Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on

being roused from his lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in suspense. What was

the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical foreign city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many

Moslem idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up his conclusions before the Muse of

Theology took flight? He should be happy, he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell the

The next morning, ha! Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked at the subjugated captain, buckled

on his sword, pressed his hat down with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next

A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of the old print, only suffused with

sunlight and colour, and bubbling with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic

painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob,

particoloured, partispeeched, crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a

kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the

shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horseplay, as in such

crowds on marketday at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which seemed to include everybody in the

circumference of one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was

beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide bore him against a drolllooking bellringing

The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and clattered to the stones. The

sherbetseller called on all the saints, and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by

mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, and just then a personablelooking young man

who had observed the transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English:

"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed and replied: "You have given him

Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, the two young men were presently

hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in front of one of the coffeehouses about the square. Tony counted

himself lucky to have run across an Englishspeaking companion who was goodnatured enough to give him

a clue to the labyrinth; and when he had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out again

to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous

acquaintance, and was able to point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton and ladies

of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind not openly mentioned in taking a census of

Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had perused the "Merchant of Venice"

and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of Venice

differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising appearance and manners of the great

people his friend named to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers,

short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic

slashed with rosecolour; while the President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow

with a rapierlike nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was careful not to step

It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on forever; but he had given his word to the

captain to be at the landingplace at sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the skies! Tony was a

man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a handsome damascened dagger selected from one of the

goldsmiths' shops in a narrow street lined with such wares, he insisted on turning his face toward the

Hepzibah's gig. The Count yielded reluctantly; but as they came out again on the square they were caught in a

"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, with many lights and flowers. It is a pity you

Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled back the leathern flap of the cathedral

door, and they stood in a haze of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty undulations of

the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and as Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a

He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the voice trying to disengage her dress

from the tip of his scabbard. She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies affected,

and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as sweet as a nesting bird.

In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself a shred of her lace flounce clung to

Tony's enchanted fingers. Looking after her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompouslooking graybeard in a

long black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the exchange of glances between the young

The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian beauties," said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador.

"Oh ah precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint James's, where her father, the Senator,

was formerly accredited as Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England."

"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go abroad save with their parents or a duenna."

Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish bound, and he turned about halfexpecting to

meet again the merry eyes under the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful

page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle,

glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a

bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the moment to step beneath a

"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena" he read; but hardly had he seized the sense of

the words when a hand fell on his shoulder, and a sternlooking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of

Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk himself free; but the harder he jerked the

tighter grew the other's grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his way through

the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: "For God's sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep

Tony was no chickenheart. He had something of a name for pugnacity among the lads of his own age at

home, and was not the man to stand in Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was

that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the

"This is one of the agents of the Ten. For God's sake, no outcry." He exchanged a word or two with the

macebearer and again turned to Tony. "You have been seen concealing a letter about your person "

"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna Polixena Cador. A black

business! Oh, a very black business! This Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice I beseech

His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the potentate in the cocked hat.

"I am sorry, sir but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded as the Grand Turk's wives, and you

must be answerable for this scandal. The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador,

instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth and inexperience" Tony winced at

Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharpfeatured shabbylooking fellow in black,

dressed somewhat like a lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many apologetic

gestures steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held him by the other arm, and

in this fashion they emerged on the square, which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling

Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go where they pleased, but that he must

first say a word to the mate of the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the

The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook his head and rattled off a sharp denial.

"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any resistance will tell against you in the end."

Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of escape. In wind and limb he was more

than a mate for his captors, and boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to

outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry the crowd would close in on him.

Space was what he wanted: a clear ten yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng

was thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for an opening. Suddenly the mob

swerved aside after some new show. Tony's fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the latter

could right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels to his escort. On he sped,

cleaving the crowd like a floodtide in Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye, dashing

down a lane to an unlit waterway, and plunging across a narrow humpback bridge which landed him in a

black pocket between walls. But now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The walls

were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath came short as he paced the masonry cage in

which illluck had landed him. Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a servant wench

looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his

rescuer slammed and bolted it, and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses.

THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They climbed a squalid stairway of stone,

felt their way along a corridor, and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oillamp hung from the

painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his surroundings, but he had no time to examine

them, for a figure started up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was the cause of

She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her face changed and she shrank back

"This is a misunderstanding a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried out in her pretty broken English.

"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not overpleased by his reception.

"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it to me under your father's very nose "

The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was you who received my letter?" She swept round on the little

maidservant and submerged her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same jargon, and

as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the doubleted page who had handed him the letter in

Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded instantly and she returned to the charge.

"This wicked, careless girl she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you

understand? The letter was not intended for you it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of

my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance oh, how can I ever excuse myself to you?"

"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am surprised, I own, that any one should

Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She

heard you speaking English, and and I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner in the

church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very

She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I

jest at such a moment? I am in dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you also Oh,

my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale and leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.

Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment later the redstockinged Senator stalked

into the room attended by halfadozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the square. At

sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst into furious outcries; and though their jargon was

unintelligible to the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly plain. The Senator,

with a start of anger, first flung himself on the intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned

wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause

with all the eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among

themselves, and one, a truculentlooking personage in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous

eye on Tony. The latter was at his wit's end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena's tears had quite

drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the magnificoes meant him a mischief he had

At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on the scene, and was at once assailed by all

the tongues in the room. He pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be silent, and

addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at first, would not draw breath to hear him; but

presently, sobering, he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of earshot.

"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and

"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he

uttered the word the beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up to the forehead.

"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his Illustriousness does not speak your language, he

"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me if I ask him in plain English what is his

The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, stepping between, answered quickly: "His

grievance against you is that you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the most

noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo " and

"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with the young lady to set me free, since by her

own avowal " but here he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance at him.

"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to take shelter behind a lady's reputation."

"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was merely about to remark that, by the young

Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died to defend her.

The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his

"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter which you were seen to read openly and

thrust in your bosom. The incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, who, in

Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to

repudiate a lady on so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her father's resentment."

"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only excuse being your ignorance of our

customs, it is scarcely for you to advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio."

It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort.

"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same behaviour in all countries, and that, here as

elsewhere, a gentleman would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was seen to read

reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose."

As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far as he dared commit himself.

There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the Count then said: "We all know, sir,

that a gentleman is obliged to meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the means of

There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to look straight before him, managed to

deflect an interrogatory glance toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by

"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, and whatever happens I must keep her

He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in the habit of showing my private

The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into

furious invective, while the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.

The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared. This is not the first time that youth and

propinquity have led to fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation incumbent

Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the Marquess. "And what obligation is that?"

Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in heaven does she not bid me show the

letter?" Then he remembered that it had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them to

have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave

plight effaced all thought of his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so preposterous that he

"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome this solution."

The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty," he said, "becomes your youth and

inexperience; but even if it were justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in this

country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father has selected."

"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman yonder was in that enviable position."

"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in your favour."

"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness obliges me to decline "

"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no

more to be consulted than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary that you should marry her

Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his veins. He looked in silence at the threatening

visages between himself and the door, stole a sideglance at the high barred windows of the apartment, and

The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps

Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned words to the Count and her father; but

The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you at what cost you do not guess but as you

see it is vain. In an hour his Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness consents to

He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to Tony, stalked out one by one from

the room. Tony heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.

THE girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and agony. So moving was the sight that

Tony once again forgot his own extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her,

"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his bosom that she hid from his gaze. He held her

there a breathingspace, as he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him gently

"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? And how nobly you defended me! How

generous it was of you not to show the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save me

"From you?" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." She drew back and hid her face again, as though

Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that window " he muttered.

"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas. Oh, I must speak!" She sprang up and paced

"He has a dreadful name for violence his gondolier has told my little maid such tales of him! But why do I

"Yes, and how to save you for I can save you! But every moment counts and yet what I have to say is

"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little wildly; but at this she stood up and bent a grave

Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight through clouds and darkness, he had

He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, and reluctantly he walked away and

leaned in the embrasure of the window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back was

turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though she were reciting a lesson.

"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not a rich man. True, he has large

estates, but he is a desperate spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of ready

money. If you turn round I shall not go on! He wrangled horribly with my father over my dowry he

wanted me to have more than either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a grandee of

Spain. But my father is a gambler too oh, such fortunes as are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so

"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You don't know us Venetians we're all

to be bought for a price. It is not only the brides who are marketable sometimes the husbands sell

themselves too. And they think you rich my father does, and the others I don't know why, unless you

have shown your money too freely and the English are all rich, are they not? And oh, oh do you

She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was at her side.

"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see your face again." She fell to weeping

Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to a clock against the wall. "The hour is

nearly over. It is quite true that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be warned by me!

"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to myself when I am alone."

She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she adjured him, "and I warn you there is no other

For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's

sermons in the best parlour at Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in his. "Yes,

She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be silent!" she said. `"I am no noble Marquess, and

have no great estates," he cried. "My father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts but if

"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I bless you, bless you, bless you on my

"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not willing. You mistake me. I must marry the

"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger to help another man to marry you."

Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the wall a few feet off from him. Her

breast throbbed under its lace and falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty.

A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the verge of her troubled brows.

And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as

a bird's poise and before he knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them.

She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it from your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is

She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her ashen face.

"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never see you again, Anthony!" She gave

him a dreadful look. "Oh, my poor boy, my poor love ' I love you, I love you, Polixena!'"

He thought she had turned lightheaded, and advanced to her with soothing words; but she held him quietly

He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on his hands.

"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play here," she said.

As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of voices on the threshold.

"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator

but not, oh, not about your danger in this place or about my love," she breathed to him. And as the key

The key rattled, and the door swung open but the blackcassocked gentleman who stepped in, though a

priest indeed, was no votary of idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias Mounce,

looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was

supported, to his evident relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was closed by an escort

of sternlooking fellows in cocked hats and smallswords, who led between them Tony's late friends the

The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony.

"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival with this pack of mummers, have you? And

this is where your pleasuring has landed you? H'm a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head of

it." He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a

"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this morning in the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon

yonder; and as for that Captain Spavent " and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess "I've

watched him drive his bully's trade under the arcade ever since I first dropped anchor in these waters. Well,

well," he continued, his indignation subsiding, "all's fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this gentleman here is

At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and explanatory, and uncovering

"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, "that this incident is the result of an unfortunate

misunderstanding, and if you will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here will be

"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you, considering the rope's at your throats.

But we'll not take advantage of your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it too long.

You pack of galleyslaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly, "decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of

yours " His eye fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we must all see the

Carnival once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you

please, Mr. Bracknell, if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll bid adieu to our hospitable