diff options
Diffstat (limited to '23246.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 23246.txt | 11482 |
1 files changed, 11482 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/23246.txt b/23246.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d63c6e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/23246.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11482 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Anne, by Temple Bailey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mistress Anne + +Author: Temple Bailey + +Illustrator: F. Vaux Wilson + +Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23246] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS ANNE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net and the booksmiths +at http://www.eBookForge.net + + + + + + + +MISTRESS ANNE + +BY +TEMPLE BAILEY + +AUTHOR OF +CONTRARY MARY, ETC. + +FRONTISPIECE BY +F. VAUX WILSON + +GROSSET & DUNLAP +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + +Made in the United States of America + +[Illustration: SHE SHOWED HIM HER SCHOOL] + +COPYRIGHT +1917 BY +THE PENN +PUBLISHING +COMPANY + +_Made in U. S. A._ + +Mistress Anne + +_To_ + +P. V. B. + +_who sees the sunsets_ + + +Contents + + + I. IN WHICH THINGS ARE SAID OF DIOGENES + AND OF A LADY WITH A LANTERN 11 + + II. IN WHICH A PRINCESS SERVING FINDS THAT THE + MOTTO OF KINGS IS MEANINGLESS 21 + + III. IN WHICH THE CROWN PRINCE ENTERS UPON HIS + OWN 36 + + IV. IN WHICH THREE KINGS COME TO CROSSROADS 51 + + V. IN WHICH PEGGY TAKES THE CENTER OF THE + STAGE 62 + + VI. IN WHICH A GRAY PLUSH PUSSY CAT SUPPLIES + A THEME 77 + + VII. IN WHICH GEOFFREY WRITES OF SOLDIERS AND + THEIR SOULS 91 + + VIII. IN WHICH A GREEN-EYED MONSTER GRIPS EVE 111 + + IX. IN WHICH ANNE, PASSING A SHOP, TURNS IN 136 + + X. IN WHICH A BLIND BEGGAR AND A BUTTERFLY GO + TO A BALL 149 + + XI. IN WHICH BRINSLEY SPEAKS OF THE WAY TO WIN A + WOMAN 160 + + XII. IN WHICH EVE USURPS AN ANCIENT MASCULINE + PRIVILEGE 178 + + XIII. IN WHICH GEOFFREY PLAYS CAVE MAN 196 + + XIV. IN WHICH THERE IS MUCH SAID OF MARRIAGE AND + OF GIVING IN MARRIAGE 210 + + XV. IN WHICH ANNE ASKS AND JIMMIE ANSWERS 226 + + XVI. IN WHICH PAN PIPES TO THE STARS 239 + + XVII. IN WHICH FEAR WALKS IN A STORM 256 + +XVIII. IN WHICH WE HEAR ONCE MORE OF A SANDALWOOD + FAN 274 + + XIX. IN WHICH CHRISTMAS COMES TO CROSSROADS 284 + + XX. IN WHICH A DRESDEN-CHINA SHEPHERDESS AND A + COUNTRY MOUSE MEET ON COMMON GROUND 298 + + XXI. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL HEARS A CALL 314 + + XXII. IN WHICH ANNE WEIGHS THE PEOPLE OF TWO + WORLDS 333 + +XXIII. IN WHICH RICHARD RIDES ALONE 347 + + XXIV. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL FINDS LOVE IN A + GARDEN 361 + + + + +Mistress Anne + + +CHAPTER I + +_In Which Things Are Said of Diogenes and of a Lady With a Lantern._ + + +THE second day of the New Year came on Saturday. The holiday atmosphere +had thus been extended over the week-end. The Christmas wreaths still +hung in the windows, and there had been an added day of feasting. +Holidays always brought people from town who ate with sharp appetites. + +It was mostly men who came, men who fished and men who hunted. In the +long low house by the river one found good meals and good beds, warm +fires in winter and a wide porch in summer. There were few luxuries, but +it pleased certain wise Old Gentlemen to take their sport simply, and to +take pride in the simplicity. They considered the magnificence of modern +camps and clubs vulgar, and as savoring somewhat of riches newly +acquired; and they experienced an almost aesthetic satisfaction in the +contrast between the rough cleanliness of certain little lodges along the +Chesapeake and its tributary tide-water streams, and the elegance of the +Charles Street mansions which they had, for the moment, left behind. + +It was these Old Gentlemen who, in khaki and tweed, each in its proper +season, came to Peter Bower's, and ate the food which Peter's wife cooked +for them. They went out in the morning fresh and radiant, and returned at +night, tired but still radiant, to sit by the fire or on the porch, and, +in jovial content, to tell of the delights of earlier days and of what +sport had been before the invasion of the Philistines. + +They knew much of gastronomic lore, these Old Gentlemen, and they liked +to talk of things to eat. But they spoke of other things, and now and +then they fell into soft silences when a sunset was upon them or a night +of stars. + +And they could tell stories! Stories backed by sparkling wit and a nice +sense of discrimination. On winter nights or on holiday afternoons like +this, as, gathered around the fire they grew mildly convivial, the sound +of their laughter would rise to Anne Warfield's room under the eaves; she +would push back the papers which held her to her desk, and wish with a +sigh that the laughter were that of young men, and that she might be +among them. + +To-day, however, she was not at her desk. She was taking down the +decorations which had made the little room bright during the brief +holiday. To-morrow she would go back to school and to the forty children +whom she taught. Life would again stretch out before her, dull and +uneventful. The New Year would hold for her no meaning that the old year +had not held. + +It had snowed all of the night before, and from her window she could see +the river, slate-gray against the whiteness. Out-of-doors it was very +cold, but her own room was hot with the heat of the little round stove. +With her holly wreaths in her arms, she stood uncertain in front of it. +She had thought to burn the holly, but it had seemed to her, all at once, +that to end thus the vividness of berry and of leaf would be desecration. +Surely they deserved to die out in that clear cold world in which they +had been born and bred! + +It was a fanciful thought, but she yielded to it. Besides, there was +Diogenes! She must make sure of his warmth and comfort before night +closed in. + +She put on her red scarf and cap and, with the wreaths in her arms, she +went down-stairs. The Old Gentlemen were in the front room and she had to +pass through. They rose to a man. She liked the courtliness, and gave in +return her lovely smile and a little bow. + +They gazed after her with frank admiration. "Who is she?" asked one who +was not old, and who, slim and dark and with a black ribbon for his +eye-glasses, seemed a stranger in this circle. + +"The new teacher of the Crossroads school. There wasn't any place for her +to board but this. So they took her in." + +"Pretty girl." + +The Old Gentlemen agreed, but they did not discuss her charms at length. +They belonged to a generation which preferred not to speak in a crowd of +a woman's attractions. One of them remarked, however, that he envied her +the good fortune of feasting all the year round at Peter Bower's table. + +Anne, trudging through the snow with the wreaths in her arms, would have +laughed mockingly if she had heard them. It was not food that she wanted, +not the game and oysters and fish over which these old gourmands gloated. +What she wanted was the nectar and ambrosia of life, the color and +glow--the companionship of young things like herself! + +Of course there were the school children and there was Peggy. But to the +children and Peggy she was a grown-up creature. Loving her, they still +made her feel age's immeasurable distance, as she had felt her own +distance from the Old Gentlemen. + +It was Peggy, who, wound in her mother's knitted white shawl until she +looked like a dingy snowball, bounced from the kitchen to meet her. + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +The young teacher laughed. "Peggy," she said, "if you will never tell, +you may come with me." + +"Where?" demanded Peggy. + +"Across the road and into the woods and down to the river." + +"What are you carrying the wreaths for?" + +"Wait and see." + +The road which they crossed was the railroad. Over the iron rails the +trains thundered from one big city to another, with a river to cross just +before they reached Peter Bower's. Very few of the trains stopped at +Peter's, and it was this neglect of theirs, and the consequent isolation, +which constituted the charm of Bower's for town-tired folk. Yet Anne +Warfield always wished that some palatial express might tarry for a +moment to take her aboard, and whirl her on to the world of flashing +lights, of sky-scraping towers and streaming crowds. + +"What are you going to do with the wreaths?" Peggy was still demanding as +they entered upon the frozen silence of the pine woods. + +"I am going down as close as I can to the water's edge, and I am going to +fling them out as far as I can into the river. And perhaps the river will +carry them down to the sea, and the sea will say, 'Whence came you?' and +the wreaths will whisper, 'We came from the forest to die on your breast, +the river brought us, and the winds sang to us, and above us the sky +smiled. And now we are ready to die, for we have seen life and its +loveliness. It would have been dreadful if we had come to our end in the +ashes of a little round stove.'" + +Peggy stared, open-eyed. She had missed the application, but she liked +the story. + +"Let me throw one of them," she said. + +"You couldn't throw them far enough, dear heart. But you shall count, +'one, two, three' for me. And when you say 'three' I'll throw one of them +away, and then you must count again, and I will throw the others." + +So Peggy, quite entranced by the importance of her office, took her part +in the ceremony, and Anne Warfield stood on top of the snowy bank above +the river, and cast upon its tumbling surface the bright burden which it +was to carry to the sea. + +It was at this moment that there crossed the bridge the only train from +the north which stopped by day at Peter Bower's. The passengers looking +out saw, far below them, sullen stream, somber woods, and a girl in a gay +red scarf. They saw, too, a dingy white dot of a child who danced up and +down. When the train stopped a few minutes later at Bower's, six of the +passengers stepped from it, three men and three women, a smartly-dressed, +cosmopolitan group, quite evidently indifferent to the glances which +followed them. + +Anne and Peggy had no eyes for the new arrivals. If they noticed the +train at all, it was merely to give it a slurring thought, as bringing +more Old Gentlemen who would eat and be merry, then hurry back again to +town. As for themselves, having finished the business of the moment, +they had yet to look after Diogenes. + +Diogenes was a drake. He lived a somewhat cloistered life in the stable +which had been made over into a garage. He had wandered in one morning +soon after Anne had come to teach in the school. Peter had suggested that +he be killed and eaten. But Anne, lonely in her new quarters, had +appreciated the forlornness of the old drake and had adopted him. She had +named him Diogenes because he had an air of searching always for +something which could not be found. Once when a flock of wild ducks had +flown overhead, Diogenes had listened, and, as their faint cries had come +down to him, he had stretched his wings as if he, too, would fly. But his +fat body had held him, and so still chained to earth, he waddled within +the limits of his narrow domain. + +In a cozy corner of the garage there was plenty of straw and a blanket to +keep off draughts. Mrs. Bower had declared such luxury unsettling. But +Anne had laughed at her. "Why should pleasant things hurt us?" she had +asked, and Mrs. Bower had shaken her head. + +"If you had seen the old men who come here and stuff, and die because +their livers are wrong, you'd know what I mean. Give him enough, but +don't pamper him." + +In the face of this warning, however, Anne fed the old drake on tidbits, +and visited him at least once a day. He returned her favors by waiting +for her at the gate when it was not too cold and, preceding her to the +house, gave a sort of major-domo effect to her progress. + +Entering the stable, they found a lantern lighting the gloom, and +Diogenes in a state of agitation. His solitude had been invaded by an +Irish setter--a lovely auburn-coated creature with melting eyes, who, +held by a leash, lay at length on Diogenes' straw with Diogenes' blanket +keeping off the cold. + +The old drake from some remote fastness flung his protest to the four +winds! + +"He's a new one." Peggy patted the dog, who rose to welcome them. "He +ought to be in the kennels. Somebody didn't know." + +Somebody probably had not known, but had learned. For now the door +opened, and a young man came in. He was a big young man with fair hair, +and he had arrived on the train. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, as he saw them, "but they told me I had put +my dog in the wrong place." + +Peggy was important. "He belongs at the kennels. He's in Diogenes' +corner." + +"Diogenes?" + +The old drake, reassured by the sound of voices, showed himself for a +moment in the track of the lantern light. + +"There he is," Peggy said, excitedly; "he lives in here by himself." + +Anne had not spoken, but as she lifted the lantern from its nail and held +it high, Richard Brooks was aware that this was the same girl whom he had +glimpsed from the train. He had noted then her slenderness of outline, +the grace and freedom of her pose; at closer range he saw her delicate +smallness; the bloom on her cheek; the dusky softness of her hair; the +length of her lashes; the sapphire deeps of her eyes. Yet it was not +these charms which arrested his attention; it was, rather, a certain +swift thought of her as superior to her surroundings. + +"Then it is Diogenes whose pardon I must beg," he said, his eyes +twinkling as the old drake took refuge behind Anne's skirts. "Toby, come +out of that. It's you for a cold kennel." + +"It's not cold in the kennels," Peggy protested; "it is nice and warm, +and the food is fixed by Eric Brand." + +"And where can I find Eric Brand?" + +"He isn't here." It was Anne who answered him. "He is away for the New +Year. Peggy and I have been looking after the dogs." + +She did not tell him that she had done it because she liked dogs, and not +because it was a part of her day's work. And he did not know that she +taught school. Hence, as he walked beside her toward the kennels, with +Peggy dancing on ahead with Toby, and with Diogenes left behind in full +possession, he thought of her, quite naturally, as the daughter of Peter +Bower. + +It was an uproarious pack which greeted them. Every Old Gentleman owned a +dog, and there was Peter's Mamie, two or three eager-eyed pointers, +setters, hounds and Chesapeake Bay dogs. Old Mamie was nondescript, and +was shut up in the kennels to-night only because Eric was away. She was +eminently trustworthy, and usually ran at large. + +Toby, given a box to himself, turned his melting eyes upon his master and +whined. + +"He was sent to me just before I left New York," Richard explained. "I +fancy he is rather homesick. I am the only thing in sight that he knows." + +"You might take him into the house," Anne said doubtfully, "only it is a +rule that if there are many dogs they all have to share alike and stay +out here. When there are only two or three they go into the sitting-room +with the men." + +"He can lie down behind the stove in the kitchen," Peggy offered +hospitably. "Mamie does." + +Richard shook his head. "Toby will have to learn with the rest of us that +life isn't always what we want it to be." + +He was startled by the look which the girl with the lantern gave him. +"Why shouldn't it be as we want it?" she said, with sudden fire; "if I +were Providence, I'd make things pleasant, and you are playing Providence +to Toby. Why not let him have the comfort of the kitchen stove?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +_In Which a Princess Serving Finds That the Motto of Kings is +Meaningless._ + + +TOBY, safe and snug behind the kitchen stove, was keenly alive to the +fact that supper was being served. He had had his own supper, so that his +interest was purely impersonal. + +Mrs. Bower cooked, and her daughter Beulah waited on the table. The +service was not elaborate. Everything went in at once, and Peter helped +the women carry the loaded trays. + +Anne Warfield ate usually with the family. She would have liked to sit +with the Old Gentlemen at their genial gatherings, but it would not, she +felt, have been sanctioned by the Bowers. Their own daughter, Beulah, +would not have done it. Beulah had nothing in common with the jovial +hunters and fishers. She had her own circle of companions, her own small +concerns, her own convictions as to the frivolity of these elderly +guests. She would not have cared to listen to what they had to say. She +did not know that their travels, their adventures, their stored-up +experience had made them rich in anecdote, ready of tongue to tell of +wonders undreamed of in the dullness of her own monotonous days. + +But Anne Warfield knew. Now and then from the threshold she had caught +the drift of their discourse, and she had yearned to draw closer, to sail +with them on unknown seas of romance and of reminiscence, to leave behind +her for the moment the atmosphere of schoolhouse, of small gossip, of +trivial circumstance. + +It was with this feeling strong upon her that to-night, when the supper +bell rang, she came into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Bower if she might +help Beulah. She had no feeling that such labor was beneath her. If a +princess cared to serve, she was none the less a princess! + +Secure, therefore, in her sense of unassailable dignity, she entered the +dining-room. She might have been a goddess chained to menial tasks--a +small and vivid goddess, with dusky hair. Richard Brooks, observing her, +had once more a swift and certain sense of her fineness and of her +unlikeness to those about her. + +The young man with the black ribbon on his eye-glass also observed her. +Later he said to Mrs. Bower, "Can you give me a room here for a month?" + +"I might. Usually people don't care to stay so long at this time of +year." + +"I am writing a book. I want to stay." + +Beside Richard Brooks at the table sat Evelyn Chesley. With the +Dutton-Ames, and Philip Meade, she had come down with Richard and his +mother to speed them upon their mad adventure. + +Evelyn had taken off her hat. Her wonderful hair was swept up in a new +fashion from her forehead, a dull gold comb against its native gold. She +wore a silken blouse of white, slightly open at the neck. On her fingers +diamonds sparkled. It seemed to Anne, serving, as if the air of the long +low room were charged with some thrilling quality. Here were youth and +beauty, wit and light laughter, the perfume of the roses which Evelyn +wore tucked in her belt. There was the color, too, of the roses, and of +the cloak in which Winifred Ames had wrapped her shivering fairness. The +cloak was blue, a marvelous pure shade like the Madonna blue of some old +picture. + +Even Richard's mother seemed illumined by the radiance which enveloped +the rest. She was a slender little thing and wore plain and simple +widow's black. Yet her delicate cheeks were flushed, her eyes were +shining, and her son had made her, too, wear a red rose. + +The supper was suited to the tastes of the old epicures for whom it had +been planned. There were oysters and ducks with the juices following the +knife, hot breads, wild grape jelly, hominy and celery. + +The fattest Old Gentleman carved the ducks. The people who had come on +the train were evidently his friends. Indeed, he called the little lady +with the shining eyes "Cousin Nancy." + +"So you've brought your boy back?" he said, smiling down at her. + +"Oh, yes, yes. Cousin Brin, I feel as if I had reached the promised +land." + +"You'll find things changed. Nothing as it was in your father's time. +Foreigners to the right of you, foreigners to the left. Italians, +Greeks--barbarians--cutting the old place into little farms--blotting out +the old landmarks." + +"I don't care; the house still stands, and Richard will hang out my +father's sign, and when people want a doctor, they will come again to +Crossroads." + +"People in these days go to town for their doctors." + +Richard's head went up. "I'll make them come to me, sir. And you mustn't +think that mother brought me back. I came because I wanted to come. I +hate New York." + +The listening Old Gentlemen, whose allegiance was given to a staid and +stately town on the Patapsco, quite glowed at that, but Evelyn flamed: + +"You might have made a million in New York, Richard." + +"I don't want a million." + +"Oh," she appealed to Brinsley Tyson, "what can you do with a man like +that--without red blood--without ambition?" + +And now it was Richard who flamed. "I am ambitious enough, Eve, but it +isn't to make money." + +"He has some idea," the girl proclaimed recklessly to the whole table, +"of living as his ancestors lived; as if one _could_. He believes that +people should go back to plain manners and to strict morals. His mission +is to keep this mad world sane." + +A ripple of laughter greeted her scorn. Her own laughter met it. The slim +young man at the other end of the table swung his eye-glasses from their +black ribbon negligently, but his eyes missed nothing. + +"It is my only grievance against you, Mrs. Nancy," Eve told the little +shining lady. "I love you for everything else, but not for this." + +"I am sorry, my dear. But Richard and I think alike. So we are going to +settle at Crossroads--and live happy ever after." + +Anne Warfield, outwardly calm, felt the blood racing in her veins. The +old house at Crossroads was just across the way from her little school. +She had walked in the garden every day, and now and then she had taken +the children there. They had watched the squirrels getting ready for the +winter, and had fed the belated birds with crumbs from the little lunch +baskets. And there had been the old sun-dial to mark the hour when the +recess ended and to warn them that work must begin. + +She had a rapturous vision of what it might be to have the old house +open, and to see Nancy Brooks and her son Richard coming in and out. + +Later, however, alone in her dull room, stripped of its holiday +trappings, the vision faded. To Nancy and Richard she would be just the +school-teacher across the way, as to-night she had been the girl who +waited on the table! + +There was music down-stairs. The whine of the phonograph came up to her. + +Peggy, knocking, brought an interesting bulletin. + +"They are dancing," she said. "Let's sit on the stairs and look." + +From the top of the stairs they could see straight into the long front +room. The hall was dimly lighted so that they were themselves free from +observation. Philip Meade and Eve were dancing, and the Dutton-Ames. Eve +had on very high shoes with very high heels. Her skirt was wide and +flaring. She dipped and swayed and floated, and the grace of the man with +whom she danced matched her own. + +"Isn't it lovely," said Peggy's little voice, "isn't it lovely, Anne?" + +It was lovely, lovely as a dream. It was a sort of ecstasy of motion. It +was youth and joy incarnate. Anne had a wild moment of rebellion. Why +must she sit always at the head of the stairs? + +The music stopped. Eve and Philip became one of the circle around the +fireplace in the front room. Again Eve's roses and Winifred's cloak gave +color to the group. There was also the leaping golden flame of the fire, +and, in the background, a slight blue haze where some of the Old +Gentlemen smoked. + +The young man with the eye-glasses was telling a story. He told it well, +and there was much laughter when he finished. When the music began again, +he danced with Winifred Ames. Dutton Ames watched them, smiling. He +always smiled when his eyes rested on his lovely wife. + +Evelyn danced with Richard. He did not dance as well as Philip, but he +gave the effect of doing it easily. He swung her finally out into the +hall. The whine of the phonograph ceased. Richard and Eve sat down on a +lower step of the stairway. + +The girl's voice came up to the quiet watchers clearly. "When are you +coming to New York to dance with me again, Dicky Boy?" + +"You must come down here. Pip will bring you in his car for the +week-ends, with the Dutton-Ames. And I'll get a music box and a lot of +new records. The old dining-room has a wonderful floor." + +"I hate your wonderful floor and your horrid old house. And when I think +of Fifth Avenue and the lights and the theaters and you away from it +all----" + +"Poor young doctors have no right to the lights and all the rest of it. +Eve, don't let's quarrel at the last moment. You'll be reconciled to it +all some day." + +"I shall never be reconciled." + +And now Philip Meade was claiming her. "You promised me this, Eve." + +"I shall have all the rest of the winter for you, Pip." + +"As if that made any difference! I never put off till to-morrow the +things I want to do to-day. And as for Richard, he'll come running back +to us before the winter is over." + +Richard shrugged. "You're a pair of cheerful prophets. Go and fox-trot +with him, Eve." + +Left alone, the eyes of the young doctor went at once to the top of the +stairs. + +"Come down and dance," he said. + +"Do you mean me?" Peggy demanded out of the dimness. + +"I mean both of you." + +"I can't dance--not the new dances." Anne was conscious of an +overwhelming shyness. "Take Peggy." + +"How did you know we were up here?" Peggy asked. + +"Well, I heard a little laugh, and a little whisper, and I looked up and +saw a little girl." + +"Oh, oh, did you really?" + +"Really." + +"Well, I can't dance. But I can try." + +So they tried, with Richard lifting the child lightly to the lilting +tune. + +When he brought her back, he sat down beside Anne. Shyness still chained +her, but he chatted easily. Anne could not have told why she was shy. In +the stable she had felt at her ease with him. But then she had not seen +Eve or Winifred. It was the women who had seemed to make the difference. + +Presently, however, he had her telling of her school. "It begins again +to-morrow." + +"Do you like it?" + +"Teaching? No. But I love the children." + +"Do you teach Peggy?" + +"Yes. She is too young, really, but she insists upon going." + +"There used to be a schoolhouse across the road from my grandfather's. A +red brick school with a bell on top." + +"There is still a bell. I always ring it myself, although the boys beg to +do it. But I like to think of myself as the bell ringer." + +It was while they sat there that Eric Brand came in through the +kitchen-way to the hall. He stood for a moment looking into the lighted +front room where Eve still danced with Philip Meade, and where the young +man with the eye-glasses talked with the Dutton-Ames. Anne instinctively +kept silent. It was Peggy who revealed their hiding place to him. + +"Oh, Eric," she piped, "are you back?" She went flying down the stairs to +him. + +He caught her, and holding her in his arms, peered up. "Who's there?" + +Peggy answered. "It's Anne and the new doctor. I danced with him, and he +came on the train with those other people in there--and he has a dog +named Toby--it's in the kitchen." + +"So that's his dog? It will have to go to the kennels for the night." + +Richard, descending, apologized. "I shouldn't have let Toby stay in the +house, but Miss Bower put in a plea for him." + +"Beulah?" + +"He means Anne," Peggy explained. "Her name is Warfield. It's funny you +didn't know." + +"How could I?" Richard had a feeling that he owed the little goddess-girl +an explanation of his stupidity. He found himself again ascending the +stairs. + +But Anne had fled. Overwhelmingly she realized that Richard had believed +her to be the daughter of Peter Bower. Daughter of that crude and common +man! Sister of Beulah! Friend of Eric Brand! + +Well, she had brought it on herself. She had looked after the dogs and +she had waited on the table. People thought differently of these things. +The ideals she had tried to teach her children were not the ideals of +the larger world. Labor did not dignify itself. The motto of kings was +meaningless! A princess serving was no longer a princess! + +Sitting very tense and still in the little rocking-chair in her own room, +she decided that of course Richard looked down on her. He had perceived +in her no common ground of birth or of breeding. Yet her grandfather had +been the friend of the grandfather of Richard Brooks! + +When Peggy came up, she announced that she was to sleep with Anne. It was +an arrangement often made when the house was full. To-night Anne welcomed +the cheery presence of the child. She sang her to sleep, and then sat for +a long time by the little round stove with Peggy in her arms. + +She laid her down as a knock sounded on her door. + +"Are you up?" some one asked, and she opened it, to find Evelyn Chesley. + +"May I borrow a needle?" She showed a torn length of lace-trimmed +flounce. "I caught it on a rocker in my room. There shouldn't be any +rocker." + +"Mrs. Bower loves them," Anne said, as she hunted through her little +basket; "she loves to rock and rock. All the women around here do." + +"Then you're not one of them?" + +"No. My grandmother was Cynthia Warfield of Carroll." + +The name meant nothing to Evelyn. It would have meant much to Nancy +Brooks. + +"How did you happen to come here? I don't see how any one could choose to +come." + +"My mother died--and there was no one but my Great-uncle Rodman Warfield. +I had to get something to do--so I came here, and Uncle Rod went to live +with a married cousin." + +Evelyn had perched herself on the post of Anne's bed and was mending the +flounce. Although she was not near the lamp, she gave an effect of +gathering to her all the light of the room. She was wrapped in a robe of +rose-color, a strange garment with fur to set it off, and of enormous +fullness. It spread about her and billowed out until it almost hid the +little bed and the child upon it. + +Beside her, Anne in her blue serge felt clumsy and common. She knew that +she ought not to feel that way, but she did. She would have told her +scholars that it was not clothes that made the man, or dress the woman. +But then she told her scholars many things that were right and good. She +tried herself to be as right and good as her theories. But it was not +always possible. It was not possible at this moment. + +"What brought you here?" Eve persisted. + +"I teach school. I came in September." + +"What do you teach?" + +"Everything. We are not graded." + +"I hope you teach them to be honest with themselves." + +"I am not sure that I know what you mean?" + +"Don't let them pretend to be something that they are not. That's why so +many people fail. They reach too high, and fall. That's what Nancy Brooks +is doing to Richard. She is making him reach too high." + +She laughed as she bent above her needle. "I fancy you are not interested +in that. But I can't think of anything but--the waste of it. I hope you +will all be so healthy that you won't need him, and then he will have to +come back to New York." + +"I don't see how anybody could leave New York. Not to come down here." +Anne drew a quick breath. + +Eve spoke carelessly: "Oh, well, I suppose it isn't so bad here for a +woman, but for a man--a man needs big spaces. Richard will be +cramped--he'll shrink to the measure of all this--narrowness." She had +finished her flounce, and she rose and gave Anne the needle. "In the +morning, if the weather is good, we are to ride to Crossroads. Is your +school very far away?" + +"It is opposite Crossroads. Mrs. Brooks' father built it." + +Anne spoke stiffly. She had felt the sting of Eve's indifference, and she +was furious with herself for her consciousness of Eve's clothes, of her +rings--of the gold comb in her hair. + +When her visitor had gone, Anne took down her own hair, and flung it up +into a soft knot on the top of her head. Swept back thus, her face seemed +to bloom into sudden beauty. She slipped the blue dress from her +shoulders and saw the long slim line of her neck and the whiteness of her +skin. + +The fire had died down in the little round stove. The room was cold. She +thought of Eve's rose-color, and of the warmth of her furs. + +Bravely, however, she hummed the tune to which the others had danced. She +lifted her feet in time. Her shoes were heavy, and she took them off. She +tried to get the rhythm, the lightness, the grace of movement. But these +things must be taught, and she had no one to teach her. + +When at last she crept into bed beside the sleeping Peggy, she was +chilled to the bone, and she was crying. + +Peggy stirred and murmured. + +Soothing the child, Anne told herself fiercely that she was a goose to be +upset because Eve Chesley had rings and wore rose-color. Why, she was no +better than Diogenes, who had fumed and fussed because Toby had taken his +straw in the stable. + +But her philosophy failed to bring peace of mind. For a long time she lay +awake, working it out. At last she decided, wearily, that she had wept +because she really didn't know any of the worth-while things. She didn't +know any of the young things and the gay things. She didn't know how to +dance or to talk to men like Richard Brooks. The only things that she +knew in the whole wide world were--books! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +_In Which the Crown Prince Enters Upon His Own._ + + +IT developed that the name of the young man with the eye-glasses was +Geoffrey Fox. Mrs. Bower told Anne at the breakfast table, as the two +women sat alone. + +"He is writing a book, and he wants to stay." + +"The little dark man?" + +"I shouldn't call him little. He is thin, but he is as tall as Richard +Brooks." + +"Is he?" To Anne it had seemed as if Richard had towered above her like a +young giant. She had scarcely noticed the young man with the eye-glasses. +He had melted into the background of old gentlemen; had become, as it +were, a part of a composite instead of a single personality. + +But to be writing a book! + +"What kind of a book, Mrs. Bower?" + +"I don't know. He didn't say. I am going to give him the front room in +the south wing; then he will have a view of the river." + +When Anne met the dark young man in the hall an hour later, she +discovered that he had keen eyes and a mocking smile. + +He stopped her. "Do we have to be introduced? I am going to stay here. +Did Mrs. Bower tell you?" + +"She told me you were writing a book." + +"Don't tell anybody else; I'm not proud of it." + +"Why not?" + +He shrugged. "My stories are pot-boilers, most of them--with everybody +happy in the end." + +"Why shouldn't everybody be happy in the end?" + +"Because life isn't that way." + +"Life is what we make it." + +"Who told you that?" + +She flushed. "It is what I tell my school children." + +"But have you found it so?" + +She faltered. "No--but perhaps it is my fault." + +"It isn't anybody's fault. If the gods smile--we are happy. If they +frown, we are miserable. That's all there is to it." + +"I should hate to think that was all." She was roused and ready to fight +for her ideals. "I should hate to think it." + +"All your hating won't make it as you want it," his glance was quizzical, +"but we won't quarrel about it." + +"Of course not," stiffly. + +"And we are to be friends? You see I am to stay a month." + +"Are you going to write about us?" + +"I shall write about the Old Gentlemen. Is there always such a crowd of +them?" + +"Only on holidays and week-ends." + +"Perhaps I shall write about you----" daringly. "I need a little lovely +heroine." + +Her look stopped him. His face changed. "I beg your pardon," he said +quickly. "I should not have said that." + +"Would you have said it if I had not waited on the table?" Her voice was +tremulous. The color that had flamed in her cheeks still dyed them. "I +thought of it last night, after I went up-stairs. I have been trying to +teach my little children in my school that there is dignity in service, +and so--I have helped Mrs. Bower. But I felt that people did not +understand." + +"You felt that we--thought less of you?" + +"Yes," very low. + +"And that I spoke as I did because I did not--respect you?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I beg your pardon. Indeed, I do beg your pardon. It was +thoughtless. Will you believe that it was only because I was +thoughtless?" + +"Yes." But her troubled eyes did not meet his. "Perhaps I am too +sensitive. Perhaps you would have said--the same things--to Eve +Chesley--if you had just met her. But I am sure you would not have said +it in the same tone." + +He held out his hand to her. "You'll forgive me? Yes? And be friends?" + +She did not seem to see his hand. "Of course I forgive you," she said, +with a girlish dignity which sat well upon her, "and perhaps I have made +too much of it, but you see I am so much alone, and I think so much." + +He wanted to ask her questions, of why she was there and of why she was +alone. But something in her manner forbade, and so they spoke of other +things until she left him. + +Geoffrey went out later for a walk in the blinding snow. All night it had +snowed and the storm had a blizzard quality, with the wind howling and +the drifts piling to prodigious heights. Geoffrey faced the elements with +a strength which won the respect of Richard Brooks who, also out in it, +with his dog Toby, was battling gloriously with wind and weather. + +"If we can reach the shelter of the pines," he shouted, "they'll break +the force of the storm." + +Within the wood the snow was in winding sheets about the great trees. + +"What giant ghosts!" Geoffrey said. "Yet in a month or two the sap will +run warm in their veins, and the silence will be lapped by waves of +sound--the singing of birds and of little streams." + +"I used to come here when I was a boy," Richard told him. "There were +violets under the bank, and I picked them and made tight bunches of them +and gave them to my mother. She was young then. I remember that she +usually wore white dresses, with a blue sash fluttering." + +"You lived here then?" + +"No, we visited at my grandfather's, a mile or two away. He used to drive +us down, and he would sit out there on the point and fish,--a grand old +figure, in his broad hat, with his fishing creel over his shoulder. There +were just two sports that my grandfather loved, fishing and fox-hunting; +but he was a very busy doctor and couldn't ride often to hounds. But he +kept a lot of them. He would have had a great contempt for Toby. His own +dogs were a wiry little breed." + +"My grandfather was blind, and always in his library. So my boyhood was +different. I used to read to him. I liked it, and I wouldn't exchange my +memories for yours, except the violets--I should like to pick them here +in the spring--perhaps I shall--I told Mrs. Bower I would take a room for +a month or more--and since we have spoken of violets--I may wait for +their blooming." + +He laughed, and as they turned back, "I have found several things to keep +me," he said, but he did not name them. + +All day Anne was aware of the presence in the house of the young guests. +She was aware of Winifred Ames' blue cloak and of Eve's roses. She was +aware of Richard's big voice booming through the hall, of Geoffrey's +mocking laugh. + +But she did not go down among them. She ate her meals after the others +had finished. She did not wait upon the table and she did not sit upon +the stairs. In the afternoon she wrote a long letter to her Great-uncle +Rodman, and she went early to bed. + +She was waked in the morning by the bustle of departure. Some of the Old +Gentlemen went back by motor, others by train. Warmed by a hearty +breakfast, bundled into their big coats, they were lighted on their way +by Eric Brand. + +It was just as the sun flashed over the horizon and showed the whiteness +of a day swept clear by the winds of the night that the train for the +north carried off the Dutton-Ames, Philip and Eve. + +Evelyn went protesting. "Some day you are going to regret it, Richard." + +"Don't croak. Wish me good luck, Eve." + +But she would not. Yet when she stood at last on the train steps to say +"Good-bye," she had in her hand one of the roses he had given her and +which she had worn. She touched it lightly to her lips and tossed it to +him. + +By the time he had picked it up the train was on its way, and Evelyn, +looking back, had her last glimpse of him standing straight and tall +against the morning sky, the rose in his hand. + +It was eight o'clock when Eric drove Anne and Peggy through the drifts +to the Crossroads school. It was nine when Geoffrey Fox came down to a +late breakfast. It was ten when Richard and his mother and the dog Toby +in a hired conveyance arrived at the place which had once been Nancy's +home. + +Imposing, even in its shabbiness, stood the old house, at the end of an +avenue of spired cedars. + +As they opened the door a grateful warmth met them. + +"David has been here," Nancy said. "Oh, Richard, Richard, what a glorious +day to begin." + +And now there came from among the shadows a sound which made them stop +and listen. "Tick, tock," said the great hall clock. + +"Mother, who wound it?" + +Nancy Brooks laughed tremulously. "Cousin David had the key. In all these +years he has never let the old clock run down. It seemed queer to think +of it ticking away in this empty house." + +There were tears in her eyes. He stooped and kissed her. "And now that +you are here, you are going to be happy?" + +"Very happy, dear boy." + +It was nearly twelve when David Tyson came limping up the path. He had a +basket in one hand, and a cane in the other. Behind him trotted a +weedy-looking foxhound. The dog Toby, charging out of the door as Nancy +opened it, fell, as it were, upon the neck of the hound. His overtures +of friendship were met with a dignified aloofness which merged gradually +into a reluctant cordiality. + +Nancy held out both hands to the old man. "I saw you coming. Oh, how good +it seems to be here again, Cousin David." + +"Let me look at you." He set the basket down, and took her hands in his. +Then he shook his head. "New York has done things to you," he said. "It +has given you a few gray hairs. But now that you are back again I shall +try to forgive it." + +"I shall never forgive it," she said, "for what it has done to me and +mine." + +"But you are here, and you have brought your boy; that's a thing to be +thankful for, Nancy." + +They were silent in the face of overwhelming memories. The only sound in +the shadowy hall was the ticking of the old clock--the old clock which +had tick-tocked in all the years of loneliness with no one to listen. + +Richard greeted him with heartiness. "This looks pretty good to me, +Cousin David." + +"It's God's country, Richard. Brin hates it. He loves his club and the +city streets. But for me there's nothing worth while but this sweep of +the hills and the river between." + +He uncovered his basket. "Tom put up some things for you. I've engaged +Milly, a mulatto girl, but she can't get here until to-morrow. She is +about the best there is left. Most of them go to town. She'll probably +seem pretty crude after New York servants, Nancy." + +"I don't care." Nancy almost sang the words. "I don't care what I have to +put up with, Cousin David. I shall sleep to-night under my own roof with +nothing between me and the stars. And there won't be anybody overhead or +underneath, and there won't be a pianola to the right of me, and a +phonograph to the left, and there won't be the rumble of the subway or +the crash of the elevated, and in the morning I shall open my eyes and +see the sun rise over the river, and I shall look out upon the world that +I love and have loved all of these years----" + +And now she was crying, and Richard had her in his arms. Over her head he +looked at the older man. "I didn't dream that she felt like this." + +"I knew--as soon as I saw her. You must never take her back, Richard." + +"Of course not," hotly. + +Yet with the perverseness of youth he was aware, as he said it, of a +sudden sense of revolt against the prospect of a future spent in this +quiet place. Flashing came a vision of the city he had left, of crowded +hospitals, of big men consulting with big men, of old men imparting their +secrets of healing to the young; of limousines speeding luxuriously on +errands of mercy; of patients pouring out their wealth to the men who had +made them well. + +All this he had given up because his mother had asked it. She had spoken +of the place which his grandfather had filled, of the dignity of a +country practice, of the opportunities for research and for experiment. +At close range, the big town set between its rivers and the sea had +seemed noisy and vulgar. Its people had seemed mad in their race for +money. Its medical men had seemed to lack the fineness and finish which +come to those who move and meditate in quiet places. + +But seen from afar as he saw it now, it seemed a wonder city, its tall +buildings outlined like gigantic castles against the sky. It seemed +filled to the brim with vivid life. It seemed, indeed, to call him back! + +While David and Nancy talked he went out, and, from the top of the snowy +steps, surveyed his domain. Back and back in the wide stretch of country +which faced him, beyond the valleys, on the other side of the hills, were +people who would some day listen for the step of young Richard as those +who had gone before had listened for the step of his grandfather. He saw +himself going forth on stormy nights to fight pain and pestilence; to +minister to little children, to patient mothers; to men beaten down by an +enemy before whom their strength was as wax. They would wait for him, +anxious for his verdict, yet fearing it, welcoming him as a saviour, who +would stand with flaming sword between disease and the Dark Angel. + +The schoolhouse was on the other side of the road. It was built of brick +like the house. Richard's grandfather had paid for the brick. He had +believed in public schools and had made this one possible. Children came +to it from all the countryside. There were other schools in the sleepy +town. This was the Crossroads school, as Richard Tyson had been the +Crossroads doctor. He had given himself to a rural community--his +journeys had been long and his life hard, but he had loved the labor. + +The bell rang for the noon recess. The children appeared presently, +trudging homeward through the snow to their midday dinners. Then Anne +Warfield came out. She wore a heavy brown coat and soft brown hat. In her +hand was a small earthen dish. She strewed seeds for the birds, and they +flew down in front of her--juncoes and sparrows, a tufted titmouse, a +cardinal blood-red against the whiteness. She was like a bird herself in +all her brown. + +When the dish was empty, she turned it upside down, and spread her hands +to show that there was nothing more. On the Saturday night when she had +waited on the table, Richard had noticed the loveliness of her hands. +They were small and white, and without rings. Yet in spite of their +smallness and whiteness, he knew that they were useful hands, for she had +served well at Bower's. And now he knew that they were kindly hands, for +she had fed the birds who had come begging to her door. + +Peggy joined her, and the two came out the gate together. Anne looking +across saw Richard. She hesitated, then crossed the road. + +He at once went to meet her. She flushed a little as she spoke to him. +"Peggy and I want to ask a favor. We've always had our little Twelfth +Night play in the Crossroads stable. And we had planned for it this +year--you see, we didn't know that you were coming." + +"And we were afraid that you wouldn't want us," Peggy told him. + +"Were you really afraid?" + +"I wasn't. But Miss Anne was." + +"I told the children that they mustn't be disappointed if we were not +able to do this year as we had done before. I felt that with people in +the house, it might not be pleasant for them to have us coming in such a +crowd." + +"It will be pleasant, and mother will be much interested. I wish you'd +come up and tell us about it." + +She shook her head. "Peggy and I have just time to get back to Bower's +for our dinner." + +"Aren't the roads bad?" + +"Not when the snow is hard." + +Peggy went reluctantly. "I think he is perfectly lovely," she said, at a +safe distance. "Don't you?" + +Anne's reply was guarded. "He is very kind. I am glad that he doesn't +mind about the Twelfth Night play, Peggy." + +Richard spoke to David of Anne as the two men, a few minutes later, +climbed the hill toward David's house. + +"She seems unusual." + +"She is the best teacher we have ever had, but she ought not to be at +Bower's. She isn't their kind." + +David's little house, set on top of a hill, was small and shabby without, +but within it was as compact as a ship's cabin. David's old servant, Tom, +kept it immaculate, and there were books everywhere, old portraits, +precious bits of mahogany. + +From the window beside the fireplace there was a view of the river. It +was a blue river to-day, sparkling in the sunshine. David, standing +beside Richard, spoke of it. + +"It isn't always blue, but it is always beautiful. Even when the snow +flies as it did yesterday." + +"And are you content with this, Cousin David?" + +The answer was evasive. "I have my little law practice, and my books. And +is any one ever content, Richard?" + +Going down the hill, Richard pondered. Was Eve right after all? Did a man +who turned his face away from the rush of cities really lack red blood? + +Stopping at the schoolhouse, he found teacher and scholars still gone. +But the door was unlocked and he went in. The low-ceiled room was +charming, and the good taste of the teacher was evident in its +decorations. There were branches of pine and cedar on the walls, a +picture of Washington at one end with a flag draped over it, a pot of +primroses in the south window. + +There were several books on Anne's desk. Somewhat curiously he examined +the titles. A shabby Browning, a modern poet or two, Chesterton, a volume +of Pepys, the pile topped by a small black Bible. Moved by a sudden +impulse, he opened the Bible. The leaves fell back at a marked passage: + +"_Let not your heart be troubled._" + +He shut the book sharply. It was as if he had peered into the girl's +soul. The red was in his cheeks as he turned away. + + * * * * * + +That night Nancy Brooks went with Richard to his room. On the threshold +she stopped. + +"I have given this room to you," she said, "because it was mine when I +was a girl, and all my dreams have been shut in--waiting for you." + +"Mother," he caught her hands in his, "you mustn't dream too much for +me." + +"Let me dream to-night;" she was looking up at him with her shining eyes; +"to-morrow I shall be just a commonplace mother of a commonplace son; but +to-night I am queen, and you are the crown prince on the eve of +coronation. Oh, Hickory Dickory, I am such a happy mother." + +Hickory Dickory! It was her child-name for him. She had not often used +it of late. He felt that she would not often use it again. He was much +moved by her dedication of him to his new life. He held her close. His +doubts fled. He thought no more of Eve and of her flaming arguments. +Somewhere out in the snow her rose lay frozen and faded where he had +dropped it. + +And when he slept and dreamed it was of a little brown bird which sang in +the snow, and the song that it sang seemed to leap from the pages of a +Book, "_Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid._" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +_In Which Three Kings Come to Crossroads._ + + +ANNE'S budget of news to her Great-uncle Rod swelled to unusual +proportions in the week following the opening of Crossroads. She had so +much to say to him, and there was no one else to whom she could speak +with such freedom and frankness. + +_By the Round Stove._ + +MY DEAR: + +I am sending this as an antidote for my doleful Sunday screed. Now that +the Lovely Ladies are gone, I am myself again! + +I know that you are saying, "You should never have been anything but +yourself." That's all very well for you who know Me-Myself, but these +people know only the Outside-Person part of me, and the Outside-Person +part is stiff and old-fashioned, and self-conscious. You see it has been +so many months since I have hobnobbed with Lilies-of-the-Field and with +Solomons-in-all-their-Glory. And even when I did hobnob with them it was +for such a little time, and it ended so heart-breakingly. But I am not +going to talk of that, or I shall weep and wail again, and that wouldn't +be fair to you. + +The last Old Gentleman left yesterday in the wake of the Lovely Ladies. +Did I tell you that Brinsley Tyson is a cousin of Mrs. Brooks? His twin +brother, David, lives up the road. Brinsley is the city mouse and David +is the country one. They are as different as you can possibly imagine. +Brinsley is fat and round and red, and David is thin and tall and pale. +Yet there is the "twin look" in their faces. The high noses and square +chins. Neither of them wears a beard. None of the Old Gentlemen does. Why +is it? Is hoary-headed age a thing of the dark and distant past? Are you +the only one left whose silver banner blows in the breeze? Are the +grandfathers all trying to look like boys to match the grandmothers who +try to look like girls? + +Mrs. Brooks won't be that kind of grandmother. She is gentle and serene, +and the years will touch her softly. I shall like her if she will let me. +But perhaps little school-teachers won't come within her line of vision. +You see I learned my lesson in those short months when I peeped into +Paradise. + +I wonder how it would seem to be a Lily-of-the-Field. I've never been +one, have I? Even when I was a little girl I used to stand on a chair to +wipe the dishes while you washed them. I felt very important to be +helping mother, and you would talk about the dignity of labor--_you +darling_, with the hot water wrinkling and reddening your lovely long +fingers, which were made to paint masterpieces. + +I am trying to pass on to my school children what you have given to me, +and oh, Uncle Rod, when I speak to them I seem to be looking with you, +straight through the kitchen window, at the sunset. We never knew that +the kitchen sink was there, did we? We saw only the sunsets. And now +because you are a darling dear, and because you are always seeing +sunsets, I am sending you a verse or two which I have copied from a book +which Geoffrey Fox left last night at my door. + + "When Salomon sailed from Ophir, + With Olliphants and gold, + The kings went up, the kings went down, + Trying to match King Salomon's crown; + But Salomon sacked the sunset, + Wherever his black ships rolled. + He rolled it up like a crimson cloth, + And crammed it into his hold. + +CHORUS: "Salomon sacked the sunset, + Salomon sacked the sunset, + He rolled it up like a crimson cloth, + And crammed it into his hold. + + "His masts were Lebanon cedars, + His sheets were singing blue, + But that was never the reason why + He stuffed his hold with the sunset sky! + The kings could cut their cedars, + And sail from Ophir, too; + But Salomon packed his heart with dreams, + _And all the dreams were true_." + +Now join in the chorus, you old dear--and I'll think that I am a little +girl again-- + + "The kings could cut their cedars, + Cut their Lebanon cedars; + But Salomon packed his heart with dreams, + _And all_ + _the dreams_ + _were true_!" + + * * * * * + +_In the Schoolroom._ + +I told you that Geoffrey Fox left a book for me to read. I told you that +he wore eye-glasses on a black ribbon, that he is writing a novel, and +that I don't like him. Well, he went into Baltimore this morning to get +his belongings, and when he comes back he will stay until his book is +finished. It will be interesting to be under the same roof with a story. +All the shadows and corners will seem full of it. The house will speak to +him, and the people in it, though none of the rest of us will hear the +voices, and the wind will speak and the leaping flames in the fireplace, +and the sun and the moon--and when the snow comes it will whisper secrets +in his ear and presently it will be snowing all through the pages. + +It snowed this morning, and from my desk I can see young Dr. Brooks +shoveling a path from his front porch. He and his mother came to +Crossroads yesterday, and they have been very busy getting settled. They +have a colored maid, Milly, but no man, and young Richard does all of +the outside work. I think I shall like him. Don't you remember how as a +little girl I always adored the Lion-hearted king? I always think of him +when I see Dr. Brooks. He isn't handsome, but he is broad-shouldered and +big and blond. I haven't had but one chance to speak to him since he and +his mother left Bower's. Perhaps I shan't have many chances to speak to +him. But a cat may look at a king! + +I am all alone in the schoolroom. The children went an hour ago. Eric and +Beulah are to call for me on their way home from town. They took Peggy +with them. Did I tell you that Eric is falling in love with Beulah? I am +not sure whether it is the best thing for him, but I am sure it is for +her. She is very happy, and blushes when he looks at her. He is finer +than she, and bigger, mentally and spiritually. He is crude, but he will +grow as so many American men do grow--and there are dreams in his clear +blue eyes. And, after all, it is the dreams that count--as Salomon +discovered. + +Yet it may be that Eric will bring Beulah up to his level. She is an +honest little thing and good and loving. Her life is narrow, and she +thinks narrow thoughts. But he is wise and kind, and already I can see +that she is trying to keep step with him--which is as it should be. + +I like to think that father and mother kept step through all the years. +She was his equal, his comrade; she marched by his side with her head up +fitting her two short steps to his long stride. + +King Richard has just waved to me. I stood up to see the sunset--a band +of gold with black above, and he waved, and started to run across the +road. Then somebody called him from the house. Perhaps it was the +telephone and his first patient. If I am ever ill, I should like to have +a Lion-hearted Doctor--wouldn't you? + + * * * * * + +_At the Sign of the Lantern._ + +I am with Diogenes in the stable, with the lantern making deep shadows, +and the loft steps for a desk. Eric and Beulah came for me before I had +asked a question--an important question--so I am finishing my letter +here, while Eric puts Daisy in her stall, and then he will post it for +me. + +Diogenes has had his corn, and is as happy as Brinsley Tyson after a good +dinner. Oh, such eating and drinking! How these old men love it! And you +with your bread and milk and your book propped up against the lamp, or +your handful of raisins and your book under a tree! + +But I must scribble fast and ask my question. It isn't easy to ask. So +I'll put it in sections: + +Do you + ever + see + Jimmie--Ford? + +That is the first time that I have written his name since I came here. I +had made up my mind that I wouldn't write it. But somehow the +rose-colored atmosphere of the other night, and these men of his kind +have brought it back--all those whirling weeks when you warned me and I +wouldn't listen. Uncle Rod, if a woman hadn't an ounce of pride she might +meet such things. If I had not had a grandmother as good as Jimmie's and +better--I might have felt less--stricken. Geoffrey Fox spoke to me on +Saturday in a way which--hurt. Perhaps I am too sensitive--but I haven't +quite learned to--hold up my head. + +You mustn't think that I am unhappy. Indeed, I am not, except that I +cannot be with you. But it is good to know that you are comfortable, and +that Cousin Margaret is making it seem like home. Some day we are to have +a home, you and I, when our ship comes in "with the sunset packed in the +hold." But now it is well that I have work to do. I know that this is my +opportunity, and that I must make the most of it. There's that proverb of +yours, "The Lord sends us quail, but he doesn't send them roasted." I +have written it out, and have tucked it into my mirror frame. I shall +have to roast my own quail. I only hope that I may prove a competent +cook! + +Eric is here, and I must say "Good-bye." Diogenes sends love, and a +little feather that dropped from his wing. Some day he will send a big +one for you to make a pen and write letters to me. I love your letters, +and I love you. And oh, you know that you have all the heart's best of +your own + +ANNE. + + * * * * * + +_The Morning After the Magi Came._ + +I am up early to tell you about it. But I must go back a little because I +have had so much else to talk about that I haven't spoken of the Twelfth +Night play. + +It seems that years ago, when old Dr. Brooks first built the schoolhouse, +the children used his stable on Twelfth Night for a spectacle +representing the coming of the Wise Men. + +Mr. David had told me of it, and I had planned to revive the old custom +this year, and had rehearsed the children. I thought when I heard that +the house was to be occupied that I might have to give it up. But Peggy +and I plucked up our courage and asked King Richard, and he graciously +gave permission. + +It was a heavenly night. Snow on the ground and all the stars out. The +children met in the schoolhouse and we started in a procession. They all +wore simple little costumes, just some bit of bright color draped to give +them a quaint picturesqueness. One of the boys led a cow, and there was +an old ewe. Then riding on a donkey, borrowed by Mr. David, came the +oldest Mary in our school. I chose her because I wanted her to understand +the sacred significance of her name, and our only little Joseph walked by +her side. The children followed and their parents, with the wise men +quite in the rear, so that they might enter after the others. + +When we reached the stable, I grouped Joseph and Mary in one of the old +mangers, where the Babe lay, and he was a dear, real, baby brother of +Mary. I hid a light behind the straw, so that the place was illumined. +And then my little wise men came in; and the children, who with their +parents were seated on the hay back in the shadows, sang, "We Three +Kings" and other carols. The gifts which the Magi brought were the +children's own pennies which they are giving to the other little children +across the sea who are fatherless because of the war. + +It was quite wonderful to hear their sweet little voices, and to see +their rapt faces and to know that, however sordid their lives might be, +here was Dream, founded on the Greatest Truth, which would lift them +above the sordidness. + +Dr. Brooks and his mother and Mr. David were not far from me, and Dr. +Brooks leaned over and asked if he might speak to the children. I said I +should be glad, so he stood up and told them in such simple, fine fashion +that he wanted to be to them all that his grandfather had been to their +parents and grandparents. He wanted them to feel that his life and +service belonged to them. He wanted them to know how pleased he was with +the Twelfth Night spectacle, and that he wanted it to become an annual +custom. + +Then in his mother's name, he asked them to come up to the house--all of +them--and we were shown into the Garden Room which opens out upon what +was once a terraced garden, and there was a great cake with candles, and +sandwiches, and coffee for the grown-ups and hot chocolate for the +kiddies. + +Wasn't that dear? I had little Francois thank them, and he did it so +well. Why is it that these small foreigners lack the self-consciousness +of our own boys and girls? He had been one of the wise men in the +spectacle, and he still wore his white beard and turban and his long blue +and red robes. Yet he wasn't in the least fussed; he simply made a bow, +said what he had to say, made another bow, with never a blush or a quaver +or giggle. His mother was there, and she was so happy--she is a widow, +and sews in the neighborhood, plain sewing, and they are very poor. + +I rode home with the Bowers, and as we drove along, I heard the children +singing. I am sure they will never forget the night under the winter +stars, nor the scene in the stable with the cow and the little donkey and +the old ewe, and the Light that illumined the manger. I want them always +to remember, Uncle Rod, and I want to remember. It is only when I forget +that I lose faith and hope. + +Blessed dear, good-night. + +YOUR ANNE. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +_In Which Peggy Takes the Center of the Stage._ + + +THE bell on the schoolhouse had a challenging note. It seemed to call to +the distant hills, and the echo came back in answer. It was the voice of +civilization. "I am here that you may learn of other hills and of other +valleys, of men who have dreamed and of men who have discovered, of +nations which have conquered and of nations which have fallen into decay. +I am here that you may learn--_ding dong_--that you may learn, _ding +ding_--that you may learn--_ding dong ding_--of Life." + +As she rang the bell, Anne had always a feeling of exhilaration. Its +message was clear to her. She hoped it would be clear to others. She +tried at least to make it clear to her children. + +And now they came streaming over the countryside, big boys with their +little sisters beside them, big girls with their little brothers. Some on +sleds and some sliding. All rosy-cheeked with the coldness of the +morning. + +As they filed in, Anne stood behind her desk. They had opening exercises, +and then the work of the day began. + +It began scrappily. Nobody had his mind upon it. The children were much +excited over the events of the preceding night--over the play and the +feast which had followed. + +Anne, too, was excited. On the way to school she had met Richard, and he +had joined her and had told her of his first patient. + +"I had to walk at one o'clock in the morning. I must get a horse or a +car. I am not quite sure that I ought to afford a car. And I like the +idea of a horse. My grandfather rode a horse." + +"Are you going to do all the things that your grandfather did?" + +He was aware of her quick smile. He smiled back. + +"Perhaps. I might do worse. He made great cures with his calomel and his +catnip tea." + +"Did you cure your patient with catnip tea?" + +"Last night? No. It was a child. Measles. I told the rest of the family +to stay away from school." + +"It is probably too late. They will all have it." + +"Have you?" + +"No. I am never sick." + +Her good health seemed to him another goddess attribute. Goddesses were +never ill. They lived eternally with lovely smiles. + +He felt this morning that the world was his. He had been called up the +night before by a man in whose household there had been a tradition of +the skill of Richard's grandfather. There had been the memory, too, in +the minds of the older ones of the days when that other doctor had +thundered up the road to succor and to save. It was a proud moment in +their lives when they gave to Richard Tyson's grandson his first patient. +They felt that Providence in sending sickness upon them had imposed not a +penance but a privilege. + +Richard had known of their pride and had been touched by it, and with the +glow of their gratitude still upon him, he had trudged down the snowy +road and had met Anne Warfield! + +"You'd better let me come and look over your pupils," he had said to her +as they parted; "we don't want an epidemic!" + +He was to come at the noon recess. Anne, anticipating his visit, was +quite thrillingly emphatic in her history lesson. Not that history had +anything to do with measles, but she felt fired by his example to do her +best. + +She loved to teach history, and she had a lesson not only for her +children, but for herself. She was much ashamed of her mood of Sunday. It +had been easy enough this morning to talk to Richard; and with Evelyn +away, clothes had seemed to sink to their proper significance. And if she +had waited on the table she had at least done it well. + +Her exposition gained emphasis, therefore, from her state of mind. + +"In this beautiful land of ours," she said, "all men are free--and equal. +You mustn't think this means that all of you will have the same amount of +money or the same kind of clothes, or the same things to eat, or even the +same kind of minds. But I think it means that you ought all to have the +same kind of consciences. You ought to be equal in right doing. And in +love of country. You ought to know when war is righteous, and when peace +is righteous. And you can all be equal in this, that no man can make you +lie or steal or be a coward." + +Thus she inspired them. Thus she saw them thrill as she had herself been +thrilled. And that was her reward. For in her school were not only the +little Johns and the little Thomases and the little Richards--she found +herself quite suddenly understanding why there were so many +Richards--there were also the little Ottos and the little Ulrics and the +little Wilhelms, and there was Francois, whose mother went out to sew by +the day, and there were Raphael and Alessandro and Simon. Out from the +big cities had come the parents of these children, seeking the land, +usurping the places of the old American stock, doing what had been left +undone in the way of sowing and planting and reaping, making the little +gardens yield as they had never yielded, even in those wonder days before +the war. + +It was Anne Warfield's task to train the children of the newcomers to the +American ideal. With the blood in her of statesmen and of soldiers it +was given to her to pass on the tradition of good citizenship. She was, +indeed, a torch-bearer, lighting the way to love of country. Yet for a +little while she had forgotten it. + +She had cried because she could not wear rose-color! + +But now her head was high again, and when Richard came she showed him her +school, and he shook hands first with the little girls and then with the +little boys, and he looked down their throats, and asked them questions, +and joked and prodded and took their temperature, and he did it all in +such happy fashion that not even the littlest one was afraid. + +And when Richard was ready to go, he said to her, "I'll look after their +bodies if you'll look after their minds," and as she watched him walk +away, she had a tingling sense that they had formed a compact which had +to do with things above and beyond the commonplace. + +It began to snow in the afternoon, and it was snowing hard when the +school day ended. Eric Brand came for Anne and Peggy in the funny little +station carriage which was kept at Bower's. Eric and Anne sat on the +front seat with Peggy between them. The fat mare, Daisy, jogged placidly +along the still white road. There was a top to the carriage, but the snow +sifted in, so Anne wrapped Peggy in an old shawl. + +"I don't need anything," she said, when Eric offered her a heavier +covering. "I love it--like this----" + +Eric Brand was big and blond and somewhat slow in his movements. But he +had brains and held the position of telegraph operator at Bower's +Station. He had, too, a heart of romance. The day before he had seen +Evelyn toss the rose to Richard, and he had found it later where Richard +had dropped it. He had picked it up, and had put it in water. It had +seemed to him that the flower must feel the slight which had been put +upon it. + +He spoke now to Anne of Richard. "They say he is a good doctor." + +"I can't see why he came here." + +"His mother wanted him to come. She hates the city. She went there as a +bride. Her husband was rich, but he was always speculating. Sometimes +they were so poor that she had to do her own work, and sometimes they had +a half dozen servants. But they never had a home. And then all at once he +lost other people's money as well as his own--and he killed himself----" + +She turned on him her startled eyes. "Richard's father?" + +"Yes. And after that young Brooks decided that as soon as he finished his +medical course he would come here. He thinks that he came because he +wanted to come. But he won't stay." + +"Why not?" + +"You saw his friends. And the women. Some day he'll go back and marry +that girl----" + +"Evelyn Chesley?" + +"Is that her name? She threw him a rose;" he forgot to tell her that he +had seen it fade. + +They had reached the stable garage. Diogenes welcomed them from his warm +corner. The old dog Mamie who had followed the carriage shook the snow +from her coat and flopped down on the floor to rest. The little horse +Daisy steamed and whinnied. It was a homely scene of sheltered creatures +in comfortable quarters. Anne knelt down by the old drake, and he bent +his head under her caressing hand. Her face was grave. Eric, watching +her, asked; "Has it been a hard day?" + +"No;" but she found herself suddenly tired. + +She went in with Eric presently. They had a good hot supper, and Anne was +hungry. Gathered around the table were Peter and his wife, Beulah and +Eric, with Peggy rounding out the half dozen. Geoffrey Fox had gone to +town to get his belongings. + +Anne had a vision of Richard and his mother in the big house. At their +table would be lovely linen and shining silver, and some little formality +of service. She felt that she belonged to people like that. She had +nothing in common with Peter and his wife and with Eric Brand. Nor with +Beulah. + +Beulah was planning a little party for the evening. There was to have +been skating, but the warmer weather and the snow had made that +impossible. + +"I don't know just what I'll do with them," she said; "we might have +games." + +"Anne knows a lot of things." This from Peggy, who was busy with her +bread and milk. + +"What things?" + +"Oh, dancing----" + +Anne flushed. "Peggy!" + +"But we do. We make bows like this----" + +Peggy slid out of her chair and bobbed for them--a most entrancing little +curtsey, with all her curls flying. + +"And the boys do this." She was quite stiff as she showed them how the +little boys bowed. + +Anne seemed to feel some need of defense. "Well, they must learn +manners." + +Peggy, wound up, would not be interrupted. "We dance like this," and away +she went in a mad gallop. + +Anne laughed. "It warms their blood when the fire won't burn. Peggy, it +isn't quite as bad as that. Show them nicely." + +So Peggy showed them some pretty steps, and then came back to her bread +and milk. + +"We might dance." Beulah's mind was on her party. "But some of them don't +know how." + +Anne offered no suggestions. She really might have helped if she had +cared to do it. But she did not care. + +When she had finished supper, Eric followed her into the hall. "You'll +come down, won't you?" + +"I'm not sure." + +"Beulah would like it if you would." + +"I have a lot of things to do." + +"Let them go. You can always work. When you hear the fire roaring up the +chimney, you will know that it is calling to you, 'Come down, come +down!'" + +He stood and watched her as she climbed the stairs. Then he went back and +helped Beulah. + +Beulah was really very pretty, and to-night her cheeks were pink as she +made her little plans with him. + +He gave himself pleasantly to her guidance. He moved the furniture for +her into the big front room, so that there would be a space for dancing. +And presently it became not a sanctum for staid Old Gentlemen, but a +gathering place for youth and joy. + +Eric made his rounds before the company came. He looked after the dogs in +the kennels and at Daisy in her stall. He flashed his lantern into +Diogenes' dark corner and saw the old drake at rest. + +The snow was whirling in a blinding storm when at last he staggered in +with a great log for the fire, and with a basket of cones to make the air +sweet. And it was as he knelt to put the cones on the fire that Anne came +in and stood beside him. + +She had swept up her hair in the new way from her forehead. She wore +white silk stockings and little flat-heeled black slippers, and a +flounced white frock. She was not in the least in fashion, but she was +quaintly childish and altogether lovely. + +The big man looked up at her. "You look nice in that dress." + +She smiled down at him. "I'm glad you like it, Eric." + +When the young belles and beauties of the countryside came in later, Anne +found herself quite eclipsed by their blooming charms. The young men, +knowing her as the school-teacher, were afraid of her brains. They talked +to her stiffly, and left her as soon as possible for the easier society +of girls of their own kind. Peggy sat with Anne on the big settle beside +the fire. The child's hand was hot, and she seemed sleepy. + +"My eyes hurt," she said, crossly. + +"You ought to be in bed, Peggy; shall I take you?" + +"No. There's going to be an oyster stew. Daddy said I might sit up." + +Beulah in pink and very important came over to them. "Could you show us +some of the dances, Anne?" + +"Oh, Beulah, can't they play games?" + +"I think you might help us." Beulah's tone was slightly petulant. + +Anne stood up. "There's a march I taught the children. We could begin +with that." + +She led the march with Eric. Behind her was the loud laughter of the +brawny young men, the loud laughter of the blooming young women. Their +merriment sounded a different note from that struck by the genial Old +Gentlemen or by the gay group of young folk from New York. What was the +difference? Training? Birth? + +Anne felt suddenly much alone. She had not belonged to Evelyn Chesley's +crowd, she did not belong with Beulah's friends. She wondered if she +really belonged anywhere. + +Yet as her mind went over and over these things, her little slippered +feet led the march. Eric was not awkward, and he fell easily into the +step. + +"How nicely we do it together," he said, and beamed down on her, and +because her heart was really a kind little heart and a womanly one, she +smiled up at him and tried to be as fine and friendly as she would have +wanted her children to be. + +After the dance, the young folks played old-fashioned games--"Going to +Jerusalem" and "Post Office." Anne fled to the settle when the last game +was announced. Peggy was moping among the cushions. + +"Let me take you up to bed, dearie." + +"No, I won't. I want to stay here." + +The fun was fast and furious. Anne had a little shivery feeling as she +watched the girls go out into the hall and come back blushing. How could +they give so lightly what seemed to her so sacred? A woman's lips were +for her lover. + +She sat very still among the cushions. The fire roared up the chimney. +Outside the wind blew; far away in the distance a dog barked. + +The barking dog was young Toby. At the heels of his master he was headed +straight for the long low house and the grateful shelter of its warmth. + +Richard stood for a moment on the porch, looking in through the lighted +window. A romping game was in full progress. This time it was "Drop the +Handkerchief" and a plump and pretty girl was having a tussle with her +captor. Everybody was shouting, clapping. Everybody? On an old settle by +the fire sat a slim girl in a white gown. Peggy lay in the curve of her +arm, and she was looking down at Peggy. + +Richard laughed a big laugh. He could not have told why he laughed, but +he flung the door open, and stood there radiant. + +"May I come in?" he demanded of Beulah, "or will I break up your party?" + +"Oh, Dr. Brooks, as if you could. We are so glad to have you." + +"I had a sick call, and we are half frozen, Toby and I, and we saw the +lights----" + +Now the best place for a half-frozen man is by the fire, and the best +place for an anxious and shivering dog is in a warm chimney corner, so +in a moment the young dog Toby was where he could thaw out in a luxurious +content, and Richard was on the settle beside Anne, and was saying, +"Isn't this great? Do you think I ought to stay? I'm not really invited, +you know." + +"There's never any formality. Everybody just comes." + +"I like your frock," he said suddenly. "You remind me of a little +porcelain figure I saw in a Fifth Avenue window not long ago." + +"Tell me about it," she said with eagerness. + +"About what?" + +"New York and the shops. Oh, I saw them once. They were like--Heaven." + +She laughed up at him as she said it, and he laughed back. + +"You'd get tired of them if you lived there." + +"I should never get tired. And if I had money I'd go on in and try on +everything. I saw a picture of a gown I'd like--all silver spangles with +a pointed train. Do you know I've never worn a train? I should like +one--and a big fan with feathers." + +He shook his head. "Trains wouldn't suit your style. Nor big fans. You +ought to have a little fan--of sandalwood, with a purple and green tassel +and smelling sweet. Mother says that her mother carried a fan like that +at a White House ball." + +"I've never been to a ball." + +"Well, you needn't want to go. It's a cram and a jam and everybody bored +to death." + +"I shouldn't be bored. I should love it." + +His eyes were on the fire. And presently he said, "It seems queer to be +away from it--New York. There's something about it that gets into your +blood. You want it--as you do--drink." + +"Then you'll be going back." + +He jerked around to look at her. "No," sharply; "what makes you say +that?" + +"Because--it--it doesn't seem possible that you could be--buried--here." + +"Do you feel buried?" + +She nodded. "Oh, yes." + +His face was grave. "And doesn't the school work--help?" + +She caught her breath. "That's the best part of it. You see I love--the +children." + +He flashed a quick glance at her. "Then you're lonely sometimes?" + +"Yes." + +"I fancy these people aren't exactly--your kind. I wish you'd come and +see my mother. She's awfully worth while, you know. And she'd be so glad +to have you." + +She found herself saying, "My grandmother was Cynthia Warfield. She knew +your grandfather. I have some old letters. I think your mother might like +to see them." + +"No wonder I've been puzzling over you! Cynthia Warfield's portrait hangs +in our library. And you're like your grandmother. Only you're young +and--alive." + +Again his ringing laugh and her own to meet it. She felt so young and +happy. So very, very young, and so very, very happy! + +Mrs. Bower, appearing importantly, announced supper. Beyond the hall, +through the open door of the dining-room they could see the loaded table +with the tureens of steaming oysters at each end. + +There was at once a rollicking stampede. + +Anne leaned down to wake Peggy. The child opened her heavy eyes, and +murmured: "I want a drink." + +Richard glanced at her. "Hello, hello," he said, quickly. "What's the +matter, Pussy?" + +"I'm not Pussy--I'm Peggy." The child was ready for tears. + +He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the light. With careful +finger he lifted the heavy eyelids and touched the hot little cheeks. +"How long has she been this way?" he asked Anne. + +"Just since supper. Is there anything the matter with her? Is she really +sick, Dr. Brooks?" + +"Measles," he said succinctly. "You'd better get her straight to bed." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +_In Which a Gray Plush Pussy Cat Supplies a Theme._ + + +ANNE at the top of the stairs talked to Geoffrey Fox at the foot. + +"But you really ought not to stay." + +"Why not?" + +"Because if you haven't had the measles you might get them, and, besides, +poor Mrs. Bower is so busy." + +"Why not tell me the truth? You don't want me to stay." + +"What difference can it possibly make to me?" + +"It may make a great difference," Geoffrey said, quietly, "whether I go +or stay, but we won't talk of that. I am here. All my traps, bag and +baggage, typewriter and trunks--books and bathrobe--and yet you want to +send me away." + +"I haven't anything to do with it. But the house is closed to every one." + +"And everything smells of antiseptics. I rather like that. I spent six +weeks in a hospital once. I had a nervous breakdown, and the quiet was +heavenly, and all the nurses were angels." + +She would not smile. "Of course if you will stay," she said, "you must +take things as they come. Mrs. Bower will send your meals up to you. She +won't have time to set a company table." + +"I'm not company; let me eat with the rest of you." + +She hesitated. "You wouldn't like it. I don't like it. There's no +service, you see--we all just help ourselves." + +"I can help myself." + +She shook her head. "It will be easier for Mrs. Bower to bring it up." + +He climbed three steps and stopped. "Are you going to do all the +nursing?" + +"I shall do some of it. Peggy is really ill. There are complications. And +Mrs. Bower and Beulah have so much to do. We shall have to close the +school. Dr. Brooks wants to save as many as possible from having it." + +"So Brooks is handling Peggy's case." + +"Of course. Peter Bower knew his grandfather." + +"Well, it is something to have a grandfather. And to follow in his +footsteps." + +But her mind was not on grandfathers. "Dr. Brooks will be here in an hour +and I must get Peggy's room ready. And will you please look after +yourself for a little while? Eric will attend to your trunks." + +It took Geoffrey all the morning to settle. He heard Richard come and +go. At noon Anne brought up his tray. + +Opening the door to her knock, he protested. "You shouldn't have done +it." + +"Why not? It is all in the day's work. And I am not going to be silly +about it any more." + +"You were never silly about it." + +"Yes, I was. But I have worked it all out in my mind. My bringing up the +tray to you won't make me any less than I am or any more. It is the way +we feel about ourselves that counts--not what other people think of us." + +"So you don't care what I think of you?" + +"No, not if I am doing the things I think are right." + +"And you don't care what Richard Brooks thinks?" + +The color mounted. "No," steadily. + +"Nor Miss Chesley?" + +"Of course not." + +"Not of course. You do care. You'd hate it if you thought they'd +criticize. And you'd cry after you went to bed." + +She felt that such clairvoyance was uncanny. "I wouldn't cry." + +"Well, you'd feel like it." + +"Please don't talk about me in that way. It really doesn't make any +difference how I feel, does it? And your lunch is getting cold." + +"What made you bring it? Why didn't you let Mrs. Bower or Beulah?" + +"Mrs. Bower is lying down, and Beulah has been ironing all the morning." + +"The next time call me, and I'll wait upon myself." + +"Perhaps I shall." She surveyed his tray. "I've forgotten the cream for +your coffee." + +"I don't take cream. Oh, please don't go. I want you to see my books and +my other belongings." + +He had brought dozens of books, a few pictures, a little gilded Chinese +god, a bronze bust of Napoleon. + +"Everything has a reason for being dragged around with me. That etching +of Helleu's is like my little sister, Mimi, who is at school in a +convent, and who constitutes my whole family. The gilded Chinese god is a +mascot--the Napoleon intrigues the imagination." + +"Do you think so much of Napoleon?" coldly. "He was a little great man. +I'd rather talk to my children of George Washington." + +"You women have a grudge against him because of Josephine." + +"Yes. He killed something in himself when he put her from him. And the +world knew it, and his downfall began. He forgot that love is the +greatest thing in the world." + +How lovely she was, all fire and feeling! + +"Jove," he said, staring, "if you could write, you'd make people sit up +and listen. You've kept your dreams. That's what the world wants--the +stuff that dreams are made of. And most of us have lost ours by the time +we know how to put things on paper." + + * * * * * + +For days the sound of Geoffrey's typewriter could be heard in the hall. +"Does it disturb Peggy?" he asked Anne late one night as he met her on +the stairs. + +"No; her room is too far away. You were so good to send her the lovely +toys. She adores the plush pussy cat." + +"I like cats. They are coy--and caressing. Dogs are too frankly adoring." + +"The eternal masculine." She smiled at him. "Is your work coming on?" + +"I have a first chapter. May I read it to you?" + +"Please--I should love it." + +She was glad to sit quietly by the big fireplace. With eyes half-closed, +she listened to the opening sentences. But as he proceeded, her +listlessness vanished. And when he laid down the manuscript she was +leaning forward, her slim hands clasped tensely on her knees, her eyes +wide with interest. + +"Oh, oh," she told him, "how do you know it all--how can you make them +live and breathe--like that?" + +For a moment he did not answer, then he said, "I don't know how I do it. +No artist knows how he creates. It is like Life and Death--and other +miracles. If I could keep to this pace, I'd have a masterpiece. But I +shan't keep to it." + +"Why not?" + +"I never do." + +"But this time--with such a beginning." + +"Will you be my critic, Mistress Anne? Let me read to you now and +then--like this?" + +"I am afraid I should spoil you with praise. It all seems so--wonderful." + +"You can't spoil me, and I like to be wonderful." + +In spite of his egotism, she found herself modifying her first +unfavorable estimate of him. His quick eager speech, his mobile mouth, +his mop of dark hair, his white restless hands, his long-lashed +near-sighted eyes, these contributed a personality which had in it +nothing commonplace or conventional. + +For three nights he read to her. On the fourth he had nothing to read. +"It is the same old story," he burst out passionately. "I see mountain +peaks, then, suddenly, darkness falls and my brain is blank." + +"Wait a little," she told him; "it will come back." + +"But it never comes back. All of my good beginnings flat out toward the +end. And that's why I'm pot-boiling, because," bitterly, "I am not big +enough for anything else." + +"You mustn't say such things. We achieve only as we believe in ourselves. +Don't you know that? If you believe that things are going to end badly, +they will end badly." + +"Oh, wise little school-teacher, how do you know?" + +"It is what I teach my children. That they must believe in themselves." + +"What else do you teach them?" + +"That they must believe in God and love their country, and then nothing +can happen to them that they cannot bear. It is only when one loses faith +and hope that life doesn't seem worth while." + +"And do you believe all that you teach?" + +Silence. She was gazing into the fire thoughtfully. "I believe it, but I +don't always live up to it. That's the hard part, acting up the things +that we believe. I tell my children that, and I tell them, too, that they +must always keep on trying." + +She was delicious with her theories and her seriousness. And she was +charming in the crisp blue gown that had been her uniform since the +beginning of Peggy's illness. + +He laughed and leaned toward her. "Oh, Mistress Anne, Mistress Anne, how +much you have to learn." + +She stood up. "Perhaps I know more than you think." + +"Are you angry because I said that? But I love your arguments." + +His frankness was irresistible; she could not take offense so she sat +down again. + +"Perhaps," she said, hesitating, "you might understand better how I feel +if I told you about my Great-uncle Rodman Warfield. When he was very +young he went to Paris to study art, and he attracted much attention. +Then after a while he began to find the people interested him more than +pictures. You see we come from old Maryland stock. My grandmother, +Cynthia Warfield, was one of the proudest women in Carroll. But Uncle +Rodman doesn't believe in family pride, not the kind that sticks its nose +in the air; and so when he came back to America he resolved to devote his +talents to glorifying the humble. He lived among the poor and he painted +pictures of them. And then one day there was an accident. He saved a +woman from drowning between a ferry-boat and the slip, and he hurt his +back. There was a sort of paralysis that affected the nerves of his +hand--and he couldn't paint any more. He came to us--when I was a little +girl. My father was dead, and mother had a small income. We couldn't +afford servants, so mother sewed and Uncle Rod and I did the housework. +And it was he who tried to teach me that work is the one royal thing in +our lives." + +"Where is he now?" + +"When mother died our income was cut off, and--I had to leave him. He +could have a home with a cousin of ours and teach her children. I might +have stayed with her, but there was nothing for me to do. And we felt +that it was best for me to--find myself. So I came here. He writes to +me--every day----" She drew a long breath. "I don't think I could live +without letters from my Uncle Rod." + +"So you are really a princess in disguise, and you would love to stick +your nose in the air, but you don't quite dare?" + +"I shouldn't love to do anything snobbish." + +"There is no use in pretending that you are humble when you are not. And +your Great-uncle Rodman is a dreamer. Life is what it is, not what we +want it to be." + +"I like his dreams," she said, simply, "and I want to be as good as he +thinks I am." + +"You don't have to be too good. You are too pretty. Do you know that +Cynthia Warfield's granddaughter is a great beauty, Mistress Anne?" + +"I know that I don't like to have you say such things to me." + +"Why not?" + +"I am not sure that you mean them." + +"But I do mean them," eagerly. + +"Perhaps," stiffly, "but we won't talk about it. I must go up to Peggy." + +Peter Bower was with Peggy. He was a round and red-faced Peter with the +kindest heart in the world. And Peggy was the apple of his eye. + +"Do you think she is better, Miss Anne?" + +"Indeed I do. And now you go and get some sleep, Mr. Bower. I'll stay +with her until four, and then I'll wake Beulah." + +He left her with the daily paper and a new magazine, and with the light +shaded, Anne sat down to read. Peggy was sleeping soundly with both arms +around the plush pussy which Geoffrey had given her. It was a most +lifelike pussy, gray-striped with green glass eyes and with a little red +mouth that opened and mewed when you pulled a string. Hung by a ribbon +around the pussy cat's neck was a little brass bell. As the child stirred +in her sleep the little bell tinkled. There was no sound except the +sighing of the wind. All the house was still. + +The paper was full of news of the great war. Anne read it carefully, and +the articles on the same subject in the magazine. She felt that she must +know as much as possible, so that she might speak to her children +intelligently of the great conflict. Of Belgium and England, of France +and Germany. She must be fair, with all those clear eyes focussed upon +her. She must, indeed, attempt a sort of neutrality. But how could she be +neutral, with her soul burning candles on the altar of the allies? + +As she read on and on in the silence of the night, there came to her the +thought of the dead on the field of battle. What of those shining souls? +What happened after men went out into the Great Beyond? Hun and Norman, +Saxon and Slav, among the shadows were they all at Peace? + +Again the child stirred and the little bell tinkled. It seemed to Anne +that the bell and the staring eyes were symbolic. The gay world played +its foolish music and looked with unseeing eyes upon murder and madness. +If little Peggy had lain there dead, the little bell would still have +tinkled, the wide green eyes would still have stared. + +But Peggy, thank God, was alive. Her face, like old ivory against the +whiteness of her pillow, showed the ravages of illness, but the doctor +had said she was out of danger. + +The child stirred and spoke. "Anne," she whispered, "tell me about the +bears." + +Anne knelt beside the bed. "We must be very quiet," she said. "I don't +want to wake Beulah." + +So very softly she told the story. Of the Daddy Bear and the Mother Bear +and the Baby Bear; of the little House in the Woods; of Goldilocks, the +three bowls of soup, the three chairs, the three beds---- + +In the midst of it all Peggy sat up. "I want a bowl of soup like the +little bear." + +"But, darling, you've had your lovely supper." + +"I don't care." Peggy's lip quivered. "I'm just starved, and I can't wait +until I have my breakfast." + +"Let me tell you the rest of the story." + +"No. I don't want to hear it. I want a bowl of soup like the little +bear's." + +"Maybe it wasn't nice soup, Peggy." + +"But you _said_ it was. You said that the Mother Bear made it out of the +corn from the farmer's field, and the cock that the fox brought, and she +seasoned it with herbs that she found at the edge of the forest. You said +yourself it was _dee-licious_ soup, Miss Anne." + +She began to cry weakly. + +"Dearie, don't. If I go down into the kitchen and warm some broth will +you keep very still?" + +"Yes. Only I don't want just broth. I want soup like the little bear +had." + +"Peggy, I am not a fairy godmother. I can't wave my wand and get things +in the middle of the night." + +"Well, anyhow, you can put it in a blue bowl, you _said_ the little bear +had his in a blue bowl, and you said he had ten crackers in it. I want +ten crackers----" + +The kitchen was warm and shadowy, with the light of a kerosene lamp above +the cook-stove. Anne flitted about noiselessly, finding a little +saucepan, finding a little blue bowl, breaking one cracker into ten bits +to satisfy the insistent Peggy, stirring the bubbling broth with a spoon +as she bent above it. + +And as she stirred, she was thinking of Geoffrey Fox, not as she had +thought of Richard, with pulses throbbing and heart fluttering, but +calmly; of his book and of the little bust of Napoleon, and of the +things that she had been reading about the war. + +She poured the soup out of the saucepan, and set it steaming on a low +tray. Then quietly she ascended the stairs. Geoffrey's door was wide open +and his room was empty, but through the dimness of the long hall she +discerned his figure, outlined against a wide window at the end. Back of +him the world under the light of the waning moon showed black and white +like a great wash drawing. + +He turned as she came toward him. "I heard you go down," he said. "I've +been writing all night--and I've written--perfect rot." His hands went +out in a despairing gesture. + +Composed and quiet in her crisp linen, she looked up at him. "Write about +the war," she said; "take three soldiers,--French, German and English. +Make their hearts hot with hatred, and then--let them lie wounded +together on the field of battle in the darkness of the night--with death +ahead--and let each one tell his story--let them be drawn together by the +knowledge of a common lot--a common destiny----" + +"What made you think of that?" he demanded. + +"Peggy's pussy cat." She told him of the staring eyes and the tinkling +bell. "But I mustn't stay. Peggy is waiting for her soup." + +He gazed at her with admiration. "How do you do it?" + +"Do what?" + +"Dictate a heaven-born plot to me in one breath, and speak of Peggy's +soup in the next. You are like Werther's Charlotte." + +"I am like myself. And we mustn't stay here talking. It is time we were +both in bed. I am going to wake Beulah when I have fed Peggy." + +He made a motion of salute. "The princess serves," he said, laughing. + +But as she passed on, calm and cool and collected, carrying the tray +before her like the famous Chocolate lady on the backs of magazines, the +laugh died on his lips. She was not to be laughed at, this little Anne +Warfield, who held her head so high! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +_In Which Geoffrey Writes of Soldiers and Their Souls._ + + +EVE CHESLEY writing from New York was still in a state of rebellion. + +"And now they all have the _measles_. Richard, it needed only your letter +to let me know what you have done to yourself. When I think of you, +tearing around the country on your old white horse, with your ears tied +up--I am sure you tie up your ears--it is a perfect nightmare. Oh, Dicky +Boy, and you might be here specializing on appendicitis or something +equally reasonable and modern. I feel as if the world were upside down. +Do children in New York ever have the measles? Somehow I never hear of +it. It seems to me almost archaic--like mumps. Nobody in society ever has +the mumps, or if they do, they keep it a dead secret, like a family +skeleton, or a hard-working grandfather. + +"Your letters are so short, and they don't tell me what you do with your +evenings. Don't you miss us? Don't you miss me? And our good times? And +the golden lights of the city? Winifred Ames wants you for a dinner dance +on the twentieth. Can't you turn the measley kiddies over to some one +else and come? Say 'yes,' Dicky, dear. Oh, you musn't be just a country +doctor. You were born for bigger things, and some day you will see it and +be sorry." + +Richard's letter, dashed off between visits to the "measley kiddies," was +as follows: + +"There aren't any bigger things, Eve, and I shan't be sorry. I can't get +away just now, and to be frank, I don't want to. There is nothing dull +about measles. They have aspects of interest unknown to a dinner dance. I +am not saying that I don't miss some of the things that I have left +behind--my good friends--you and Pip and the Dutton-Ames. But there are +compensations. And you should see my horse. He's a heavy fellow like a +horse of Flanders; I call him Ben because he is big and gentle. I don't +tie up my ears, but I should if I wanted to. And please don't think I am +ungrateful because I am not coming to the Dutton-Ames dance. Why don't +you and the rest drift down here for a week-end? Next Friday, the Friday +after? Let me know. There's good skating now that the snows have +stopped." + +He signed it and sealed it and on the way to see little Peggy he dropped +it into the box. Then he entirely forgot it. It was a wonderful morning, +with a sky like sapphire above a white world, the dog Toby racing ahead +of him, and big gentle Ben at a trot. + +At the innocent word "compensations" Evelyn Chesley pricked up her ears. +What compensations? She got Philip Meade on the telephone. + +"Richard has asked us for the week-end, Pip. Could we go in your car?" + +"Unless it snows again. But why seek such solitudes, Eve?" + +"I want to take Richard a fur cap. I am sure he ties up his ears." + +"Send it." + +"In a cold-blooded parcel post package? I will not. Pip, if you won't go, +I'll kidnap Aunt Maude, and carry her off by train." + +"And leave me out? Not much. 'Whither thou goest----'" + +"Even when I am on the trail of another man? Pip, you are a dear idiot." + +"The queen's fool." + +So it was decided that on Friday, weather permitting, they should go. + +Aunt Maude, protesting, said, "It isn't proper, Eve. Girls in my day +didn't go running around after men. They sat at home and waited." + +"Why wait, dearest? When I see a good thing I go for it." + +"Eve----!" + +"And anyhow I am not running after Dicky. I am rescuing him." + +"From what?" + +"From his mother, dearest, and his own dreams. Their heads are in the +clouds, and they don't know it." + +"I think myself that Nancy is making a mistake." + +"More of a mistake than she understands." The lightness left Eve's voice. +She was silent as she ate an orange and drank a cup of clear coffee. +Eve's fashionable and adorable thinness was the result of abstinence and +of exercise. Facing daily Aunt Maude's plumpness, she had sacrificed ease +and appetite on the altar of grace and beauty. + +Yet Aunt Maude's plumpness was not the plumpness of inelegance. Nothing +about Aunt Maude was inelegant. She was of ancient Knickerbocker stock. +She had been petrified by years of social exclusiveness into something +less amiable than her curves and dimples promised. Her hair was gray, and +not much of it was her own. Her curled bang and high coronet braid were +held flatly against her head by a hair net. She wore always certain +chains and bracelets which proclaimed the family's past prosperity. Her +present prosperity was evidenced by the somewhat severe richness of her +attire. Her complexion was delicately yellow and her wrinkles were deep. +Her eyes were light blue and coldly staring. In manner she seemed to set +herself against any world but her own. + +The money on which the two women lived was Aunt Maude's. She expected to +make Eve her heir. In the meantime she gave her a generous allowance and +indulged most of her whims. + +The latest whim was the new breakfast room in which they now sat, with +the winter sun streaming through the small panes of a wide south window. + +For sixty odd years Aunt Maude had eaten her breakfast promptly at eight +from a tray in her own room. It had been a hearty breakfast of hot breads +and chops. At one she had lunched decently in the long dim dining-room in +a mid-Victorian atmosphere of Moquet and marble mantels, carved walnut +and plush curtains. + +And now back of this sacred dining-room Eve had built out a structure of +glass and of stone, looking over a scrap of enclosed city garden, and +furnished in black and white, relieved by splashes of brilliant color. +Aunt Maude hated the green parrot and the flame-colored fishes in the +teakwood aquarium. She thought that Eve looked like an actress in the +little jacket with the apple-green ribbons which she wore when she came +down at twelve. + +"Aren't we ever going to eat any more luncheons?" had been Aunt Maude's +plaintive question when she realized that she was in the midst of a +gastronomic revolution. + +"Nobody does, dearest. If you are really up-to-date you breakfast and +dine--the other meals are vague--illusory." + +"People in my time----" Aunt Maude had stated. + +"People in your time," Evelyn had interrupted flippantly, "were wise and +good. Nobody wants to be wise and good in these days. We want to be smart +and sophisticated. Your good old stuffy dining-rooms were like your good +old stuffy consciences. Now my breakfast room is symbolic--the green and +white for the joy of living, and the black for my sins." + +She stood up on tiptoe to feed the parrot. "To-morrow," she announced, "I +am to have a black cat. I found one at the cat show--with green eyes. And +I am going to match his cushion to his eyes." + +"I'd like a cat," Aunt Maude said, unexpectedly, "but I can't say that I +care for black ones. The grays are the best mousers." + +Eve looked at her reproachfully. "Do you think that cats catch mice?" she +demanded,--"up-to-date cats? They sit on cushions and add emphasis to the +color scheme. Winifred Ames has a yellow one to go with her primrose +panels." + +The telephone rang. A maid answered it. "It is for you, Miss Evelyn." + +"It is Pip," Eve said, as she turned from the telephone; "he's coming +up." + +Aunt Maude surveyed her. "You're not going to receive him as you are?" + +"As I am? Why not?" + +"Eve, go to your room and put something _on_," Aunt Maude agonized; "when +I was a girl----" + +Evelyn dropped a kiss on her cheek. "When you were a girl, Aunt Maude, +you were very pretty, and you wore very low necks and short sleeves on +the street, and short dresses--and--and----" + +Remembering the family album, Aunt Maude stopped her hastily. "It doesn't +make any difference what I wore. You are not going to receive any +gentleman in that ridiculous jacket." + +Eve surveyed herself in an oval mirror set above a console-table. "I +think I look rather nice. And Pip would like me in anything. Aunt Maude, +it's a queer world for us women. The men that we want don't want us, and +the men that we don't want adore us. The emancipation of women will come +when they can ask men to marry them." + +She was ruffling the feathers on the green parrot's head. He caught her +finger carefully in his claw and crooned. + +Aunt Maude rose. "I had twenty proposals--your uncle's was the twentieth. +I loved him at first sight, and I loved him until he left me." + +"Uncle was a dear," Eve agreed, "but suppose he hadn't asked you, Aunt +Maude?" + +"I should have remained single to the end of my days." + +"Oh, no, you wouldn't, Aunt Maude. You would have married the wrong +man--that's the way it always ends--if women didn't marry the wrong men +half the world would be old maids." + +Philip Meade was much in love. He had money, family, good looks and +infinite patience. Some day he meant to marry Eve. But he was aware that +she was not yet in love with him. + +She came down gowned for the street. And thus kept him waiting. "It was +Aunt Maude's fault. She made me dress. Pip, where shall we walk?" + +He did not care. He cared only to be with her. He told her so, and she +smiled up at him wistfully. "You're such a dear--I wish----" + +She stopped. + +"What do you wish?" he asked eagerly. + +"For the--sun. You are the moon. May I call you my moon-man, Pip?" + +He knew what she meant "Yes. But you must remember that some day I shall +not be content to take second place--I shall fight for the head of your +line of lovers." + +"Line of lovers--_Pip_. I don't like the sound of it." + +"Why not? It's true." + +Again she was wistful. "I wonder how many of them really--care? Pip, it +is the one-proposal girl who is lucky. She has no problems. She simply +takes the man she can get!" + +They were swinging along Fifth Avenue. He stopped at a flower shop and +bought her a tight little knot of yellow roses which matched her hair. +She was in brown velvet with brown boots and brown furs. Her skin showed +pink and white in the clear cold. She and the big man by her side were a +pair good to look upon, and people turned to look. + +Coming to a famous jewel shop she turned in. "I am going to have all of +Aunt Maude's opals set in platinum to make a long chain. She gave them to +me; and there'll be diamonds at intervals. I want to wear smoke-colored +tulle at Winifred Ames' dinner dance--and the opals will light it." + +Philip Meade's mind was not poetic, yet as his eyes followed Evelyn, he +was aware that this was an atmosphere which belonged to her. Her beauty +was opulent, needing richness to set it off, needing the shine of jewels, +the shimmer of silk---- + +If he married her he could give her--a tiara of diamonds--a necklace of +pearls--a pendant--a ring. His eyes swept the store adorning her. + +When they came out he said, "I think I am showing a greatness of mind +which should win your admiration." + +"Why?" + +"In taking you to Crossroads." + +"Why?" + +"You know why. Shall you write to Brooks that we are coming?" + +"No. I want it to be a surprise. That's half the fun." + +But there was nothing funny about it, as it proved, for it was on that +very Friday morning that Richard had found Peggy much better, and Anne +very pale with circles under her eyes. + +He went away, and later his mother called Anne up. She asked her to spend +the day at Crossroads. Richard would come for her and would bring her +home after dinner. + +Anne, with a fluttering sense of excitement, packed her ruffled white +frock in a little bag, and was ready when Richard arrived. + +At the gate they met Geoffrey Fox. The young doctor stopped his horse. +"Come and have lunch with us, Fox?" + +"I'm sorry. But I must get to work. How long are you going to keep Miss +Warfield?" + +"As late as we can." + +"To-night?" + +"Yes." + +"I have a chapter ready to read to her, and you ask her to eat with you +as if she were any every-day sort of person. Did you know that she is to +play Beatrice to my Dante?" + +"Don't be silly," Anne said; "you mustn't listen to him, Dr. Brooks." + +Richard's eyes went from one to the other. "What do you know of Fox?" he +asked, as they drove on. + +"Nothing, except that he is writing a book." + +"I'll ask Eve about him; she's a lion-hunter and she's in with a lot of +literary lights." + +Even as he spoke Evelyn was speeding toward him in Philip's car. He had +forgotten her and his invitation for the week-end. But she had not +forgotten, and she sparkled and glowed as she thought of Richard's royal +welcome. For how could she know, as she drew near and nearer, that he was +welcoming another guest, taking off the little teacher's old brown coat, +noting the flush on her young cheeks, the pretty appeal of her manner to +his mother. + +"You are sure I won't be in the way, Mrs. Brooks?" + +"My dear, my dear, of course not. Richard has been telling me that your +grandmother was Cynthia Warfield. Did you know that my father was in love +with Cynthia before he married my mother?" + +"The letters said so." + +"I shall want to see them. And to hear about your Great-uncle Rodman. We +thought at one time that he was going to be famous, and then came that +dreadful accident." + +They had her in a big chair now, with a high back which peaked over her +head and Nancy had another high-backed chair, and Richard standing on the +hearth-rug surveyed the two of them contentedly. + +"Mother, I am going to give myself fifteen minutes right here and a half +hour for lunch, and then I'll go out and make calls, and you and Miss +Warfield can take a nap and be ready to talk to me to-night." + +Anne smiled up at him. "Do you always make everybody mind?" + +"I try to boss mother a bit--but I am not sure that I succeed." + +Before luncheon was served Cynthia Warfield's picture, which hung in the +library, was pointed out to Anne. She was made to stand under it, so that +they might see that her hair was the same color--and her eyes. Cynthia +was painted in pink silk with a petticoat of fine lace, and with pearls +in her hair. + +"Some day," Anne said, "when my ship comes in, I am going to wear stiff +pink silk and pearls and buckled slippers and yards and yards of old +lace." + +"No, you're not," Richard told her; "you are going to wear white with +more than a million ruffles, and little flat black shoes. Mother, you +should have seen her at Beulah Bower's party." + +"White is always nice for a young girl," said pleasant Nancy Brooks. + +The dining-room looked out upon the river, with an old-fashioned bay +window curving out. The table was placed near the window. Anne's eyes +brightened as she looked at the table. It was just as she had pictured +it, all twinkling glass and silver, and with Richard at the head of it. +But what she had not pictured was the moment in which he stood to say the +simple and beautiful grace which his grandfather had said years before +in that room of many memories. + +The act seemed to set him apart from other men. It added dignity and +strength to his youth and radiance. He was master of a house, and he felt +that his house should have a soul! + +Anne, writing of it the next night to her Uncle Rod, spoke of that simple +grace: + +"Uncle Rod, it seemed to me that while most of the world was forgetting +God, he was remembering Him. Nobody says grace at Bower's--and sometimes +I don't even say it in my heart. He looked like a saint as he stood there +with the window behind him. Wasn't there a soldier saint--St. Michael? + +"Could you imagine Jimmie Ford saying grace? Could you imagine him even +at the head of his own table? When I used to think of marrying him, I had +a vision of eternal motor riding in his long blue car--with the world +rushing by in a green streak. + +"But I am not wanting much to talk of Jimmie Ford. Though perhaps before +I finish this I shall whisper what I thought of the things you had to say +of him in your letter. + +"Well, after lunch I had a nap, and then there was dinner with David +Tyson in an old-fashioned dress-suit, and Mrs. Nancy in thin black with +pearls, and St. Michael groomed and shining. + +"It was all quite like a slice of Heaven after my hard days nursing +Peggy. We had coffee in the library, and then Dr. Richard and I went +into the music-room and I played for him. I sang the song that you like +about the 'Lady of the West Country': + + "'I think she was the most beautiful lady + That ever was in the West Country. + But beauty vanishes, beauty passes, + However rare, rare it be; + And when I crumble who shall remember + That Lady of the West Country?' + +"He liked it and made me sing it twice, and then a dreadful thing +happened. A motor stopped at the door and some one ran up the steps. We +heard voices and turned around, and there were the Lovely Ladies back +again with the two men, and a chauffeur in the background with the bags! + +"It seems that they had motored down at Dr. Richard's invitation for a +week-end, and that he had forgotten it! + +"Of course you are asking, 'Why was it a dreadful thing, my dear?' Uncle +Rod, I stood there smiling a welcome at them all, and Dr. Richard said: +'You know Miss Warfield, Eve,' and then she said, 'Oh, yes,' in a frigid +fashion, and I knew by her manner that back in her mind she was +remembering that I was the girl who had waited on the table! + +"Oh, you needn't tell me that I mustn't feel that way, Uncle Rod. I feel +it, and feel it, and _feel_ it. How can I help feeling it when I know +that if I had Evelyn Chesley's friends and Evelyn's fortune, people +would look on Me-Myself in quite a different way. You see, they would +judge me by the Outside-Person part of me, which would be soft and silky +and secure, and not dowdy and diffident. + +"Oh, Uncle Rod, is Geoffrey Fox right? And have you and I been dreaming +all these years? The rest of the world doesn't dream; it makes money and +spends it, and makes money and spends it, and makes money and spends it. +Only you and I are still old-fashioned enough to want sunsets; the rest +of them want motor cars and yachts and trips to Europe. That was what +Jimmie Ford wanted, and that was why he didn't want me. + +"There, I have said it, Uncle Rod. Your letter made me know it. Perhaps I +have hoped and hoped a little that he might come back to me. I have made +up scenes in my mind of how I would scorn him and send him away, and +indeed I would send him away, for there isn't any love left--only a lot +of hurt pride. + +"To think that he saw you and spoke to you and didn't say one word about +me. And just a year ago at Christmas time, do you remember, Uncle Rod? +The flowers he sent, and the pearl ring--and now the flowers are dead, +and the ring went back to him. + +"Oh, I can't talk about it even to you! + +"Well, all the evening Eve Chesley held the center of the stage. And the +funny part of it was that I found myself much interested in the things +she had to tell. Her life is a sort of Arabian Nights' existence. She +lives with her Aunt Maude in a big house east of Central Park, and she +told about the green parrot for her new black and white breakfast room, +and the flame-colored fishes in an aquarium--and she is having her opals +set in platinum to go with a silver gown that she is to wear at the +Dutton-Ames dance. + +"I like the Dutton-Ames. He is dark and massive--a splendid foil for his +wife's slenderness and fairness. They are much in love with each other. +He always sits beside her if he can, and she looks up at him and smiles, +and last night I saw him take her hand where it hung among the folds of +her gown, and he held it after that--and it made me think of father and +mother--and of the way they cared. Jimmie Ford could never care like +that--but Dr. Richard could. He cares that way for his mother--he could +care for the woman he loved. + +"He took me home in Mr. Meade's limousine. It was moonlight, and he told +the chauffeur to drive the long way by the river road. + +"I like him very much. He believes in things, and--and I rather think, +that _his_ ship is packed with dreams--but I am not sure, Uncle Rod." + + * * * * * + +It was when Anne had come in from her moonlight ride with Richard, +shutting the door carefully behind her, that she found Geoffrey Fox +waiting for her in the big front room. + +"Oh," she stammered. + +"And you really have the grace to blush? Do you know what time it is?" + +"No." + +"Twelve! Midnight! And you have been riding with only the chauffeur for +chaperone." + +"Well?" + +"And you have kept me waiting. That's the worst of it. You may break all +of the conventional commandments if you wish. But you mustn't keep me +waiting." + +His laugh rang high, his cheeks were flushed. Anne had never seen him in +a mood like this. In his loose coat with a flowing black tie and with his +ruffled hair curling close about his ears, he looked boyish and handsome +like the pictures she had seen of Byron in an old book. + +"Sit down, sit down," he was insisting; "now that you are here, you must +listen." + +"It is too late," she demurred, "and we'll wake everybody up." + +"No, we shan't. The doors are shut. I saw to that. We are as much alone +as if we were in a desert. And I can't sleep until I have read that +chapter to you--please----" + +Reluctantly, with her wraps on, she sat down. + +"Take off your hat." + +He stood over her while she removed it, and helped her out of her coat +"Look at me," he said, peremptorily. "I hate to read to wandering eyes." + +He threw himself into a chair and began: + +"_So they marched away--young Franz from Nuremberg and young George from +London, and Michel straight from the vineyards on the coast of France._" + +That was the beginning of Geoffrey Fox's famous story: "The Three Souls," +the story which was to bring him something of fortune as well as of fame, +the story which had been suggested to Anne Warfield by the staring eyes +of Peggy's pussy cat. + +As she listened, Anne saw three youths starting out from home, marching +gaily through the cities and steadily along the roads--marching, +marching--Franz from Nuremburg, young George from London, and Michel from +his sunlighted vineyards, drawing close and closer, unconscious of the +fate that was bringing them together, thinking of the glory of battle, +and of the honor of Kaiser and King and of the Republic. + +The shadow of the great conflict falls gradually upon them. They meet the +wounded, the refugees, they hear the roar of the guns, they listen to the +tales of those who have been in the thick of it. + +Then come privations, suffering, winter in the trenches--Franz on one +side, young George on the other, and Michel; then fighting--fear---- + +Geoffrey stopped there. "Shall I have them afraid?" + +"I think they would be afraid. But they would keep on fighting, and that +would be heroic." + +She added, "How well you do it!" + +"This part is easy. It will be the last of it that I shall find +hard--when I deal with their souls." + +"Oh, you must show at the last that it is because of their souls that +they are brothers. Each man has had a home, he has had love, each of them +has had his hopes and dreams for the future, for his middle-age and his +old age, and now there is to be no middle-age, no old age--and in their +knowledge of their common lot their hatred dies." + +"I am afraid I can't do it," he said, moodily. "I should have to swing +myself out into an atmosphere which I have never breathed." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, I am of the earth--earthy. I have sold my birthright, I have yearned +for the flesh-pots, I have fed among--swine. I have done all of the other +things which haven't Biblical sanction. And now you expect me to write of +souls." + +"I expect you to give to the world your best. You speak of your talent as +if it were a little thing. And it is not a little thing." + +"Do you mean that----?" + +"I mean that it is--God given." + +Out of a long silence he said: "I thank you for saying that. Nobody has +ever said such a thing to me before." + +He let her go then. And as she stood before her door a little later and +whispered, "Good-night," he caught her hand and held it. "Mistress +Anne--will you remember me--now and then--in your little white prayers?" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +_In Which a Green-Eyed Monster Grips Eve._ + + +EVELYN, coming down late on the morning after her unexpected arrival, +asked: "How did you happen to have her here, Dicky?" + +"Who?" + +"The little waitress?" + +"Eve----" warningly. + +"Well, then, the little school-teacher." + +"Since when did you become a snob, Eve?" + +"Don't be so sharp about it, Dicky. I'm not a snob. But you must admit +that it was rather surprising to find her here, when the last time I saw +her she was passing things at the Bower's table." + +"She is a granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield." + +"Who's Cynthia? I never heard of her." + +"You have seen her portrait in our library." + +"Which portrait?" + +He led the way and showed it to her. Eve, looking at it thoughtfully, +remarked, "Why should a girl like that lower herself by serving----?" + +"She probably doesn't feel that she can lower herself by anything. She is +what she is." + +She shrugged. "You know as well as I that people can't do such +things--and get away with it. She may be very nice and all that----" + +"She is nice." + +"Well, don't lose your temper over it, and don't fall in love with her, +Dicky." + +"Why not?" + +"Haven't you done enough foolish things without doing--that?" + +"Doing what?" ominously. + +"Oh, you know what I mean," impatiently. "Aren't you ever going to come +to your senses, Dicky?" + +"Suppose we don't talk of it, Eve." + +She found herself wanting to talk of it. She wanted to rage and rant. She +was astonished at the primitiveness of her emotions. She had laughed her +way through life and had prided herself on the dispassionateness of her +point of view. And now it was only by the exercise of the utmost +self-control that she was able to swing the conversation toward other +topics. + +The coming of the rest of the party eased things up a little. They had +all slept late, and Richard had made a half dozen calls before he had +joined Eve in the Garden Room. He had stopped at David's, and had heard +that on Monday there was to be a drag-hunt and breakfast at the club. +David hoped they would all stay over for it. + +"Cousin David has a bunch of weedy-looking hounds," Richard explained; +"he lets them run as they please, and they've been getting up a fox +nearly every night. He thought you might like to ride up to the ridge in +the moonlight and have a view of them. I can get you some pretty fair +mounts at Bower's." + +There was a note of wistful appeal in Eve's voice. "Do you really want +us, Dicky?" + +He smiled at her. "Of course. Don't be silly, Eve." + +She saw that she was forgiven, and smiled back. She had not slept much +the night before. She had heard Richard come in after his ride with Anne, +and she had been waked later by the sound of the telephone. In the room +next to hers Richard's subdued voice had answered. And presently there +had been the sound of his careful footsteps on the stairs. + +She had crept out of bed and between the curtains had looked out. The +world was full of the shadowy paleness which comes with the waning of the +moon. The road beyond the garden showed like a dull gray ribbon against +the blackness of the hills. On this road appeared presently Richard on +his big white horse, the dog Toby, a shadow among the shadows as he ran +on ahead of them. + +On and on they sped up the dull gray road, a spectral rider on a spectral +horse. She had wondered where he might be going. It must have been some +sudden and urgent call to take him out thus in the middle of the night. +For the first time she realized what his life meant. He could never +really be at his ease. Always there was before him the possibility of +some dread adventure--death might be on its way at this very moment. + +Wide-awake and wrapped in her great rug, she had waited, and after a time +Richard had returned. The dawn was rising on the hills, and the world was +pink. His head was up and he was urging his horse to a swift gallop. + +When at last he reached his room, she had gone to bed. But when she slept +it was to dream that the man on the white horse was riding away from her, +and that when she called he would not come. + +But now with his smile upon her, she decided that she was making too much +of it all. The affair with the little school-teacher might not be in the +least serious. Men had their fancies, and Dicky was not a fool. + +She knew her power over him, and her charm. His little boyhood had been +heavy with sorrow and soberness; she had lightened it by her gaiety and +good nature. Eve had taken her orphaned state philosophically. Her +parents had died before she knew them. Her Aunt Maude was rich and gave +her everything; she was queen of her small domain. Richard, on the other +hand, had been early oppressed by anxieties--his care for his strong +little mother, his real affection for his weak father, culminating in +the tragedy which had come during his college days. In all the years Eve +had been his good comrade and companion. She had cheered him, commanded +him, loved him. + +And he had loved her. He had never analyzed the quality of his love. She +was his good friend, his sister. If he had ever thought of her as his +sweetheart or as his wife, it had always been with the feeling that Eve +had too much money. No man had a right to live on his wife's bounty. + +He had a genuinely happy day with her. He showed her the charming old +house which she had never seen. He showed her the schoolhouse, still +closed on account of the epidemic. He showed her the ancient ballroom +built out in a separate wing. + +"A little money would make it lovely, Richard." + +"It is lovely without the money." + +Winifred Ames spoke earnestly from the window where, with her husband's +arm about her, she was observing the sunset. "Some day Tony and I are +going to have a house like this--and then we'll be happy." + +"Aren't you happy now?" her husband demanded. + +"Yes. But not on my own plan, as it were." Then softly so that no one +else could hear, "I want just you, Tony--and all the rest of the world +away." + +"Dear Heart----" He dared not say more, for Pip's envious eyes were upon +them. + +"When I marry you, Eve, may I hold your hand in public?" + +"You may--when I marry you." + +"Good. Whenever I lose faith in the bliss of matrimony, I have only to +look at Win and Tony to be cheered and sustained by their example." + +Nancy, playing the little lovely hostess, agreed. "If they weren't so +new-fashioned in every way I should call them an old-fashioned couple." + +"Love is never out of fashion, Mrs. Nancy," said Eve; "is it, Dicky Boy?" + +"Ask Pip." + +"Love," said Philip solemnly, "is the newest thing in the world and the +oldest. Each lover is a Columbus discovering an unknown continent." + +In the hall the old clock chimed. "Nobody is to dress for dinner," +Richard said, "if we are to ride afterward. I'll telephone for the +horses." + +He telephoned and rode down later on his big Ben to bring the horses up. +As he came into the yard at Bower's he saw a light in the old stable. +Dismounting, he went to the open door. Anne was with Diogenes. The +lantern was set on the step above her, and she was feeding the old drake. +Her body was in the shadow, her face luminous. Yet it was a sober little +face, set with tired lines. Looking at her, Richard reached a sudden +determination. + +He would ask her to ride with them to the ridge. + +At the sound of his voice she turned and her face changed. "Did I startle +you?" he asked. + +"No," she smiled at him. "Only I was thinking about you, and there you +were." There was no coquetry in her tone; she stated the fact frankly and +simply. "Do you remember how you put Toby in here, and how Diogenes hated +it?" + +"I remember how you looked under the lantern." + +"Oh,"--she had not expected that,--"do you?" + +"Yes. But I had seen you before. You were standing on a rock with holly +in your arms. I saw you from the train throw something into the river. I +have often wondered what it was." + +"I didn't want to burn my holly wreaths after Christmas. I hate to burn +things that have been alive." + +"So do I. Eve would say that we were sentimentalists. But I have never +quite been able to see why a sentimentalist isn't quite as worthy of +respect as a materialist--however, I am not here to argue that. I want +you to ride with me to the ridge. To see the foxes by moonlight," he +further elucidated. "Run in and get ready. I am to take some horses up +for the others." + +She rose and reached for her lantern. "The others?" she looked an inquiry +over her shoulder. + +"Eve and her crowd. They are still at Crossroads." + +She stood irresolute. Then, "I think I'd rather not go." + +"Why not?" sharply. + +She told him the truth bravely. "I am a little afraid of women like +that." + +"Of Eve and Winifred? Why?" + +"We are people of two worlds, Dr. Brooks--and they feel it." + +His conversation with Eve recurring to him, he was not prepared to argue. +But he was prepared to have his own way. + +"Isn't your world mine?" he demanded. "And you mustn't mind Eve. She's +all right when you know her. Just stiffen your backbone, and remember +that you are the granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield." + +After that she gave in and came down presently in a shabby little habit +with her hair tied with a black bow. "It's a good thing it is dark," she +said. "I haven't any up-to-date clothes." + +As they went along he asked her to go to the hunt breakfast on Monday. + +"I can't. School opens and my work begins." + +"By Jove, I had forgotten. I shall be glad to hear the bell. When I am +riding over the hills it seems to call--as it called to my grandfather +and to be saying the same things; it is a great inspiration to have a +background like that to one's life. Do you know what I mean?" + +She did know, and they talked about it--these two young and eager souls +to whom life spoke of things to be done, and done well. + +Eve, standing on the steps at Crossroads, saw them coming. "Oh, I'm not +going," she said to Winifred passionately. + +"Why not?" + +"He has that girl with him." + +"What girl?" + +"Anne Warfield." + +Winifred's eyes opened wide. "She's a darling, Eve. I liked her so much +last night." + +"I don't see why he has to bring her into everything." + +"All the men are in love with her; even Tony has eyes for her, and +Pip----" + +"What makes you defend her, Win? She isn't one of us, and you know it." + +"I don't know it. She belongs to older stock than either you or I, Eve. +And if she didn't, don't you know a lady when you see one?" + +Eve threw up her hands. "I sometimes think the world is going mad--there +aren't any more lines drawn." + +"If there were," said Winifred softly, and perhaps a bit maliciously, "I +fancy that Anne Warfield might be the one to draw them--and leave us on +the wrong side, Eve." + +It was Winifred who welcomed Anne, and who rode beside her later, and it +was of Winifred that Anne spoke repentantly as she and Richard rode +together in the hills. "I want to take back the things I said about Mrs. +Ames. She is just--heavenly sweet." + +He smiled. "I knew you would like her," he said. But neither of them +mentioned Eve. + +For Evelyn's manner had been insufferable. Anne might have been a shadow +on the grass, a cloud across the sky, a stone in the road for all the +notice she had taken of her. It was a childish thing to do, but then Eve +was childish. And she was having the novel experience of being overlooked +for the first time by Richard. She was aware, too, that she had offended +him deeply and that the cause of her offending was another woman. + +When they came to the ridge Richard drew Anne's horse, with his own, +among the trees. He left Eve to Pip. Winifred and her husband were with +David. + +Far off in the distance a steady old hound gave tongue--then came the +music of the pack--the swift silent figure of the fox, straight across +the open moonlighted space in front of them. + +Anne gave a little gasp. "It is old Pete," Richard murmured; "they'll +never catch him. I'll tell you about him on the way down." + +So as he rode beside her after that perfect hour in which the old fox +played with the tumultuous pack, at his ease, monarch of his domain, +unmindful of silent watchers in the shadows, Richard told her of old +Pete; he told her, too, of the traditions of a ghostly fox who now and +then troubled the hounds, leading them into danger and sometimes to +death. + +He went on with her to Bower's, and when he left her he handed her a +feathery bit of pine. "I picked it on the ridge," he said. "I don't know +whether you feel as I do about the scrub pines of Maryland and of +Virginia; somehow they seem to belong, as you and I do, to this country." + +When Anne went to her room she stuck the bit of pine in her mirror. Then +in an uplifted mood she wrote to Uncle Rod. But she said little to him of +Richard or of Eve. Her own feelings were too mixed in the matter to +permit of analysis. But she told of the fox in the moonlight. "And the +loveliest part of it all was that nothing happened to him. I don't think +that I could have stood it to have had him killed. He was so free--and +unafraid----" + + * * * * * + +The next night Anne in the long front room at Bower's told Peggy and +Francois all about it. Francois' mother was sewing for Mrs. Bower, and as +the distance was great, and she could not go home at night, her small son +was sharing with her the hospitality which seemed to him rich and royal +in comparison with the economies practised in his own small home. + +It was a select company which was gathered in front of the fire. +Francois and Peggy and Anne and old Mamie, with the white house cat, +Josephine, and three kittens in a basket, and Brinsley Tyson smoking his +pipe in the background. + +"And the old fox went tit-upping and tit-upping along the road in the +moonlight, and Dr. Richard and I stood very still, and we saw him----" + +"Last night?" + +Anne nodded. + +"And what did you do, Miss Anne?" + +"We listened and heard the dogs----" + +Little Francois clasped his hands. "Oh, were the dogs after him?" + +"Yes." + +"Did they get him?" + +"No. He is a wise old fox. He lives up beyond the Crossroads garden. Dr. +Brooks thought when they came there to live that he would go away but he +hasn't. You see, it is his home. The hunters here all know him, and they +are always glad when he gets away." + +Brinsley agreed. "There are so few native foxes left in the county that +most of us call off the dogs before a killing--we'd soon be without sport +if we didn't. An imported fox is a creature in a trap; you want the sly +old natives to give you a run for your money." + +Little Francois, dark-eyed and dreamy, delivered an energetic opinion. "I +think it is horrid." + +Peggy, less sensitive, and of the country, reproved him. "It's +gentleman's sport, isn't it, Mr. Brinsley?" + +"Yes. To me the dogs and horses are the best part of it. The older I grow +the more I hate to kill--that's why I fish. They are cold-blooded +creatures." + +Peggy, leaning on his knee, demanded a fish story. "The one you told us +the last time." + +Brinsley's fish story was a poem written by one of the Old Gentlemen, +hunting now, it was to be hoped, in happier fields. It was an idyl of the +Chesapeake: + + "In the Chesapeake and its tribute streams, + Where broadening out to the bay they come, + And the great fresh waters meet the brine, + There lives a fish that is called the drum." + +The drum fish and an old negro, Ned, were the actors in the drama. Ned, +fishing one day in his dug-out canoe, + + "Tied his line to his ankle tight, + To be ready to haul if the fish should bite, + And seized his fiddle----" + +He played: + + "But slower and slower he drew the bow, + And soft grew the music sweet and low, + The lids fell wearily over the eyes, + The bow arm stopped and the melodies. + The last strain melted along the deep, + And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep. + Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate, + Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . . + . . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dread + From the wounded fish as away he sped + With a strength by rage made double-- + And into the water went old Ned. + No time for any 'last words' to be said, + For the waves settled placidly over his head, + And his last remark was a bubble." + +The children's eyes were wide. Peggy was entranced, but Francois was not +so sure that he liked it. Brinsley's hand dropped on the little lad's +shoulder as he told how the two were found + + "So looped and tangled together + That their fate was involved in a dark mystery + As to which was the catcher and which the catchee . . . + And the fishermen thought it could never be known + After all their thinking and figuring, + Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone, + Or the fish had gone out a-niggering." + +There were defects in meter and rhythm, but Brinsley's sprightly delivery +made these of minor importance, and the company had no criticism. +Francois, shivering a little, admitted that he wanted to hear it again, +and climbed to Brinsley's knee. The old man with his arm about him +decided that to say it over would be to spoil the charm, and that anyhow +the time had come to pop the corn. + +To Francois this was a new art, but when he had followed the fascinating +process through all its stages until the white grains boiled up in the +popper and threatened to burst the cover, his rapture knew no bounds. + +"Could I do it myself, Miss Anne?" he asked, and she let him empty the +snowy kernels into a big bowl, and fill the popper for a second supply. + +She bent above him, showing him how to shake it steadily. + +Geoffrey Fox coming in smiled at the scene. How far away it seemed from +anything modern--this wide hearth-stone with the dog and the pussy +cat--and the little children, the lovely girl and the old man--the wind +blowing outside--the corn popping away like little pistols. + +"May I have some?" he asked, and Anne smiled up at him, while Peggy +brought little plates and set the big bowl on a stool within reach of +them all. + +"What brings you up, sir?" Geoffrey asked Brinsley. + +"The drag-hunt and breakfast at the club. I am too stiff to follow, but +David and I like to meet old friends--you see I was born in this +country." + +That was the beginning of a string of reminiscences to which they all +listened breathlessly. The fox hunting instinct was an inheritance in +this part of the country. It had its traditions and legends and Brinsley +knew them all. + +If any one had told Geoffrey Fox a few weeks before that he would be +content to spend his time as he was spending it now, writing all day and +reading the chapters at night to a serious-eyed little school-teacher +who scolded him and encouraged him by turns, he would have scoffed at +such an impossible prospect. Yet he was not only doing it, but was glad +to be swept away from the atmosphere of somewhat sordid Bohemianism with +which he had in these later years been surrounded. + +And as Brinsley talked, Geoffrey watched Anne. She had Peggy in her arms. +Such women were made, he felt, to be not only the mothers of children, +but the mothers of the men they loved--made for brooding tenderness--to +inspire--to sympathize. + +Yet with all her gentleness he knew that Anne was a strong little thing. +She would never be a clinging vine; she was rather like a rose high on a +trellis--a man must reach up to draw her to him. + +As she glanced up, he smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then the smile +froze. + +Framed in the front doorway stood Eve Chesley! She came straight to Anne +and held out her hand. "I made Richard bring me down," she said. "I want +to talk to you about the Crossroads ball." + +Eve repentant was Eve in her most charming mood. On Sunday morning she +had apologized to Richard. "I was horrid, Dicky." + +"Last night? You were. I wouldn't have believed it of you, Eve." + +"Oh, well, don't be a prig. Do you remember how we used to make up after +a quarrel?" + +He laughed. "We had to go down on our knees." + +She went down on hers, sinking slowly and gracefully to the floor. +"Please, I'm sorry." + +"Eve, will you ever grow up?" + +"I don't want to grow up," wistfully. "Dicky, do you remember that after +I had said I was sorry you always bought chocolate drops, and made me eat +them all. You were such a good little boy, Richard." + +"I was not," hotly. + +"Why is it that men don't like to be told that they were good little +boys? You are a good little boy now." + +"I'm not." + +"You are--and you are tied to your mother's apron strings." + +"Dicky," she wailed, as he rose in wrath, "I didn't mean that. Honestly. +And I'll be good." + +Still, with her feet tucked under her, she sat on the floor. "I've been +thinking----" + +"Yes, Eve." + +"You and I have a birthday in March. Why can't we have a big +house-warming, and ask all the county families and a lot of people from +town?" + +"I'm not a millionaire, Eve." + +"Neither am I. But there's always Aunt Maude." + +She spread out her hands, palms upward. "All I shall have to do is to +wheedle her a bit, and she'll give it to me for a birthday present. +Please, Dicky. If you say 'yes' I'll go down to Bower's my very own self +and ask Anne Warfield to come to our ball." + +He stared at her incredulously. "You'll do _what_?" + +"Ask your little--school-teacher. Win scolded me last night, and said +that I was a selfish pig. That I couldn't expect to keep you always to +myself. But you see I have kept you, Dicky. I have always thought that +you and I could go on being--friends, with no one to break in on it." + +Her eyes as she raised them to his were shadowed. He spoke heartily. "My +dear girl, as if anything could ever come between us." He rose and drew +her up from her lowly seat. "I'm glad we talked it out. I confess I was +feeling pretty sore over the way you acted, Eve. It wasn't like you." + +Eve stuck to her resolution to go to Bower's to seek out and conciliate +Anne, and thus it happened that they found her making a Madonna of +herself with Peggy in her arms, and Geoffrey Fox's eyes adoring her. + +Little Francois told his mother later that at first he had thought the +lovely lady was a fairy princess; for Eve was quite sumptuous in her +dinner gown of white and shining satin, with a fur-trimmed wrap of white +and silver. She wore, also, a princess air of graciousness, quite +different from the half appealing impertinence of her morning mood when +she had knelt at Richard's feet. + +Anne, appeased and fascinated by the warmth of Eve's manner, found +herself drawn in spite of herself to the charming creature who discussed +so frankly her plans for their pleasure. + +"Dicky and I were born on the same day," she explained, "and we always +have a party together, with two cakes with candles, and this year it is +to be at Crossroads." + +She invited Brinsley and Geoffrey on the spot, and promised the children +a peep into fairy-land. Then having settled the matter to the +satisfaction of all concerned, she demanded a fresh popper of corn, +insisted on a repetition of Brinsley's fish story, asked about Geoffrey's +book, and went away leaving behind her a trail of laughter and +light-heartedness. + +Later Anne was aware that she had left also a feeling of bewilderment. It +seemed incredible that the distance between the mood of last night and of +to-night should have been bridged so successfully. + +Brushing her hair in front of the mirror, she asked herself, "How much of +it was real friendliness?" Uncle Rod had a proverb, "'_A false friend has +honey in his mouth, gall in his heart._'" + +She chided herself for her mistrust. One must not inquire too much into +motives. + +The sight of Richard's bit of pine in the mirror frame shed a gleam of +naturalness across the strangeness of the hour just spent. It seemed to +say, "You and I of the country----" + +Eve was of the town! + + * * * * * + +The weeks which followed were rare ones. Anne went forth joyous in the +morning, and came home joyous at night. She saw Richard daily; now on the +road, again in the schoolhouse, less often, but most satisfyingly, by the +fire at Bower's. + +Geoffrey, noting jealously these evenings that the young doctor spent in +the long front room, at last spoke his mind. + +"What makes you look like that?" he demanded, as having watched Richard +safely out of the way from an upper window, he came down to find Anne +gazing dreamily into the coals. + +"Like what?" + +"Oh, a sort of seventh-heaven look." + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"You won't admit that you know what I mean." + +She rose. + +"Sit down. I want to read to you." + +"I am afraid I haven't time." + +"You had time for Brooks. If you don't let me read to you I shall have to +sit all alone--in the dark--my eyes are hurting me." + +"Why don't you ask Dr. Brooks about your eyes?" + +"Is Dr. Brooks the oracle?" + +"He could tell you about your eyes." + +"Does he tell you about yours?" + +With a scornful glance she left him, but he followed her. "Why shouldn't +he tell you about your eyes? They are lovely eyes, Mistress Anne." + +"I hate to have you talk like that. It seems to separate me in some way +from your friendship, and I thought we were friends." + +Her gentleness conquered his mad mood. "Oh, you little saint, you little +saint, and I am such a sinner." + +So they patched it up, and he read to her the last chapter of his book. + +"_And now in the darkness they lay dying, young Franz from Nuremberg, and +young George from London, and Michel straight from the vineyards on the +coast of France._" + +In the darkness they spoke of their souls. Soon they would go out into +the Great Beyond. What then, after death? Franz thought they might go +marching on. Young George had a vision of green fields and of hawthorn +hedges. But it was young Michel who spoke of the face of God. + + * * * * * + +Was this the Geoffrey who had teased her on the stairs? This man who +wrote words which made one shake and shiver and sob? + +"Oh, how do you do it, how do you do it?" The tears were running down her +cheeks. + +She saw him then as people rarely saw Geoffrey Fox. "God knows," he said, +seriously, "but I think that your prayers have helped." + +And after she had gone up-stairs he sat long by the fire, alone, with his +hand shading his eyes. + +The next morning he went to see Richard. The young doctor was in the +Garden Room which he used as an office. It was on the ground floor of the +big house, with a deer's horns over the fireplace, an ancient desk in one +corner, a sideboard against the north wall. In days gone by this room had +served many purposes. Here men in hunting pink had gathered for the gay +breakfasts which were to fortify them for their sport. On the sideboard +mighty roasts had been carved, and hot dishes had steamed. On the round +table had been set forth bottles and glasses on Sheffield trays. Men ate +much and rode hard. They had left to their descendants a divided heritage +of indigestion and of strong sinews, to make of it what they could. + +Geoffrey entering asked at once, "Why the Garden Room? There is no +garden." + +"There was a garden," Richard told him, "but there is a tradition that a +pair of lovers eloped over the wall, and the irate father destroyed every +flower, every shrub, as if the garden had betrayed him." + +"There's a story in that. Did the girl ever come back to find the garden +dead?" + +"Who knows?" Richard said lightly; "and now, what's the matter with your +eyes?" + +There was much the matter, and when Richard had made a thorough +examination he spoke of a specialist. "Have you ever had trouble with +them before?" + +"Once, when I was a youngster. I thought I was losing my sight. I used to +open my eyes in the dark and think that the curse had come upon me. My +grandfather was blind." + +"It is rarely inherited, and not in this form. But there might be a +predisposition. Anyhow, you'll have to stop work for a time." + +"I can't stop work. My book is in the last chapters. And it is a great +book. I've never written a great book before. I can talk freely to you, +doctor. You know that we artists can't help our egotism. It's a disease +that is easily diagnosed." + +Richard laughed. "What's the name of your book?" + +"'Three Souls.' Anne Warfield gave me the theme." + +As he spoke her name it was like a living flame between them. Richard +tried to answer naturally. "She ought to be able to write books herself." + +Geoffrey shrugged. "She will live her life stories, not write them." + +"Why not?" + +"Because we men don't let such women live their own lives. We demand +their service and the inspiration of their sympathy. And so we won't let +them achieve. We make them light our torches. We are selfish beasts, you +know, in the last analysis." + +He laughed and rose. "I'll see a specialist. But nobody shall make me +stop writing. Not till I have scribbled 'Finis' to my manuscript." + +"It isn't well to defy nature." + +"Defiance is better than submission. Nature's a cruel jade. You know +that. In the end she gets us all. That's why I hate the country. It's +there that we see Nature unmasked. I stayed three weeks at a farm last +summer, and from morning to night murder went on. A cat killed a +cardinal, and a blue jay killed a grosbeak. One of the servants shot a +squirrel. And when I walked out one morning to see the sheep, a lamb was +gone and we had a roast with mint sauce for dinner. For lunch we had the +squirrel in a stew. A hawk swept down upon the chickens, and all that +escaped we ate later fried, with cream gravy." + +"In most of your instances man was the offender." + +"Well, if man didn't kill, something else would. For every lamb there's a +wolf." + +"You are looking on only one side of it." + +"When you can show me the other I'll believe in it. But not to-day when +you tell me that my sun may be blotted out." + +Something in his voice made the young doctor lay his hand on his shoulder +and say quietly: "My dear fellow, don't begin to dread that which may +never come. There should be years of light before you. Only you'll have +to be careful." + +They stood now in the door of the Garden Room. The sun was shining, the +snow was melting. There was the acrid smell of box from the hedge beyond. + +"I hate caution," said young Geoffrey; "I want to do as I please." + +"So does every man," said Richard, "but life teaches him that he can't." + +"Oh, Life," scoffed Geoffrey Fox; "life isn't a school. It is a joy ride, +with rocks ahead." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +_In Which Anne, Passing a Shop, Turns In._ + + +ANNE had the Crossroads ball much on her mind. She spoke to Beulah about +it. + +"I don't know what to wear." + +"You'd better go to town with me on Saturday and look for something." + +"Perhaps I will. If I had plenty of money it would be easy. Beulah, did +you ever see such clothes as Eve Chesley's?" + +"If I could spend as much as she does, I'd make more of a show." + +"Think of all the tailors and dressmakers and dancing masters and +hair-dressers it has taken to make Eve what she is. And yet all the art +is hidden." + +"I don't think it is hidden. I saw her powder her nose right in front of +the men that day she first came. She had a little gold case with a mirror +in it, and while Dr. Brooks and Mr. Fox were sitting on the stairs with +her, she took it out and looked at herself and rubbed some rouge on her +cheeks." + +Anne had a vision of the three of them sitting on the stairs. "Well," +she said, in a fierce little fashion, "I don't know what the world is +coming to." + +Beulah cared little about Eve's world. For the moment Eric filled her +horizon, and the dress she was to get to make herself pretty for him. + +"Shall we go Saturday?" she asked. + +Anne, rummaging in the drawer of her desk, produced a small and shabby +pocketbook. She shook the money out and counted it. "With the check that +Uncle Rod sent me," she said, "there's enough for a really lovely frock. +But I don't know whether I ought to spend it." + +"Why not?" + +"Everybody ought to save something--I am teaching my children to have +penny banks--and yet I go on spending and spending with nothing to show +for it." + +Beulah was quite placid. "I don't see why you should save. Some day you +will get married, and then you won't have to." + +"If a woman marries a poor man she ought to be careful of finances. She +has to think of her children and of their future." + +Beulah shrugged. "What's the use of looking so far ahead? And 'most any +husband will see that his wife doesn't get too much to spend." + +Before Anne went to bed that night she put a part of her small store of +money into a separate compartment of her purse. She would buy a cheaper +frock and save herself the afterpangs of extravagance. And the penny +banks of the children would no longer accuse her of inconsistency! + +The shopping expedition proved a strenuous one. Anne had fixed her mind +on certain things which proved to be too expensive. "You go for your +fitting," she said to Beulah desperately, as the afternoon waned, "and I +will take a last look up Charles Street. We can meet at the train." + +The way which she had to travel was a familiar one, but its charm held +her--the street lights glimmered pale gold in the early dusk, the crowd +swung along in its brisk city manner toward home. Beyond the shops was +the Cardinal's house. The Monument topped the hill; to its left the +bronze lions guarded the great square; to the right there was the thin +spire of the Methodist Church. + +She had an hour before train time and she lingered a little, stopping at +this window and that, and all the time the money which she had elected to +save burned a hole in her pocket. + +For there were such things to buy! Passing a flower shop there were +violets and roses. Passing a candy shop were chocolates. Passing a hat +shop there was a veil flung like a cloud over a celestial _chapeau_! +Passing an Everything-that-is-Lovely shop she saw an enchanting length of +silk--as pink as a sea-shell--silk like that which Cynthia Warfield had +worn when she sat for the portrait which hung in the library at +Crossroads! + +Anne did not pass the Lovely Shop; she turned and went in, and bought ten +yards of silk with the money that she had meant to spend--and the money +she had meant to save! + +And she missed the train! + +Beulah was waiting for her as she came in breathless. "There isn't +another train for two hours," she complained. + +Anne sank down on a bench. "I am sorry, Beulah. I didn't know it was so +late." + +"We'll have to get supper in the station," Beulah said, "and I have spent +all my money." + +"Oh, and I've spent mine." Anne reflected that if she had not bought the +silk she could have paid for Beulah's supper. But she was glad that she +had bought it, and that she had it under her arm in a neat package. + +She dug into her slim purse and produced a dime. "Never mind, Beulah, we +can buy some chocolates." + +But they were not destined for such meager fare. Rushing into the station +came Geoffrey Fox. As he saw the clock he stopped with the air of a man +baffled by fate. + +Anne moving toward him across the intervening space saw his face change. + +"By all that's wonderful," he said, "how did this happen?" + +"We missed our train." + +"And I missed mine. Who is 'we'?" + +"Beulah is with me." + +"Can't you both have dinner with me somewhere? There are two hours of +waiting ahead of us." + +Anne demurred. "I'm not very hungry." + +But Beulah, who had joined them, was hungry, and she said so, frankly. "I +am starved. If I could have just a sandwich----" + +"You shall have more than that. We'll have a feast and a frolic. Let me +check your parcels, Mistress Anne." + +Back they went to the golden-lighted streets and turning down toward the +city they reached at last the big hotel which has usurped the place of +the stately and substantial edifices which were once the abodes of +ancient and honorable families. + +Within were soft lights and the sound of music. The rugs were thick, and +there was much marble. As they entered the dining-room, they seemed to +move through a golden haze. It was early, and most of the tables were +empty. + +Beulah was rapturous. "I have always wanted to come here. It is perfectly +lovely." + +The attentive waiter at Geoffrey's elbow was being told to bring---- +Anne's quick ear caught the word. + +"No, please," she said at once, "not for Beulah and me." + +His keen glance commanded her. "Of course not," he said, easily. +Presently he had the whole matter of the menu settled, and could talk to +Anne. She was enjoying it all immensely and said so. + +"I should like to do this sort of thing every day." + +"Heaven forbid. You would lose your dreams, and grow self-satisfied--and +fat--like that woman over there." + +Anne shuddered. "It isn't that she is fat--it's her eyes, and the way she +makes up." + +"That is the way they get when they live in places like this. If you want +to be slender and lovely and keep your dreams you must teach school." + +"Oh, but there's drudgery in that." + +"It is the people who drudge who dream. They don't know it, but they do. +People who have all they want learn that there is nothing more for life +to give. And they drink and take drugs to bring back the illusions they +have lost." + +They fell into silence after that, and then it was Beulah who became +voluble. Her fair round face beamed. It was a common little face, but it +was good and honest. Beulah was having the time of her life. She did not +know that she owed her good fortune to Anne, that if Anne had not been +there, Geoffrey would not have asked her to dine. But if she had known +it, she would not have cared. + +"What train did you come in on?" she asked. + +"At noon. Brooks thought I ought to see a specialist. He doesn't give me +much encouragement about my eyes. He wants me to stop writing, but I +shan't until I get through with my book." + +He spoke recklessly, but Anne saw the shadow on his face. "You aren't +telling us how really serious it is," she said, as Beulah's attention was +diverted. + +"It is so serious that for the first time in my life I know myself to +be--a coward. Last night I lay in bed with my eyes shut to see how it +would seem to be blind. It was a pretty morbid thing to do--and this +morning finished me." + +She tried to speak her sympathy, but could not. Her eyes were full of +tears. + +"Don't," he said, softly, "my good little friend--my good little friend." + +She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. The unconscious Beulah, busy +with her oysters, asked: "Is the Tobasco too hot? I'm all burning up with +it." + +Geoffrey was able later to speak lightly of his affliction. "I shall go +to the Brooks ball as a Blind Beggar." + +"Oh, how can you make fun of it?" + +"It is better to laugh than to cry. But your tears were--a benediction." + +Silence fell between them, and after a while he asked, "What shall you +wear?" + +"To the ball? Pink silk. A heavenly pink. I have just bought it, and I +paid more than I should for it." + +"Such extravagance!" + +"I'm to be Cynthia Warfield--like the portrait in the Crossroads library +of my grandmother. It came to me when I saw the silk in the shop window. +I shall have to do without the pearls, but I have the lace flounces. They +were left to my mother." + +"And so Cinderella will go to the ball, and dance with the Prince. Is +Brooks the Prince?" + +She flushed, and evaded. "I can't dance. Not the new dances." + +"I can teach you if you'll let me." + +"Really?" + +"Yes. But you must pay. You must give the Blind Beggar the first dance +and as many more as he demands." + +"But I can't dance all of them with you." + +"You can dance some of them. And that's my price." + +To promise him dances seemed to her quite delicious and delightful since +she could not dance at all. But he made a little contract and had her +sign it, and put it in his pocket. + +Going home Anne had little to say. It was Geoffrey who talked, while +Beulah slept in a seat by herself. + + * * * * * + +Anne made her own lovely gown, running over now and then to take +surreptitious peeps at Cynthia's portrait. She had let Mrs. Brooks into +her secret, and the little lady was enthusiastic. + +"You shall wear my pearls, my dear. They will be very effective in your +dark hair." + +She brought the jewels down in an old blue velvet box--milk-white against +a yellowed satin lining. + +"My father gave them to me on my wedding day. Some day I shall give them +to Richard's wife." + +She could not know how her words stirred the heart of the girl who stood +looking so quietly down at the pearls. + +"I am almost afraid to wear them," Anne said breathlessly. She gave Nancy +a shy little kiss. "You were _dear_ to think of it." + +And now busy days were upon her. There was the school with Richard +running in after closing time, and staying, too, and keeping her from the +work that was waiting at home. Then at twilight a dancing lesson with +Geoffrey in the long front room, with Beulah playing audience and +sometimes Eric, and with Peggy capering madly to the music. + +Then the evening, with its enchanting task of stitching on yards of rosy +silk. Usually Geoffrey read to her while she worked. His story was +nearing the end. He was wearing heavy goggles which gave him an owl-like +appearance, of which he complained. + +"It spoils my beauty, Mistress Anne. I am just an ugly gnome who sits at +the feet of the Princess." + +"You are not ugly, and you know it. And men shouldn't be vain." + +"We are worse than women. Do you know what you look like with all that +silk around you?" + +"No." + +"Like Aurora. Do you remember that Stevenson speaks of a 'pink dawn'? +Well, you are a pink dawn." + +"Please stop talking about me, and read your last chapter. I am so glad +that you have reached the end." + +"Because you are tired of hearing it?" + +"Because of your poor eyes." + +He took off his goggles. "Do my eyes look different? Are they changed +or--dim?" + +"They are as bright as stars," and he sighed with relief. + + * * * * * + +"_And now it was young Michel who whispered, 'God is good! In a moment we +shall see his face, and we shall say to him, "We fought, but there is no +hatred in our hearts. We cannot hate--our brothers----"'_" + +That was the end. + +"It is a great book," Anne told him solemnly. "It will be a great +success." + +He seemed to shrink and grow small in his chair. "It will come--too +late." + +She looked up and saw the mood that was upon him. "Oh, you must not--not +that," she said, hurriedly; "if you give up now it will be a losing +fight." + +"Don't you suppose that I would fight if I felt that I could win? But +what can a man do with a thing like this that is dragging him down to +darkness?" + +"You mustn't be discouraged. Dr. Brooks says that it isn't--inevitable. +You know that he said that, and that the specialist said it." + +"I know. But something tells me that I am facing--darkness." He threw up +his head. "Why should we talk of it? Let me tell you rather how much you +have helped me with my book. If it had not been for you I could not have +written it." + +"I am glad if I have been of service." Her words sounded formal after the +warmth of his own. + +He laughed, with a touch of bitterness. "The Princess serves," he said, +"always and always serves. She never grabs, as the rest of us do, at +happiness." + +"I shall grab when it comes," she said, smiling a little, "and I am happy +now, because I am going to wear my pretty gown." + +"Which reminds me," he said, quickly, and brought from his pocket a +little box. "Your costume won't be complete without these. I bought them +for you with the advance check which my publishers sent after they had +read the first chapters of my book." + +She opened the box. Within lay a little string of pearls. Not such pearls +as Nancy had shown her, but milk-white none the less, with shining lovely +lights. + +"Oh," she gave a distressed cry, "you shouldn't have done it." + +"Why not?" + +"I can't accept them. Indeed I can't." + +"I shall feel as if you had flung them in my face if you give them back +to me," heatedly. + +"You shouldn't take it that way. It isn't fair to take it that way." + +"It isn't a question of fairness. It is a question of kindness on your +part." + +"I want to be kind." + +"Then take them." + +She thought for a moment with her eyes on the fire. When she raised them +it was to say, "Would you--want your little sister, Mimi, to take jewels +from any man?" + +"Yes. If he loved her as I love you." + +It was out, and they stood aghast. Then Geoffrey stammered, "Can't you +see that my soul kneels at your feet? That to me these pearls aren't as +white as your--whiteness?" + +The rosy silk had slipped to the floor. She was like a very small goddess +in a morning cloud. "I can't take them. Oh, I can't." + +He made a quick gesture. But for her restraining hand he would have cast +the pearls into the flames. + +"Oh, don't," she said, the little hand tense on his arm. "Don't--hurt +me--like that." + +He dropped the pearls into his pocket. "If you won't wear them nobody +shall. I suppose I seem to you like all sorts of a fool. I seem like all +sorts of a fool to myself." + +He turned and left her. + +An hour later he came back and found her still sewing on the rosy silk. +Her eyes were red, as if she had wept a little. + +"I was a brute," he said, repentantly; "forgive me and smile. I am a +tempestuous fellow, and I forgot myself." + +"I was afraid we weren't ever going to be friends again." + +"I shall always be your friend. Yet--who wants a Blind Beggar for a +friend--tell me that, Mistress Anne?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +_In Which a Blind Beggar and a Butterfly Go to a Ball._ + + +_In my Own Little Room._ + +UNCLE ROD, I went to the party! + +I came home an hour ago, and since then I have been sitting all shivery +and shaky in my pink silk. It will be daylight in a few minutes, but I +shan't go to bed. I couldn't sleep if I did. I feel as if I shouldn't +ever sleep again. + +Uncle Rod, Jimmie Ford was at the Crossroads ball! + +I went early, because Mrs. Nancy had asked me to be there to help with +her guests. Geoffrey Fox went with me. He was very picturesque in a +ragged jerkin with a black bandage over his eyes and with old Mamie +leading him at the end of a cord. She enjoyed it immensely, and they +attracted a lot of attention, as he went tap-tapping along with his cane +over the polished floor, or whined for alms, while she sat up on her +haunches with a tin cup in her mouth. + +Well, Dr. Richard met us at the door, looking the young squire to +perfection in his grandfather's old dress coat of blue with brass +buttons. The people from New York hadn't come, so Mrs. Nancy put the +pearls in my hair, and they made me stand under the portrait in the +library, to see if I were really like my grandmother. I can't believe +that I looked as lovely as she, but they said I did, and I began to feel +as happy and excited as Cinderella at her ball. + +Then the New York crowd arrived in motors, and they were all masked. I +knew Eve Chesley at once and Winifred Ames, but it was hard to be sure of +any one else. Eve Chesley was a Rose, with a thousand fluttering flounces +of pink chiffon. She was pursued by two men dressed as Butterflies, slim +and shining in close caps with great silken wings--a Blue Butterfly and a +Brown one. I was pretty sure that the Brown one was Philip Meade. It was +quite wonderful to watch them with their wings waving. Eve carried a +pocketful of rose petals and threw them into the air as she went. I had +never imagined anything so lovely. + +Well, I danced with Dr. Richard and I danced with Geoffrey Fox, and I +danced with Dutton Ames, and with some men that I had never met before. +It seemed so _good_ to be doing things like the rest. Then all at once I +began to feel that the Blue Butterfly was watching me. He drifted away +from his pursuit of Evelyn Chesley, and whenever I raised my eyes, I +could see him in corners staring at me. + +It gave me a queer feeling. I couldn't be sure, and yet--there he was. +And, Uncle Rod, suddenly I knew him! Something in the way he carried +himself. You know Jimmie's little swagger! + +I think I lost my head after that. I flirted with Dr. Richard and with +Geoffrey Fox. I think I even flirted a little with Dutton Ames. I wanted +them to be nice to me. I wanted Jimmie to see that what he had scorned +other men could value. I wanted him to know that I had forgotten him. I +laughed and danced as if my heart was as light as my heels, and all the +while I was just sick and faint with the thought of it--"Jimmie Ford is +here, and he hasn't said a word to me. Jimmie Ford is here--and--he +hasn't said a word----" + +At last I couldn't stand it any longer, and when I was dancing with +Geoffrey Fox I said, "Do you think we could go down to the Garden Room? I +must get away." + +He didn't ask any question. And presently we were down there in the +quiet, and he had his bandage off, and was looking at me, anxiously. +"What has happened, Mistress Anne?" + +And then, oh, Uncle Rod, I told him. I don't know how I came to do it, +but it seemed to me that he would understand, and he did. + +When I had finished his face was white and set. "Do you mean to tell me +that any man has tried to break your heart?" + +I think I was crying a little. "Yes. But the worst of all is my--pride." + +"My little Princess," he said softly, "that this should have come--to +you." + +Uncle Rod, I think that if I had ever had a brother, I should have wanted +him to be like Geoffrey Fox. All his lightness and frivolity seemed to +slip from him. "He has thrown away what I would give my life for," he +said. "Oh, the young fool, not to know that Paradise was being handed to +him on a platter." + +I didn't tell him Jimmie's name. That is not to be spoken to any one but +you. And of course he could not know, though perhaps he guessed it, after +what happened later. + +While we sat there, Dr. Richard came to hunt for us. "Everybody is going +in to supper," he said. He seemed surprised to find us there together, +and there was a sort of stiffness in his manner. "Mother has been asking +for you." + +We went at once to the dining-room. There were long tables set in the +old-fashioned way for everybody. Mrs. Nancy wanted things to be as they +had been in her own girlhood. On the table in the wide window were two +birthday cakes, and at that table Dr. Richard sat with his mother on one +side of him, and Eve Chesley on the other. Eve's cake had pink candles +and his had white, and there were twenty-five candles on each cake. + +Geoffrey Fox and I sat directly opposite; Dutton Ames was on my right, +Mrs. Ames was on Geoffrey's left, and straight across the table, with +his mask off, was Jimmie Ford, staring at me with all his eyes! + +For a minute I didn't know what to do. I just sat and stared, and then +suddenly I picked up the glass that stood by my plate, raised it in +salute and drank smiling. His face cleared, he hesitated just a fraction +of a second, then his glass went up, and he returned my greeting. I +wonder if he thought that I would cut him dead, Uncle Rod? + +And don't worry about _what_ I drank. It was white grape juice. Mrs. +Nancy won't have anything stronger. + +Well, after that I ate, and didn't know what I ate, for everything seemed +as dry as dust. I know my cheeks were red and that my eyes shone, and I +smiled until my face ached. And all the while I watched Jimmie and Jimmie +watched me, and pretty soon, Uncle Rod, I understood why Jimmie was +there. + +He was making love to Eve Chesley! + +Making love is very different from being in love, isn't it? Perhaps love +is something that Jimmie really doesn't understand. But he was using on +Eve all of the charming tricks that he had tried on me. She is more +sophisticated, and they mean less to her than to me, but I could see him +bending toward her in that flattering worshipful way of his--and when he +took one of her roses and touched it to his lips and then to her cheek, +everything was dark for a minute. That kind of kiss was the only kind +that Jimmie Ford ever gave me, but to me it had meant that he--cared--and +that I cared--and here he was doing it before the eyes of all the +world--and for love of another woman! + +After supper he came around the table and spoke to me. I suppose he +thought he had to. I don't know what he said and I don't care. I only +know that I wanted to get away. I think it was then that Geoffrey Fox +guessed. For when Jimmie had gone he said, very gently, "Would you like +to go home? You look like your own little ghost, Mistress Anne." + +But I had promised one more dance to Dr. Richard, and I wanted to dance +it. If you could have seen at the table how he towered above Jimmie Ford. +And when he stood up to make a little speech in response to a toast from +Dutton Ames, his voice rang out in such a--man's way. Do you remember +Jimmie Ford's falsetto? + +I had my dance with him, and then Geoffrey took me home, and all the way +I kept remembering the things Dr. Richard had said to me, such pleasant +friendly things, and when his mother told me "good-night" she took my +face between her hands and kissed me. "You must come often, little +Cynthia Warfield," she said. "Richard and I both want you." + +But now that I am at home again, I can't think of anything but how Jimmie +Ford has spoiled it all. When you have given something, you can't ever +really take it back, can you? When you've given faith and constancy to +one man, what have you left to give another? + +The river is beginning to show like a silver streak, and a rooster is +crowing. Oh, Uncle Rod, if you were only here. Write and tell me that you +love me. + +Your + +LITTLE GIRL. + + * * * * * + +_In the Telegraph Tower._ + +MY VERY DEAR: + +It is after supper, and Beulah and I are out here with Eric. He likes to +have her come, and I play propriety, for Mrs. Bower, in common with most +women of her class, is very careful of her daughter. I know you don't +like that word "class," but please don't think I am using it snobbishly. +Indeed, I think Beulah is much better brought up than the daughters of +folk who think themselves much finer, and Mrs. Bower in her simple way is +doing some very effective chaperoning. + +Eric is on night duty in the telegraph tower this week; the other +operator has the day work. The evenings are long, so Beulah brings her +sewing, and keeps Eric company. They really don't have much to say to +each other, so that I am not interrupted when I write. They seem to like +to sit and look out on the river and the stars and the moon coming up +behind the hills. + +It is all settled now. Eric told me yesterday. "I am very happy," he +said; "I have been a lonely man." + +They are to be married in June, and the things that she is making are to +go into the cedar chest which her father has given her. He found it one +day when he was in Baltimore, and when he showed it to her, he shone with +pleasure. He's a good old Peter, and he is so glad that Beulah is to +marry Eric. Eric will rent a little house not far up the road. It is a +dear of a cottage, and Peggy and I call it the Playhouse. We sit on the +porch when we come home from school, and peep in at the windows and plan +what we would put into it if we had the furnishing of it. I should like a +house like that, Uncle Rod, for you and me and Diogenes. We'd live happy +ever after, wouldn't we? Some day the world is going to build +"teacherages" just as it now builds parsonages, and the little houses +will help to dignify and uplift the profession. + +Your dear letter came just in time, and it was just right. I should have +gone to pieces if you had pitied me, for I was pitying myself dreadfully. +But when I read "Little School-teacher, what would you tell your +scholars?" I knew what you wanted me to answer. I carried your letter in +my pocket to school, and when I rang the bell I kept saying over and +over to myself, "Life is what we make it. Life is what we make it," and +all at once the bells began to ring it: + + "Life is--what we--make it-- + Life is--what we--make it." + +When the children came in, before we began the day's work, I talked to +them. I find it is always uplifting when we have failed in anything to +try to tell others how not to fail! Perhaps it isn't preaching what we +practice, but at least it supplies a working theory. + +I made up a fairy-story for them, too, about a Princess who was so ill +and unhappy that all the kingdom was searched far and wide for some one +to cure her. And at last an old crone was found who swore that she had +the right remedy. "What is it?" all the wise men asked; but the old woman +said, "It is written in this scroll. To-morrow the Princess must start +out alone upon a journey. Whatever difficulty she encounters she must +open this scroll and read, and the scroll will tell her what to do." + +Well, the Princess started out, and when she had traveled a little way +she found that she was hungry and tired, and she cried: "Oh, I haven't +anything to eat." Then the scroll said, "Read me," and she opened the +scroll and read: "There is corn in the fields. You must shell it and +grind it on a stone and mix it with water, and bake it into the best +bread that you can." So the Princess shelled the corn and ground it and +mixed it with water, and baked it, and it tasted as sweet as honey and as +crisp as apples. And the Princess ate with an appetite, and then she lay +down to rest. And in the night a storm came up and there was no shelter, +and the Princess cried out, "Oh, what shall I do?" and the scroll said, +"Read me." So she opened the scroll and read: "There is wood on the +ground. You must gather it and stack it and build the best little house +that you can." So the Princess worked all that day and the next and the +next, and when the hut was finished it was strong and dry and no storms +could destroy it. So the Princess stayed there in the little hut that she +had made, and ate the sweet loaves that she had baked, and one day a +great black bear came down the road, and the Princess cried out, "Oh, I +have no weapon; what shall I do?" And the scroll said, "Read me." So she +opened the scroll and read, "Walk straight up to the bear, and make the +best fight that you can." So the Princess, trembling, walked straight up +to the big black bear, and behold! when he saw her coming, he ran away! + +Now the year was up, and the king sent his wise men to bring the Princess +home, and one day they came to her little hut and carried her back to the +palace, and she was so rosy and well that everybody wondered. Then the +king called the people together, and said, "Oh, Princess, speak to us, +and let us know how you were cured." So the Princess told them of how she +had baked the bread, and built the hut, and conquered the bear; and of +how she had found health and happiness. For the bread that you make with +your own hands is the sweetest, and the shelter that you build for +yourself is the snuggest, and the fear that you face is no fear at all. + + * * * * * + +The children liked my story, and I felt very brave when I had finished +it. You see, I have been forgetting our sunsets, and I have been shivery +and shaky when I should have faced my Big Black Bear! + +Beulah is ready to go--and so--good-night. The moon is high up and round, +and as pure gold as your own loving heart. + +Ever your own + +ANNE. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_In Which Brinsley Speaks of the Way to Win a Woman._ + + +AND now spring was coming to the countryside. The snow melted, and the +soft rains fell, and on sunny days Diogenes, splashing in the little +puddles, picked and pulled at his feathers as he preened himself in the +shelter of the south bank which overlooked the river. + +Some of the feathers were tipped with shining green and some with brown. +Some of them fell by the way, some floated out on blue tides, and one of +them was wafted by the wind to the feet of Geoffrey Fox, as, on a certain +morning, he, too, stood on the south bank. + +He picked it up and stuck it in his hat. "I'll wear it for my lady," he +said to the old drake, "and much good may it do me!" + +The old drake lifted his head toward the sky, and gave a long cry. But it +was not for Anne that he called. She still gave him food and drink. He +still met her at the gate. If her mind was less upon him than in the +past, it mattered little. The things that held meaning for him this +morning were the glory of the sunshine, and the softness of the breeze. +Stirring within him was a need above and beyond anything that Geoffrey +could give, or Anne. He listened not for the step of the little +school-teacher, but for the whirring wings of some comrade of his own +kind. Again and again he sent forth his cry to the empty air. + +Geoffrey's heart echoed the cry. His book was finished, and it was time +for him to go. Yet he was held by a tie stronger than any which had +hitherto bound him. Here in the big old house at Bower's was the one +thing that his heart wanted. + +"I could make her happy," he whispered to that inner self which warned +him. "With her as my wife and with my book a success, I could defy fate." + +The day was Saturday, and all the eager old fishermen had arrived the +night before. Brinsley Tyson coming out with his rod in his hand and a +broad-brimmed hat on his head invited Geoffrey to join him. "I've a motor +boat that will take us out to the island after we have done a morning's +fishing, and Mrs. Bower has put up a lunch." + +"The glare is bad for my eyes." + +"Been working them too hard?" + +"Yes." + +"There's an awning and smoked glasses if you'll wear them. And I don't +want to go alone. David went back on me; he's got a new book. It's a +puzzle to me why any man should want to read when he can have a day's +fishing." + +"If people didn't read what would become of my books?" + +"Let 'em read. But not on days like this." Brinsley's fat face was +upturned to the sun. With a vine-wreath instead of his broad hat and +tunic in place of his khaki he might have posed for any of the plump old +gods who loved the good things of life. + +Geoffrey, because he had nothing else to do, went with him. Anne was +invisible. On Saturday mornings she did all of the things she had left +undone during the week. She mended and sewed and washed her brushes, and +washed her hair, and gave all of her little belongings a special rub and +scrub, and showed herself altogether exquisite and housewifely. + +She saw Geoffrey start out, and she waved to him. He waved back, his hand +shading his eyes. When he had gone, she cleaned all of her toilet silver, +and ran ribbons into nicely embroidered nainsook things, and put her +pillows in the sun and tied up her head and swept and dusted, and when +she had made everything shining, she had a bit of lunch on a tray, and +then she washed her hair. + +Geoffrey ate lunch on the island with Brinsley Tyson. He liked the old +man immensely. There was a flavor about his worldliness which had nothing +to do with stale frivolities; it was rather a thing of fastidious taste +and of tempered wit. He was keen in his judgments of men, and charitable +in his estimates of women. + +Brinsley Tyson had known Baltimore before the days of modern cities. He +had known it before it had cut its hotels after the palace pattern, and +when Rennert's in more primitive quarters had been the Mecca for +epicureans. He had known its theaters when the footlight favorites were +Lotta and Jo Emmet, and when the incomparable Booth and Jefferson had +held audiences spellbound at Ford's and at Albaugh's. He had known +Charles Street before it was extended, and he had known its Sunday +parade. He had known the Bay Line Boats, the harbor and the noisy streets +that led to the wharves. He had known Lexington Market on Saturday +afternoons; the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the heyday of its +importance, and more than all he had known the beauties and belles of old +Baltimore, and it added piquancy to many of his anecdotes when he spoke +of his single estate as a tragedy resulting from his devotion to too many +charmers, with no possibility of making a choice. + +It was of these things that he spoke while Geoffrey, lying in the grass +with his arm across his eyes, listened and enjoyed. + +"And you never married, sir?" + +"I've told you there were too many of them. If I could have had any one +of those girls on this island with 'tother dear charmers away, there +wouldn't have been any trouble. But a choice with them all about me +was--impossible." His old eyes twinkled. + +"Suppose you had made a choice, and she hadn't cared for you?" said the +voice of the man on the grass. + +"Any woman will care if you go at it the right way." + +"What is the right way?" + +"There's only one way to win a woman. If she says she won't marry you, +carry her off by force to a clergyman, and when you get her there make +her say 'Yes.'" + +Geoffrey sat up. "You don't mean that literally?" + +Brinsley nodded. "Indeed I do. Take the attitude with them of Man the +Conqueror. They all like it. Man the Suppliant never gets what he wants." + +"But in these days primitive methods aren't possible." + +Brinsley skipped a chicken bone expertly across the surface of the water. +"Primitive methods are always possible. The trouble is that man has lost +his nerve. The cult of chivalry has spoiled him. It has taught him to +kneel at his lady's feet, where pre-historically he kept his foot on her +neck!" + +Geoffrey laughed. "You'd be mobbed in a suffrage meeting." + +"Suffrage, my dear fellow, is the green carnation in the garden of +femininity. Every woman blooms for her lover. It is the lack of lovers +that produces the artificial--hence votes for women. What does the woman +being carried off under the arm of conquering man care for yellow banners +or speeches from the tops of busses? She is too busy trying to please +him." + +"It would be a great experiment. I'd like to try it." + +Brinsley, uncorking a hot and cold bottle, boldly surmised, "It is the +little school-teacher?" + +Geoffrey, again flat on the grass, murmured, "Yes." + +"And it is neck and neck between you and that young cousin of mine?" + +"I am afraid he is a neck ahead." + +"It all depends upon which runs away with her first." + +Again Geoffrey murmured, "I'd like to try it." + +"Why not?" said Brinsley and beamed over his coffee cup like a benevolent +spider at an unsuspecting fly. He had no idea that his fooling might be +taken seriously. It was not given to his cynicism to comprehend the mood +of the seemingly composed young person who lay on the grass with his hat +over his eyes--torn by contending emotions, maddened by despair and the +dread of darkness, awakened to new impulses in which youth and hot blood +fought against an almost reverent tenderness for the object of his +adoration. Since the night of the Crossroads ball Geoffrey had permitted +himself to hope. She had turned to him then. For the first time he had +felt that the barriers were down between them. + +"Now Richard," Brinsley was saying, as he smoked luxuriously after the +feast, "ought to marry Eve. She'll get her Aunt Maude's money, and be the +making of him." + + * * * * * + +Richard, who at that very moment was riding through the country on his +old white horse, had no thought of Eve. + +The rhythm of old Ben's even trot formed an accompaniment to the song +that his heart was singing-- + + "I think she was the most beautiful lady, + That ever was in the West Country----" + +As he passed along the road, he was aware of the world's awakening. His +ears caught the faint flat bleating of lambs, the call of the cocks, the +high note of the hens, the squeal of little pigs, and above all, the +clamor of blackbirds and of marauding crows. + +The trees, too, were beginning to show the pale tints of spring, and an +amethyst haze enveloped the hills. The river was silver in the shadow and +gold in the sun; the little streams that ran down to it seemed to sing as +they went. + +Coming at last to an old white farmhouse, Richard dismounted and went in. +The old man bent with rheumatism welcomed him, and the old wife said, +"He is always better when he knows that you are coming, doctor." + +The old man nodded. "Your gran'dad used to come. I was a little boy an' +croupy, and he seemed big as a house when he came in at the door. He was +taller than you, and thin." + +"Now, father," the old woman protested, "the young doctor ain't fat." + +"He's fatter'n his gran'dad. But I ain't saying that I don't like it. I +like meat on a man's bones." + +Richard laughed. "Just so that I don't go the way of Cousin Brin. You +know Brinsley Tyson, don't you?" + +"He's the fat twin. Yes, I know him and David. David comes and reads to +me, but Brinsley went to Baltimore, and now he don't seem to remember +that we were boys together, and went to the Crossroads school." + +After that they spoke of the little new teacher, and Richard revelled in +the praise they gave her. She was worshipped, they said, by the people +roundabout. There had never been another like her. + + "_I think she was the most beautiful lady,_ + _That ever was in the West Country_----" + +was Richard's enlargement of their theme. In the weeks just past he had +seen much of her, and it had seemed to him that life began and ended with +his thought of her. + +When he rose to go the old woman went to the door with him. "I guess we +owe you a lot by this time," she remarked; "you've made so many calls. It +cheers him up to have you, but you'd better stop now that he don't need +you. It's so far, and we ain't good pay like some of them." + +Richard squared his shoulders--a characteristic gesture. "Don't bother +about the bill. I have a sort of sentiment about my grandfather's old +patients. It is a pleasure to know them and serve them." + +"If you didn't mind taking your pay in chickens," she stated as he +mounted his horse, "we could let you have some broilers." + +"You will need all you can raise." Then as his eyes swept the green hill +which sloped down to the river, he perceived an orderly line of waddling +fowls making their way toward the house. + +"I'd like a white duck," he said, "if you could let me take her now." + +He chose a meek and gentle creature who submitted to the separation from +the rest of her kind without rebellion. Tucked under Richard's arm, she +surveyed the world with some alarm, but presently, as he rode on with +her, she seemed to acquiesce in her abduction and faced the adventure +with serene eyes, murmuring now and then some note of demure +interrogation as she nestled quite confidently against the big man who +rode so easily his great white horse. + +And thus they came to Bower's, to find Anne on the south bank, like a +very modern siren, drying her hair, with Diogenes nipping the new young +grass near her. + +She saw them coming. Richard wore a short rough coat and an old alpine +hat of green. His leggings were splashed with mud, and the white horse +was splashed, but there was about the pair of them an air of gallant +achievement. + +She rose to greet them. She was blushing a little and with her dark hair +blowing she was "the most beautiful," like the lady in the song. + +"I thought no one would be coming," was her apology, "and out here I get +the wind and sun." + +"All the old fishermen will be wrecked on the rocks if they get a glimpse +of you," he told her gravely; "you mustn't turn their poor old heads." + +And now the white duck murmured. + +"The lovely dear, where did you get her?" Anne asked. + +"In the hills, to cheer up Diogenes." + +He set the white duck down. She shook her feathers and again spoke +interrogatively. And now Diogenes lifted his head and answered. For a few +moments he rent the air with his song of triumph. Then he turned and led +the way to the river. There was a quiet pool in the bend of the bank. The +old drake breasted its shining waters, and presently the white duck +followed. With a sort of restrained coquetry she turned her head from +side to side. All her questions were answered, all her murmurs stilled. + +Richard and Anne smiled at each other. "What made you think of it?" she +asked. + +"I thought you'd like it." + +"I do." She began to twist up her hair. + +"Please don't. I like to see it down." + +"But people will be coming in." + +"Why should we be here when they come? I'll put Ben in the stable--and +we'll go for a walk. Do you know there are violets in the wood?" + +From under the red-striped awning of Brinsley's boat Geoffrey Fox saw +Anne's hair blowing like a sable banner in the breeze. He saw Richard's +square figure peaked up to the alpine hat. He saw them enter the wood. + +He shut his eyes from the glare of the sun and lay quietly on the +cushions of the little launch. But though his eyes were shut, he could +still see those two figures walking together in the dreamy dimness of the +spring forest. + +"What were the ethics of the primitive man?" he asked Brinsley suddenly. +"Did he run away with a woman who belonged to somebody else?" + +"Why not?" Brinsley's reel was whirring. "And now if you don't mind, Fox, +you might be ready with the net. If this fish is as big as he pulls, he +will weigh a ton." + +Geoffrey, coming in, found Peggy disconsolate on the pier. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"I can't find Anne. She said that after her hair dried she'd go for a +walk to Beulah's playhouse, and we were to have tea. Beulah was to bring +it." + +"She has gone for a walk with some one else." + +"Who?" + +"Dr. Brooks. Let's go and look for her, Peggy, and when we find her we +will tell her what we think of her for running away." + +The green stillness of the grove was very grateful after the glare of the +river. Geoffrey walked quickly, with the child's hand in his. He had a +feeling that if he did not walk quickly he would be too late. + +He was not too late; he saw that at a glance. Richard had dallied in his +wooing. It had been so wonderful to be with her. Once when he had knelt +beside her to pick violets, the wind had blown across his face a soft +sweet strand of her hair. It was then that she had braided it, sitting on +a fallen log under a blossoming dogwood. + +"It is so long," she had said with a touch of pride, "that it is a great +trouble to care for it. Cynthia Warfield had hair like mine." + +"I don't believe that any one ever had hair like yours. It seems to me as +if every strand must have been made specially in some celestial shop, and +then the pattern destroyed." + +How lovely she was when she blushed like that! How little and lovely and +wise and good. He liked little women. His mother was small, and he was +glad that both she and Anne had delicate hands and feet. He was aware +that this preference was old-fashioned, but it was, none the less, the +way he felt about it. + +And now there broke upon the silence of the wood the sound of murmuring +voices. Peggy and Geoffrey Fox had invaded their Paradise! + +"We thought," Peggy complained, "that we had lost you. Anne, you promised +about the tea." + +"Oh, Peggy, I forgot." + +"Beulah's gone with the basket and Eric, and we can't be late because +there are hot biscuits." + +Hurrying toward the biscuits and their hotness, Anne ran ahead with +Peggy. + +"How about the eyes?" Richard asked as he and Geoffrey followed. + +"I've been on the water, and it is bad for them. But I'm not going to +worry. I am getting out of life more than I hoped--more than I dared +hope." + +His voice had a high note of excitement. Richard glanced at him. For a +moment he wondered if Fox had been drinking. + +But Geoffrey was intoxicated with the wine of his dreams. With a quick +gesture in which he seemed to throw from him all the fears which had +oppressed him, he told his triumphant lie. + +"I am going to marry Anne Warfield; she has promised to be eyes for me, +and light--the sun and the moon." + +Richard's face grew gray. He spoke with difficulty. "She has promised?" + +Then again Geoffrey lied, meaning indeed before the night had passed to +make his words come true. "She is going to marry me--and I am the +happiest man alive!" + +The light went out of Richard's world. How blind he had been. He had +taken her smiles and blushes to himself when she had glowed with a +happiness which had nothing to do with him. + +He steadied himself to speak. "You are a lucky fellow, Fox; you must let +me congratulate you." + +"The world doesn't know," Geoffrey said, "not yet. But I had to tell it +to some one, and a doctor is a sort of secular father confessor." + +Richard's laugh was without mirth. "If you mean that it's not to be told, +you may rely on my discretion." + +"Of course. I told you she was to play Beatrice to my Dante, but she +shall be more than that." + +It was a rather silent party which had tea on the porch of the Playhouse. +But Beulah and Eric were not aware of any lack in their guests. Eric had +been to Baltimore the day before, and Beulah wore her new ring. She +accepted Richard's congratulations shyly. + +"I like my little new house," she said; "have you been over it?" + +He said that he had not, and she took him. Eric went with them, and as +they stood in the door of an upper room, he put his arm quite frankly +about Beulah's shoulders as she explained their plans to Richard. "This +is to be in pink and the other one in white, and all the furniture is to +be pink and white." + +She was as pink and white and pretty as the rooms she was planning, and +to see her standing there within the circle of her lover's arm was +heart-warming. + +"You must get some roses from my mother, Beulah, for your little garden," +the young doctor told her; "all pink and white like the rest of it." + +He let them go down ahead of him, and so it happened that he stood for a +moment alone in a little upper porch at the back of the house which +overlooked the wood. The shadows were gathering in its dim aisles, +shutting out the daylight, shutting out the dreams which he had lost that +day in the fragrant depths. + +When later he came with the rest of them to Bower's, the river was +stained with the sunset. Diogenes and the white duck breasted serenely +the crimson surface. Certain old fishermen trailed belatedly up the bank. +Others sat spick and span and ready for supper on the porch. + +Brinsley Tyson over the top of his newspaper hailed Richard. + +"There's a telephone call for you. They've been trying to get you for an +hour." + +He went in at once, and coming out told Anne good-night. "Thank you for a +happy afternoon," he said. + +But she missed something in his voice, something that had been there when +they had walked in the wood. + +She watched him as he went away, square-shouldered and strong on his big +white horse. She had a troubled sense that things had in some fateful and +tragic way gone wrong with her afternoon, but it was not yet given to her +to know that young Richard on his big white horse was riding out of her +life. + +It was after supper that Geoffrey asked her to go out on the river with +him. + +"Not to-night. I'm tired." + +"Just a little minute, Mistress Anne. To see the moon come up over the +island. Please." So she consented. + +Helping her into the boat, Geoffrey's hands were shaking. The boat swept +out from the pier in a wide curve, and he drew a long breath. He had her +now--it would be a great adventure--like a book--better than any book. + +Primitive man in prehistoric days carried his woman off captive under his +arm. Geoffrey, pursuing modern methods, had borrowed Brinsley's boat. A +rug was folded innocently on the cushions; in a snug little cupboard +under the stern seat were certain supplies--a great adventure, surely! + +And now the boat was under the bridge; the signal lights showed red and +green. Then as they slipped around the first island there was only the +silver of the moonshine spread out over the waters. + +Geoffrey stopped the motor. "We'll drift and talk." + +"You talk," she told him, "and I'll listen, and we mustn't be too late." + +"What is too late?" + +"I told you I would stay just a little minute." + +"There is no real reason why we shouldn't stay as long as we wish. You +are surely not so prim that you are doing it for propriety." + +"You know I am not prim." + +"Yes you are. You are prim and Puritan and sometimes you are a prig. But +I like you that way, Mistress Anne. Only to-night I shall do as I +please." + +"Don't be silly." + +"Is it silly to love you--why?" + +He argued it with her brilliantly--so that it was only when the red and +green lights of a second bridge showed ahead of them that she said, +sharply, "We are miles away from Bower's; we must go back." + +"It won't take us long," he said, easily, and presently they were purring +up-stream. + +Then all at once the motor stopped. Geoffrey, inspecting it with a +flashlight, said, succinctly, "Engine's on the blink." + +"You mean that we can't go on?" + +"Oh, I'll tinker it up. Only you'll have to let me get into that box +under the stern seat for the tools. You can hold the light while I work." + +As he worked they drifted. They passed the second bridge. Anne, steering, +grew cold and shivered. But she did not complain. She was glad, however, +when Geoffrey said, "You'd better curl down among the cushions, and let +me wrap you in this rug." + +"Can you manage without me?" + +"Yes. I've patched it up partially. And you'll freeze in this bitter +air." + +The wind had changed and there was now no moon. She was glad of the +warmth of the rug and the comfort of the cushioned space. She shut her +eyes, after a time, and, worn out by the emotions of the day, she dropped +into fitful slumber. + +Then Geoffrey, his hair blown back by the wind, stood at the wheel and +steered his boat not up-stream toward the bridge at Bower's, but straight +down toward the wider waters, where the river stretches out into the +Bay. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +_In Which Eve Usurps an Ancient Masculine Privilege._ + + +AUNT MAUDE CHESLEY belonged to the various patriotic societies which are +dependent on Revolutionary fighting blood, on Dutch forbears, or on the +ancestral holding of Colonial office. The last stood highest in her +esteem. It was the hardest to get into, hence there was about it the +sanctity of exclusiveness. Any man might spill his blood for his country, +and among those early Hollanders were many whose blood was red instead of +blue, but it was only a choice few who in the early days of the country's +history had been appointed by the Crown or elected by the people to +positions of influence and of authority. + +When Aunt Maude went to the meeting of her favorite organization, she +wore always black velvet which showed the rounds of her shoulders, point +lace in a deep bertha, the family diamonds, and all of her badges. The +badges had bars and jewels, and the effect was imposing. + +Evelyn laughed at her. "Nobody cares for ancestors any more. Not since +people began to hunt them up. You can find anything if you look for it, +Aunt Maude. And most of the crests are bought or borrowed so that if one +really belongs to you, you don't like to speak of it, any more than to +tell that you are a lady or take a daily bath." + +"Our ancestors," said Aunt Maude solemnly, "are our heritage from the +past--but you have reverence for nothing." + +"They were a jolly old lot," Eve agreed, "and I am proud of them. But +some of their descendants are a scream. If men had their minds on being +ancestors instead of bragging of them there'd be some hope for the future +of old families." + +Aunt Maude, having been swathed by her maid in a silk scarf, so that her +head was stiff with it, batted her eyes. "If you would go with me," she +said, "and hear some of the speeches, you might look at it differently. +Now there was a Van Tromp----" + +"And in New England there were Codcapers, and in Virginia there were +Pantops. I take off my hat to them, but not to their descendants, +indiscriminately." + +And now Aunt Maude, more than ever mummified in a gold and black brocade +wrap trimmed with black fur, steered her uncertain way toward the motor +at the door. + +"People in my time----" floated over her shoulder and then as the door +closed behind her, her eloquence was lost. + +Eve, alone, faced a radiant prospect. Richard was coming. He had +telephoned. She had not told Aunt Maude. She wanted him to herself. + +When at last he arrived she positively crowed over him. "Oh, Dicky, this +is darling of you." + +A shadow fell across her face, however, when he told her why he had come. + +"Austin wanted me with him in an operation. He telegraphed me and I took +the first train. I have been here for two days without a minute's time in +which to call you up." + +"I thought that perhaps you had come to see me." + +"Seeing you is a pleasant part of it, Eve." + +He was really glad to see her; to be drawn away by it all from the +somberness of his thoughts. The night before he had left the train on the +Jersey side and had ferried over so that he might view once more the +sky-line of the great city. There had been a stiff breeze blowing and it +had seemed to him that he drew the first full breath since the moment +when he had walked with Geoffrey in the wood. What had followed had been +like a dream; the knowledge that the great surgeon wanted him, his +mother's quick service in helping him pack his bag, the walk to Bower's +in the fragrant dark to catch the ten o'clock train; the moment on the +porch at Bower's when he had learned from a word dropped by Beulah that +Anne was on the river with Geoffrey. + +And now it all seemed so far away--the river with the moon's broad path, +Bower's low house and its yellow-lighted panes, the silence, the +darkness. + +Since morning he had done a thousand things. He had been to the hospital +and had yielded once more to the spell of its splendid machinery; he had +talked with Austin and the talk had been like wine to a thirsty soul. In +such an atmosphere a man would have little time to--think. He craved the +action, the excitement, the uplift. + +He came back to Eve's prattle. "I told Winifred Ames we would come to her +little supper after the play. I was to have gone with her and Pip and +Jimmie Ford. Tony is away. But when you 'phoned, I called the first part +of it off. I wanted to have a little time just with you, Richard." + +He smiled at her. "Who is Jimmie Ford?" + +"A lovely youth who is in love with me--or with my money--he was at your +birthday party, Dicky Boy; don't you remember?" + +"The Blue Butterfly? Yes. Is he another victim, Eve?" + +She shrugged. "Who knows? If he is in love with me, he'll get hurt; if he +is in love with Aunt Maude's money, he won't get it. Oh, how can a woman +know?" The lightness left her voice. "Sometimes I think that I'll go off +somewhere and see if somebody won't love me for what I am, and not for +what he thinks Aunt Maude is going to leave me." + +"And you with a string of scalps at your belt, and Pip ready at any +moment to die for you." + +She nodded. "Pip is pure gold. Nobody can question his motives. And +anyhow he has more money than I can ever hope to have. But I am not in +love with him, Dicky." + +"You are not in love with anybody. You are a cold-blooded little thing, +Eve. A man would need much fire to melt your ice." + +"Would he?" + +"You know he would." + +He swept away from her petulances to the thing which was for the moment +uppermost in his mind. "I have had an offer, Eve, from Austin. He wants +an assistant, a younger man who can work into his practice. It is a +wonderful working opportunity." + +"It would be wicked to throw it away," she told him, breathlessly, +"wicked, Richard." + +"It looks that way. But there's mother to think of, and Crossroads has +come to mean a lot to me, Eve." + +"Oh, but New York, Dicky! Think of the good times we'd have, and of your +getting into Austin's line of work and his patients. You would be rolling +in your own limousine before you'd know it." + +Rolling in his own limousine! And missing the rhythm of big Ben's +measured trot----! + +"_I think--she was the--most beautiful_----" + +As they motored to Winifred's, Eve spoke of his quiet mood. "Why don't +you talk, Dicky?" + +"It has been a busy day--I'll wake up presently and realize that I am +here." + +It was before he went down-stairs at the Dutton-Ames that he had a moment +alone with Jimmie Ford. + +Jimmie was not in the best of moods. Winifred had asked him a week ago to +join a choice quartette which included Pip and Eve. Of course Meade made +a troublesome fourth, but Jimmie's conceit saved him from realizing the +real fact of the importance of the plain and heavy Pip to that group. And +now, things had been shifted, so that Eve had stayed to talk to a country +doctor, and he had been left to the callow company of an indefinite +debutante whom Winifred had invited to fill the vacancy. + +"When did you come down, Brooks?" he asked coldly. + +"This morning." + +"Nice old place of yours in Harford." + +"Yes." + +"Owned it long?" + +"Several generations." + +"Oh, ancestral halls, and all that----?" + +"Yes." + +"I saw Cynthia Warfield's picture on the wall--used to know the family +down in Carroll--our old estates joined--Anne Warfield and I were brought +up together." + +They had reached the head of the stairway. Richard stopped and stood +looking down. "Anne Warfield?" + +"Yes. Surprised to find her teaching. I fancy they've been pretty hard +up--grandfather drank, and all that, you know." + +"I didn't know." It was now Richard's turn to speak coldly. + +"Oh, yes, ran through with all their money. Years ago. Anne's a little +queen. Engaged to her once myself, you know. Boy and girl affair, broken +off----" + +Below them in the hall, Richard could see the women with whom he was to +sup. Shining, shimmering figures in silk and satin and tulle. For these, +softness and ease of living. And that other one! Oh, the cheap little +gown, the braided hair! Before he had known her she had been Jimmie's and +now she was Geoffrey's. And he had fatuously thought himself the first. + +He threw himself uproariously into the fun which followed. After all, it +was good to be with them again, good to hear the familiar talk of people +and of things, good to eat and drink and be merry in the fashion of the +town, good to have this taste of the old tumultuous life. + +He and Eve went home together. Philip's honest face clouded as he saw +them off. "Don't run away with her, Brooks," he said, as he leaned in to +have a last look at her. "Good-night, little lady." + +"Good-night." + +It was when they were motoring through the park that Eve said, "I am +troubled about Pip." + +"Why?" + +"Oh, I sometimes have a feeling that he has a string tied to me--and that +he is pulling me--his way. And I don't want to go. But I shall, if +something doesn't save me from him, Richard." + +"You can save yourself." + +"That's all you know about it. Women take what they can get in this +world, not what they want. Every morning Pip sends me flowers, sweetheart +roses to-day, and lilies yesterday, and before that gardenias and +orchids, and when I open the boxes every flower seems to be shouting, +'Come and marry me, come and marry me.'" + +"No woman need marry a man she doesn't care for, Eve." + +"Lots of them do." + +"You won't. You are too sensible." + +"Am I?" + +"Of course." + +She sighed a little. "I am not half as sensible as you think." + +When they reached home, they found Aunt Maude before them. She had been +unswathed from her veil and her cloak, released from her black velvet, +and was comfortable before her sitting-room fire in a padded wisteria +robe and a boudoir cap with satin bow. Underneath the cap there were no +flat gray curls. These were whisked mysteriously away each night by +Hannah, the maid, to be returned in the morning, fresh from their pins +with no hurt to Aunt Maude's old head. + +She greeted Richard cordially. "I sent Hannah down when I heard you. Eve +didn't let me know you were here; she never lets me know. And now tell me +about your poor mother." + +"Why poor, dear lady? You know she loves Crossroads." + +"How anybody can---- I'd die of loneliness. Now to-night--so many people +of my own kind----" + +"Everybody in black velvet or brocade, everybody with badges, everybody +with blue blood," Eve interrupted flippantly; "nobody with ideas, nobody +with enthusiasms, nobody with an ounce of originality--ugh!" + +"My dear----!" + +"Dicky, Aunt Maude's idea of Heaven is a place where everybody wears +coronets instead of halos, and where the angel chorus is a Dutch version +of 'God save the King.'" + +"My idea of Heaven," Aunt Maude retorted, "is a place where young girls +have ladylike manners." + +Richard roared. It had been long since he had tasted this atmosphere of +salt and spice. Aunt Maude and her sprightly niece were as good as a +play. + +"How long shall you be in town, Richard?" + +"Three or four days. It depends on the condition of our patient. It may +be necessary to operate again, and Austin wants me to be here." + +"Aunt Maude, Dicky may come back to New York to live." + +"He should never have left. What does your mother think of it?" + +"I haven't told her of Austin's offer. I shall write to-night." + +"If she has a grain of sense, she'll make you take it." + +Eve was restless. "Come on down, Dicky. It is time that Aunt Maude was in +bed." + +"I never go until you do, Eve, and in my day young men went home before +morning." + +"Dearest, Dicky shall leave in ten minutes. I'll send him." + +But when they were once more in the great drawing-room, she forgot the +time limit. "Don't let your mother settle things for you, Dicky. Think of +yourself and your future. Of your--manhood, Dicky--please." + +She was very lovely as she stood before him, with her hands on his +shoulders. "I want you to be the biggest of them--all," she said, and her +laugh was tremulous. + +"I know. Eve, I want to stay." + +"Oh, Dicky--really?" + +"Really, Eve." + +Their hands came together in a warm clasp. + +She let him go after that. There had been nothing more than brotherly +warmth in his manner, but it was enough that in the days to come she was +to have him near her. + +Richard, writing to his mother, told her something of his state of mind. +"I'll admit that it tempts me. It is a big thing, a very big thing, to +work with a man like that. Yet knowing how you feel about it, I dare not +decide. We shall have to face one thing, however. The Crossroads practice +will never be a money-making practice. I know how little money means to +you, but the lack of it will mean that I shall be tied to rather small +things as the years go on. I should like to be one of the Big Men, +mother. You see I am being very frank. I'll admit that I dreamed with +you--of bringing all my talents to the uplift of a small community, of +reviving at Crossroads the dignity of other days. But--perhaps we have +dreamed too much--the world doesn't wait for the dreamers--the only way +is to join the procession." + +In the day which intervened between his letter and his mother's answer, +he had breakfast with Eve in the room with the flame-colored fishes and +the parrot and the green-eyed cat. He motored with Eve out to +Westchester, and they had lunch at an inn on the side of a hill which +overlooked the Hudson; later they went to a matinee, to tea in a special +little corner of a down-town hotel for the sake of old days, then back +again to dress for dinner at Eve's, with Aunt Maude at the head of the +table, and Tony and Winifred and Pip completing the party. Then another +play, another supper, another ride home with Eve, and in the morning in +quiet contrast to all this, his mother's letter. + +"Dear Boy," she said, "I am glad you spoke to me frankly of what you +feel. I want no secrets between us, no reservations, no sacrifices which +in the end may mean a barrier between us. + +"Our sojourn at Crossroads has been an experiment. And it has failed. I +had hoped that as the days went on, you might find happiness. Indeed, I +had been deceiving myself with the thought that you were happy. But now I +know that you are not, and I know, too, what it must mean to you to feel +that from among all the others you have been chosen to help a great man +like Dr. Austin, who was the friend of my father, and my friend through +everything. + +"But Richard, I can't go back. I literally crawled to Crossroads, after +my years in New York, as a wounded animal seeks its lair. And I have a +morbid shrinking from it all, unworthy of me, perhaps, but none the less +impossible to overcome. I feel that the very stones of the streets would +speak of the tragedy and dishonor of the past: houses would stare at me, +the crowds would shun me. + +"And now I have this to propose. That I stay here at Crossroads, keeping +the old house open for you. David is near me, and any one of Cousin Mary +Tyson's daughters would be glad to come to me. And you shall run down at +week-ends, and tell me all about it, and I shall live in your letters and +in the things which you have to tell. We can be one in spirit, even +though there are miles between us. This is the only solution which seems +possible to me at this moment. I cannot hold you back from what may be +your destiny. I can only pray here in my old home for the happiness and +success that must come to you--my boy--my little--boy----" + +The letter broke off there. Richard, high up in the room of the big +hotel, found himself pacing the floor. Back of the carefully penned lines +of his mother's letter he could see her slender tense figure, the +whiteness of her face, the shadow in her eyes. How often he had seen it +when a boy, how often he had sworn that when he was the master of the +house he would make her happy. + +The telephone rang. It was Eve. "I was afraid you might have left for the +hospital." + +"I am leaving in a few minutes." + +"Can you go for a ride with me?" + +"In the afternoon. There's to be another operation--it may be very late +before I am through." + +"Not too late for dinner out of town somewhere and a ride under the May +moon." Her voice rang high and happy. + +For the rest of the morning he had no time to think of his own affairs. +The operation was extremely rare and interesting, and Austin's skill was +superb. Richard felt as if he were taking part in a play, in which the +actors were the white clad and competent doctors and nurses, and the +stage was the surgical room. + +Eve coming for him, found him tired and taciturn. She respected his mood, +and said little, and they rode out and out from the town and up and up +into the Westchester hills, dotted with dogwood, pink and white like huge +nosegays. As the night came on there was the fragrance of the gardens, +the lights of the little towns; then once more the shadows as they swept +again into the country. + +"We will go as far as we dare," Eve said. "I know an adorable place to +dine." + +She tried more than once to bring him to speak of Austin, but he put her +off. "I am dead tired, dear girl; you talk until we have something to +eat." + +"Oh," Eve surveyed him scornfully, "oh, men and their appetites!" + +But she had a thousand things to tell him, and her light chatter carried +him away from somber thoughts, so that when they reached at last the +quaint hostelry toward which their trip had tended, he was ready to meet +Eve's mood half-way, and enter with some zest upon their gay adventure. +She chose a little table on a side porch, where they were screened from +observation, and which overlooked the river, and there took off her hat +and powdered her nose, and gave her attention to the selection of the +dinner. + +"A clear soup, Dicky Boy, and Maryland chicken, hot asparagus, a Russian +dressing for our lettuce, and at the end red raspberries with little +cakes. They are sponge cakes, Dicky, filled with cream, and they are food +for the gods." + +He was hungry and tired and he wanted to eat. He was glad when the food +came on. + +When he finished he leaned back and talked shop. "If you don't like it," +he told Eve, "I'll stop. Some women hate it." + +"I love it," Eve said. "Dicky, when I dream of your future you are always +at the top of things, with smaller men running after you and taking your +orders." + +He smiled. "Don't dream. It doesn't pay. I've stopped." + +She glanced at him. His face was stern. + +"What's up, Dicky Boy?" + +He laughed without mirth. "Oh, I'm beginning to think we are puppets +pulled by strings; that things happen as Fate wills and not as we want +them." + +"Men haven't any right to talk that way. It's their world. If you were a +woman you might complain. Look at me! Everything that I have comes from +Aunt Maude. She could leave me without a cent if she chose, and she +knows it. She owns me, and unless I marry she'll own me until I die." + +"You'll marry, Eve. Old Pip will see to that." + +"Pip," passionately. "Dicky, why do you always fling Pip in my face?" + +"Eve----!" + +"You do. Everybody does. And I don't want him." + +"Then don't have him. There are others. And you needn't lose your temper +over a little thing like that." + +"It isn't a little thing." + +"Oh, well----" The conversation lapsed into silence until Eve said, "I +was horrid--and I think we had better be getting back, Dicky." + +Again in the big limousine, with the stolid chauffeur separated from them +by the glass screen, she said, softly, "Oh, Dicky, it seems too good to +be true that we shall have other nights like this--other rides. When will +you come up for good?" + +"I am not coming, Eve." + +She turned to him, her face frozen into whiteness. + +"Not coming? Why not?" + +"While mother lives I must make her happy." + +"Oh, don't be goody-goody." + +He blazed. "I'm not." + +"You are. Aren't you ever going to live your own life?" + +"I am living it. But I can't break mother's heart." + +"You might as well break hers as--mine." + +He stared down at her. Mingled forever after with his thoughts of that +moment was a blurred vision of her whiteness and stillness. Her slim +hands were crossed tensely on her knees. + +He laid one of his own awkwardly over them. "Dear girl," he said, "you +don't in the least mean it." + +"I do. Dicky, why shouldn't I say it? Why shouldn't I? Hasn't a woman the +right? Hasn't she?" + +She was shaking with silent sobs, the tears running down her cheeks. He +had not seen her cry like this since little girlhood, when her mother had +died, and he, a clumsy lad, had tried to comfort her. + +He was faced by a situation so stupendous that for a moment he sat there +stunned. Proud little Eve for love of him had made the supreme sacrifice +of her pride. Could any man in his maddest moment have imagined a thing +like this----! + +He bent down to her, and took her hands in his. + +"Hush, Eve, hush. I can't bear to see you cry. I'm not the fellow to make +you happy, dear." + +Her head dropped against his shoulder. The perfumed gold of her hair was +against his cheeks. "No one else can make me happy, Dicky." + +Then he felt the world whirl about him, and it seemed to him as he +answered that his voice came from a long distance. + +"If you'll marry me, Eve, I'll stay." + +It was the knightly thing to do, and the necessary thing. Yet as they +swept on through the night, his mother's face, all the joy struck from +it, seemed to stare at him out of the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +_In Which Geoffrey Plays Cave Man._ + + +MINE OWN UNCLE: + +I don't know whether to begin at the beginning or at the end of what I +have to tell you. And even now as I think back over the events of the +last twenty-four hours I feel that I must have dreamed them, and that I +will wake and find that nothing has really happened. + +But something has happened, and "of a strangeness" which makes it seem to +belong to some of those queer old dime "thrillers" which you never wanted +me to read. + +Last night Geoffrey Fox asked me to go out with him on the river. I don't +often go at night, yet as there was a moon, it seemed as if I might. + +We went in Brinsley Tyson's motor boat. It is big and roomy and is +equipped with everything to make one comfortable for extended trips. I +wondered a little that Geoffrey should take it, for he has a little boat +of his own, but he said that Mr. Tyson had offered it, and they had been +out in it all day. + +Well, it was lovely on the water; I was feeling tired and as blue as +blue--some day I may tell you about _that_, Uncle Rod, and I was glad of +the quiet and beauty of it all; and of late Geoffrey and I have been such +good friends. + +Can't you ever really know people, Uncle Rod, or am I so dull and stupid +that I misunderstand? Men are such a puzzle--all except you, you darling +dear--and if you were young and not my uncle, even you might be as much +of a puzzle as the rest. + +Well, I would never have believed it of Geoffrey Fox, and even now I +can't really feel that he was responsible. But it isn't what I think but +what you will think that is important--for I have, somehow, ceased to +believe in myself. + +It was when we reached the second bridge that I told Geoffrey that we +must turn back. We had, even then, gone farther than I had intended. But +as we started up-stream, I felt that we would get to Bower's before Peter +went back on the bridge, which is always the signal for the house to +close, although it is never really closed; but the lights are turned down +and the family go to bed, and I have always known that I ought not to +stay out after that. + +Well, just as we left the second bridge, something happened to the motor. + +Uncle Rod, _that was last night_, and I didn't get back to Bower's until +a few hours ago, and here is the whole truth before I write any more---- + +_Geoffrey Fox tried to run away with me!_ + +It would seem like a huge joke if it were not so serious. I don't know +how he got such an idea in his head. Perhaps he thought that life was +like one of his books--that all he had to do was to plan a plot, and then +make it work out in his own way. He said, in that first awful moment, +when I knew what he had done, "I thought I could play Cave Man and get +away with it." You see, he hadn't taken into consideration that I wasn't +a Cave Woman! + +When the engine first went wrong I wasn't in the least worried. He fixed +it, and we went on. Then it stopped and we drifted: the moon went down +and it was cold, and finally Geoffrey made me curl up among the cushions. +I felt that it must be very late, but Geoffrey showed me his watch, and +it was only a little after ten. I knew Peter wouldn't be going to the +bridge until eleven, and I hoped by that time we would be home. + +But we weren't. We were far, far down the river. At last I gave up hope +of arriving before the house closed, but I knew that I could explain to +Mrs. Bower. + +After that I napped and nodded, for I was very tired, and all the time +Geoffrey tinkered with the broken motor. Each time that I waked I asked +questions but he always quieted me--and at last--as the dawn began to +light the world, a pale gray spectral sort of light, Uncle Rod, I saw +that the shore on one side of us was not far away, but on the other it +was a mere dark line in the distance--double the width that the river is +at Bower's. Geoffrey was standing up and steering toward a little pier +that stuck its nose into shallow water. Back of the pier was what seemed +to be an old warehouse, and in a clump of trees back of that there was a +thin church spire. + +I said, "Where are we?" and he said, "I am not sure, but I am going in to +see if I can get the motor mended." + +I couldn't think of anything but how worried the Bowers would be. "You +must find a telephone," I told him, "and call Beulah, and let her know +what has happened." + +He ran up to the landing and fastened the boat, and then he helped me +out. "We will sit here and have a bit of breakfast first," he said; +"there's some coffee left in Brinsley's hot and cold bottle, and some +supplies under the stern seat." + +It was really quite cheerful sitting there, eating sardines and crackers +and olives and orange marmalade. A fresh breeze was blowing, and the +river was wrinkled all over its silver surface, and we could see nothing +but water ahead of us, straight to the horizon, where there was just the +faint streak of a steamer's smoke. + +"We must be almost in the Bay," I said. "Couldn't you have steered +up-stream instead of down?" + +He sat very still for a moment looking at me, and then he said quickly +and sharply, "I didn't want to go up-stream. I wanted to go down. And I +came in here because I saw a church spire, and where there is a church +there is always a preacher. Will you marry me, Mistress Anne?" + +At first I thought that he had lost his mind. Uncle Rod, I don't think +that I shall ever see a sardine or a cracker without a vision of Geoffrey +with his breakfast in his hand and his face as white as chalk above it. + +"That's a very silly joke," I said. "Why should I marry you?" + +He looked at me, and--I didn't need any answer, for it came to me then +that I had been out all night on the river with him, and that he was +thinking of a way to quiet people's tongues! + +I tried to speak, but my voice shook, and finally I managed to stammer +that when we got back I was sure it would be all right. + +"It won't be all right," he said; "the world will have things to say +about you, and I'd rather die than have them say it. And I could make you +happy, Anne." + +Then I told him that I did not love him, that he was my dear friend, my +brother--and suddenly his face grew red, and he came over and caught hold +of my hands. "I am not your brother," he said. "I want you whether you +want me or not. I could make you love me--I've got to have you in my +life. I am not going on alone to meet darkness--and despair." + +Oh, Uncle Rod, then I knew and I looked straight at him and asked: +"Geoffrey Fox, did you break the motor?" + +"It isn't broken," he said; "there has never been a thing the matter with +it." + +I think for the first time that I was a little afraid. Not of him, but of +what he had done. + +"Oh, how could you," I said, "how could you?" + +And it was then that he said, "I thought that I could play Cave Man and +get away with it." + +After that he told me how much he cared. He said that I had helped him +and inspired him. That I had shown him a side of himself that no one else +had ever shown. That I had made him believe in himself--and in--God. That +if he didn't have me in his life his future would be--dead. He begged and +begged me to let him take me into the little town and find some one to +marry us. He said that if we went back I would be lost to him--that--that +Brooks would get me--that was the way he put it, Uncle Rod. He said that +he was going blind; that I hadn't any heart; that he would love me as no +one else could; that he would write his books for me; that he would spend +his whole life making it up to me. + +I don't know how I held out against him. But I did. Something in me +seemed to say that I must hold out. Some sense of dignity and of +self-respect, and at last I conquered. + +"I will not marry you," I said; "don't speak of it again. I am going back +to Bower's. I am not a heroine of a melodrama, and there's no use to act +as if I had done an unpardonable thing. I haven't, and the Bowers won't +think it, and nobody else will know. But you have hurt me more than I can +tell by what you have done to-night. When you first came to Bower's there +were things about you that I didn't like, but--as I came to know you, I +thought I had found another man in you. The night at the Crossroads ball +you seemed like a big kind brother--and I told you what I had suffered, +and now you have made me suffer." + +And then--oh, I don't quite know how to tell you. He dropped on his knees +at my feet and hid his face in my dress and cried--hard dry sobs--with +his hands clutching. + +I just couldn't stand it, Uncle Rod, and presently I was saying, "Oh, you +poor boy, you poor boy----" and I think I smoothed his hair, and he +whispered, "Can't you?" and I said, "Oh, Geoffrey, I can't." + +At last he got control of himself. He sat at a little distance from me +and told me what he was going to do. + +"I think I was mad," he said. "I can't even ask your forgiveness, for I +don't deserve it. I am going up to town to telephone to Beulah, and when +I come back I will take you up the river where you can get the train. I +shall break the engine and leave it here, so that when Brinsley gets it +back there will be nothing to spoil our story." + +He was gone half an hour. When he came he brought me a hat. He had bought +it at the one little store where he had telephoned, and he had bought one +for himself. I think we both laughed a little when we put them on, +although it wasn't a laughing matter, but we did look funny. + +He unfastened the boat, and we turned up the river and in about an hour +we came into quite a thriving port with the Sunday quiet over everything, +and Geoffrey did things to the engine that put it out of commission, and +then he left it with a man on the pier, and we took the train. + +It seems that all night at Bower's they were looking for us. They even +took other boats, and followed. And they called. I know that if Geoffrey +heard them call he didn't answer. + +Every one seemed to accept our explanation. Perhaps they thought it +queer. But I can't help that. + +Geoffrey is going away to-morrow. When we were alone in the hall for a +moment he told me that he was going. "If you can ever forgive me," he +said, "will you write and tell me? What I have done may seem +unforgivable. But when a man dreams a great deal he sometimes thinks +that he can make his dreams come true." + +Uncle Rod, I think the worst thing in the whole wide world is to be +disappointed in people. As soon as school closes I am coming back to you. +Perhaps you can make me see the sunsets. And what do you say about life +now? Is it what we make it? Did I have anything to do with this mad +adventure? Yet the memory of it will always--smirch. + +And if life isn't what we make it, where is our hope and where are our +sunsets? Tell me that, you old dear. + +ANNE. + +P.S. When I opened my door just now, I found that Geoffrey had left on +the threshold his little Napoleon, and a letter. I am sending the letter +to you. I cried over it, and I am afraid it is blurred--but I haven't +time to make a copy before the mail goes. + + * * * * * + +What Geoffrey said: + + * * * * * + +MY LITTLE CHILD: + +I am calling you that because there is something so young and untouched +about you. If I were an artist I should paint you as young Psyche--and +there should be a hint of angels' wings in the air and it should be +spring--with a silver dawn. But if I could paint should I ever be able to +put on canvas the light in your eyes when you have talked to me by the +fire, my kind little friend whom I have lost? + +I cannot even now understand the mood that possessed me. Yet I will be +frank. I saw you go into the wood with Richard Brooks. I felt that if he +should say to you what I was sure he wanted to say that there would be no +chance for me--so I hurried after you. The thing which was going to +happen must not happen; and I arrived in time. After that I told Brooks +as we walked back that I was going to marry you, and I took you out in my +boat intending to make my words come true. + +These last few days have been strange days. Perhaps when I have described +them you may find it in your heart to feel sorry for me. The book is +finished. That of itself has left me with a sense of loss, as if I had +put away from me something that had been a part of me. Then--I am going +blind. Do you know what that means, the desperate meaning? To lose the +light out of your life--never to see the river as I saw it this morning? +Never to see the moonlight or the starlight--never to see your face? + +The specialist has given me a few months--and then darkness. + +Was it selfishness to want to tie you to a blind man? If you knew that +you were losing the light wouldn't you want to steal a star to illumine +the night?--and you were my--Star. + +I am going now to my little sister, Mimi. She leaves the convent in a few +days. There are just the two of us. I have been a wayward chap, loving +my own way; it will be a sorry thing for her to find, I fancy, that +henceforth I shall be in leading strings. + +It is because of this thing that is coming that I am begging you still to +be my friend--to send me now and then a little letter; that I may feel in +the night that you are holding out your hand to me. There can be no +greater punishment than your complete silence, no greater purgatory than +the thought that I have forfeited your respect. Looking into the future I +can see no way to regain it, but if the day ever comes when a Blind +Beggar can serve you, you will show that you have forgiven him by asking +that service of him. + +I am leaving my little Napoleon for you. You once called him a little +great man. Perhaps those of us who have some elements of greatness find +our balance in something that is small and mean and mad. + +Will you tell Brooks that you are not bound to me in any way? It is best +that you should do it. I shall hope for a line from you. If it does not +come--if I have indeed lost my little friend through my own fault--then +indeed the shadows will shut me in. + +GEOFFREY. + + * * * * * + +Uncle Rodman writes: + + * * * * * + +MY BELOVED NIECE: + +Once upon a time you and I read together "The Arabian Nights," and when +we had finished the first book you laid your little hand on my knee and +looked up at me. "Is it true, Uncle Rod?" you asked. "Oh, Uncle Rod, is +it true?" And I said, "What it tells about the Roc's egg and the Old Man +of the Sea and the Serpent is not true, but what it says about the +actions and motives of people is true, because people have acted in that +way and have thought like that through all the ages, and the tales have +lived because of it, and have been written in all languages." I was sure, +when I said it, that you did not quite understand; but you were to grow +to it, which was all that was required. + +Blessed child, what your Geoffrey Fox has done, though I hate him for it +and blame him, is what other hotheads have done. The protective is not +the primitive masculine instinct. Men have thought of themselves first +and of women afterward since the beginning of time. Only with +Christianity was chivalry born in them. And since many of our youths have +elected to be pagan, what can you expect? + +So your Geoffrey Fox being pagan, primitive--primordial, whatever it is +now the fashion to call it, reverted to type, and you were the victim. + +I have read his letter and might find it in my heart to forgive him were +it not that he has made you suffer; but that I cannot forgive; although, +indeed, his coming blindness is something that pleads for him, and his +fear of it--and his fear of losing you. + +I am glad that you are coming home to me. Margaret and her family are +going away, and we can have their big house to ourselves during the +summer. We shall like that, I am sure, and we shall have many talks, and +try to straighten out this matter of dreams--and of sunsets, which is +really very important, and not in the least to be ignored. + +But let me leave this with you to ponder on. You remember how you have +told me that when you were a tiny child you walked once between me and my +good old friend, General Ross, and you heard it said by one of us that +life was what we made it. Before that you had always cried when it +rained; now you were anxious that the rain might come so that you could +see if you could really keep from crying. And when the rain arrived you +were so immensely entertained that you didn't shed a tear, and you went +to bed that night feeling like a conqueror, and never again cried out +against the elements. + +It would have been dreadful if all your life you had gone on crying about +rain, wouldn't it? And isn't this adventure your rainy day? You rose +above it, dearest child. I am proud of the way you handled your mad +lover. + +Life _is_ what we make it. Never doubt that. "He knows the water best who +has waded through it," and I have lived long and have learned my lesson. +When I knew that I could paint no more real pictures I knew that I must +have dream pictures to hang on the walls of memory. Shall I make you a +little catalogue of them, dear heart--thus: + +No. 1.--Your precious mother sewing by the west window in our shadowed +sitting-room, her head haloed by the sunset. + +No. 2.--Anne in a blue pinafore, with the wind blowing her hair back on a +gray March morning. + +No. 3.--Anne in a white frock amid a blur of candle-light on +Christmas---- + +Oh, my list would be long! People have said that I have lacked pride +because I have chosen to take my troubles philosophically. There have +been times when my soul has wept. I have cried often on my rainy days. +But--there have always been the sunsets--and after that--the stars. + +I fear that I have been but little help to you. But you know my +love--blessed one. And the eagerness with which I await your coming. Ever +your own + +UNCLE. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +_In Which There is Much Said of Marriage and of Giving in Marriage._ + + +EVE'S green-eyed cat sat on a chair and watched the flame-colored fishes. +It was her morning amusement. When her mistress came down she would have +her cream and her nap. In the meantime, the flashing, golden things in +the clear water aroused an ancient instinct. She reached out a quick paw +and patted the water, flinging showers of sparkling drops on her sleek +fur. + +Aunt Maude, eating waffles and reading her morning paper, approved her. +"I hope you'll catch them," she said, "especially the turtles and the +tadpoles--the idea of having such things where you eat." + +The green-eyed cat licked her wet paw, then she jumped down from the +chair and trotted to the door to meet Eve, who picked her up and hugged +her. "Pats," she demanded, "what have you been doing? Your little pads +are wet." + +"She's been fishing," said Aunt Maude, "in your aquarium. She has more +sense than I thought." + +Eve, pouring cream into a crystal dish, laughed. "Pats is as wise as the +ages--you can see it in her eyes. She doesn't say anything, she just +looks. Women ought to follow her example. It's the mysterious, the +silent, that draws men. Now Polly prattles and prattles, and nobody +listens, and we all get a little tired of her; don't we, Polly?" + +She set the cream carefully by the green cushion, and Pats, classically +posed on her haunches, lapped it luxuriously. The Polly-parrot coaxed and +wheedled and was rewarded with her morning biscuit. The flame-colored +fishes rose to the snowy particles which Eve strewed on the surface of +the water, and then with all of her family fed, Eve turned to the table, +sat down, and pulled away Aunt Maude's paper. + +"My dear," the old lady protested. + +"I want to talk to you," Eve announced. "Aunt Maude, I'm going to marry +Dicky." + +Aunt Maude pushed back her plate of waffles. The red began to rise in her +cheeks. "Oh, of all the fools----" + +"'He who calleth his brother a fool----'" Eve murmured pensively. "Aunt +Maude, I'm in love with him." + +"You're in love with yourself," tartly, "and with having your own way. +The husband for you is Philip Meade. But he wants you, and so--you don't +want him." + +"Dicky wants me, too," Eve said, a little wistfully; "you mustn't forget +that, Aunt Maude." + +"I'm not forgetting it." Then sharply, "Shall you go to live at +Crossroads?" + +"No. Austin has made him an offer. He's coming back to town." + +"What do you expect to live on?" + +Silence. Then, uncertainly, "I thought perhaps until he gets on his feet +you'd make us an allowance." + +The old lady exploded in a short laugh. She gathered up her paper and her +spectacles case and her bag of fancy work. Then she rose. "Not if you +marry Richard Brooks. You may as well know that now as later, Eve. All +your life you have shaken the plum tree and have gathered the fruit. You +may come to your senses when you find there isn't any tree to shake." + +The deep red in the cheeks of the old woman was matched by the red that +stained Eve's fairness. "Keep your money," she said, passionately; "I can +get along without it. You've always made me feel like a pauper, Aunt +Maude." + +The old woman's hand went up. There was about her a dignity not to be +ignored. "I think you are saying more than you mean, Eve. I have tried to +be generous." + +They were much alike as they faced each other, the same clear cold eyes, +the same set of the head, the only difference Eve's youth and +slenderness and radiant beauty. Perhaps in some far distant past Aunt +Maude had been like Eve. Perhaps in some far distant future Eve's soft +lines would stiffen into a second edition of Aunt Maude. + +"I have tried to be generous," Aunt Maude repeated. + +"You have been. I shouldn't have said that. But, Aunt Maude, it hasn't +been easy to eat the bread of dependence." + +"You are feeling that now," said the old lady shrewdly, "because you are +ready for the great adventure of being poor with your young Richard. +Well, try it. You'll wish more than once that you were back with your +old--plum tree." + +Flash of eye met flash of eye. "I shall never ask for another penny," Eve +declared. + +"I shall buy your trousseau, of course, and set you up in housekeeping, +but when a woman is married her husband must take care of her." And Aunt +Maude sailed away with her bag and her spectacles and her morning paper, +and Eve was left alone in the black and white breakfast room, where Pats +slept on her green cushion, the Polly-parrot swung in her ring, and the +flame-colored fishes hung motionless in the clear water. + +Eve ate no breakfast. She sat with her chin in her hand and tried to +think it out. Aunt Maude had not proved tractable, and Richard's income +would be small. Never having known poverty, she was not appalled by the +prospect of it. Her imagination cast a glamour over the future. She saw +herself making a home for Richard. She saw herself inviting Pip and +Winifred Ames and Tony to small suppers and perfectly served little +dinners. She did not see herself washing dishes or cooking the meals. +Knowing nothing of the day's work, how could she conceive its sordidness? + +She roused herself presently to go and write notes to her friends. +Triumphant notes which told of her happiness. + +Her note to Pip brought him that night. He came in white-faced. As she +went toward him, he rose to meet her and caught her hands in a hard grip, +looking down at her. "You're mine, Eve. Do you think I am going to let +any one else have you?" + +"Don't be silly, Pip." + +"Is it silly to say that there will never be for me any other woman? I +shall love you until I die. If that is foolishness, I never want to be +wise." + +He was kissing her hands now. + +"Don't, Pip, _don't_." + +She wrenched herself away from him, and stood as it were at bay. "You'll +get over it." + +"Shall I? How little you know me, Eve. I haven't even given you up. If I +were a story-book sort of hero I'd bestow my blessing on you and Brooks +and go and drive an ambulance in France, and break my heart at long +distance. But I shan't. I shall stay right here on the job, and see that +Brooks doesn't get you." + +"Pip, I didn't think you were so--small." + +The telephone rang. Eve answered it. "It was Winifred to wish me +happiness," she said, as she came in from the hall. + +She was blushing faintly. He gave her a keen glance. "What else did she +say?" + +"Nothing." + +"You're fibbing. Tell me the truth, Eve." + +She yielded to his masterfulness. + +"Well, she said--'I wanted it to be Pip.'" + +"Good old Win, I'll send her a bunch of roses." He wandered restlessly +about the room, then came back to her. "Why, Eve, I planned the +house--our house. It was to have the sea in front of it and a forest +behind it, and your room was to have a wide window and a balcony, and +under the balcony there was to be a rose garden." + +"How sure you were of me, Pip." + +"I have never been sure. But what I want, I--get. Remember that, dear +girl. When I shut my eyes I can see you at the head of my table, in a +high gold chair--like a throne." + +She stared at him in amazement. "Pip, it doesn't sound a bit like you." + +"No. What a man thinks is apt to be--different. On the surface I'm a +rather practical sort of fellow. But when I plan my future with you I am +playing king to your queen, and I'm not half bad at it." + +And now it was she who was restless. "If I married you, what would I get +out of it but--money?" + +"Thank you." + +"You know I don't mean it that way. But I like to think that I can help +Richard--in his career." + +"You're not made of that kind of stuff. You want your own good time. +Women who help men to achieve must be content to lose their looks and +their figures and to do without pretty clothes, and you wouldn't be +content. You want to live your own life, and be admired and petted and +envied, Eve." + +She faced him, blazing. "You and Aunt Maude and Win are all alike. You +think I can't be happy unless I live in the lap of luxury. Well, I can +tell you this, I'd rather have a crust of bread with Richard than live in +a palace with you, Pip." + +He stood up. "You don't mean it. But you needn't have put it quite that +way, and some day you'll be sorry, and you'll tell me that you're sorry. +Tell me now, Eve." + +He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her with a masterful grip. Her +eyes met his and fell. "Oh, I hate your--sureness." + +"Some day you are going to love it. Look at me, Eve." + +She forced herself to do so. But she was not at ease. Then almost +wistfully she yielded. "I--am sorry, Pip." + +His hands dropped from her shoulders. "Good little girl." + +He kissed both of her hands before he went away. "I am glad we are +friends"--that was his way of putting it--"and you mustn't forget that +some day we are going to be more than that," and when he had gone she +found herself still shaken by the sureness of his attitude. + +Pip on his way down-town stopped in to order Winifred's roses, and the +next day he went to her apartment and unburdened his heart. + +"If it was in the day of duels I'd call him out. Just at this moment I am +in the mood for pistols or poison, I'm not sure which." + +"Why not try--patience?" + +He glanced at her quickly. "You think she'll tire?" + +"I think--it can never happen. For Richard's sake I--hope not." + +"Why for his sake?" + +Winifred smiled. "I'd like to see him marry little Anne." + +"The school-teacher?" + +"Yes. Oh, I am broken-hearted to think he's spoiling Nancy's dreams for +him. There was something so idyllic in them. And now he'll marry Eve." + +"You say that as if it were a tragedy." + +"It is, for him and for her. Eve was never made to be poor." + +"Don't tell her that. She took my head off. Said she'd rather have a +crust of bread with Richard----" + +"Oh, oh!" + +"Than a palace with me." + +"Poor Pip. It wasn't nice of her." + +"I shall make her eat her words." + +Winifred shook her head. "Don't be hard on her, Pip. We women are so +helpless in our loves. Richard might make her happy if he cared enough, +but he doesn't. Perhaps Eve will be broadened and deepened by it all. I +don't know. No one knows." + +"I know this. That you and Tony seem to get a lot out of things, Win." + +"Of marriage? We do. Yet we've had all of the little antagonisms and +differences. But underneath it we know--that we're made for each other. +And that helps. It has helped us to push the wrong things out of our +lives and to hold on to the right ones." + +Philip's young face was set. "I wanted to have my chance with Eve. We are +young and pretty light-weight on the surface, but life together might +make us a bit more like you and Tony. And now Richard is spoiling +things." + +Back at Crossroads, Nancy was trying to convince her son that he was not +spoiling things for her. "I have always been such a dreamer, dear boy. +It was silly for me to think that I could stand between you and your big +future. I have written to Sulie Tyson, and she'll stay with me, and you +can run down for week-ends--and I'll always have David." + +"Mother, let me go to Eve and tell her----" + +"Tell her what?" + +"That I shall stay--with you." + +She was white with the whiteness which had never left her since he had +told her that he was going to marry Eve. + +"Hickory-Dickory, if I kept you here in the end you would hate me." + +"_Mother!_" + +"Not consciously. But I should be a barrier--and you'd find yourself +wishing for--freedom. If I let you go--you'll come back now and then--and +be--glad." + +He gathered her up in his arms and declared fiercely that he would not +leave her, but she stayed firm. And so the thing was settled, and as soon +as he could settle his affairs at Crossroads he was to go to Austin. + +Anne, writing to Uncle Rod about it, said: + +"St. Michael is to marry the Lily-of-the-Field. You see, after all, he +likes that kind of thing, though I had fancied that he did not. She is +not as fine and simple as he is, and somehow I can't help feeling sorry. + +"But that isn't the worst of it, Uncle Bobs. He is going back to New +York. And now what becomes of _his_ sunsets? I don't believe he ever had +any. And oh, his poor little mother. She is fooling him and making him +think that it is just as it should be and that she was foolish to expect +anything else. But to me it is unspeakable that he should leave her. But +he'll have Eve Chesley. Think of changing Nancy Brooks for Eve!" + +It was at Beulah's wedding that Anne and Richard saw each other for the +last time before his departure. + +Beulah was married in the big front room at Bower's. She was married at +six o'clock because it was easy for the farmer folk to come at that time, +and because the evening could be given up afterward to the reception and +a big supper and Beulah and Eric could take the ten o'clock train for New +York. + +She had no bridesmaids except Peggy, who was quite puffed up with the +importance of her office. Anne had instructed her, and at the last moment +held a rehearsal on the side porch. + +"Now, play I am the bride, Peggy." + +"You look like a bride," Peggy said. "Aren't you ever going to be a +bride, Miss Anne?" + +"I am not sure, Peggy. Perhaps no one will ever ask me." + +"I'd ask you if I were a man," Peggy reassured her. "Now, go on and show +me, Anne." + +"You must take Beulah's bouquet when she hands it to you, and after she +is married you must give it back to her, and----" + +"And then I must kiss her." + +"You must let Eric kiss her first." + +"Why?" + +"Because he will be her husband." + +"But I've been her sister for ever and ever." + +"Oh, but a husband, Peggy. Husbands are _very_ important." + +"Why are they?" + +"Well, they give you a new name and a new house, and you have new clothes +to marry them in, and you go away with them on a honeymoon." + +"What's a honeymoon?" + +"The honey is for the sweetness, and the moon is for the madness, Peggy, +dear." + +"Do people always go away on trains for their honeymoons?" + +"Not always. I shouldn't like a train. I should like to get into a boat +with silver sails, and sail straight down a singing river into the heart +of the sunset." + +"Well, of course, you couldn't," said the plump and practical Peggy, "but +it sounds nice to say it. Does our river sing, Miss Anne?" + +"Yes." + +"What does it say?" + +Anne stretched out her arms with a little yearning gesture. "It +says--'_Come and see the world, see the world, see the world!_'" + +"It never says that to me." + +"Perhaps you haven't ears to hear, Peggy." + +It was a very charming wedding. Richard was there and Nancy, and David +and Brinsley. The country folk came from far and wide, and there was a +brave showing of Old Gentlemen from Bower's who brought generous gifts +for Peter's pretty daughter. + +Richard, standing back of his mother during the ceremony, could see over +her head to where Anne waited not far from Peggy to prompt her in her +bridesmaid's duties. She was in white. Her dark hair was swept up in the +fashion which she had borrowed from Eve. She seemed very small and slight +against the background of Bower's buxom kinsfolk. + +As he caught her eye he smiled at her, but she did not smile back. She +felt that she could not. How could he smile with that little mother +drooping before his very eyes? How _could_ he? + +She found herself later, when the refreshments were served, brooding over +Nancy. The little lady tasted nothing, but was not permitted to refuse +the cup of tea which Anne brought to her. + +"I had it made especially for you," she said; "you looked so tired." + +"I am tired. You see we are having rather strenuous days." + +"I know." + +"It isn't easy to let--him--go." + +"It isn't easy for anybody to let him go." + +The eyes of the two women went to where Richard in the midst of a +protesting group was trying to explain his reasons for deserting +Crossroads. + +He couldn't explain. They had a feeling that he was turning his back on +them. "It's hard lines to have a good doctor and then lose him," was the +general sentiment. He was made to feel that it would have been better not +to have come than to end by deserting. + +He was aware that he had forfeited something precious, and he voiced his +thought when he joined his mother and Anne. + +"I'll never have a practice quite like this. Neighborhood ties are +something they know little about in cities." + +His mother smiled up at him bravely. "There'll be other things." + +"Perhaps;" he patted her hand. Then he fired a question at Anne. "Do you +think I ought to go?" + +"How can I tell?" Her eyes met his candidly. "I felt when you came that I +couldn't understand how a man could bury himself here. And now I am +wondering how you can leave. It seems as if you belong." + +"I know what you mean." + +She went on: "And I can't quite think of this dear lady alone." + +Nancy stopped her. "Don't speak of that, my dear. I don't want you to +speak of it. It is right that Richard should go." + +Anne was telling herself passionately that it was not right, when Beulah +sent for her, and presently the little bride came down in her going-away +gown, to be joined by Eric in the stiff clothes which seemed to rob him +of the picturesqueness which belonged to him in less formal moments. + +But Richard had no eyes for the bride and groom; he saw only Anne at the +head of the stairway where he had first talked to her. How long ago it +seemed, and how sweet she had been, and how shy. + +The train was on the bridge, and a laughing crowd hurried out into the +night to meet it. Peggy in the lead threw roses with a prodigal hand. +"Kiss me, Beulah," she begged at the last. + +Beulah bent down to her, then was lifted in Eric's strong arms to the +platform. Then the train drew out and she was gone! + +Alone on the stairway, Anne and Richard had a moment before the crowd +swept back upon them. + +"Dr. Brooks, take your mother with you." + +"She won't go." + +"Then stay with her." + +He caught at the edge of her flowing sleeve, and held it as if he would +anchor her to him. "Do you want me to stay?" + +Her eyes came up to him. She saw in them something which lifted her +above and beyond her doubts of him. She had an ineffable sense of having +found something which she could never lose. + +Then as he drew back he was stammering, "Forgive me. I have been wanting +to wish you happiness. Geoffrey told me----" + +And now Peggy bore down upon them and all the heedless happy crowd, and +Richard said, "Good-night," and was gone. + +Yet when she was left alone, Anne felt desperately that she should have +shouted after him, "I am not going to marry Geoffrey Fox. I am not going +to be married at all." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +_In Which Anne Asks and Jimmie Answers._ + + +"'A MONEYLESS man,'" said Uncle Rod, "'goes quickly through the market.'" + +He had a basket on his arm. Anne, who was at her easel, looked up. "What +did you buy?" + +He laughed. His laugh had in it a quality of youth which seemed to +contradict the signs of age which were upon him. Yet even these signs +were modified by the carefulness of his attire and the distinction of his +carriage. Great-uncle Rodman had been a dandy in his day, and even now +his Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, his long divided beard and flowing +tie gave him an air half foreign, wholly his own. + +In his basket was a melon, crusty rolls, peaches and a bottle of cream. + +"Such extravagance!" Anne said, as he showed her the bottle. + +"It was the price of two chops. And not a lamb the less for it. Two chops +would have been an extravagance, and now we shall feast innocently and +economically." + +"Where shall we eat?" Anne asked. + +"Under the oak?" + +She shook her head. "Too sunny." + +"In the garden?" + +"Not till to-night--people can see us from the road." + +"You choose then." It was a game that they had played ever since she had +come to him. It gave to each meal the atmosphere of an adventure. + +"I choose," she clapped her hands, "I choose--by the fish-pond, Uncle +Rod." + +The fish-pond was at the end of the garden walk. Just beyond it a wooden +gate connected a high brick wall and opened upon an acre or two of +pasture where certain cows browsed luxuriously. The brick wall and the +cows and the quiet of the corner made the fish-pond seem miles away from +the town street which was faced by the front of Cousin Margaret's house. + +The fish-pond was a favorite choice in the game played by Anne and Uncle +Rod. But they did not always choose it because that would have made it +commonplace and would have robbed it of its charm. + +Anne, rising to arrange the tray, was stopped by Uncle Rodman. "Sit +still, my dear; I'll get things ready." + +To see him at his housekeeping was a pleasant sight. He liked it, and +gave to it his whole mind. The peeling of the peaches with a silver +knife, the selection of a bowl of old English ware to put them in, and +making of the coffee in a copper machine, the fresh linen, the roses as a +last perfect touch. + +Anne carried the tray, for his weak arm could not be depended upon; and +by the fish-pond they ate their simple meal. + +The old fishes had crumbs and came to the top of the water to get them, +and a cow looking over the gate was rewarded by the remaining half of the +crusty roll. She walked away presently to give place to a slender youth +who had crossed the fields and now stood with his hat off looking in. + +"If it isn't Anne," he said, "and Uncle Rod." + +Uncle Rod stood up. He did not smile and he did not ask the slender youth +to enter. But Anne was more hospitable. + +"Come in, Jimmie," she said. "I can't offer you any lunch because we have +eaten it all up. But there's some coffee." + +Jimmie entered with alacrity. He had come back from New York in a mood of +great discontent, to meet the pleasant news that Anne Warfield was in +town. He had flown at once to find her. If he had expected the Fatted +Calf, he found none. Uncle Rodman left them at once. He had a certain +amount of philosophy, but it had never taught him patience with Jimmie +Ford. + +Jimmie drank a cup of coffee, and talked of his summer. + +"Saw your Dr. Richard in New York, out at Austin's." + +"Yes." + +"He's going to marry Eve." + +"Is he?" + +"Yes. I don't understand what she sees in him--he isn't good style." + +"He doesn't have to be." + +"Why not?" + +"Men like Richard Brooks mean more to the world than just--clothes, +Jimmie." + +"I don't see it." + +"You wouldn't." + +"Why shouldn't I?" + +"Well, you look so nice in your clothes--and you need them to look nice +in." + +He stared at her. He felt dimly that she was making fun of him. + +"From the way you put it," he said, with irritation, "from the way you +put it any one might think that it was just my clothes----" + +"That make you attractive? Oh, _no_, Jimmie. You have nice eyes and--and +a way with you." + +She was sewing on a scrap of fancy work, and her own eyes were on it. She +was as demure as possible, but she seemed unusually and disconcertingly +self-possessed. + +And now Jimmie became plaintive. Plaintiveness had always been his strong +suit with Anne. He was eager for sympathy. His affair with Eve had hurt +his vanity. + +"I have never seen a girl like her. She doesn't care what the world +thinks. She doesn't care what any one thinks. She goes right along taking +everything that comes her way--and giving nothing." + +"Did you want her to give you--anything, Jimmie?" + +"Me? Not me. She's a beauty and all that. But I wouldn't marry her if she +were as rich as Rockefeller--and she isn't. Her money is her Aunt +Maude's." + +"Oh, Jimmie--sour grapes." + +"Sour nothing. She isn't my kind. She said one day that if she wanted a +man she'd ask him to marry her. That it was a woman's right to choose. I +can't stand that sort of thing." + +"But if she should ask you, Jimmie?" + +Again he stared at her. "I jolly well shouldn't give her a chance. Not +after the way she treated me." + +"What way?" + +"Oh, making me think I was the whole thing--and then--throwing me down." + +"Oh, so you don't like being thrown down?" + +"No. I don't like that kind of a woman. You know the kind of woman I +like, Anne." + +The caressing note in his voice came to her like an echo of other days. +But now it had no power to move her. + +"I am not sure that I do know the kind of woman you like--tell me." + +"Oh, I like a woman that is a woman, and makes a man feel that he's the +whole thing." + +"But mustn't he be the whole thing to make her feel that he is?" + +He flung himself out of his chair and stood before her. "Anne," he +demanded, "can't you do anything but ask questions? You aren't a bit like +you used to be." + +She laid down her work and now he could see her eyes. Such steady eyes! +"No, I'm not like myself. You see, Jimmie, I have been away for a year, +and one learns such a lot in a year." + +He felt a sudden sense of loss. There had always been the old Anne to +come back to. The Anne who had believed and had sympathized. Again his +voice took on a plaintive note. "Be good to me, girl," he said. Then very +low, "Anne, I was half afraid to come to-day." + +"Afraid--why?" + +"Oh, I suppose you think I acted like a--cad." + +"What do _you_ think?" + +"Oh, stop asking questions. It was the only thing to do. You were poor +and I was poor, and there wasn't anything ahead of me--or of you--surely +you can't blame me." + +"How can I blame you for what was, after all, my great good fortune?" + +"Your what?" + +She said it again, quietly, "My great good fortune, Jimmie. I couldn't +see it then. Indeed, I was very unhappy and sentimental and cynical over +it. But now I know what life can hold for me--and what it would not have +held if I had married you." + +"Anne, who has been making love to you?" + +"Jimmie!" + +"Oh, no woman ever talks like that until she has found somebody else. And +I thought you were constant." + +"Constant to what?" + +"To the thought--to--to the thought of what we might be to each other +some day." + +"And in the meantime you were asking Eve to marry you. Was it her money +that you wanted?" + +"Her money! Do you think I am a fortune-hunter?" + +"I am asking you, Jimmie?" + +"For Heaven's sake, stop asking questions. You know how a pretty woman +goes to my head. And she's the kind that flits away to make you follow. I +can't fancy your doing that sort of a thing, Anne." + +"No," quietly, "women like myself, Jimmie, go on expecting that things +will come to them--and when they don't come, we keep on--expecting. But +somehow we never seem to be able to reach out our hands to take--what we +might have." + +He began to feel better. This was the wistful Anne of the old days. + +"There has never been any one like you, Anne. It seems good to be here. +Women like Eve madden a man, but your kind are so--comfortable." + +Always the old Jimmie! Wanting his ease! After he had left her she sat +looking out over the gate beyond the fields to the gold of the west. + +When at last she went up to the house Uncle Rod had had his nap and was +in his big chair on the front porch. + +"Jimmie and I are friends again," she told him. + +He looked at her inquiringly. "Real friends?" + +"Surface friends. He is coming again to tell me his troubles and get my +sympathy. Uncle Rod, what makes me so clear-eyed all of a sudden?" + +He smoothed his beard. "My dear, 'the eyes of the hare are one thing, the +eyes of the owl another.' You are looking at life from a different point +of view. I knew that if you ever met a real man you'd know the difference +between him and Jimmie Ford." + +She came over, and standing behind him, put her hands on his shoulders. +"I've found him, Uncle Rod." + +"St. Michael?" + +"Yes." + +"Poor little girl." + +"I am not poor, Uncle Rod. I am rich. It is enough to have known him." + +The sunset was showing above the wooden gate. The cows had gone home. The +old fish swam lazily in the shadowed water. + +Anne drew her low chair to the old man's side. "Uncle Rod, isn't it +queer, the difference between the things we ask for and the things we +get? To have a dream come true doesn't mean always that you must get what +you want, does it? For sometimes you get something that is more wonderful +than any dream. And now if you'll listen, and not look at me, I'll tell +you all about it, you darling dear." + + * * * * * + +It was in late August that Anne received the first proof sheets of +Geoffrey's book. "I want you to read it before any one else. It will be +dedicated to you and it is better than I dared believe--I could never +have written it without your help, your inspiration." + +It was a great book. Anne, remembering the moment the plot had been +conceived on that quiet night by Peggy's bedside when she had seen the +pussy cat and had heard the tinkling bell, laid it down with a feeling +almost of awe. + +She wrote Geoffrey about it. It was her first real letter to him. She had +written one little note of forgiveness and of friendliness, but she had +felt that for a time at least she should do no more than that, and Uncle +Rod had commended her resolution. + +"Hot fires had best burn out," he said. + +"If you never do anything else," Anne wrote to Geoffrey, "you can be +content. There isn't a line of pot-boiling in it. It is as if you had +dipped your pen in magic ink. Rereading it to Uncle Rodman has brought +back the nights when we talked it over, and I can't help feeling a little +peacock-y to know that I had a part in it. + +"And now I am going to tell you what Uncle Rod's comment was when I +finished the very last word. He sat as still as a solemn old statue, and +then he said, 'Geoffrey Fox is a great man. No one could have written +like that who was sordid of mind or small of soul.' + +"If you knew my Uncle Rodman you would understand all that his opinion +stands for. He is never flattering, but he has had much time to think--he +is like one of the old prophets--so that, indeed, I sometimes feel that +he ought to sing his sentences like David, instead of saying wise things +in an ordinary way. And his proverbs! he has such a collection, he is +making a book of them, and he digs into old volumes in all sorts of +languages--oh, some day you must know him! + +"I am going back to Crossroads. It seems that my work lies there. And I +have great news for you. I am to live with Mrs. Brooks. She has her +cousin, Sulie Tyson, with her, but she wants me. And it will be so much +better than Bower's. + +"All through Mrs. Nancy's letters I can read her loneliness. She tries to +keep it out. But she can't. She is proud of her son's success--but she +feels the separation intensely. He has his work, she only her thoughts of +him--and that's the tragedy. + +"In the meantime, here we are at Cousin Margaret's doing funny little +stunts in the way of cooking and catering. We can't afford the kind of +housekeeping which requires servants, so it is a case of plain living and +high thinking. Uncle Rod hates to eat anything that has been killed, and +makes all sorts of excuses not to. He won't call himself a vegetarian, +for he thinks that people who label themselves are apt to be cranks. So +he does our bit of marketing and comes home triumphant with his basket +innocent of birds or beasts, and we live on ambrosia and nectar or the +modern equivalent. We are quite classic with our feasts by the old +fish-pond at the end of the garden. + +"Cousin Margaret's garden is flaming in the August days with phlox, and +is fragrant with day lilies. There's a grass walk and a sun-dial, and +best of all, as I have said, the fish-pond. + +"And while I am on the subject of gardens, Uncle Rod rises up in wrath +when people insist upon giving the botanical names to all of our lovely +blooms. He says that the pedants are taking all of the poetry out of +language, and it does seem so, doesn't it? Why should we call larkspur +_Delphinium_? or a forget-me-not _Myostis Palustria_, and would a +primrose by the river's brim ever be to you or to me _primula vulgaris_? +Uncle Rod says that a rose by any other name would _not_ smell as sweet; +and it is fortunate that the worst the botanists may do cannot spoil the +generic--_rosa_. + +"And now with my talk of Uncle Rod and of Me, I am stringing this letter +far beyond all limits, and yet I have not told you half the news. + +"I had a little note from Beulah, and she and Eric are at home in the +Playhouse. She loves your silver candlesticks. So many of her presents +were practical and she prefers the 'pretties.' + +"You have heard, of course, that Dr. Brooks is to marry Eve Chesley. The +wedding will not take place for some time. I wonder if they will live +with Aunt Maude. I can't quite imagine Dr. Richard's wings clipped to +such a cage." + +She signed herself, "Always your friend, Anne Warfield." + +Far up in the Northern woods Geoffrey read her letter. He could use his +eyes a little, but most of the time he lay with them shut and Mimi read +to him, or wrote for him at his dictation. He had grown to be very +dependent on Mimi; there were even times when he had waked in the night, +groping and calling out, and she had gathered him in her arms and had +held him against her breast until he stopped shaking and shivering and +saying that he could not see. + +He spoke her name now, and she came to him. He put Anne's letter in her +hand. "Read it!" and when she had read, he said, "You see she says that I +am great--and she used to say it. Am I, Mimi?" + +"Oh, Geoffrey, yes." + +"I want you to make it true, Mimi. Shall I begin my new book to-morrow?" + +It was what she had wanted, what she had begged that he would do, but he +had refused to listen. And now he was listening to another voice! + +She brought her note-book, and sat beside him. Being ignorant of +shorthand she had invented a little system of her own, and she was glad +when she could make him laugh over her funny pot-hooks and her straggling +sketches. + +Thus in the darkness Geoffrey struggled and strove. "Speaking of +candlesticks," he wrote to Anne, "it was as if a thousand candles lighted +my world when I read your letter!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +_In Which Pan Pipes to the Stars._ + + +THAT Richard in New York should miss his mother was inevitable. But he +was not homesick. He was too busy for that. Austin's vogue was +tremendous. + +"Every successful man ought to be two men," he told Richard, as they +talked together one Sunday night at Austin's place in Westchester, +"'another and himself,' as Browning puts it. Then there would be one to +labor and the other to enjoy. I want to retire, and I can't. There's a +selfish instinct in all of us to grip and hold. That is why I am pinning +my faith to you. You can slip in as I slip out. I have visions of riding +to hounds and sailing the seas some day, to say nothing of putting up a +good game of golf. But perhaps that's a dream. A man can't get away from +his work, not when he loves it." + +"That's why you're such a success, sir," Richard told him, honestly; "you +go to every operation as if it were a banquet." + +Austin laughed. "I'm not such a ghoul. But there's always the wonder of +it with me. I sometimes wish I had been a churchgoing man, Brooks. There +isn't much more for me to learn about bodies, but there's much about +souls. I have a feeling that some day in some physical experiment I shall +find tangible evidence of the spiritual. That's why I say my prayers to +Something every night, and I rather think It's God." + +"I know it's God," said Richard, simply, "on such a night as this." + +They were silent in the face of the evening's beauty. The great trees on +the old estate were black against a silver sky. White statues shone like +pale ghosts among them. Back of Richard and his host, in a semicircle of +dark cedars, a marble Pan piped to the stars. + +"And in the cities babies are sleeping on fire escapes," Austin +meditated. "If I had had a son I should have sent him to the slums to +find his work. But the Fates have given me only Marie-Louise." + +And now his laugh was forced. "Brooks, the Gods have checkmated me. +Marie-Louise is the son of her father. I had planned that she should be +the daughter of her mother. I sowed some rather wild oats in my youth, +and waked in middle age to the knowledge that my materialism had led me +astray. So I married an idealist. I wanted my children to have a +spiritual background of character such as I have not possessed. And the +result of that marriage is--Marie-Louise! If she has a soul it is yet to +be discovered." + +"She is young. Give her time." + +"I have been giving her time for eighteen years. I have wanted to see her +mother in her, to see some gleam of that exquisite fineness. There are +things we men, the most material of us, want in our women, and I want it +in Marie-Louise. But she gives back what I have given her--nothing more. +And I don't know what to do with her." + +"Her mother?" Richard hinted. + +"Julie is worn out with trying to meet a nature so unlike her own. Our +love for each other has made us understand. But neither of us understands +Marie-Louise. I sent her away to school, but she wouldn't stay. She likes +her home and she hates rules. She loves animals, and if she were a boy +she would practice medicine. Being a woman and having no outlet for her +energies, she is freakish. You saw the way she was dressed at dinner." + +"I liked it," Richard said; "all that dead silver with her red hair." + +"But it is too--sophisticated, for a young girl. Why, man, she ought to +be in white frocks and pearls, and putting cushions behind her mother's +back." + +"You say that because her mother wore white and pearls, and put +cushions behind _her_ mother's back. There aren't many of the +white-frocks-and-pearls kind left. It's a new generation. Perhaps dead +silver with red hair is an expression of it. And it is we who don't +understand." + +"Perhaps. But it's a problem." Austin rose. "If you'll excuse me, Brooks, +I'll go to my wife. We always read together on Sunday nights." + +He sent Marie-Louise out to Richard. She came through the starlight, a +shining figure in her silver dress, with a silver Persian kitten hugged +up in her arms. She sat on the sun-dial and swung her jade bracelet for +the kitten to play with. + +"Dad and mother are reading the Bible. He doesn't believe in it, and she +gets him to listen once a week. And then she reads the prayers for the +day. When I was a little girl I had to listen--but never again!" + +"Why not?" + +"Why should I listen to things that I don't believe? To-night it is the +ten virgins and their lamps. And Dad's pretending that he's interested. I +am writing a play about it, but mother doesn't know. The Wise Virgins are +Bernard Shaw women who know what they want in the way of husbands and go +to it. The Foolish Virgins are the old maids, who think it unwomanly to +get ready, and find themselves left in the end!" + +The silver kitten clawed at the silver dress, and climbed on her +mistress's shoulder. + +"All of the parables make good modern plots. Mother would be shocked if +she knew I was writing them that way. So I don't tell her. Mother is a +dear, but she doesn't understand. I should like to tell things to Dad, +but he won't listen. If I were a boy he would listen. But he thinks I +ought to be like mother." + +She slipped from the sun-dial and came and sat in the chair which her +father had vacated. "If I were a boy I should have studied medicine. I +wanted to be a trained nurse, but Dad wouldn't let me. He said I'd hate +having to do the hard work, and perhaps I should. I like to wear pretty +clothes, and a nurse never has a chance." + +"Perhaps you'll marry." + +"Oh, no. I should _hate_ to be like mother." + +"Why?" + +"She just lives for Dad. Now I couldn't do that. I am not going to marry. +I don't like men. They ask too much. I like books and cats and being by +myself. I am never lonesome. Sometimes I talk to Pan over there, and +pretend he is playing to me on his pipes, and then I write poetry. Real +poetry. I'll read it to you some time. There's one called 'The Rose +Garden.' I wrote it about a woman who was a patient of father's. When she +knew she was going to die she wrote him a little note and asked him to +see that her body was cremated, and that the ashes were strewn over the +roses in his garden. He didn't seem to see anything in it but just a +sick woman's fancy. But I knew that she was in love with him. And my poem +tells that her blessed dust gathered itself into a gentle wraith which +lives and breathes near him." + +"And you aren't afraid to feel that her gentle wraith is here in the +garden?" + +"Why should I be? I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in fairies, +either, or Santa Claus. But I like to read about them and write about +them, and--and wish that it might be so." + +There was something almost wistful in her voice. Richard, aware suddenly +of what a child she was, bent forward. + +"I think I half believe in fairies, and Christmas wouldn't be anything +without Santa Claus, and as for the soul of your gentle lady, I have a +feeling that it is finding Heaven in the rose garden." + +She was stroking the silver kitten which had curled up in her lap. "I +wish I weren't such a--heathen," she said, suddenly. "I know what you +mean. But it is only the poetic sense in me that makes me know. I can't +_believe_ anything. Not about souls--or prayers. Do you ever pray?" + +"Every night. On my knees." + +"On your knees? Oh, is it as bad as that?" + + * * * * * + +Richard, writing to his mother, said of Marie-Louise, "Her mind isn't in +a healthy state. It hasn't anything to feed on. Her father is too busy +and her mother too ill to realize that she needs companionship of a +certain kind. I wish she might have been a pupil at the Crossroads +school, with Anne Warfield for her teacher. But no hope of that." + +He wrote, too, of his rushing days, and Nancy, answering, hid from him +the utter hopelessness of her outlook. Her life began and ended with his +letters and the week-ends which he was able to give her. But some of his +week-ends had to be spent with Eve; a man cannot completely ignore the +fact that he has a fiancee, and Richard would have been less than human +if he had not responded to the appeal of youth and beauty. So he motored +with Eve and danced with Eve, and did all of the delightful summer things +which are possible in the big city near the sea. Aunt Maude went to the +North Shore, but Eve stayed with Winifred, and wove about Richard her +spells of flattery and of frivolity. + +"I want to be near you, Dicky boy. If I'm not you'll work too hard." + +"It is work that I like." + +"I believe that you like it better than you do me, Dicky." + +"Don't be silly, Eve." + +"You are always saying that. Do you like your work better than you do me, +Dicky?" + +"Of course not." But he had no pretty things to say. + +The life that he lived with her, however, and with Pip and Winifred and +Tony was a heady wine which swept away regrets. He had no time to think. +He worked by day and played by night, and often after their play there +was work again. Now and then, as the Sunday night when he had first met +Marie-Louise, he motored with Austin out to Westchester. Mrs. Austin +spent her summers there. Long journeys tired her, and she would not leave +her husband. Marie-Louise stayed at "Rose Acres" because she hated big +hotels, and found cottage colonies stupid. The great gardens swept down +to the river--the wide, blue river with the high bluffs on the sunset +side. + +The river at Bower's was not blue; it showed in the spring the red of the +clay which was washed into it, and now and then a clear green when the +rains held off, but it was rarely blue except on certain sapphire days in +the fall, when a northwest wind swept all clouds from the sky. + +And this was not a singing river. It was too near the sea, and too full +of boats, and there was no reason why it should say, "_Come and see--come +and see--the world_," when the world was at its feet! + +And so the great Hudson had no song for Richard. Yet now and then, as he +walked down to it in the warm darkness, his ears seemed to catch a faint +echo of the harmonies which had filled his soul on the day that Anne +Warfield had dried her hair on the bank of the old river at Bower's, and +had walked with him in the wood. + +Except at such moments, however, it must be confessed that he thought +little of Anne Warfield. It hurt to think of her. And he was too much of +a surgeon to want to turn the knife in the wound. + +Marie-Louise, developing a keen interest in his affairs as they grew +better acquainted, questioned him about Evelyn. + +"Dad says you are going to marry her." + +"Yes." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"Rather more than that." + +"Why don't you bring her out?" + +"Nobody asked me, sir, she said." + +She flashed a smile at him. + +"I like your nursery-rhyme way of talking. You are the humanest thing +that we have ever had in this house. Mother is a harp of a thousand +strings, and Dad is a dynamo. But you are flesh and blood." + +"Thank you." + +"I wish you'd ask your Evelyn out here, and her friends. For tea and +tennis some Saturday afternoon. I want to see you together." + +But after she had seen them together, she said, shrewdly, "You are not in +love with her." + +"I am going to marry her, child. Isn't that proof enough?" + +"It isn't any proof at all. The big man is the one who really cares." + +"The big man? Pip?" + +"Is that what you call him? He looks at her like a dog waiting for a +bone. And he brightens when she speaks to him. And her eyes are always on +you and yours are never on her." + +"Marie-Louise, you are an uncanny creature. Like your little silver cat. +She watches mice and you watch me. I have a feeling that you are going to +pounce on me." + +"Some day I shall pounce," she poked her finger at him, "and shake you as +my little cat shakes a mouse, and you'll wake up." + +"Am I asleep, Marie-Louise?" + +"Yes. You haven't heard Pan pipe." She was leaning on the sun-dial and +looking up at the grinning god. "Men who live in cities have no ears to +hear." + +"Are you a thousand years old, Marie-Louise?" + +"I am as old as the centuries," she told him gravely. "I played with Pan +when the world was young." + +They smiled at each other, and then he said, "My mother wants me to live +in the country. Do you think if I were there I should hear Pan pipe?" + +"Not if you were there because your mother wished it. It is only when you +love it yourself that the river calls and you hear the fluting of the +wind in the rushes." + +It was an August Saturday, hot and humid. Marie-Louise was in thin white, +but it was a white with a difference from the demure summer frocks of a +former generation. The modern note was in the white fur which came high +up about Marie-Louise's throat. Yet she did not look warm. Her skin was +as pale as the pearls in her ears. Her red hair flamed, but without +warmth; it rippled back from her forehead to a cool and classic coil. + +"If you marry your Eve," she told Richard, "and stay with father, you'll +grow rich and fat, and forget the state of your soul." + +"I thought you didn't believe in souls." + +She flushed faintly. "I believe in yours. But your Eve doesn't. She likes +you because you don't care, and everybody else does. And that isn't +love." + +"What is love?" + +She pondered. "I don't know. I've never felt it. And I don't want to feel +it. If I loved too much I should die--and if I didn't love enough I +should be ashamed." + +"You are a queer child, Marie-Louise." + +"I am not a child. Dad thinks I am, and mother. But they don't know." + +There were day lilies growing about the sun-dial. She gathered a handful +of white blooms and laid them at the feet of the piping Pan. "I shall +write a poem about it," she said, "of a girl who loved a marble god, and +who found it--enough. Every day she laid a flower at his feet. And a +human came to woo her, and she told him, 'If I loved you, you would ask +more of me than my marble lover. He asks only that I lay flowers at his +feet.'" + +He could never be sure whether she was in jest or earnest. And now she +narrowed her eyes in a quizzical smile and was gone. + +He spoke of Marie-Louise to Eve. "She hasn't enough to do. She ought to +be busy with her fancy work and her household matters." + +"No woman is busy with household matters in this age, Dicky. Nor with +fancy work. Is that what you expect of a wife?" + +He didn't know what he expected, and he told her so. But he knew he was +expecting more than she was prepared to give. Eve had an +off-with-the-old-and-on-with-the-new theory of living which left him +breathless. She expressed it one night when she said that she shouldn't +have "obey" in her marriage service. "I never expect to mind you, Dicky, +so what's the use?" + +There was no use, of course. Yet he had a feeling that he was being +robbed of something sweet and sacred. The quaint old service asked things +of men as well as of women. Good and loving and fine things. He was +old-fashioned enough to want to promise all that it asked, and to have +his wife promise. + +Eve laughed, too, at Richard's grace before meat. "You mustn't embarrass +me at formal dinners, Dicky. Somehow it won't seem quite in keeping with +the cocktails, will it?" + +Thus the spirit of Eve, contending with all that made him the son of his +mother, meeting his spiritual revolts with material arguments, banking +the fires of his flaming aspirations! + +Yet he rarely let himself dwell upon this aspect of it. He had set his +feet in a certain path, and he was prepared to follow it. + +On this path, at every turning, he met Philip. The big man had not been +driven from the field by the fact of Eve's engagement. He still asked her +to go with him, he still planned pleasures for her. His money made things +easy, and while he included Richard in most of his plans, he looked upon +him as a necessary evil. Eve refused to go without her young doctor. + +Now and then, however, he had her alone. "Dicky's called to an +appendicitis case," she informed him ruefully, one night over the +telephone, "and I am dead lonesome. Come and cheer me up." + +He went to her, and during the evening proposed a week-end yachting trip +which should take them to the North Shore and Aunt Maude. + +"Is Dicky invited?" + +"Of course. But I'm not sure that I want him." + +"He wouldn't come if he knew that you felt like that." + +"It isn't anything personal. And you know my manner is perfect when I'm +with him." + +"Yes. Poor Dicky. Pip, we are a pair of deceivers. I sometimes think I +ought to tell him." + +"There's nothing to tell." + +"Nothing tangible,--but he's so straightforward. And he'd hate the idea +that I'm letting you--make love to me." + +"I don't make love. I have never touched the tip of your finger." + +"_Pip!_ Of course not. But your eyes make love, and your manner--and deep +down in my heart I am afraid." + +"Afraid of what?" + +"That Fate isn't going to give me what I want. I don't want you, Pip. I +want Dicky. And if you loved me--you'd let me alone." + +"Tell me to go,--and I won't come back." + +"Not ever?" + +"Never." + +She weakened. "But I don't want you to go away. You see, you are my good +friend, Pip." + +She should not have let him stay. She knew that. She found it necessary +to apologize to Richard. "You see, Pip cares an awful lot." + +Richard had little sympathy. "He might as well take his medicine and not +hang around you, Eve." + +"If you would hang around a little more perhaps he wouldn't." + +"I am very busy. You know that." + +His voice was stern. "If I am a busy husband, will you make that an +excuse for having Pip at your heels?" + +"_Richard._" + +"I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. But marriage to me means +more than good times. Life means more than good times. When I am here in +New York it seems to me sometimes that I am drugged by work and pleasure. +That there isn't a moment in which to live in a leisurely thoughtful +sense." + +"You should have stayed at Crossroads." + +"I can't go back. I have burned my bridges. Austin expects things of me, +and I must live up to his expectations. And, besides, I like it." + +"Really, Dicky?" + +"Really. There's a stimulus about the rush of it and the big things we +are doing. Austin is a giant. My association with him is the biggest +thing that has ever come into my life." + +"Bigger than your love for me?" + +Thus she brought him back to it. Making always demands upon him which he +could not meet. He found himself harassed by her continued harping on the +personal point of view, yet there were moments when she swung him into +step with her. And one of the moments came when she spoke of the yachting +trip. It was very hot, and Richard loved the sea. + +"Dicky, I'll keep Pip in the background if you I promise to come." + +"How can you keep him in the background when he is our host?" + +"He is going to invite Marie-Louise. And he'll have to be nice to her. +And you and I----! Dicky, we'll feel the slap of the breeze in our faces, +and forget that there's a big city back of us with sick people in it, and +slums and hot nights. Dicky--I love you--and I am going to be your wife. +Won't you come--because I want you--_Dicky_?" + +There were tears on her cheeks as she made her plea, and he was always +moved by her tears. It was his protective sense that had first tied him +to her; it was still through his chivalry that she made her most potent +appeal. + +Marie-Louise was glad to go. "It will be like watching a play." + +She and Richard were waiting for Pip's "Mermaid" to make a landing at the +pier at Rose Acres. A man-servant with their bags stood near, and +Marie-Louise's maid was coated and hatted to accompany her mistress. "It +will be like watching a play," Marie-Louise repeated. "The eternal trio. +Two men and a girl." + +She waved to the quartette on the forward deck. "Your big man looks fine +in his yachting things. And your Eve is nice in white." + +Marie-Louise was not in white. In spite of the heat she was wrapped to +the ears in a great coat of pale buff. On her head was a Chinese hat of +yellow straw, with a peacock's feather. Yet in spite of the blueness and +yellowness, and the redness of her head, she preserved that air of +amazing coolness, as if her blood were mixed with snow and ran slowly. + +Arriving on deck, she gave Pip her hand. "I am glad it is clear. I hate +storms. I am going to ask Dr. Brooks to pray that it won't be rough. He +is a good man, and the gods should listen." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +_In Which Fear Walks in a Storm._ + + +THE "Mermaid," having swept like a bird out of the harbor, stopped at +Coney Island. Marie-Louise wanted her fortune told. Eve wanted peanuts +and pop-corn. "It will make me seem a little girl again." + +Marie-Louise, cool in her buff coat, shrugged her shoulders. "I was never +allowed to be that kind of a little girl," she said, "but I think I'd +like to try it for a day." + +Eve and Marie-Louise got on very well together. They spoke the same +language. And if Marie-Louise was more artificial in some ways, she was +more open than Eve. + +"You'd better tell Dr. Brooks," she told the older girl, as the two of +them walked ahead of Richard and Pip on the pier. Tony and Winifred had +elected to stay on board. + +"Tell him what?" + +"That you are keeping the big man in reserve." + +Eve flushed. "Marie-Louise, you're horrid." + +"I am honest," was the calm response. + +Pip bought them unlimited peanuts and pop-corn, and Marie-Louise piloted +them to the tent of a fat Armenian who told fortunes. + +In spite of his fatness, however, he was immaculate in European clothing; +he charged exorbitantly and achieved extraordinary results. + +"He said the last time that I should marry a poet," Marie-Louise informed +them, "which isn't true. I am not going to be married at all. But it +amuses me to hear him." + +The black eyes of the fat Armenian twinkled. "There will be a time when +you will not be amused. You will be married." + +He pulled out a chair for her. "Will your friends stay while I tell you +the rest?" + +"No, they are children; they want to buy peanuts and pop-corn--they want +to play." + +The others laughed. But the fat Armenian did not laugh. "Your soul is +old!" + +"You see," she asked the others, "what I mean? He says things like that +to me. He told me once that in a former incarnation I had walked beside +the Nile and had loved a king." + +"A king-poet," the man corrected. + +"Will you tell mine?" Eve asked suddenly. + +"Certainly, madam." + +"I am mademoiselle. You go first, Marie-Louise." + +But Marie-Louise insisted on yielding to her. "We will come back for +you." + +Coming back, they found Eve in an irritable temper. "He told +me--nothing." + +"I told you what you did not want to hear. But I told you the truth." + +"I don't believe in such things." Eve was lofty. Her cold eyes challenged +the Oriental. "I don't believe you know anything about it." + +"If Mademoiselle will write it down----" He was fat and puffy, but he had +a sort of large dignity which ignored her rudeness. "If Mademoiselle will +write it down, she will not say--next year--'I do not believe.'" + +She shivered. "I wish I hadn't come. Dicky boy, let's go and play. Pip +and Marie-Louise can stay if they like it. I don't." + +When Marie-Louise had had her imagination once more fed on poets, kings, +and previous incarnations, she and Pip went forth to seek the others. + +"I wonder what he told Eve?" Pip speculated. + +Marie-Louise spoke with shrewdness. "He probably told her that she would +marry you--only he wouldn't put it that way. He would say that in +reaching for a star she would stumble on a diamond." + +"And is Brooks the star?" + +She nodded, grinning. "And you are the diamond. It is what she +wants--diamonds." + +"She wants more than that"--tenderness crept into his voice--"she wants +love--and I can give it." + +"She wants Dr. Brooks. 'Most any woman would," said Marie-Louise cruelly. +"We all know he is different. You know it, and I know it, and Eve knows +it. He is bigger in some ways, and better!" + +They found Eve and Richard in a pavilion dancing in strange company, to +raucous music. Later the four of them rode on a merry-go-round, with +Marie-Louise on a dolphin and Eve on a swan, with the two men mounted on +twin dragons. They ate chowder and broiled lobster in a restaurant high +in a fantastic tower. They swept up painted Alpine slopes in reckless +cars, they drifted through dark tunnels in gorgeous gondolas. Eve took +her pleasures with a sort of feverish enthusiasm, Marie-Louise with the +air of a skeptic trying out a new thing. + +"Mother would faint and fade away if she knew I was here," Marie-Louise +told Richard as she sat next to him in a movie show, "and so would Dad. +He would object to the germs and she would object to the crowd. Mother is +like a flower in a sunlighted garden. She can't imagine that a lily could +grow with its feet in the mud. But they do. And Dad knows it. But he +likes to have mother stay in the sunlighted garden. He would never have +fallen in love with her if her roots had been in the mud." + +She was murmuring this into Richard's ear. Eve was on the other side of +him, with Pip beyond. + +"I've never had a day like this," Marie-Louise further confided, "and I +am not sure that I like it. It seems so far away from--Pan--and the +trees--and the river." + +Her voice dropped into silence, and Richard sat there beside her like a +stone, seeing nothing of the pictures thrown on the screen. He saw a road +which led between spired cedars, he saw an old house with a wide porch. +He saw a golden-lighted table, and his mother's face across the candles. +He saw a girl in a brown coat scattering food for the birds with a kind +little hand--he heard the sound of a bell! + +When they reached the yacht, Winifred was dressed for dinner, and Eve and +Marie-Louise scurried below to change. They dined on the upper deck by +moonlight, and sat late enjoying the still warmth of the night. There was +no wind and they seemed to sail through silver waters. + +Marie-Louise sang for them. Strange little songs for which she had +composed both words and music. They had haunting cadences, and Pip told +her "For Heaven's sake, kiddie, cheer up. You are making us cry." + +She laughed, and gave them a group of old nursery rhymes. Most of them +had to do with things to eat. There was the Dame who baked her pies "on +Christmas day in the morning," and the Queen who made the tarts, and +Jenny Wren and her currant wine. + +"They are what I call appetizing," she said quaintly. "When I was a tiny +tot Dad kept me on a diet. I was never allowed to eat pies or tarts or +puddings. So I used to feast vicariously on my nursery rhymes." + +They laughed, as she had meant they should, and Pip said, "Give us +another," so she chanted with increasing dramatic effect the story of +King Arthur. + + "A bag pudding the king did make, + And stuffed it well with plums, + And in it put great hunks of fat, + As big as my two thumbs----" + +"Think of the effect of those hunks of fat," she explained amid their +roars of laughter, "on my dieted mind." + +"I hate to think of things to eat," Eve said. "And I can't imagine myself +cooking--in a kitchen." + +"Where else would you cook?" Marie-Louise demanded practically. "I'd like +it. I went once with my nurse to her mother's house, and she was cooking +ham and frying eggs and we sat down to a table with a red cloth and had +the ham and eggs with great slices of bread and strong tea. My nurse let +me eat all I wanted, because her mother said it wouldn't hurt me, and it +didn't. But my mother never knew. And always after that I liked to think +of Lucy's mother and that warm nice kitchen, and the plump, pleasant +woman and the ham and eggs and tea." + +She was very serious, but they roared again. She was so far away from +anything that was homely and housewifely, with her red hair peaked up to +a high knot, her thick white coat with its black animal skin enveloping +her shoulders, the gleam of silver slippers. + +"Dicky," Eve said, "I hope you are not expecting me to cook in Arcadia." + +"I don't expect anything." + +"Every man expects something," Winifred interposed; "subconsciously he +wants a hearth-woman. That's the primitive." + +"I don't want a hearth-woman," Pip announced. + +Dutton Ames chuckled. "You're a stone-age man, Meade. You'd like to woo +with a club, and carry the day's kill to the woman in your tent." + +A quick fire lighted Pip's eyes. "Jove, it wouldn't be bad, would it? +What do you think, Eve?" + +"I like your yacht better, and your chef and your alligator pears, and +caviar." + +An hour later Eve and Richard were alone on deck. The others had gone +down. The lovers had preferred the moonlight. + +"Eve, old lady," Richard said, "you know that even with Austin's help I'm +not going to be a Croesus. There won't be yachts--and chefs--and +alligator pears." + +"Jealous, Dicky?" + +"No. But you've always had these things, Eve." + +"I shall still have them. Aunt Maude won't let us suffer. She's a good +old soul." + +"Do you think I shall care to partake of Aunt Maude's bounty?" + +"Perhaps not. But I am not so stiff-necked. Oh, Ducky Dick, do you think +that I am going to let you keep on being poor and priggish and +steady-minded?" + +"Am I that, Eve?" + +"You know you are." + +Her laughing eyes challenged him. He would have been less than a man if +he had not responded to the appeal of her youth and beauty. "Dicky," she +said, "when we are married I am going to give you the time of your young +life. All work and no play will make you a dull boy, Dicky." + +In the night the clouds came up over the moon, and when the late and lazy +party appeared on deck for luncheon, Marie-Louise complained. "I hate it +this way. There's going to be a storm." + +There was a storm before night. It blew up tearingly from the south and +there was menace in it and madness. + +Winifred and Eve were good sailors. But Marie-Louise went to pieces. She +was frantic with fear, and as the night wore on, Richard found himself +much concerned for her. + +She insisted on staying on deck. "I feel like a rat in a trap when I am +inside. I want to face it." + +The wind was roaring about them. The sea was black and the sky was black, +a thick velvety black that turned to copper when the lightning came. + +"Aren't you afraid?" Marie-Louise demanded; "aren't you?" + +"No." + +"Why shouldn't you be? Why shouldn't anybody be?" + +"My nerves are strong, Marie-Louise." + +"It isn't nerves. It's faith. You believe that the boat won't go down, +and you believe that if it did go down your soul wouldn't die." + +Her white face was close to him. "I wish I could believe like that," she +said in a high, sharp voice. Then she screamed as the little ship seemed +caught up into the air and flung down again. + +"Hush," Richard told her; "hush, Marie-Louise." + +She was shaking and shivering. "I hate it," she sobbed. + +Pip, like a yellow specter in oilskins, came up to them. "Eve wants you, +Brooks," he shouted above the clamor of wind and wave. + +"Shall we go in, Marie-Louise?" + +"No, no." She cowered against his arm. + +Over her head Richard said to Pip, "I shall come as soon as I can." + +So Pip went down, and the two were left alone in the tumult and blackness +of the night. + +As Marie-Louise lay for a moment quiet against his arm, Richard bent +down to her. "Are you still afraid?" + +"Yes, oh, yes. I keep thinking--if I should die. And I am afraid to die." + +"You are not going to die. And if you were there would be nothing to +fear. Death is just--falling asleep. Rarely any terror. We doctors know, +who see people die. I know it, and your father knows it." + +By the light of a blinding flash he saw her white face with its wet red +hair. + +"Dad doesn't know it as you know," she said, chokingly. "He couldn't say +it as you--say it." + +"Why not?" + +"He's like I am. _Dad's afraid._" + +The storm swept on, leaving the waves rough behind it, and Richard at +last put Marie-Louise to bed with a sleeping powder. Then he went to hunt +up Eve. He was very tired and it was very late. The night had passed, and +the dawn would soon be coming up over the horizon. He found Pip in the +smoking room. Eve had gone to bed. Everybody had gone to bed. It had been +a terrible storm. + +Richard agreed that it had been terrible. He was glad that Eve could +sleep. He couldn't understand why Austin had allowed Marie-Louise to take +such a trip. Her fear of storms was evidently quite uncontrollable. And +she was at all times hysterical and high-strung. + +Pip was not interested in Marie-Louise. "Eve lost her nerve at the last." + +Richard was solicitous. "I'm sorry. I wanted to come down, but I couldn't +leave Marie-Louise. Eve's normal, and she'll be all right as soon as the +storm stops. But Marie-Louise may suffer for days. The sooner she gets on +shore the better." + +He went on deck, and looked out upon a gray wind-swept world. + +Then the sun came up, and there was a great light upon the waters. + +All the next day Marie-Louise lay in a long chair. "Dad told me not to +come," she confessed to Richard. "I've been this way before. But I +wouldn't listen." + +"If I had been your father," Richard said, "you would have listened, and +you would have stayed at home." + +She grinned. "You can't be sure. Nobody can be sure. I don't like to take +orders." + +"Until you learn to take orders you aren't going to amount to much, +Marie-Louise." + +"I amount to a great deal. And your ideas are--old-fashioned; that's what +your Eve says, Dr. Dicky." + +She looked at him through her long eyelashes. "What's the matter with +your Eve?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"She is punishing you, but you don't know it. She is down-stairs playing +bridge with Pip and Tony and Win, and leaving you alone to meditate on +your sins. And you aren't meditating. You are talking to me. I am going +to write a poem about a Laggard Lover. I'll make you a shepherd boy who +sits on the hills and watches his sheep. And when the girl who loves him +calls to him, he refuses to go--he still watches--his sheep." + +He looked puzzled. "I don't know in the least what you are talking +about." + +"You are the shepherd. Your work is the sheep--Eve is the girl. Your work +will always be more to you than the woman. Dad's work isn't. He never +forgets mother for a minute." + +"And you think that I'll forget Eve?" + +"Yes. And she'll hate that." + +There was a spark in his eye. + +"I think that we won't discuss Eve, Marie-Louise." + +"Then I'll discuss her in a poem. Lend me a pencil, please." + +He gave her the pencil and a prescription pad, and she set to work. She +read snatches to him as she progressed. It was remarkably clever, with a +constantly recurring refrain. + +"_Let me watch my sheep," said the lover, "my sheep on the hills._" + +The verses went on to relate that the girl, finding her shepherd +dilatory, turned her attention to another swain, and at last she flouts +the shepherd. + +"_Go watch your sheep, laggard lover, your sheep on the hills._" + +She laid the verses aside as Tony and Win joined them. + +"Three rubbers, and Pip and Eve are ahead." + +"Isn't Eve coming?" + +"She said she was coming up soon." + +But she did not come, and Pip did not come. Marie-Louise, with a great +rug spread over her, slept in her chair. Dutton Ames read aloud to his +wife. Richard rose and went to look for Eve. + +There was a little room which Pip called "The Skipper's own." It was +furnished in a man's way as a den, with green leather and carved oak and +plenty of books. Its windows gave a forward view of sky and water. + +It was here that the four of them had been playing auction. Eve was now +shuffling the cards for Solitaire. + +Pip, watching her, caught suddenly at her left hand. "Why didn't Brooks +give you a better ring?" + +"I like my ring. Let go of my hand, Pip." + +"I won't. What's the matter with the man that he should dare dream of +tying you down to what he can give you? It seems to me that he lacks +pride." + +"He doesn't lack anything. Let go of my hand, Pip." + +But he still held it. "How he could have the courage to ask--until he +had made a name for himself." + +She blazed. "He didn't ask. I asked him, Pip. I cared enough for that." + +He dropped her hand as if it had stung him. "You cared--as much as that?" + +She faced him bravely. "As much as that--it pleased me to say what it was +my right to say." + +"Oh! It was the queen, then, and the--beggar man. _Eve_, come back." + +She was at the door, but she turned. "I'll come back if you will beg my +pardon. Richard is not a beggar, and I am not the queen. How hateful you +are, Pip." + +"I won't beg your pardon. And let's have this out right now, Eve." + +"Have what out?" + +"Sit down, and I'll tell you." + +Once more they were seated with the table between them. Pip's back was to +the window, but Eve faced the broad expanse of sky and sea. A faint pink +flush was on the waters: a silver star hung at the edge of a crescent +moon. There was no sound but the purr of machinery and the mewing of +gulls in the distance. + +Eve was in pink--a straight linen frock with a low white collar. It gave +her an air of simplicity quite unlike her usual elegance. Pip feasted his +eyes on her. + +"You've got to face it. Brooks doesn't care." + +"He does care." + +"He didn't care enough to come down last night when you were afraid--and +wanted him. And you turned to me, just for one little minute, Eve. Do you +think I shall ever forget the thrill of the thought that you turned to +me?" + +She was staring straight out at the little moon. "Marie-Louise was his +patient--he had to stay with her." + +"You are saying that to me, but in your heart you know you are resenting +the fact that he didn't come when you called. Aren't you, Eve? Aren't you +resenting it?" + +She told him the truth. "Yes. But I know that when I am his wife, I shall +have to let him think about his patients. I ought to be big enough for +that." + +"You are big enough for anything. But you are not always going to be +content with crumbs from the king's table. And that's what you are +getting from Brooks. And I have a feast ready. Eve, can't you see that I +would give, give, give, and he will take, take, take? Eve, can't you +see?" + +She did see, and for the moment she was swayed by the force of his +passionate eloquence. + +She leaned toward him a little. "Pip, dear, I wish--sometimes--that it +might have been--you." + +It needed only this. He swept the card table aside with his strong arms. +He was on his knees begging for love, for life. Her hair swept his cheek. + +The little moon shone clear in the quiet sky. There was not much light, +but there was enough for a man standing in the door to see two dark +figures outlined against the silver space beyond. + +And Richard was standing in the door! + +Eve saw him first. "Go away, Pip," she said, and stood up. "I--I think I +can make him understand." + +When they were alone she said to Richard in a strained voice, "It was my +fault, Dicky." + +"Do you mean that you--let him, Eve?" + +"No. But I let him talk about his love for me--and--and--he cares very +much." + +"He knows that you are engaged to me." + +"Yes. But last night when you stayed on deck when I needed you and asked +for you, Pip knew that you wouldn't come--and he was sorry for me." + +"And he was sorry again this afternoon?" + +"Yes." + +"And he showed it by making love to you?" + +"He thinks I won't be happy with you. He thinks that you don't care. He +thinks----" + +"I don't care what Meade thinks. I want to know what you think, Eve." + +Their voices had come out of the darkness. She pulled the little chain of +a wall bracket, and the room was enveloped in a warm wave of light. "I +don't know what I think. But I hated to have you with Marie-Louise." + +"She was very ill. You knew that. Eve, if we can't trust each other, what +possible happiness can there be ahead?" + +She had no answer ready. + +"Of course I can't stay on Meade's boat after this," he went on; "I'll +get them to run in here somewhere and drop me." + +She sank back in the chair from which she had risen when Philip left +them. His troubled eyes resting upon her saw a blur of pink and gold out +of which emerged her white face. + +"But I want you to stay." + +"You shouldn't want me to stay, Eve. I can't accept his hospitality, +after this, and call myself--a man." + +"Oh, Dicky--I detest heroics." + +She was startled by the tone in which he said, "If that is the way you +feel about it, we might as well end it here." + +"Dicky----" + +"I mean it, Eve. The whole thing is based on the fact that I stayed with +a patient when you wanted me. Well, I shall always be staying with +patients after we are married, and if you are unable to see why I must do +the thing I did last night, then you will never be able to see it. And a +doctor's wife must see it." + +She came up to him, and in the darkness laid her cheek against his arm. +"Dicky, don't joke about a thing like that. I can't stand it. And I'm +sorry about--Pip. Dicky, I shall die if you don't forgive me." + +He forgave her. He even made himself believe that Pip might be forgiven. +He exerted himself to seem at his ease at dinner. He said nothing more +about leaving at the next landing. + +But late that night he sat alone on deck in the darkness. He was a plain +man, and he saw things straight. And this thing was crooked. The hot +honor of his youth revolted against the situation in which he saw +himself. He felt hurt and ashamed. It was as if the dreams of his boyhood +had been dragged in the dust. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +_In Which We Hear Once More of a Sandalwood Fan._ + + +IN the winter which followed Richard often wondered if he were the same +man who had ridden his old Ben up over the hills, and had said his solemn +grace at his own candle-lighted table. + +It had been decided that he and Eve should wait until another year for +their wedding. Richard wanted to get a good start. Eve was impatient, but +acquiesced. + +It was not Richard's engagement, however, which gave to his life the +effect of strangeness. It was, rather, his work, which swept him into a +maelstrom of new activities. Austin needed rest and he knew it. Richard +was young and strong. The older man, using his assistant as a buffer +between himself and a demanding public, felt no compunction. His own +apprenticeship had been hard. + +So Richard in Austin's imposing limousine was whirled through fashionable +neighborhoods and up to exclusive doorways. He presided at operations +where the fees were a year's income for a poor man. A certain percentage +of these fees came to him. He found that he need have no fears for his +financial future. + +His letters from his mother were his only link with the old life. She +wrote that she was well. That Anne Warfield was with her, and Cousin +Sulie, and that the three of them and Cousin David played whist. That +Anne was such a dear--that she didn't know what she would do without her. + +Richard went as often as he could on Sundays to Crossroads. But at such +times he saw little of Anne. She felt that no one should intrude on the +reunions of mother and son. So she visited at Beulah's or Bower's and +came back on Mondays. + +Nancy persisted in her refusal to go back to New York. "I know I am +silly," she told her son, "but I have a feeling that I shouldn't be able +to breathe, and should die of suffocation." + +Richard spoke to Dr. Austin of his mother's state of mind. "Queer thing, +isn't it?" + +"A natural thing, I should say. Your father's death was an awful blow. I +often wonder how she lived out the years while she waited for you to +finish school." + +"But she did live them, so that I might be prepared to practice at +Crossroads. As I think of it, it seems monstrous that I should disappoint +her." + +"Fledglings always leave the nest. Mothers have that to expect. The +selfishness of the young makes for progress. It would have been equally +monstrous if you had stayed in that dull place wasting your talents." + +"Would it have been wasted, sir? There's no one taking my place in the +old country. And there are many who could fill it here. There's a chance +at Crossroads for big work for the right man. Community water +supply--better housing, the health conditions of the ignorant foreign +folk who work the small farms. A country doctor ought to have the +missionary spirit." + +"There are plenty of little men for such places." + +"It takes big men. I could make our old countryside bloom like a rose if +I could put into it half the effort that I am putting into my work with +you. But it would be lean living--and I have chosen the flesh-pots." + +"Don't despise yourself because you couldn't go on being poor in a big +way. You are going to be rich in a big way, and that is better." + +As the days went on, however, Richard wondered if it were really better +to be rich in a big way. Sometimes the very bigness and richness +oppressed him. He found himself burdened by the splendor of the mansions +at which he made his morning calls. He hated the sleekness of the men in +livery who preceded him up the stairs, the trimness of the maids waiting +on the threshold of hushed boudoirs. Disease and death in these sumptuous +palaces seemed divorced from reality as if the palaces were stage +structures, and the people in them were actors who would presently walk +out into the wings. + +It was therefore with some of the feelings which had often assailed him +when he had stepped from a dim theater out into the open air that Richard +made his way one morning to a small apartment on a down-town side street +to call on a little girl who had recently left the charity ward at +Austin's hospital. Richard had operated for appendicitis, and had found +himself much interested in the child. He had dismissed the limousine +farther up. It had seemed out of place in the shabby street. + +He stopped at the florist's for a pot of pink posies and at another shop +for fruit. Laden with parcels he climbed the high stairs to the top floor +of the tenement. + +The little girl and her grandmother lived together. The grandmother had a +small pension, and sewed by the day for several old customers. They thus +managed to pay expenses, but poverty pinched. Richard had from the first, +however, been impressed by their hopefulness. Neither the grandmother nor +the child seemed to look upon their lot as hard. The grandmother made +savory stews on a snug little stove and baked her own sweet loaves. Now +and then she baked a cake. Things were spotlessly clean, and there were +sunshine and fresh air. To have pitied those two would have been +superfluous. + +After he had walked briskly out into Fifth Avenue, he was thinking of +another grandmother on whom he had called a few days before. She was a +haughty old dame, but she was browbeaten by her maid. Her grandchildren +were brought in now and then to kiss her hand. They were glad to get +away. They had no real need of her. They had no hopes or fears to +confide. So in spite of her magnificence and her millions, she was a +lonely soul. + +Snow had fallen the night before, and was now melting in the streets, but +the sky was very blue above the tall buildings. Christmas was not far +away, and as Richard went up-town the crowd surged with him, meeting the +crowd that was coming down. + +He had a fancy to lunch at a little place on Thirty-third Street, where +they served a soup with noodles that was in itself a hearty meal. In the +days when money had been scarce the little German cafe had furnished many +a feast. Now and then he and his mother had come together, and had talked +of how, when their ship came in, they would dine at the big hotel around +the corner. + +And now that his ship was in, and he could afford the big hotel, it had +no charms. He hated the women dawdling in its alleys, the men smoking in +its corridors, the whole idle crowd, lunching in acres of table-crowded +space. + +So he set as his goal the clean little restaurant, and swung along toward +it with something of his old boyish sense of elation. + +And then a strange thing happened. For the first time in months he found +his heart marking time to the tune of the song which old Ben's hoofs had +beaten out of the roads as they made their way up into the hills-- + + "I think she was the most beautiful lady, + That ever was in the West Country----" + +He was even humming it under his breath, unheard amid the hum and stir of +the crowded city street. + +The shops on either side of him displayed in their low windows a wealth +of tempting things. Rugs with a sheen like the bloom of a +peach--alabaster in curved and carved bowls and vases, old prints in dull +gilt frames--furniture following the lines of Florentine +elaborateness--his eyes took in all the color and glow, though he rarely +stopped for a closer view. + +In front of one broad window, however, he hesitated. The opening of the +door had spilled into the frosty air of this alien city the scent of the +Orient--the fragrance of incense--of spicy perfumed woods. + +In the window a jade god sat high on a teakwood pedestal. A string of +scarlet beads lighted a shadowy corner. On an ancient and priceless +lacquered cabinet were enthroned two other gods of gold and ivory. A +crystal ball reflected a length of blue brocade. A clump of Chinese bulbs +bloomed in an old Ming bowl. + +Richard went into the shop. Subconsciously, he went with a purpose. But +the purpose was not revealed to him until he came to a case in which was +set forth a certain marvelous collection. He knew then that the old song +and the scents had formed an association of ideas which had lured him +away from the streets and into the shop, that he might buy for Anne +Warfield a sandalwood fan. + +He found what he wanted. A sweet and wonderful bit of wood, carved like +lace, with green and purple tassels. + +It was when he had it safe in his pocket, in a box that was gay with +yellow and green and gold, that he was aware of voices in the back of the +shop. + +There were tables where tea was served to special customers--at the +expense of the management. Thus a vulgar bargain became as it were a +hospitality--you bought teakwood and had tea; carved ivories, and were +rewarded with little cakes. + +In that dim space under a low hung lamp, Marie-Louise talked with the fat +Armenian. + +He was the same Armenian who had told her fortune at Coney. He stood by +Marie-Louise's side while she drank her tea, and spoke to her of the +poet-king with whom she had walked on the banks of the Nile. + +Richard approaching asked, "How did you happen to come here, +Marie-Louise?" + +"I often come. I like it. It is next to traveling in far countries." She +indicated the fat Armenian. "He tells me about things that happened to +me--in the ages--when I lived before." + +A slender youth in white silk with a crimson sash brought tea for +Richard. But he refused it. "I am on my way to lunch, Marie-Louise. Will +you go with me?" + +She hesitated and glanced at the fat Armenian. "I've some things to buy." + +"I'll wait." + +She flitted about the shop with the fat Armenian in her train. He showed +her treasures shut away from the public eye, and she bought long lengths +of heavy silks, embroideries thick with gold, a moonstone bracelet linked +with silver. + +The fat Armenian, bending over her, seemed to direct and suggest. +Richard, watching, hated the man's manner. + +Outside in the sunshine, he spoke of it. "I wouldn't go there alone." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't like to see you among those people--on such terms. They don't +understand, and they're--different." + +"I like them because they are different," obstinately. + +He shifted his ground. "Marie-Louise, will you lunch with me at a cheap +little place around the corner?" + +"Why a cheap little place?" + +"Because I like the good soup, and the clean little German woman, and the +quiet and--the memories." + +"What memories?" + +"I used to go there when I was poor." + +She entered eagerly into the adventure, and ordered her car to wait. Then +away they fared around the corner! + +Within the homely little restaurant, Marie-Louise's elegance was more +than ever apparent. Her long coat of gray velvet with its silver fox +winked opulently from the back of her chair at the coarse table-cloth and +the paper napkins. + +But the soup was good, and the German woman smiled at them, and brought +them a special dish of hard almond cakes with their coffee. + +"I love it," Marie-Louise said. "It is like Hans Andersen and my fairy +books. Will you bring me here again, Dr. Richard?" + +"I am glad you like it," he told her. "I wanted you to like it." + +"I like it because I like you," she said with frankness, "and you seem to +belong in the fairy tale. You are so big and strong and young. I don't +feel a thousand years old when I am with you. You are such a change from +everybody else, Dr. Dicky." + +Richard spoke the next day to Austin of Marie-Louise and the fat +Armenian. "She shouldn't be going to such shops alone. She has a romantic +streak in her, and they take advantage of it." + +"She ought never to go alone," Austin agreed, "and I have told her. But +what am I going to do? I can rule a world of patients, Brooks, but I +can't rule my woman child," he laughed ruefully. "I've tried having a +maid accompany her, but she sends her home." + +"I wish she might have gone to the Crossroads school, and have known the +Crossroads teacher--Anne Warfield. You remember Cynthia Warfield, sir; +this is her granddaughter." + +Austin remembered Cynthia, and he wanted to know more of Anne. Richard +told him of Anne's saneness and common sense. "I am so glad that she can +be with my mother, and that the children have her in the school. She is +so wise and good." + +He thought more than once in the days that followed of Anne's wisdom and +goodness. He decided to send the fan. He expected to go to Crossroads for +Christmas, but he was not at all sure that he should see Anne. Something +had been said about her going for the holidays to her Uncle Rod. + +Was it only a year since he had seen her on the rocks above the river +with a wreath in her hand, and in the stable at Bower's, with the lantern +shining above her head? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +_In Which Christmas Comes to Crossroads._ + + +NANCY'S plans for Christmas were ambitious. She talked it over with Sulie +Tyson. "I'll have Anne and her Uncle Rod. If she goes to him they will +eat their Christmas dinner alone. Her cousins are to be out of town." + +Cousin Sulie agreed. She was a frail little woman, with gray hair drawn +up from her forehead above a high-bred face. She spoke with earnestness +on even the most trivial subjects. Now and then she had flashes of humor, +but they were rare. Her life had been sad, and she had always been +dependent. The traditions of her family had made it impossible for her to +indulge in any money-making occupation. Hence she had lived in other +people's houses. Usually with one or the other of two brothers, in +somewhat large households. + +Her days, therefore, with Nancy were rapturous ones. + +"There's something in the freedom which two women can have when they are +alone," she said, "that is glorious. We are ourselves. When men are +around we are always acting." + +Nancy was not so subtle. "I am myself with Richard." + +"No, you're not, Nancy. You are always trying to please him. You make him +feel important. You make him feel that he is the head of the house. You +know what I mean." + +Nancy did know. But she didn't choose to admit it. + +"Well, I like to please him." Then with a sudden burst of longing, +"Sulie, I want him here all of the time--to please." + +"Oh, my dear," Sulie caught Nancy's hands up in her own, "oh, my dear. +How mothers love their sons. I am glad I haven't any. I used to long for +children. I don't any more. Nothing can hurt me as Richard hurts you, +Nancy." + +Nancy refused to talk of it. "We will ask David and Brinsley; that will +be four men and three women, Sulie." + +"Well, I can take care of David if you'll look after Brinsley and Rodman +Warfield. And that will leave your Richard for Anne." + +Nancy's candid glance met her cousin's. "That is the way I had hoped it +might be--Richard and Anne. At first I thought it might be--and then +something happened. He went to New York and that was the--end." + +"If you had been more of a match-maker," Sulie said, "you might have +managed. But you always think that such things are on the knees of the +gods. Why didn't you bring them together?" + +"I tried," Nancy confessed. "But Eve--I hate to say it, Sulie. Eve was +determined." + +The two old-fashioned women, making mental estimates of this modern +feminine product, found themselves indignant. "To think that any girl +could----" + +It was lunch time, and Anne came in. She had Diogenes under her arm. "He +will come across the road to meet me. And I am afraid of the automobiles. +When he brings the white duck and all of the little Diogenes with him he +obstructs traffic. He stopped a touring car the other day, and the men +swore at him, and Diogenes swore back." + +She laughed and set the old drake on his feet. "May I have a slice of +bread for him, Mother Nancy?" + +"Of course, my dear. Two, if you wish." + +Diogenes, having been towed by his beloved mistress out-of-doors, was +appeased with the slice of bread. He was a patriarch now, with a lovely +mate and a line of waddling offspring to claim his devotion. But not an +inch did he swerve from his loyalty to Anne. She had brought him with her +from Bower's, and he lived in the barn with his family. Twice a day, +however, he made a pilgrimage to the Crossroads school. It was these +excursions which Anne deprecated. + +"He comes in when I ring for recess and distracts the children. He +waddles straight up to my desk--and he is such an old dear." + +She laughed, and the two women laughed with her. She was their +heart-warming comrade. She brought into their lonely lives something +vivid and sparkling, at which they drank for their soul's refreshment. + +Nancy spoke of Rodman Warfield. "We want him here for Christmas and the +holidays. Do you think he can come?" + +Anne flashed her radiance at them. "I don't think. I know. Mother Nancy, +you're an angel." + +"Richard is coming, of course. It will be just a family party. Not many +young people for you, my dear. Just--Richard." + +There was holly and crow's-foot up in the hills, and David and Anne +hitched big Ben to a cart and went after it. It was a winter of snow, and +in the depths of the woods there was a great stillness. David chopped a +tall cedar and his blows echoed and reechoed in the white spaces. The +holly berries that dropped from the cut branches were like drops of blood +on the shining crust. + +Nancy and Sulie made up the wreaths and the ropes of green, and fashioned +ornaments for the tree. There was to be a bigger tree at the school for +the children, but this was to be a family affair and was to be free from +tawdry tinsel and colored glass. Nancy liked straight little candles and +silver stars. "It shall be an old-fashioned tree," she said, "such as I +used to have when I was a child." + +Sulie's raptures were almost solemn in their intensity. Richard sent +money, plenty of it, and Sulie and Nancy went to Baltimore and spent it. +"I never expected," Sulie said, "to go into shops and pick out things +that I liked. I've always had to choose things that I needed." + +Now and then on Saturdays when Anne went with them, they rushed through +their shopping, had lunch at the Woman's Exchange and went to a matinee. + +Nancy was always glad to get back home, but Sulie revelled in the +excitement of it all. Anne made her buy a hat with a flat pink rose which +lay enchantingly against her gray hair. + +"I feel sometimes as if I had been born again," Sulie said quaintly; +"like a flower that had shriveled up and grown brown, and suddenly found +itself blooming in the spring." + +Thus the days went on, and Christmas was not far away. Anne coming in one +afternoon found Nancy by the library fire with a letter in her hand. + +"Richard hopes to get here on Friday, Anne, in time for the tree and the +children's festival. Something may keep him, however, until Christmas +morning. He is very busy--and there are some important operations." + +"How proud you are of him," Anne sank down on the rug, and reached up her +hand for Nancy, "and how happy you will be with your big son. Could you +ever have loved a daughter as much, Mother Nancy?" + +"I'm not sure; perhaps," smiling, "if she had been like you. And a +daughter would have stayed with me. Men have wandering natures--they must +be up and out." + +"Women have wandering natures, too," Anne told her. "Do you know that +last Christmas I cried and cried because I was tied to the Crossroads +school and to Bower's? I wanted to live in the city and have lovely +things. You can't imagine how I hated all Eve Chesley's elegance. I +seemed so--clumsy and common." + +Nancy stared at her in amazement. "But you surely don't feel that way +now." + +"Yes, I do. But I am not unhappy any more. It was silly to be unhappy +when I had so much in my life. But if I were a man, I'd be a rover, a +vagabond--I'd take to the open road rather than be tied to one spot." + +There was laughter in her eyes, but the words rang true. "I want to see +new things in new people. I want to have new experiences--there must be a +bigger, broader world than this." + +Nancy gazing into the fire pondered. "It's the spirit of the age. Perhaps +it is the youth in you. I wanted to go, too. But oh, my dear, how I +wanted to come back!" + +There was silence between them, then Anne said, "Perhaps if I could have +my one little fling I'd be content. Perhaps it wouldn't be all that I +expected. But I'd like to try." + +On Thursday Anne met the postman as he drove up. There were two parcels +for her. One was square and one was long and narrow. There were parcels +also for Nancy and Sulie. Anne delivered them, and took her own treasures +to her room. She shut and locked her door. Then she stood very still in +the middle of the room. Not since she had seen the writing on the long +and narrow parcel had her heart ceased to beat madly. + +When at last she sat down and untied the string a faint fragrance +assailed her nostrils. Then the gay box with its purple and green and +gold was revealed! + +The little fan was folded about with many thicknesses of soft paper. But +at last she had it out, the dear lovely thing that her love had sent! + +In that moment all the barriers which she had built about her thoughts of +Richard were beaten down and battered by his remembrance of her. There +was not a line from him, not a word. Nothing but the writing on the +wrapper, and the memory of their talk together by the big fire at Bower's +on the night of Beulah's party when he had said, "You ought to have a +little fan--of--sandalwood--with purple and green tassels and smelling +sweet." + +When she went down her cheeks were red with color. "How pretty you are!" +Sulie said, and kissed her. + +Anne showed the book which had come in the square parcel. It was Geoffrey +Fox's "Three Souls," and it was dedicated to Anne. + +She did not show the sandalwood fan. It was hidden in her desk. She had a +feeling that Nancy and Sulie would not understand, and that Richard had +not meant that she should show it. + +Nancy, too, had something which she did not show. One of her letters was +from Dr. Austin. He had written without Richard's knowledge. He wished to +inquire about Anne Warfield. He had been much impressed by what Richard +had said of her. He needed a companion for his daughter Marie-Louise. He +wanted a lady, and Cynthia Warfield's grandchild would, of course, be +that. He wanted, too, some one who was fearless, and who thought +straight. He fancied that from what Richard had said that Anne would be +the antidote for his daughter's abnormality. If Nancy would confirm +Richard's opinion, he would write at once to Miss Warfield. A woman's +estimate in such a matter would, naturally, be more satisfying. He would +pay well, and Anne would be treated in every way as one of the family. +Marie-Louise might at first be a little difficult. But in the end, no +doubt, she would yield to tact and firmness. + +And he was always devotedly, her old friend! + +It had seemed to Nancy as she read that something gripped at her heart. +It was Anne's presence which had kept her from the black despair of +loneliness. Sulie was good and true, but she had no power to fill the +void made by Richard's absence. If Anne went away, they would be two old +women, gazing blankly into an empty future. + +Yet it was Anne's opportunity. The opportunity which her soul had craved. +"To see new things and new people." And she was young and wanting much to +live. It would not be right or fair to hold her back. + +She had, however, laid the letter aside. When Richard came she would talk +it over with him, and then they could talk to Anne. She tried to forget +it in the bustle of preparation, but it lay like a shadow in the back of +her mind, dimming the brightness of the days. + +Everybody was busy. Milly and Sulie and Nancy seeded and chopped and +baked, and polished silver, and got out piles of linen, and made up beds, +and were all beautifully ready and swept and garnished when Uncle Rodman +arrived from Carroll and Brinsley from Baltimore. + +The two old men came on the same train, and David brought them over from +Bower's behind big Ben. By the time they reached Crossroads, they had +dwelt upon old times and old friends and old loves until they were in the +warm and genial state of content which is age's recompense for the loss +of youthful ardors. + +They were, indeed, three ancient Musketeers, who, untouched now by any +flame of great emotion, might adventure safely in a past of sentiment +from which they were separated by long years. But there had been a time +when passion had burned brightly for them all, even in gentle David, who +had loved Cynthia Warfield. + +What wonder, then, if to these three Anne typified that past, and all it +meant to them, as she ran to meet them with her arms outflung to welcome +Uncle Rod. + +She had them all presently safe on the hearth with the fire roaring, and +with Milly bringing them hot coffee, and Sulie and Nancy smiling in an +ecstasy of welcome. + +"It is perfect," Anne said, "to have you all here--like this." + +Yet deep in her heart she knew that it was not perfect. For youth calls +to youth. And Richard was yet to come! + +Brinsley had brought hampers of things to eat. He had made epicurean +pilgrimages to the Baltimore markets. There were turkeys and ducks and +oysters--Smithfield hams, a young pig with an apple in its mouth. + +He superintended the unloading of the hampers when Eric brought them +over. Uncle Rod shook his head as he saw them opened. + +"I can make a jar of honey and a handful of almonds suffice," he said. "I +am not keen about butchered birds and beasts." + +Brinsley laughed. "Don't rob me of the joy of living, Rod," he said. +"Nancy is bad enough. I wanted to send up some wine. But she wouldn't +have it. Even her mince pies are innocent. Nancy sees the whole world +through eyes of anxiety for her boy. I don't believe she'd care a snap +for temperance if she wasn't afraid that her Dicky might drink." + +"Perhaps it is the individual mother's solicitude for her own particular +child which makes the feminine influence a great moral force," Rodman +ventured. + +"Perhaps," carelessly. "Now Nancy has a set of wine-glasses that it is a +shame not to use." He slapped his hands to warm them. "Let's take a long +walk, Rod. I exercise to keep the fat down." + +"I exercise because it is a good old world to walk in," and Rodman swung +his long lean legs into an easy stride. + +They picked David up as they passed his little house. They climbed the +hill till they came to the edge of the wood where David had cut the tree. + +There was a sunset over the frozen river as they turned to look at it. +The river sang no songs to-day. It was as still and silent as their own +dead youth. Yet above it was the clear gold of the evening sky. + +"The last time we came we were boys," Brinsley said, "and I was in love +with Cynthia Warfield. And we were both in love with her, David; do you +remember?" + +David did remember. "Anne is like her." + +Rodman protested. "She is and she isn't. Anne has none of Cynthia's +faults." + +Brinsley chuckled. "I'll bet you've spoiled her." + +"No, I haven't. But Anne has had to work and wait for things, and it +hasn't hurt her." + +"She's a beauty," Brinsley stated, "and she ought to be a belle." + +"She's good," David supplemented; "the children at the little school +worship her." + +"She's mine," Uncle Rod straightened his shoulders, "and in that +knowledge I envy no man anything." + +As they sat late that night by Nancy's fire, Anne in a white frock played +for them, and sang: + + "I think she was the most beautiful lady + That ever was in the West Country, + But beauty vanishes, beauty passes, + However rare, rare it be, + And when I am gone, who shall remember + That lady of the West Country?" + +And when she sang it was of Cynthia Warfield that all of the Old +Gentlemen dreamed. + +When the last note had died away, she went over and stood behind her +uncle. She was little and slim and straight and her soft hair was swept +up high from her forehead. Her eyes above Uncle Rod's head met Nancy's +eyes. The two women smiled at each other. + +"To-morrow," Nancy said, and she seemed to say it straight to Anne, +"to-morrow Richard will be here." + +Anne caught a quick breath. "To-morrow," she said. "How lovely it will +be!" + +But Richard did not come on Christmas Eve. A telegram told of imperative +demands on him. He would get there in the morning. + +"We won't light the tree until he comes," was Nancy's brave decision. +"The early train will get him here in time for breakfast." + +David drove big Ben down to meet him. Milly cooked a mammoth breakfast. +Anne slipped across the road to the Crossroads school to ring the bell +for the young master's return. The rest of the household waited in the +library. Brinsley was there with a story to tell, but no one listened. +Their ears were strained to catch the first sharp sound of big Ben's +trot. Sulie was there with a red rose in her hair to match the fires +which were warming her old heart. Nancy was there at the window, +watching. + +Then the telephone rang. Nancy was wanted. Long distance. + +It was many minutes before she came back. Yet the message had been short. +She had hung up the receiver, and had stood in the hall in a whirling +world of darkness. + +_Richard was not coming._ + +He had been sorry. Tender. Her own sweet son. Yet he had seemed to think +that business was a sufficient excuse for breaking her heart. Surely +there were doctors enough in that octopus of a town to take his patients +off of his hands. And she was his mother and wanted him. + +She had a sense of utter rebellion. She wanted to cry out to the world, +"This is my son, for whom I have sacrificed." + +And now the bell across the street began to ring its foolish +chime--Richard was not coming, _ding, dong_. She must get through the day +without him, _ding, dong_, she must get through all the years! + +When she faced the solicitous group in the library, only her whiteness +showed what she was feeling. + +"Richard is detained by--an important--operation. And breakfast +is--waiting. Sulie, will you call Anne, and light the little tree?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +_In Which a Dresden-China Shepherdess and a Country Mouse Meet on Common +Ground._ + + +MARIE-LOUISE'S room at Rose Acres was all in white with two tall +candlesticks to light it, and a silver bowl for flowers. It was by means +of the flowers in the bowl that Marie-Louise expressed her moods. There +were days when scarlet flowers flamed, and other days when pale roses or +violets or lilies suggested a less exotic state of mind. + +On the day when Anne Warfield arrived, the flowers in the bowl were +yellow. Marie-Louise stayed in bed all of the morning. She had ordered +the flowers sent up from the hothouse, and, dragging a length of silken +dressing-gown behind her, she had arranged them. Then she had had her +breakfast on a tray. + +Her hair was nicely combed under a lace cap; the dressing-gown was faint +blue. In the center of the big bed she looked very small but very +elegant, as if a Dresden-China Shepherdess had been put between the +covers. + +She had told her maid that when Anne arrived she was to be shown up at +once. Austin had suggested that Marie-Louise go down-town to meet her. +But Marie-Louise had refused. + +"I don't want to see her. Why should I?" + +"She is very charming, Marie-Louise." + +"Who told you?" + +"Dr. Brooks. And I knew her grandmother." + +"Will Dr. Dicky meet her?" + +"Yes. And bring her out. I have given him the day." + +"You might have asked me if I wanted her, Dad. I don't want anybody to +look after me. I belong to myself." + +"I don't know to whom you belong, Marie-Louise. You're a changeling." + +"I'm not. I'm your child. But you don't like my horns and hoofs." + +He gazed at her aghast. "My dear child!" + +She began to sob. "I am not your dear child. But I am your child, and I +shall hate to have somebody tagging around." + +"Miss Warfield is not to tag. And you'll like her." + +"I shall hate her," said Marie-Louise, between her teeth. + +It was because of this hatred that she had filled her bowl with yellow +flowers. Yellow meant jealousy. And she had shrewdly analyzed her state +of mind. She was jealous of Anne because Dad and Dr. Richard and +everybody else thought that Anne was going to set her a good example. + +It was early in January that Anne came. The whole thing had been hurried. +Austin had been peremptory in his demand that she should not delay. So +Nancy, very white but smiling, had packed her off. Sulie had cried over +her, and Uncle Rod had wished her "Godspeed." + +Richard met her at the station in the midst of a raging blizzard, and in +a sort of dream she had been whirled with him through the gray streets +shut in by the veil of the falling snow. They had stopped for tea at a +big hotel, which had seemed as they entered to swim in a sea of golden +light. And now here she was at last in this palace of a house! + +Therese led her straight to Marie-Louise. + +The Dresden-China Shepherdess in bed looked down the length of the +shadowed room to the door. The figure that stood on the threshold was +somehow different from what she had expected. Smaller. More girlish. +Lovelier. + +Anne, making her way across a sea of polished floor, became aware of the +Shepherdess in bed. + +"Oh," she said, "I am sorry you are ill." + +"I am not ill," said Marie-Louise. "I didn't want you to come." + +Anne smiled. "Oh, but if you knew how much I _wanted_ to come." + +Marie-Louise sat up. "What made you want to come?" + +"Because I am a country mouse, and I wanted to see the world." + +"Rose Acres isn't the world." + +"New York is. To me. There is so much that I haven't seen. It is going to +be a great adventure." + +The Dresden-China Shepherdess fell down flat. "So that's what you've come +for," she said, dully, "adventures--here." + +There was a long silence, out of which Anne asked, "How many miles is it +to my room?" + +"Miles?" + +"Yes. You see, I am not used to such great houses." + +"It is down the hall in the west wing." + +"If I get lost it will be my first adventure." + +Marie-Louise turned and took a good look at this girl who made so much +out of nothing. Then she said, "Therese will show you. And you can dress +at once for dinner. I am not going down." + +"Please do. I shall hate going alone." + +"Why?" + +"Well, there's your father, you know, and your--mother. And I'm a country +mouse." + +Their eyes met. Marie-Louise had a sudden feeling that there was no gulf +between them of years or of authority. + +"What shall I call you?" she asked. "I won't say Miss Warfield." + +"Geoffrey Fox calls me Mistress Anne." + +"Who is Geoffrey Fox?" + +"He writes books, and he is going blind. He wrote 'Three Souls.'" + +Marie-Louise stared. "Oh, do you know him? I loved his book." + +"Would you like to know how he came to write it?" + +"Yes. Tell me." + +"Not now. I must go and dress." + +Some instinct told Marie-Louise that argument would be useless. + +"I'll dress, too, and come down. Is Dr. Dicky going to be at dinner?" + +"No. He had to go back at once. He is very busy." + +Marie-Louise slipped out of bed. "Therese," she called, "come and dress +me, after you have shown Miss Warfield the way." + +Anne never forgot the moment of entrance into the great dining-room. +There were just four of them. Dr. Austin and his wife, herself and +Marie-Louise. But for these four there was a formality transcending +anything in Anne's experience. Carved marble, tapestry, liveried +servants, a massive table with fruit piled high in a Sheffield basket. + +The people were dwarfed by the room. It was as if the house had been +built for giants, and had been divorced from its original purpose. Anne, +walking with Marie-Louise, wondered whimsically if there were any +ceilings or whether the roof touched the stars. + +Mrs. Austin was supported by her husband. She was a little woman with +gray hair. She wore pearls and silver. Anne was in white. Marie-Louise in +a quaint frock of gold brocade. There seemed to be no color in the room +except the gold of the fire on the great hearth, the gold of the oranges +on the table, and the gold of Marie-Louise's gown. + +Mrs. Austin was pale and silent. But she had attentive eyes. Anne was +uncomfortably possessed with the idea that the little lady listened and +criticized, or at least that she held her opinion in reserve. + +Marie-Louise spoke of Geoffrey Fox. "Miss Warfield knows him. She knows +how he came to write his book." + +Anne told them how he came to write it. Of Peggy ill at Bower's, of the +gray plush pussy cat, and of how, coming up the hall with the bowl of +soup in her hand, she had found Fox in a despairing mood and had +suggested the plot. + +Austin, watching her, decided that she was most unusual. She was +beautiful, but there was something more than beauty. It was as if she was +lighted from within by a fire which gave warmth not only to herself but +to those about her. + +He was glad that he had brought her here to be with Marie-Louise. For the +moment even his wife's pale beauty seemed cold. + +"We'll have Fox up," he said, when she finished her story. + +Anne was sure that he would be glad to come. She blushed a little as she +said it. + +Later, when they were having coffee in the little drawing-room, +Marie-Louise taxed her with the blush. "Is he in love with you?" + +Anne felt it best to be frank. "He thought he was." + +"Don't you love him?" + +"No, Marie-Louise. And we mustn't talk about it. Love is a sacred thing." + +"I like to talk about it. In summer I talk to Pan. But he's out now in +the snow and his pipes are frozen." + +The little drawing-room seemed to Anne anything but little until she +learned that there was a larger one across the hall. Austin and his wife +went up-stairs as soon as the coffee had been served, and Marie-Louise +led Anne through the shadowy vastness of the great drawing-room to a +window which overlooked the river. "You can't see the river, but the +light over the doorway shines on my old Pan's head. You can see him +grinning out of the snow." + +The effect of that white head peering from the blackness was uncanny. The +shaft of light struck straight across the peaked chin and twisted mouth. +The snow had made him a cap which covered his horns and which gave him +the look of a rakish old tipster. + +"Oh, Marie-Louise, do you talk to him of love?" + +"Yes. Wait till you see him in the spring with the pink roses back of +him. He seems to get younger in the spring." + +Anne, going to bed that night in a suite of rooms which might have +belonged to a princess, wondered if she should wake in the morning and +find herself dreaming. To have her own bath, a silk canopy over her head, +to know that breakfast would be served when she rang for it, and that her +mail and newspapers would be brought--these were unbelievable things. She +had a feeling that if she told Uncle Rod he would shake his head over it. +He had a theory that luxury tended to cramp the soul. + +Yet her last thought was not of Uncle Rod but of Richard. She had come +intending to give him a sharp opinion of his neglect of Nancy. But he had +been so glad to see her, and had given her such a good time. Yet she had +spoken of Nancy's loneliness. + +"I hated to leave her," she said, "but it seemed as if I had to come." + +"Of course," he agreed, with his eyes on her glowing face, "and anyhow, +she has Sulie." + +Marie-Louise, in the days that followed, found interest and occupation in +showing the Country Mouse the sights of the city. + +"If you want to see such things," she said rather grandly, "I shall be +glad to go with you." + +Anne insisted that they should not be driven in state and style. "People +make pilgrimages on foot," she told Marie-Louise gravely, but with a +twinkle in her eye. "I don't want to whirl up to Grant's tomb, or to the +door of Trinity. And I like the subway and the elevated and the surface +cars." + +If now and then they compromised on a taxi, it was because distances were +too great at times, and other means of transportation too slow. But in +the main they stuck to their original plan, and Marie-Louise entered a +new world. + +"Oh, I love you for it," she said to Anne one night when they came home +from the Battery after a day in which they had gazed down into the pit of +the Stock Exchange, had lunched at Faunce's Tavern, had circled the great +Aquarium, and ended with a ride on top of a Fifth Avenue 'bus in the +twilight. + +It was from the top of the 'bus that Anne for the first time since she +had come to New York saw Evelyn Chesley. + +She was coming out of a shop with Richard. It was a great shop with a +world-famous name over the door. One bought furniture there of a rare +kind and draperies of a rare kind and now and then a picture. + +"They are getting things for their apartment," Marie-Louise explained, +and her words struck cold against Anne's heart. "Eve is paying for them +with Aunt Maude's money." + +"When will they be married?" + +"Next October. But Eve is buying things as she sees them. I don't want +her to marry Dr. Dicky." + +"Why not, Marie-Louise?" + +"He isn't her kind. He ought to have fallen in love with you." + +"Marie-Louise, I told you not to talk of love." + +"I shall talk of anything I please." + +"Then you'll talk to the empty air. I won't listen. I'll go up there and +sit with that fat man in front." + +Marie-Louise laughed. "You're such an old dear. Do you know how nice you +look in those furs?" + +"I feel so elegant that I am ashamed of myself. I've peeped into every +mirror. They cost a whole month's salary, Marie-Louise. I feel horribly +extravagant--and happy." + +They laughed together, and it was then that Marie-Louise said, "I love +it." + +"Love what?" + +"Going with you and being young." + +In the days that followed Anne found herself revelling in the elegances +of her life, in the excitements. It was something of an experience to +meet Evelyn Chesley on equal grounds in the little drawing-room. Anne +always took Mrs. Austin's place when there were gatherings of young +folks. Marie-Louise refused to be tied, and came and went as the spirit +moved her. So it was Anne who in something shimmering and silken moved +among the tea guests, and danced later in slippers as shining as anything +Eve had ever worn. + +It was on this day that Geoffrey Fox came and met Marie-Louise for the +first time. + +"I can't dance," he told her; "my eyes are bad, and things seem to +whirl." + +"If you'll talk," she said, "I'll sit at your feet and listen." + +She did it literally, perched on a small gold stool. + +"Tell me about your book," she said, looking up at him. "Anne Warfield +says that you wrote it at Bower's." + +"I wrote it because she helped me to write it. But she did more for me +than that." His eyes were following the shining figure. + +"What did she do?" + +"She gave me a soul. She taught me that there was something in me that +was not--the flesh and the--devil." + +The girl on the footstool understood. "She believes in things, and makes +you believe." + +"Yes." + +"I hated to have her come," Marie-Louise confessed, "and now I should +hate to have her go away. She calls herself a country mouse, and I am +showing her the sights--we go to corking places--on pilgrimages. We went +to Grant's tomb, and she made me carry a wreath. And we ride in the +subway and drink hot chocolate in drug stores. + +"She says I haven't learned the big lessons of democracy," Marie-Louise +pursued, "that I've looked out over the world, but that I have never been +a part of it. That I've sat on a tower in a garden and have peered +through a telescope." + +She told him of the play that she had written, and of the verses that she +had read to the piping Pan. + +Later she pointed out Pan to him from the window of the big drawing-room. +The snow had melted in the last mild days, and there was an icicle on his +nose, and the sun from across the river reddened his cheeks. + +"And there, everlastingly, he makes music," Geoffrey said, "'on the reed +which he tore from the river.'" + + "'Yes, half a beast is the great god, Pan, + To laugh as he sits by the river, + Making a poet out of a man. + The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, + For the reed that grows nevermore again, + As a reed with the reeds in the river.'" + +His voice died away into silence. "That is the price which the writer +pays. He is separated, as it were, from his kind." + +"Oh, no," Marie-Louise breathed, "oh, no. Not you. Your writings bring +you--close. Your book made me--cry." + +She was such a child as she stood there, yet with something in her, too, +of womanliness. + +"When your three soldiers died," she said, "it made me believe something +that I hadn't believed before--about souls marching toward a +great--light." + +Geoffrey found himself confiding in her. "I don't know whether you will +understand. But ever since I wrote that book I have felt that I must live +up to it. That I must be worthy of the thing I had written." + +Richard, dancing in the music room with Anne, found himself saying, "How +different it all is." + +"From Bower's?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you like it?" + +"Sometimes. And then sometimes it all seems so big--and useless." + +The music stopped, and they made their way back to the little +drawing-room. + +"Won't you sit here and talk to me?" Richard said. "Somehow we never seem +to find time to talk." + +She smiled. "There is always so much to do." + +But she knew that it was not the things to be done which had kept her +from him. It was rather a sense that safety lay in seeing as little of +him as possible. And so, throughout the winter she had built about +herself barriers of reserve. Yet there had never been a moment when he +had dined with them, or when he had danced, or when he had shared their +box at the opera, that she had not been keenly conscious of his presence. + +"And so you think it is all so big--and useless?" He picked up the +conversation where they had dropped it when the dance stopped. + +She nodded. "A house like this isn't a home. I told Marie-Louise the +other day that a home was a place where there was a little fire, with +somebody on each side of it, and where there was a little table with two +people smiling across it, and with a pot boiling and a woman to stir it, +and with a light in the window and a man coming home." + +"And what did Marie-Louise say to that?" + +"She wrote a poem about it. A nice healthy sane little poem--not one of +those dreadful things about the ashes of dead women which I found her +doing when I came." + +"How did you cure her?" + +"I am giving her real things to think of. When she gets in a morbid mood +I whisk her off to the gardener's cottage, and we wash and dress the baby +and take him for an airing." + +Richard gave a big laugh. "With your head in the stars, you have your +feet always firmly on the ground." + +"I try to, but I like to know that there are always--stars." + +"No one could be near you and not know that," he told her gravely. + +It was a danger signal. She rose. "I have a feeling that you are +neglecting somebody. You haven't danced yet with Miss Chesley." + +"Oh, Eve's all right," easily; "sit down." + +But she would not. She sent him from her. His place was by Eve's side. He +was going to marry Eve. + + * * * * * + +It was late that night when Marie-Louise came into Anne's room. "Are you +asleep?" she asked, with the door at a crack. + +"No." + +"Will you mind--if I talk?" + +"No." + +Anne was in front of her open fire, writing to Uncle Rod. The fire was +another of the luxuries in which she revelled. It was such a wonder of a +fireplace, with its twinkling brasses, and its purring logs. She +remembered the little round stove in her room at Bower's. + +Marie-Louise had come to talk of Geoffrey Fox. + +"I adore his eye-glasses." + +"Oh, Marie-Louise--his poor eyes." + +"He isn't poor," the child said, passionately, "not even his eyes. Milton +was blind--and--and there was his poetry." + +"Dr. Dicky hopes his eyes are getting better." + +"He says they are. That he sees things now through a sort of silver rain. +He has to have some one write for him. His little sister Mimi has been +doing it, but she is going to be married." + +"Mimi?" + +"Yes. He found out that she had a lover, and so he has insisted. And then +he will be left alone." + +She sat gazing into the fire, a small humped-up figure in a gorgeous +dressing-gown. At last she said, "Why didn't you love him?" + +"There was some one else, Marie-Louise." + +Marie-Louise drew close and laid her red head on Anne's knee. "Some one +that you are going to marry?" + +Anne shook her head. "Some one whom I shall never marry. He +loves--another girl, Marie-Louise." + +"Oh!" There was a long silence, as the two of them gazed into the fire. +Then Marie-Louise reached up a thin little hand to Anne's warm clasp. +"That's always the way, isn't it? It is a sort of game, with Love always +flitting away to--another girl." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +_In Which St. Michael Hears a Call._ + + +IT was in April that Geoffrey Fox wrote to Anne. + +"When I told you that I was coming back to Bower's, I said that I wanted +quiet to think out my new book, but I did not tell you that I fancied I +might find your ghost flitting through the halls, or on the road to the +schoolhouse. I felt that there might linger in the long front room the +glowing spirit of the little girl who sat by the fire and talked to me of +my soldiers and their souls. + +"And what I thought has come true. You are everywhere, Mistress Anne, not +as I last saw you at Rose Acres in silken attire, but fluttering before +me in your frock of many flounces, carrying your star of a lantern +through the twilight on your way to Diogenes, scolding me on the +stairs----! What days, what hours! And always you were the little +school-teacher, showing your wayward scholars what to do with life! + +"Perhaps I have done with it less than you expected. But at least I have +done more with it than I had hoped. I am lining my pockets with money, +and Mimi has a chest of silver. That is the immediate material effect of +the sale of 'Three Souls.' But there is more than the material effect. +The letters which I get from the people who have read the book are like +wine to my soul. To think that I, Geoffrey Fox, who have frittered and +frivoled, should have put on paper things which have burned into men's +consciousness and have made them better. I could never have done it +except for you. Yet in all humility I can say that I have done it, and +that never while life lasts shall I think again of my talent as a little +thing. + +"For it is a great thing, Mistress Anne, to have written a book. In all +of my pot-boiling days I would never have believed it. A plot was a plot, +and presto, the thing was done! The world read and forgot. But the world +doesn't forget. Not when we give our best, and when we aim to get below +the surface things and the shallow things and call up out of men's hearts +that which, in these practical days, they try to hide. + +"I suppose Brooks has told you about my eyes, and of how it may happen +that I shall, for the rest of my life, be able to see through a glass +darkly. + +"That is something to be thankful for, isn't it? It is a rather weird +experience when, having adjusted one's self in anticipation of a +catastrophe, the catastrophe hangs fire. Like old Pepys, I had resigned +myself to the inevitable--indeed in those awful waiting days I read, more +than once, the last paragraph of his diary. + +"'And so I betake myself to that course which it is almost as much as to +see myself go into my grave; for which, and all the discomforts that will +accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me!' + +"Yet Pepys kept his sight all the rest of his life, and regretted, I +fancy, more than once, that he did not finish his diary. And, perhaps, I, +too, shall be granted this dim vision until the end. + +"It seems to me that there are many things which I ought to tell you--I +know there are a thousand things which are forbidden. But at least I can +speak of Diogenes. I saw him at Crossroads the other day, much puffed up +with pride of family. And I can speak of Mrs. Nancy, who is a white +shadow of herself. Why doesn't Brooks see it? He was down here for a week +recently, and he didn't seem to realize that anything was wrong. Perhaps +she is always so radiant when he comes that she dazzles his eyes. + +"She and Miss Sulie are a pathetic pair. I meet them on the road on their +errands of mercy. They are like two sisters of charity in their long +capes and little bonnets. Evidently Mrs. Brooks feels that if her son +cannot doctor the community she can at least nurse it. The country folks +adore her, and go to her for advice, so that Crossroads still opens wide +its doors to the people, as it did in the days of old Dr. Brooks. + +"And now, does the Princess still serve? I can see you with your blue +bowl on your way to Peggy, and stopping on the stairs to light for me the +torch of inspiration. And now all of this service and inspiration is +being spilled at the feet of--Marie-Louise! Will you give her greetings, +and ask her how soon I may come and worship at the shrine of her grinning +old god?" + +Anne, carrying his letter to Marie-Louise, asked, "Shall I tell him to +come?" + +"Yes. I didn't want him to go away, but he said he must--that he couldn't +write here. But I knew why he went, and you knew." + +"You needn't look at me so reproachfully, Marie-Louise. It isn't my +fault." + +"It is your fault," Marie-Louise accused her, "for being like a flame. +Father says that people hold out their hands to you as they do to a +fire." + +"And what," Anne demanded, "has all this to do with Geoffrey Fox?" + +"You know," Marie-Louise told her bluntly, "he loves you and looks up to +you--and I--sit at his feet." + +There was something of tenseness in the small face framed by the red +hair. Anne touched Marie-Louise's cheek with a tender finger. "Dear +heart," she said, "he is just a man." + +For a moment the child stood very still, then she said, "Is he? Or is he +a god, like my Pan in the garden?" + +Later she decided that Geoffrey should come in May. "When there are +roses. And I'll have some people out." + + * * * * * + +It was in May that Rose Acres justified its name. The marble Pan piping +on his reeds faced a garden abloom with beauty. At the right, a grass +walk led down to a sunken fountain approached by wide stone steps. + +It was on these steps that Marie-Louise sat one morning, weaving a +garland. + +"I am going to tie it with gold ribbon," she said. "Tibbs got the laurel +for me." + +"Who is it for?" + +"It may be for--Pan," Marie-Louise wore an air of mystery, "and it may +not." + +She stuck it later on Pan's head, but the effect did not please her. "You +are nothing but a grinning old marble doll," she told him, and Anne +laughed at her. + +"I hoped some day you'd find that out." + +Richard, arriving late that afternoon, found Mrs. Austin on the terrace. +"The young people are in the garden," she said; "will you hunt them up?" + +"I want to talk to Dr. Austin, if I may." + +"He's in the house. He was called to the telephone." + +Austin, coming out, found his young assistant on the portico. + +"Can you give me a second, sir? I've a letter from mother. There's a lot +of sickness at Crossroads. And I feel responsible." + +"Why should you feel responsible?" + +"It's the water supply. Typhoid. If I had been there I should have had it +looked into. I had started an investigation but there was no one to push +it. And now there are a dozen cases. Eric Brand's little wife, Beulah, +and old Peter Bower, and the mother of little Francois." + +"And you are thinking that you ought to go down?" + +"Yes." + +"I don't see how I can let you go. It doesn't make much difference where +people are sick, Brooks, there's always so much for us doctors to do." + +"But if I could be spared----" + +"You can't, Brooks. I am sorry. But I've learned to depend on you." + +The older man laid his hand affectionately on the shoulder of the +younger. If for the moment Richard felt beneath the softness of that +touch the iron glove of one who expected obedience from a subordinate, he +did not show it by word or glance. + +They talked of other things after that, and presently Richard wandered +off to find Eve. He passed beyond the terraces to the garden. He felt +tired and depressed. The fragrance of the roses was heavy and almost +overpowering. There was a stone bench set in the midst of a tangle of +bloom. He sank down on it, asking nothing better than to sit there alone +and think it out. + +He felt at this moment, strongly, what had come to him many times during +the winter--that he was not in any sense his own master. Austin directed, +controlled, commanded. For the opportunity which he had given young +Brooks he expected the return of acquiescence. Thus it happened that +Richard found less of big things and more of little ones in his life than +he had anticipated. There had been times when the moral side of a case +had appealed to him more than the medical, when he had been moved by +generosities such as had moved his grandfather, when he had wanted to be +human rather than professional, and always he had found Austin blocking +his idealistic impulses, scoffing at the things he had valued, imposing +upon him a somewhat hard philosophy in the place of a living faith. It +seemed to Richard that in his profession, as well as in his love affair, +he was no longer meeting life with a direct glance. + +He rose and went on. He must find Eve. He had promised and yet in that +moment he knew that he did not want to see her. He wanted his mother's +touch, her understanding, her love. He wanted Crossroads and big Ben--and +the people who, because of his grandfather, had called him--"friend." + +He found Anne and Geoffrey and Marie-Louise by the fountain at the end of +the grass walk. Marie-Louise perched on the rim was, in her pale green +gown, like some nymph freshly risen. Her hat was off, and her red hair +caught the sunlight. + +Anne was reading the first chapter of Geoffrey's new book. He sat just +above her on the steps of the fountain. His glasses were off, and as he +looked down at her his eyes showed a brilliancy which seemed to +contradict his failing sight. + +Marie-Louise held up a warning finger. "Sit down," she said, "and listen. +It is such a wonder-book, Dr. Dicky." + +So Richard sat down and Anne went on reading. She read well; her voice +had a thrilling quality, and once it broke. + +"Oh, why did you make it so sad?" she said. + +"Could I make it glad?" he asked, and to Richard, watching, there came +the jealous certainty that between the two of them there was some subtle +understanding. + +When at last Anne had read all that he had written Marie-Louise said, +importantly, "Anne is the heroine, the Princess who serves. Will you ever +make me the heroine of a book, Geoffrey Fox?" + +"Perhaps. Give me a plot?" + +"Have a girl who loves a marble god--then some day she meets a man--and +the god is afraid he will lose her, so he wakes to life and says, 'If you +love this man, you will have to accept the common lot of women, you will +have to work for him and obey him--and some day he will die and your soul +will be rent with sorrow. But if you love me, I shall be here when you +are forgotten, and while you live my love will demand nothing but the +verses that you read to me and the roses that lay at my feet.'" + +Geoffrey gave her an eager glance. "Jove, there's more in that than a +joke. Some day I shall get you to amplify your idea." + +"I'll give it to you if you promise to write the book here. There's a +balcony room that overlooks the river--and nobody would ever interrupt +you but me, and I'd only come when you wanted me." + +Marie-Louise's breath was short as she finished. To cover her emotion she +caught up the wreath which she had made in the morning, and which lay +beside her. + +"I made it for you," she told Geoffrey, "and now that I've done it, I +don't know what to do with it." + +She was blushing and glowing, less of an imp and more of a girl than +Richard had ever seen her. + +Geoffrey rose to the occasion. "It shall be a mascot for my new book. +I'll hang it on the wall over my desk, and every time I look up at it, it +shall say to me, 'These are the laurels you are to win.'" + +"You have won them," Marie-Louise flashed. + +"No artist ever feels himself worthy of laurel. His achievement always +falls short of his ambition." + +"But 'Three Souls,'" Marie-Louise said; "surely you were satisfied?" + +"I did not write it--the credit belongs to Mistress Anne. Your wreath +should be hers." + +But Marie-Louise's mind was made up. Before Geoffrey could grasp what she +was about to do, she fluttered up the steps, and dropped the garland +lightly on his dark locks. + +It became him well. + +"Do you like it?" he asked Anne. + +"To the Victor--the spoils," she told him, smiling. + +Richard felt out of it. He wanted to get away, and he knew that he must +find Eve. Eve, who when he met her would laugh her light laugh, and call +him "Dicky Boy," and refuse to listen when he spoke of Crossroads. + +The path that he took led to a little tea house built on the bank, which +gave a wide view of the river and the Jersey hills. He found Winifred and +Tony side by side and silent. + +"Better late than never," was Tony's greeting. + +"I am hunting for Eve." + +"She and Meade were here a moment ago," Winifred informed him. "Sit down +and give an account of yourself. We haven't seen you in a million years." + +"Just a week, dear lady. I have been horribly busy." + +"You say that as if you meant the 'horribly.'" + +"I do. It has been a 'bluggy' business, and I am tired." He laughed with +a certain amount of constraint. "If I were a boy, I should say 'I want to +go home.'" + +Winifred gave him a quick glance. "What has happened?" + +"Oh, everybody is ill at Crossroads. Beastly conditions. And they ought +to have been corrected. Beulah's ill." + +"The little bride?" + +"Yes. And Eric is frantic. He has written me, asking me to come down. But +Austin can't see it." + +"Could you go for the day?" + +"If I went for a day I should stay longer. There's everything to be +done." + +He switched away from the subject. "Crowd seems to have separated. Fox +and Anne Warfield by the fountain. You and Tony here, and Eve and Pip as +yet undiscovered." + +"It is the day," Winifred decided, "all romance and roses. Even Tony and +I were a-lovering when Eve found us." + +Richard rose. "Tony, she wants to hold your hand. I'll get out." + +Winifred laughed. "You'd better go and hold Eve's." + +As he went away, Richard wondered if there was anything significant in +her way of saying it. + +Eve and Pip were in the enclosed space where Pan gleamed white against +the dark cedars. Eve was seated on the sun-dial. Pip had lifted her +there, and he stood leaning against it. Her lap was full of roses, and +there were roses on her hat. The high note of color was repeated in the +pink sunshade which lay open where the wind had wafted it to the feet of +the piping Pan. + +Pip straightened up as he saw Richard approaching. "There comes your +eager lover, Eve. Give me a rose before he gets here." + +"No." + +"Why not?" + +"I'm afraid." + +"Of me?" + +"No. But if I give you anything you'll take more. And I want to give +everything to--Dicky." + +He laughed a triumphant laugh. "I take all _I_ can get. Give me a rose, +Eve." + +She yielded to his masterfulness. Out of the mass of bloom she chose a +pink bud. "I shall give a red one to Dicky, so don't feel puffed up." + +"I told you I should take what I could get, and Brooks isn't thinking of +roses. Look at his face." + +"I am sorry to be so late, Eve," Richard said, as he came up. "I am +always apologizing, it seems to me." + +"Little Boy Blue----! Dicky, what's the matter?" + +"I want to go home." He tried to speak lightly--to follow her mood. + +"Home--to Crossroads?" + +"Yes." + +"But why?" + +"There's typhoid, and they don't know how to cope with it." + +"Aren't there other doctors?" + +"Yes, but not enough." + +"Nonsense; what did they do before you came to the county? You must get +rid of the feeling that you are so--important." She was angry. Little +sparks were in her eyes. + +"Don't worry, Eve. Austin doesn't want me to go. I can't get away. But it +is on my mind." + +"Put it off and come and help me with my roses. I gave Pip a bud. Are you +jealous, Dicky?" + +Still trying to follow her mood, he said, "You and the rest of the roses +belong to me. Why should I care for one poor bud?" + +She stuck a red rose in his coat, and when she had made her flowers into +a nosegay, he lifted her down from the sun-dial. For a moment she clung +to him. Meade had gone to rescue the sunshade which was blowing down the +slope, and for the moment they were alone. "Dicky," she whispered, "I was +horrid, but you mustn't go." + +"I told you I couldn't, Eve." + +Then Pip came back, and the three of them made their way to the +fountain, picking up Winifred and Tony as they passed. Tea was served on +the terrace, and a lot of other people motored out. There was much +laughter and lightness--as if there were no trouble in the whole wide +world. + +Richard felt separated from it all by his mood, and when he went to the +house to send a message for Austin to the hospital, he did not at once +return to the terrace. He sought the great library. It was dim and quiet +and he lay back in one of the big chairs and shut his eyes. The vision +was before him of Pip leaning on the sun-dial against a rose-splashed +background, with Eve smiling down at him. It had come to him then that +Pip should have married Eve. Pip would make her happy. The thing was all +wrong in some way, but he could not see clearly how to make it right. + +There was a sound in the room and he opened his eyes to find Marie-Louise +on the ladder which gave access to the shelves of the great bookcases +which lined the walls. She had not seen him, and she was singing softly +to herself. In the dimness the color of her hair and gown gave a +stained-glass effect against a background of high square east window. + +Richard sat up. What was she singing? + + "_I think she was the most beautiful lady_ + _That ever was in the West Country,_ + _But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,_ + _However rare, rare it be._ + _And when I am gone, who shall remember_ + _That lady of the West Country?_" + +"Marie-Louise," he asked so suddenly that she nearly fell off of the +shelves, "where did you learn that song?" + +"From Mistress Anne." + +"When you sing it do you think of--her?" + +"Yes. Do you?" + +"Yes." + +Marie-Louise sat down on the top step of the ladder. "Dr. Dicky, may I +ask a question?" + +"Yes." + +"Why didn't you fall in love with Anne?" + +"I did." + +"Oh! Then why didn't you marry her?" + +"She is going to marry Geoffrey Fox." + +Dead silence. Then, "Did she tell you?" + +"No. He told me. Last spring." + +"Before you came here?" + +"Yes. That was the reason I came. I wanted to get away from everything +that--spoke of her." + +Marie-Louise slipped down from the ladder and came and stood beside him. +"_He told you_," she said in a sharp whisper, "but there must be some +mistake. She doesn't love him. She said that she didn't. I wonder why he +lied." + +There was nothing cold about her now. She was a fiery spark. "Only +a--_cad_ could do such a thing--and I thought--oh, Dr. Dicky, I thought +he was a _man_----" + +She flung herself at his feet like a stricken child. He went down to her. +"Marie-Louise, stop. Sit up and tell me what's the matter." + +She sat up. "I shall ask Anne. I shall go and get her and ask her." + +He found himself calling after her, "Marie-Louise," but she was gone. + +She came back presently, dragging the protesting Anne. "But Marie-Louise, +what do you want of me?" + +Richard, rising, said, "Please don't think I permitted this. I tried to +stop her." + +"I didn't want to be stopped," Marie-Louise told them. "I want to know +whether you and Geoffrey Fox are going to be married." + +Anne's cheeks were stained red. "Of course not. But it isn't anything to +get so excited about, is it, Marie-Louise?" + +"Yes, it is. He told Dr. Dicky that you were, and he _lied_. And I +thought, oh, you know the wonderful things I thought about him, Mistress +Anne." + +Anne's arm went around the sad little nymph in green. "You must still +think wonderful things of him. He was very unhappy, and desperate about +his eyes. And it seemed to him that to assert a thing might make it come +true." + +"But you didn't love him?" + +"Never, Marie-Louise." + +And now Richard, ignoring the presence of Marie-Louise, ignoring +everything but the question which beat against his heart, demanded: + +"If you knew that he had told me this, why didn't you make things clear?" + +"When I might have made things clear--you were engaged to Eve." + +She turned abruptly from him to Marie-Louise. "Run back to your poet, +dear heart. He is waiting for the book that you were going to bring him. +And remember that you are not to sit in judgment. You are to be eyes for +him, and light." + +It was a sober little nymph in green who marched away with her book. +Geoffrey sat on the stone bench a little withdrawn from the others. His +lean face, straining toward the house, relaxed as she came within his +line of vision. + +"You were a long time away," he said, and made a place for her beside +him, and she sat down and opened her book. + +And now, back in the dim library, Anne and Richard! + +"I stayed," she said, "because they were speaking out there of +Crossroads. I have had a letter, too, from Sulie. She says that the +situation is desperate." + +"Yes. They need me. And I ought to go. They are my people. I feel that in +a sense I belong to them--as my grandfather belonged." + +"Do you mean that if you go now you will stay?" + +"I am not sure. The future must take care of itself." + +"Your mother would be glad if your decision finally came to that." + +"Yes. And I should be glad. But this time I shall not go for my mother's +sake alone. Something deeper is drawing me. I can't quite analyze it. It +is a call"--he laughed a little--"such as men describe who enter the +ministry,--an irresistible impulse, as if I were to find something there +that I had lost in the city." + +She held out her hand to him. "Do you know the name I had for you when +you were at Crossroads?" + +"No." + +"I called you St. Michael--because it always seemed to me that you +carried a sword." + +He tightened his grip on the little hand. "Some day I shall hope to +justify the name; I don't deserve it now." + +Her eyes came up to him. "You'll fight to win," she said, softly. + +He did not want to let her go. But there was no other way. But when she +had joined the others on the terrace he made a wide detour of the garden, +and wandered down to the river. + +It was not a singing river, but to-day it seemed to have a song, "_Go +back, go back_," it said; "_you have seen the world, you have seen the +world_." + +And when he had listened for a little while he climbed the hill to tell +Austin and to tell--Eve. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +_In Which Anne Weighs the People of Two Worlds._ + + +"RICHARD!" + +"Yes, mother, I'm here. Austin thinks I am crazy, and Eve won't speak to +me. But--I came. And to think you have turned the house into a hospital!" + +"It seemed the only thing to do. Francois' mother had no one to take care +of her--and there were others, and the house is big." + +"You are the biggest thing in it. Mother, if I ever pray to a saint, it +will be one with gray hair in a nurse's cap and apron, and with shining +eyes." + +"They are shining because you are here, Richard." + +Cousin Sulie, in the door, broke down and cried, "Oh, we've prayed for +it." + +They clung to him, the two little growing-old women, who had wanted him, +and who had worked without him. + +He had no words for them, for he could not speak with steadiness. But in +that moment he knew that he should never go back to Austin. That he +should live and die in the home of his fathers. And that his work was +here. + +He tried, a little later, to make a joke of their devotion. "Mother, you +and Cousin Sulie mustn't. I shall need a body-guard to protect me. You'll +spoil me with softness and ease." + +"I shall buckle on your armor soon enough," she told him. "Did Eric meet +you at the station?" + +"Yes, I shall go straight to Beulah's. I stopped in to see old Peter +before I came up. I can pull him through, but I shall have to have some +nurses." + +And now big Ben, at an even trot, carried Richard to the Playhouse. Toby, +mad with gladness at the return of his master, raced ahead. + +Up in the pretty pink and white room lay Beulah. No longer plump and +blooming, but wasted and wan with dry lips and hollow eyes. + +Eric had said to Richard, "If she dies I shall die, too." + +"She is not going to die." + +And now he said it again, cheerfully, to the wasted figure in the bed. "I +have come to make you well, Beulah." + +But Beulah was not at all sure that she wanted to be--well. She was too +tired. She was tired of Eric, tired of her mother, tired of taking +medicine, tired of having to breathe. + +So she shut her eyes and turned away. + +Eric sat by the bed. "Dear heart," he said, "it is Dr. Dicky." + +But she did not open her eyes. + +In the days that followed Richard fought to make his words come true. He +felt that if Beulah died it would, in some way, be his fault. He was +aware that this was a morbid state of mind, but he could not help the way +he felt. Beulah's life would be the price of his self-respect. + +But it was not only for Beulah's life that he fought, but for the lives +of others. He had nurses up from Baltimore and down from New York. He had +experts to examine wells and springs and other sources of water supply. +He had a motor car that he might cover the miles quickly, using old Ben +only for short distances. Toby, adapting himself to the car, sat on the +front seat with the wind in his face, drunk with the excitement of it. + +When Nancy spoke of the expense to which Richard was putting himself, he +said, "I have saved something, mother, and Eric and the rest can pay." + +Surely in those days St. Michael needed his sword, for the fight was to +the finish. Night and day the battle waged. Richard went from bedside to +bedside, coming always last to Beulah in the shadowed pink and white room +at the Playhouse. + +There were nurses now, but Eric Brand would not be turned out. "Every +minute that I am away from her," he told Richard, "I'm afraid. It seems +as if when I am in sight of her I can hold her--back." + +So, night after night, Richard found him in the chair by Beulah's bed, +his face shaded by his hand, rousing only when Beulah stirred, to smile +at her. + +But Beulah did not smile back. She moaned a little now and then, and +sometimes talked of things that never were on sea or land. There was a +flowered chintz screen in the corner of the room and she peopled it with +strange creatures, and murmured of them now and then, until the nurse +covered the screen with a white sheet, which seemed to blot it out of +Beulah's mind forever. + +There was always a pot of coffee boiling in the kitchen for the young +doctor, and Eric would go down with him and they would drink and talk, +and all that Eric said led back to Beulah. + +"If there was only something that I could do for her," he said; "if I +could go out and work until I dropped, I should feel as if I were +helping. But just to sit there and see her--fade." + +Again he said, "I had always thought of our living--never of dying. There +can be no future for me without her." + +So it was for Eric's future as well as for Beulah's life that Richard +strove. He grew worn and weary, but he never gave up. + +Night after night, day after day, from house to house he went, along the +two roads and up into the hills. Everywhere he met an anxious welcome. +Where the conditions were unfavorable, he transferred the patient to +Crossroads, where Nancy and Sulie and Milly and a trio of nurses formed +an enthusiastic hospital staff. + +The mother of little Francois was the first patient that Richard lost. +She was tired and overworked, and she felt that it was good to fall +asleep. Afterward Richard, with the little boy in his arms, went out and +sat where they could look over the river and talk together. + +"I told her that you were to stay with me, Francois." + +"And she was glad?" + +"Yes. I need a little lad in my office, and when I take the car you can +ride with me." + +And thus it came about that little Francois, a sober little Francois, +with a band of black about his arm, became one of the Crossroads +household, and was made much of by the women, even by black Milly, who +baked cookies for him and tarts whenever he cried for his mother. + +Cousin Sulie rose nobly to meet the new demands upon her. "It is a +feeling I never had before," she said to Richard, as she helped him pack +his bag before going on his rounds, "that what I am doing is worth while. +I know I should have felt it when I was darning stockings, but I didn't." + +She gloried in the professional aspect which she gave to everything. She +installed little Francois at a small table in the Garden Room. He +answered the telephone and wrote the messages on slips of paper which he +laid on the doctor's desk. Cousin Sulie at another table saw the people +who came in Richard's absence. + +"Nancy can read to the patients up-stairs and cut flowers for them and +cook nice things for them," she confided, "but I like to be down here +when the children come in to ask for medicine, and when the mothers come +to find out what they shall feed the convalescents. Richard, I never +heard anything like their--hungriness--when they are getting well." + +Beulah, emerging slowly from among the shadows, began to think of things +to eat. She didn't care about anything else. She didn't care for Eric's +love, or her mother's gladness, or Richard's cheerfulness, or the nurses' +sympathy. She cared only to think of every kind of food that she had ever +liked in her whole life, and to ask if she might have it. + +"But, dear heart, the doctor doesn't think that you should," Eric would +protest. + +She would cry, weakly, "You don't love me, or you would let me." + +She begged and begged, and at last he couldn't stand it. + +"You are starving her," he told the nurses fiercely. + +They referred him to the doctor. + +Eric telephoned Richard. + +"My dear fellow," was the response, "her appetite is a sign that she is +getting well." + +"But she is so hungry." + +"So are they all. I have to steel my heart against them, especially the +children. And half of the convalescents are reading cook books." + +"Cook books!" + +"Yes. In that way they get a meal by proxy. I tell them to pick out the +things they are going to have when they are well enough to eat all they +want. Their choice ranges from Welsh rarebits to plum puddings." + +He laughed, but Eric saw nothing funny in the matter. "I can't bear to +see her--suffer." + +Richard was sobered at once. "Don't think that I am not sympathetic. +But--Brand, I don't dare-_feel_. If I did, I should go to pieces." + +Slowly the weeks passed. Besides Francois' mother, two of Richard's +patients died. Slowly the pendulum of time swung the rest of the sick +ones toward recovery. Nancy and Sulie and Milly changed the rooms at +Crossroads back to their original uses. The nurses, no longer needed, +packed their competent bags, and departed. Beulah at the Playhouse had +her first square meal, and smiled back at Eric. + +The strain had told fearfully on Richard. Yet he persisted in his efforts +long after it seemed that the countryside was safe. He tried to pack into +twelve short weeks what he would normally have done in twelve long +months. He spurred his fellow physicians to increased activities, he +urged authorities to unprecedented exertions. He did the work of two men +and sometimes of three. And he was so exhausted that he felt that if ever +his work was finished he would sleep for a million years. + +It was in September that he began to wonder how he would square things up +with Eve. At first she had written to him blaming him for his desertion. +But not for a moment did she take it seriously. "You'll be coming back, +Dicky," was the burden of her song. He wrote hurried pleasant letters +which were to some extent bulletins of the day's work. If Eve was not +satisfied she consoled herself with the thought that he was tearingly +busy and terribly tired. + +In her last letter she had said, "Austin doesn't know what to do without +you. He told Pip that you were his right hand." + +Austin had said more than that to Anne. He had found her one hot day by +the fountain. Nancy had written to her of the death of Francois' mother. +The letter was in her hand. + +Austin had also had a letter. "Brooks is a fool. He writes that he is +going to stay." + +Anne shook her head. "He is not a fool," she said; "he is doing what he +_had_ to do. You would know if you had ever lived at Crossroads. Why, the +Brooks family belongs there, and the Brooks doctors." + +"So you have encouraged him?" Austin said. + +"I have had nothing to do with it. I haven't heard from him since he +left, and I haven't written." + +"And you think he is--right to--bury--himself?" + +Anne sat very still, her hands folded quietly. Her calm eyes were on the +golden fish which swam in the waters at the base of the fountain. + +"I am not sure," she said; "it all has so much to do with--old +traditions--and inherited feelings--and ideals. He could be just as +useful here, but he would never be happy. You can't imagine how they look +up to him down there. And here he looked up to you." + +"Then you think I didn't give him a free hand?" + +"No. But there he is a Brooks of Crossroads. And it isn't because he +wants the honor of it that he has gone back, but because the +responsibility rests upon him to make the community all that it ought to +be. And he can't shirk it." + +"Eve Chesley says that he is tied to his mother's apron strings." + +"She doesn't understand, I do. I sometimes feel that way about the +Crossroads school--as if I had shirked something to have--a good time." + +"But you have had a good time." + +"Yes, you have all been wonderful to me," her smile warmed him, "but you +won't think that I am ungrateful when I say that there was something in +my life in the little school which carried me--higher--than this." + +"Higher? What do you mean?" + +"I was a leader down there. And a force. The children looked to me for +something that I could give and which the teacher they have isn't giving. +She just teaches books, and I tried to teach them something of life, and +love of country, and love of God." + +"But here you have Marie-Louise, and you know how grateful we are for +what you have done for her." + +"I have only developed what was in her. What a flaming little genius she +is!" + +"With a poem accepted by an important magazine, and Fox believing that +she can write more of them." + +Anne spoke quietly: "And now I am really not needed. Marie-Louise can go +on alone." + +He stopped her. "We want you to stay--my wife wants you--Marie-Louise +can't do without you. And I want you to get Brooks back." + +She looked her amazement. "Get him back?" + +"He will come if you ask it. I am not blind. Eve Chesley is. The things +she says make him stubborn. But you could call him back. You could call +to life anything in any man if you willed it. You are inspirational--a +star to light the way." + +His voice was shaken. After a pause he went on: "Will you help me to get +Brooks back?" + +She shook her head. "I shall not try. He is among his own people. He has +found his place." + +Yet now that Richard was gone, Anne found herself missing him more than +she dared admit. She was, for the first time, aware that the knowledge +that she should see him now and then had kept her from loneliness which +might otherwise have assailed her. The thought that she might meet him +had added zest to her engagements. His week-ends at Rose Acres had been +the goal toward which her thoughts had raced. + +And now the great house was empty because of his absence. The city was +empty--because he had left it--forever. She had no hope that he would +come back. Crossroads had claimed him. He had, indeed, come into his own. + +When the rest of his friends spoke of him, praised or blamed, she was +silent. Geoffrey Fox, who came often, complained, "You are always sitting +off in a corner somewhere with your work, putting in a million stitches, +when I want you to talk." + +"You can talk to Marie-Louise. She is your ardent disciple. She burns +candles at your altar." + +"She is a charming--child." + +"She is more than that. When her poem was accepted she cried over the +letter. She thinks that she couldn't have done it except for your help +and criticism." + +"She will do more than she has done." + +When Marie-Louise joined them, Anne was glad to see Geoffrey's protective +manner, as if he wanted to be nice to the child who had cried. + +She had to listen to much criticism of Richard. When Eve and the +Dutton-Ames dined one night in the early fall at Rose Acres, Richard's +quixotic action formed the theme of their discourse. + +Eve was very frank. "Somebody ought to tie Dicky down. His head is in the +clouds." + +Marie-Louise flashed: "I like people whose heads are in the clouds. He is +doing a wonderful thing and a wise thing--and we are all acting as if it +were silly." + +Anne wanted to hug Marie-Louise, and with heightened color she listened +to Winifred's defense. + +"I think we should all like to feel that we are equal to it--to give up +money and fame--for the thing that--called." + +"There is no better or bigger work for him there than here," Austin +proclaimed. + +"No," Winifred agreed, and her eyes were bright, "but it is because he is +giving up something which the rest of us value that I like him. +Renunciation isn't fashionable, but it is stimulating." + +"The usual process is to 'grab and git,'" her husband sustained her. "We +always like to see some one who isn't bitten by the modern bacillus." + +After dinner Anne left them and made her way down in the darkness to the +river. The evening boat was coming up, starred with lights, its big +search-light sweeping the shores. When it passed, the darkness seemed +deeper. The night was cool, and Anne, wrapped in a white cloak, was like +a ghost among the shadows. Far up on the terrace she could see the big +house, and hear the laughter. She felt much alone. Those people were not +her people. Her people were of Nancy's kind, well-born and well bred, but +not smart in the modern sense. They were quiet folk, liking their homes, +their friends, their neighbors. They were not so rich that they were +separated by their money from those about them. They had time to read and +to think. They were perhaps no better than the people in the big house on +top of the terrace, but they lived at a more leisurely pace, and it +seemed to her at this moment that they got more out of life. + +She wanted more than anything in the world to be to-night with that +little group at Crossroads, to meet Cousin Sulie's sparkling glance, to +sit at Nancy's knee, to hear Richard's big laugh, as he came in and found +the women waiting for the news of the outside world that he would bring. + +She knew that she could have the little school if she asked for it. But a +sense of dignity restrained her. She could not go back now. It would seem +to the world that she had followed Richard. Well, her heart followed him, +but the world did not know that. + +She heard voices. Geoffrey and Marie-Louise were at the river's edge. + +"It is as if there were just the two of us in the whole wide world," +Marie-Louise was saying. "That's what I like about the darkness. It seems +to shut everybody out." + +"But suppose the darkness followed you into the day," Geoffrey said, +"suppose that for you there were no light?" + +A rim of gold showed above the blackness of the Jersey hills. + +"Oh," Marie-Louise exulted, "look at the moon. In a moment there will be +light, and you thought you were in the dark." + +"You mean that it is an omen?" + +"Yes." + +"What a small and comfortable person you are," Geoffrey said, and now +Anne could see the two of them silhouetted against the brightening sky, +one tall and slim, the other slim and short. They walked on, and she +heard their voices faintly. + +"Do I really make you comfortable, Geoffrey Fox?" + +"You make me more than that, Marie-Louise." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +_In Which Richard Rides Alone._ + + +"EVE." + +"Yes, Pip." + +"Can't you see that if he cared Richard would do the thing that pleased +you--that New York would be Paradise if you were in it?" + +"Why shouldn't Crossroads be Paradise to me--with him?" + +"It couldn't be." + +"I am going to make it. I talked it over last night with Aunt Maude. +She's an old dear. And I shall be the Lady of the Manor. If Dicky won't +come to New York, I'll bring New York down to him." + +"It can't be done. And it's going to fail." + +"What is going to fail?" + +"Your marriage. If you are mad enough to marry Brooks." + +She mused. "Pip, do you remember the fat Armenian?" + +"At Coney? Yes." + +"He said that--I had reached for something beyond my grasp. That my +fingers would touch it, but that it would soar always above me." + +"Sounds as if Brooks were some fat sort of a bird. I can't think of him +as soaring. I should call him the cock that crowed at Crossroads. Oh, +it's all rot, Eve, this idea that love makes things equal. I went to the +Hippodrome not long ago and saw 'Pinafore.' Our fathers and mothers raved +over it. But that was a sentimental age, and Gilbert poked fun at them. +He made the simple sailor a captain in the end, so that Josephine +shouldn't wash dishes and cook smelly things in pots and hang out the +family wash. But your hero balks and won't be turned into a millionaire. +If you were writing a book you might make it work out to your +satisfaction, but you can't twist life to the happy ending." + +"I shall try, Pip." + +"In Heaven's name, Eve! It is sheer obstinacy. If everybody wanted you to +marry Brooks, you'd want to marry me. But because Aunt Maude and Winifred +and I, and a lot of others know that you shouldn't, you have set your +heart on it." + +She flashed her eyes at him. "Is it obstinacy, Pip, I wonder? Do you know +I rather think I am going to like it." + +Her letters said something of the sort to Richard. "I shall love it down +there. But you must let me have my own way with the house and garden. +Don't you think I shall make a charming chatelaine, Dicky, dear?" + +He had a sense of relief in her unexpected acquiescence in his decision. +If she had objected, he would have felt as if he had turned his back not +only on the work that he hated but on the woman he had promised to marry. +It would have looked that way to others. Yet no matter how it had looked, +he could not have done differently. The call had been insistent, and the +deeps of his nature been stirred. + +He was thinking of it all as one morning in October he rode to the +Playhouse on big Ben to see Beulah. + +Dismounting at the gate, he followed the path which led to the kitchen. +Beulah was not there, and, searching, he saw her under an old apple tree +at the end of the garden. She wore a checked blue apron, stiffly +starched, and she was holding it up by the corners. A black cat and three +sable kittens frisked at her feet. + +Some one was dropping red apples carefully into the apron, some one who +laughed as he swung himself down and tipped Beulah's chin up with his +hand and kissed her. Richard felt a lump in his throat. It was such a +homely little scene, but it held a meaning that love had never held for +himself and Eve. + +Eric untied Beulah's apron string, and carrying the apples in this +improvised bag, with his arm about her waist sustaining her, they came +down the walk. + +"This is Beulah's pet tree. When she was sick she asked for apples and +apples and apples." + +Beulah, sinking her little white teeth into a red one, nodded. "It is +perfectly wonderful," she said when she was able to speak, "how good +everything tastes, and I can't get enough." + +Eric pinched her cheek. "Pretty good color, doctor. We'll have them +matching the apples yet." + +Richard wanted to ask Eric about the dogs. "Some of my friends are coming +down to-morrow for the Middlefield hunt." + +"If they start old Pete there'll be some sport," Eric said. + +"I shall be half sorry if they do," Richard told him. "I am always afraid +I shall lose him out of my garden. He is a part of the place, like the +box hedge and the cedars." + +He said it lightly, but he meant it. He had hunting blood in his veins, +and he loved the horses and the dogs. He loved the cold crisp air, and +the excitement of the chase. But what he did not love was the hunted +animal, doubling on its tracks, pursued, panting, torn to pieces by the +hounds. + +"Old Pete deserved to live and die among the hills," Beulah said. "Is +Miss Chesley coming down?" + +"Yes, and a lot of others. They will put up at the club. Mother and Sulie +aren't up to entertaining a crowd." + +He wanted Eric's dogs for ducks. Dutton-Ames and one or two others did +not ride to hounds, and would come to Bower's in the morning. + +As he rode away, he was conscious that as soon as his back was turned +Eric's arm would again be about Beulah, and Beulah's head would be on +Eric's shoulder. And that he would lift her over the threshold as they +went in. + +That afternoon Richard motored over to the Country Club to welcome Eve. +She laughed at his little car. "I'd rather see you on big Ben than in +that." + +"Ben can't carry me fast enough." + +"Don't expect me to ride in it, Dicky." + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, Dicky, can you _ask_?" + +Meade's great limousine which had brought them seemed to stare the little +car out of countenance. But Richard refused to be embarrassed by the +contrast. "She's a snug little craft, and she has carried me miles. What +would Meade's car do on these roads and in the hills?" + +Pip had come up and as the two men stood together Eve's quick eye +contrasted them. There was no doubt of Richard's shabbiness. His old +riding coat was much the worse for wear. He had on the wrong kind of hat +and the wrong kind of shoes, and he seemed most aggravatingly not to +care. He was to ride to-morrow one of the horses which had been sent down +from Pip's stables. He hadn't even a proper mount! + +Pip, on the other hand, was perfectly groomed. He was shining and +immaculate from the top of his smooth head to the heel of his boots. And +he wore an air of gay inconsequence. It seemed to Eve that Richard's +shoulders positively sagged with responsibility. + +There was a dance at the club that night. Richard, coming in, saw Eve in +Pip's arms. They were a graceful pair, and their steps matched perfectly. +Eve was all in white, wide-skirted, and her shoulders and arms were bare. +She had on gold slippers, and her hair was gold. Richard had a sense of +discomfort as he watched them. He was going to marry her, yet she was +letting Pip look at her like that. His cheeks burned. What was Pip +saying? Was he making love to Eve? + +He had tried to meet the situation with dignity. Yet there was no dignity +in Eve's willingness to let Pip follow her. To speak of it would, +however, seem to crystallize his feeling into a complaint. + +Hence when he danced with her later, he tried to respond to the lightness +and brightness of her mood. He tried to measure up to all the +requirements of his position as an engaged man and as a lover. But he did +not find it easy. + +When he reached home that night, he found little Francois awake, and +ready to ask questions about the hunt. + +"Do you think they will get him?" he challenged Richard, coming in small +pink pajamas to the door of the young doctor's room. + +"Get who?" + +"Old Pete." + +"He is too cunning." + +"Will he come through here?" + +"Perhaps." + +"I shall stick my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes. Are you going to +ride with them?" + +"Yes." + +"You won't let them kill old Pete, will you?" + +"Not if I can help it." + +After that, the child was more content. But when Richard was at last in +bed, Francois came again across the hall, and stood on the threshold in +the moonlight. "It would be dreadful if it was his last night." + +"Whose last night, Francois?" sleepily. + +"Old Pete's." + +"Don't worry. And you must go to bed, Francois." + +Richard waked to a glorious morning and to the hunt. Pink coats dotted +the countryside. It seemed as if half the world was on its way to the +club. Richard, as he mounted one of Pip's hunters, a powerful bay, felt +the thrill of it all, and when he joined Eve and her party he found them +in an uproarious mood. + +Presently over hills streamed a picturesque procession--the hounds in the +lead, the horses following with riders whose pink blazed against the +green of the pines, against the blue of the river, against the fainter +blue of the skies above. + +And oh, the music of it, the sound of the horn, the bell-like baying, the +thud of flying feet! + +Then, ahead of them all, as the hounds broke into full cry, a silent, +swift shadow--the old fox, Pete! + +At first he ran easily. He had done it so often. He had thrown them off +after a chase which had stirred his blood. He would throw them off again. + +In leisurely fashion he led them. As the morning advanced, however, he +found himself hard pushed. He was driven from one stronghold to another. +Tireless, the hounds followed and followed, until at last he knew himself +weary, seeking sanctuary. + +He came with confidence to Crossroads. Beyond the garden was his den. +Once within and the thing would end. + +Across the lawn he loped, and little Francois, anxious at the window, +spied him. "Will he get to it, will he get to it?" he said to Nancy, his +small face white with the fear of what might happen, "and when he gets +there will he be safe?" + +"Yes," she assured him; "and when they have run him aground, they will +ride away." + +But they did not ride away. It happened that those who were in the lead +were unaware of the tradition of the country, and so they began to dig +him out, this old king of foxes, who had felt himself secure in his +castle! + +They set the dogs at one end, and fetched mattocks and spades from the +stable. + +Pip and Eve were among them. Pip directing, Eve mad with the excitement +of it all. + +Little Francois, watching, clung to Nancy. "Oh, they can't, they +mustn't!" + +She soothed him, and at last sent Milly out, but they would not listen. + +Nancy and Sulie were as white now as little Francois. "Oh, where is +Richard?" Nancy said. "It is like murder to do a thing like that. It is +bad enough in the open--but like a rat--in a trap." + +The big bay was charging down the hill with Richard yelling at the top of +his voice. The bay had proved troublesome and had bolted in the wrong +direction, but Richard had brought him back to Crossroads just in time! + +Francois screamed. "It is Dr. Dicky. He'll make them stop. He'll make +them." + +He did make them. His voice rang sharply. "Get the dogs away, Meade, and +stop digging." + +They were too eager at first to heed him. Eve hung on his arm, but he +shook her off. "We don't like things like that down here. Our foxes are +too rare." + +It was a motley group which gathered later at the club for the hunt +breakfast. There were fox-hunting farmers born on the land, of sturdy +yeoman stock, and careless of form. There were the lords of newly +acquired acres, who rode carefully on little saddles with short stirrups +in the English style. + +There were the descendants of the great old planters, daring, immensely +picturesque. There was Eve's crowd, trained for the sport, and at their +ease. + +A big fire burned on the hearth. A copper-covered table held steaming +dishes. Another table groaned under its load of cold meats and cheese. On +an ancient mahogany sideboard were various bottles and bowls of punch. + +Old songs were sung and old stories told. Brinsley beamed on everybody +with his face like a round full moon. There were other round and +red-faced gentlemen who, warmed by the fire and the punch, twinkled like +unsteady old stars. + +Eve was the pivotal center of all the hilarity. She sat on the table and +served the punch. Her coat was off, and in her silk blouse and riding +breeches she was like a lovely boy. The men crowded around her. Pip, +always at her elbow, delivered an admiring opinion. "No one can hold a +candle to you, Eve." + +Richard was out of it. He sat quietly in a corner with David, old Jo at +their feet, and watched the others. Eve had been angry with him for his +interference at Crossroads. "I didn't know you were a molly-coddle, +Dicky," she had said, "and I wanted the brush." + +She was punishing him now by paying absolutely no attention to him. She +was punishing him, too, by making herself conspicuous, which she knew he +hated. The scene was not to his liking. The women of his household, +Nancy, Sulie and Anne, had had a fastidious sense of what belonged to +them as ladies. Eve had not that sense. As he sat there, it occurred to +him that things were moving to some stupendous climax. He and Eve +couldn't go on like this. + + * * * * * + +Far up in the hills a man was in danger of bleeding to death. He had cut +himself while butchering a pig. The doctor was called. + +Richard, making his way through the shouting and singing crowd which +surrounded Eve, told her, "I shall have to go for a little while. There's +a man hurt. I'll be back in an hour." + +She looked down at him with hard eyes. "We are going to ride +cross-country--to the Ridge. You might meet us there, if you care to +come." + +"You know I care." + +"I'm not sure. You don't show it. I--I am tired of never having a +lover--Dicky." + +It was a wonderful afternoon. The heavy frost had chilled the air, the +leaves were red, and the sky was blue--and there was green and brown and +gold. But Richard as he rode up in the hills had no eyes for the color, +no ears for the song beaten out by big Ben's hoofs. The vision which held +him was of Eve in the midst of that shouting circle. + +The man who had cut himself was black. He was thin and tall and his hair +was gray. He had worked hard all of his life, but he had never worked out +of himself the spirit of joyous optimism. + +"I jes' tole 'um," he said, "to send for Dr. Brooks, and he'd beat the +devil gettin' to me." + +When Richard reached the Ridge, a flash of scarlet at once caught his +eye. On the slope below Eve, far ahead of Meade, in a mad race, was +making for a grove at the edge of the Crossroads boundaries. She was a +reckless rider, and Richard held his breath as she took fences, leaped +hurdles, and cleared the flat wide stream. + +As she came to the grove she turned and waved triumphantly to Pip. For a +moment she made a vivid and brilliant figure in her scarlet against the +green. Then the little wood swallowed her up. + +Pip came pounding after, and Richard, spurring his big Ben to +unaccustomed efforts, circled the grove to meet them on the other side. + +But they did not come. From the point where he finally drew up he could +command a view of both sides of the slope. Unless they had turned back, +they were still in the grove. + +Then out of the woods came Pip, running. He had something in his arms. + +"It is Eve," he said, panting; "there was a hole and her horse stumbled. +I found her." + +Poor honest Pip! As if she were his own, he held her now in his arms. +Her golden head, swung up to his shoulder, rested heavily above his +heart. Her eyes were shut. + +Richard's practiced eye saw at once her state of collapse. He jumped from +his horse. "Give her to me, Meade," he said, "and get somebody's car as +quickly as you can." + +And now the tiger in Pip flashed out. "She's mine," he said, breathing +hoarsely. "I love her. You go and get the car." + +"Man," the young doctor said steadily, "this isn't the time to quarrel. +Lay her down, then, and let me have a look at her." + +He had his little case of medicines, and he hunted for something to bring +her back to consciousness. Pip, pale and shaken, folded his coat under +her head and chafed her hands. + +Presently life seemed to sweep through her body. She shivered and moved. + +Her eyes came open. "What happened?" + +"You fell from your horse. Meade found you." + +There were no bones broken, but the shock had been great. She lay very +still and white against Pip's arm. + +Richard closed his medicine case and rose. He stood looking down at her. + +"Better, old lady?" + +"Yes, Dicky." + +He spoke a little awkwardly. "I'll ride down if you don't mind, and come +back for you in Meade's car." His eyes did not meet hers. + +As he plunged over the hill on his heavy old horse, her puzzled gaze +followed him. Then she gave a queer little laugh. "Is he running away +from me, Pip?" + +"I told him you were--mine," the big man burst out. + +"You told him? Oh, Pip, what did he say?" + +"That this was not the time to talk about it." + +She lay very still thinking it out. Then she turned on his arm. "Good old +Pip," she said. He drew her up to him, and she said it again, with that +queer little laugh, "Good old Pip, you're the best ever. And all this +time I have been looking straight over your blessed old head at--Dicky." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +_In Which St. Michael Finds Love in a Garden._ + + +THE flowers in Marie-Louise's bowl were lilacs. And Marie-Louise, sitting +up in bed, writing verses, was in pale mauve. Her windows were wide open, +and the air from the river, laden with fragrance, swept through the room. + +The big house had been closed all winter. Austin had elected to spend the +season in Florida, and had taken all of his household with him, including +Anne. He had definitely retired from practice when Richard left him. "I +can't carry it on alone, and I don't want to break in anybody else," he +had said, and had turned the whole thing over to one of his colleagues. + +But April had brought him back to "Rose Acres" in time for the lilacs, +and Marie-Louise, uplifted by the fact that Geoffrey Fox was at that very +moment finishing his book in the balcony room, had decided that lilacs in +the silver bowl should express the ecstatic state of her mind. + +Anne, coming in at noon, asked, "What are you writing?" + +"_Vers libre._ This is called, 'To Dr. Dicky, Dinging.'" + +"What a subject, and you call it poetry?" + +"Why not? Isn't he coming to dinner for the first time since--he left New +York, and since he broke off with Eve, and since--a lot of other +things--and isn't it an important occasion, Mistress Anne?" + +Anne ignored the question. "What have you written?" + +"Only the outline. He comes--has caviar, and his eyes are on the queen. +He drinks his soup--and dreams. He has fish--and a vision of the future; +rhapsodies with the roast," she twinkled; "do you like it?" + +"As far as it goes." + +"It goes very far, and you know it. And you are blushing." + +"I am not." + +"You are. Look in the glass. Mistress Anne, aren't you glad that Eve is +married?" + +"Yes," honestly, "and that she is happy." + +"Pip was made for her. I loved him at Palm Beach, adoring her, didn't +you?" + +"Yes." Anne's mind went back to it. The marriage had followed immediately +upon the announcement of the broken engagement. People had pitied poor +young Dr. Brooks. But Anne had not. One does not pity a man who, having +been bound, is free. + +He had written to her a half dozen times during the winter, friendly +letters with news of Crossroads, and now that she was again at Rose +Acres, he was coming up. + +The spring day was bright. Rich with possibilities. "Marie-Louise, don't +stay in bed. Nobody has a right to be in the house on such a day as +this." + +But Marie-Louise wouldn't be moved. "I want to finish my verses." + +So Anne went out alone into the garden. It was ablaze with spring bloom, +the river was blue, and Pan piped on his reeds. Geoffrey waved to her +from his balcony. She waved back, then went for a walk alone. She +returned to have tea on the terrace. The day seemed interminable. The +hour for dinner astonishingly remote. + +At last, however, it was time to dress. The gown that she chose was of +pale rose, heavily weighted with silver. It hung straight and slim. Her +slippers were of silver, and she still wore her dark hair in the smooth +swept-up fashion which so well became her. + +Richard, seeing her approach down the length of the big drawing-room +where he stood with Austin, was conscious of a sense of shock. It was as +if he had expected that she would come to him in her old blue serge, or +in the little white gown with the many ruffles. That she came in such +elegance made her seem--alien. Like Eve. Oh, where was the Anne of +yesterday? + +Even when she spoke to him, when her hand was in his, when she walked +beside him on the way to the dining-room, he had this sense of +strangeness, as if the girl in rose-color was not the girl of whom he had +dreamed through all the days since he had known that he was not to marry +Eve. + +The winter had been a busy one for him, but satisfying in the sense that +he was at last in his rightful place. He had come into his own. He had no +more doubts that his work was wisely chosen. But his life was as yet +unfinished. To complete it, he had felt that he must round out his days +with the woman he loved. + +But now that he was here, he saw her fitted to her new surroundings as a +jewel fitted to a golden setting. And she liked lovely things, she liked +excitement, and the nearness of the great metropolis. There were men who +had wanted to marry her. Marie-Louise had told him that in a gay little +letter which she had sent from the South. + +As he reviewed it now disconsolately, he reminded himself that he had +never had any real reason to know that Anne cared for him. There had been +a flash of the eye, a few grave words, a break in her voice, his answered +letters; but a woman might dole out these small favors to a friend. + +Thus from caviar to soup, and from soup to roast, he contradicted +Marie-Louise's conception of his state of mind. Fear and doubt, +discouragement, a touch of despair, these carried him as far as the +salad. + +And then he heard Austin's voice speaking. "So you are really contented +at Crossroads, Brooks?" + +"Yes. I wish you would come down and let me show you some of the things I +am doing. A bit primitive, perhaps, in the light of your larger +experience. But none the less effective, and interesting." + +Austin shrugged. "I can't imagine anything but martyrdom in such a +life--for me. What do you do with yourself when you are not working--with +no theaters--opera--restaurants--excitements?" + +"We get along rather well without them--except for an occasional trip to +town." + +"But you need such things," dogmatically; "a man can't live out of the +world and not--degenerate." + +"He may live in it, and degenerate." Anne was speaking. Her cheeks were +as pink as her gown. She leaned a little forward. "You don't know all +that they have at Crossroads, and Dr. Brooks is too polite to tell you +how poor New York seems to those of us who--know." + +"Poor?" Richard had turned to her, his face illumined. + +"Isn't it? Think of the things you have that New York doesn't know of. A +singing river--this river doesn't sing, or if it does nobody would have +time to listen. And Crossroads has a bell on its school that calls to the +countryside. City children are not called by a bell--that's why they are +all alike--they ride on trolleys and watch the clocks. My little pupils +ran across the fields and down the road, and hurried when I rang for +them, and came in--rosy." + +She was rosy herself as she recounted it. + +"Oh, we have a lot of things--the bridge with the lights--and the road up +to the Ridge--and Diogenes. Dr. Austin, you should see Diogenes." + +She laughed, and they all laughed with her, but back of Richard's laugh +there was an emotion which swept him on and up to heights beyond anything +that he had ever hoped or dreamed. + +After that, he could hardly wait for the ending of the dinner, hardly +wait to get away from them all, and out under the stars. + +It was when they were at last alone on the steps above the fountain, with +the garden pouring all of its fragrance down upon them, that he said, "I +should not have dared ask it if you had not said what you said." + +"Oh, St. Michael, St. Michael," she whispered, "where was your courage?" + +"But in this gown, this lovely gown, you didn't look like anything that I +could--have. I am only a country doctor, Anne." + +"Only my beloved--Richard." + +They clung together, these two who had found Love in the garden. But they +had found more than Love. They had found the meaning for all that Richard +had done, and for all that Anne would do. And that which they had found +they would never give up! + + + + +"_The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay_" + + * * * * * + +_There Are Two Sides to Everything_-- + +--including the wrapper which covers every Grosset & Dunlap book. When +you feel in the mood for a good romance, refer to the carefully selected +list of modern fiction comprising most of the successes by prominent +writers of the day which is printed on the back of every Grosset & Dunlap +book wrapper. + +You will find more than five hundred titles to choose from--books for +every mood and every taste and every pocketbook. + +_Don't forget the other side, but in case the wrapper is lost, write to +the publishers for a complete catalog._ + + * * * * * + +_There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book for every mood and for every taste_ + + +RUBY M. AYRES' NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list. + + +THE MAN WITHOUT A HEART +Why was Barbara held captive in a deserted hermit's hut for days by a +"man without a heart" and in the end how was it that she held the winning +cards. + +THE ROMANCE OF A ROGUE +Twenty-four hours after his release from prison Bruce Lawn finds himself +playing a most surprising role in a drama of human relationships that +sweeps on to a wonderfully emotional climax. + +THE MATHERSON MARRIAGE +She married for money. With her own hands she had locked the door on +happiness and thrown away the key. But read the story which is very +interesting and well told. + +RICHARD CHATTERTON +A fascinating story in which love and jealousy play strange tricks with +women's souls. + +A BACHELOR HUSBAND +Can a woman love two men at the same time? + +In its solving of this particular variety of triangle "A Bachelor +Husband" will particularly interest, and strangely enough, without one +shock to the most conventional minded. + +THE SCAR +With fine comprehension and insight the author shows a terrific contrast +between the woman whose love was of the flesh and one whose love was of +the spirit. + +THE MARRIAGE OF BARRY WICKLOW +Here is a man and woman who, marrying for love, yet try to build their +wedded life upon a gospel of hate for each other and yet win back to a +greater love for each other in the end. + +THE UPHILL ROAD +The heroine of this story was a consort of thieves. The man was fine, +clean, fresh from the West. It is a story of strength and passion. + +WINDS OF THE WORLD +Jill, a poor little typist, marries the great Henry Sturgess and inherits +millions, but not happiness. Then at last--but we must leave that to Ruby +M. Ayres to tell you as only she can. + +THE SECOND HONEYMOON +In this story the author has produced a book which no one who has loved +or hopes to love can afford to miss. The story fairly leaps from climax +to climax. + +THE PHANTOM LOVER +Have you not often heard of someone being in love with love rather than +the person they believed the object of their affections? That was Esther! +But she passes through the crisis into a deep and profound love. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE WHITE FLAG. +How a young girl, singlehanded, fought against the power of the Morelands +who held the town of Ashwater in their grip. + +HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER. +This story is of California and tells of that charming girl, Linda +Strong, otherwise known as "Her Father's Daughter." + +A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND. +Kate Bates, the heroine of this story, is a true "Daughter of the Land," +and to read about her is truly inspiring. + +MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also aspires to +lead the entire rural community upward and onward. + +LADDIE. +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story +is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it +is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of +older members of the family. + +THE HARVESTER. +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and is well worth +knowing, but when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a +romance of the rarest idyllic quality. + +FRECKLES. +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms; and his love-story +with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment. + +A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +toward all things; her hope is never dimmed. + +AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. It is +one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. + +THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. +The love idyl of the Cardinal and his mate, told with rare delicacy and +humor. + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +THE NOVELS OF GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL (MRS. LUTZ) + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list. + + +BEST MAN, THE +CLOUDY JEWEL +DAWN OF THE MORNING +ENCHANTED BARN, THE +EXIT BETTY +FINDING OF JASPER HOLT, THE +GIRL FROM MONTANA, THE +LO, MICHAEL! +MAN OF THE DESERT, THE +MARCIA SCHUYLER +MIRANDA +MYSTERY OF MARY, THE +OBSESSION OF VICTORIA GRACEN, THE +PHOEBE DEANE +RED SIGNAL, THE +SEARCH, THE +TRYST, THE +VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, A +WITNESS, THE + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +CHARLES REX +The struggle against a hidden secret and the love of a strong man and a +courageous woman. + +THE TOP OF THE WORLD +Tells of the path which leads at last to the "top of the world," which it +is given to few seekers to find. + +THE LAMP IN THE DESERT +Tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of +tribulations to final happiness. + +GREATHEART +The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul. + +THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE +A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance." + +THE SWINDLER +The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith. + +THE TIDAL WAVE +Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false. + +THE SAFETY CURTAIN +A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other +long stories of equal interest. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +JUST DAVID +The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts +of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left. + +THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING +A compelling romance of love and marriage. + +OH, MONEY! MONEY! +Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his +relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John +Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment. + +SIX STAR RANCH +A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star +Ranch. + +DAWN +The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of +despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the service +of blind soldiers. + +ACROSS THE YEARS +Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of the +best writing Mrs. Porter has done. + +THE TANGLED THREADS +In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all her +other books. + +THE TIE THAT BINDS +Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for warm +and vivid character drawing. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER +A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her +lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments follow. + +THE UPAS TREE +A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his +wife. + +THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE +The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages +vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of +abiding love. + +THE ROSARY +The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else +in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life's +greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people +superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward. + +THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE +The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a husband +who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is ignorant +of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When he learns +her real identity a situation of singular power is developed. + +THE BROKEN HALO +The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in +childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older +than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted. + +THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR +The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries +wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her +uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are +reunited after experiences that soften and purify. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +SEVENTEEN. +Illustrated by Arthur William Brown. +No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young +people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the +time when the reader was Seventeen. + +PENROD. +Illustrated by Gordon Grant. +This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic +things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, +exquisite work. + +PENROD AND SAM. +Illustrated by Worth Brehm. +Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases +of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness +that have ever been written. + +THE TURMOIL. +Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. +Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his +father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a +fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success. + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. +Frontispiece. +A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country +editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love +interest. + +THE FLIRT. +Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. +The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, +drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to +lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, +leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister. + + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +SISTERS. +Frontispiece by Frank Street. +The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story +of sisterly devotion and sacrifice. + +POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. +Frontispiece by George Gibbs. +A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and +"The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures. + +JOSSELYN'S WIFE. +Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. +The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness +and love. + +MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. +Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers. +The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. + +THE HEART OF RACHAEL. +Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. +An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second +marriage. + +THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. +Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. +A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure and +lonely, for the happiness of life. + +SATURDAY'S CHILD. +Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. +Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer +determination to the better things for which her soul hungered? + +MOTHER. +Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. +A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every +girl's life, and some dreams which came true. + + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +EMERSON HOUGH'S NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list. + + +THE COVERED WAGON +NORTH OF 36 +THE WAY OF A MAN +THE STORY OF THE OUTLAW +THE SAGEBRUSHER +THE GIRL AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE +THE WAY OUT +THE MAN NEXT DOOR +THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE +THE BROKEN GATE +THE STORY OF THE COWBOY +THE WAY TO THE WEST +54-40 OR FIGHT +HEART'S DESIRE +THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE +THE PURCHASE PRICE + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +GEORGE W. OGDEN'S WESTERN NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE BARON OF DIAMOND TAIL +The Elk Mountain Cattle Co. had not paid a dividend in years; so Edgar +Barrett, fresh from the navy, was sent West to see what was wrong at the +ranch. The tale of this tenderfoot outwitting the buckaroos at their own +play will sweep you into the action of this salient western novel. + +THE BONDBOY +Joe Newbolt, bound out by force of family conditions to work for a number +of years, is accused of murder and circumstances are against him. His +mouth is sealed; he cannot, as a gentleman, utter the words that would +clear him. A dramatic, romantic tale of intense interest. + +CLAIM NUMBER ONE +Dr. Warren Slavens drew claim number one, which entitled him to first +choice of rich lands on an Indian reservation in Wyoming. It meant a +fortune; but before he established his ownership he had a hard battle +with crooks and politicians. + +THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE +When Jerry Lambert, "the Duke," attempts to safeguard the cattle ranch of +Vesta Philbrook from thieving neighbors, his work is appallingly +handicapped because of Grace Kerr, one of the chief agitators, and a +deadly enemy of Vesta's. A stirring tale of brave deeds, gun-play and a +love that shines above all. + +THE FLOCKMASTER OF POISON CREEK +John Mackenzie trod the trail from Jasper to the great sheep country +where fortunes were being made by the flock-masters. Shepherding was not +a peaceful pursuit in those bygone days. Adventure met him at every +turn--there is a girl of course--men fight their best fights for a +woman--it is an epic of the sheeplands. + +THE LAND OF LAST CHANCE +Jim Timberlake and Capt. David Scott waited with restless thousands on +the Oklahoma line for the signal to dash across the border. How the city +of Victory arose overnight on the plains, how people savagely defended +their claims against the "sooners;" how good men and bad played politics, +makes a strong story of growth and American initiative. + +TRAIL'S END +Ascalon was the end of the trail for thirsty cowboys who gave vent to +their pent-up feelings without restraint. Calvin Morgan was not concerned +with its wickedness until Seth Craddock's malevolence directed itself +against him. He did not emerge from the maelstrom until he had +obliterated every vestige of lawlessness, and assured himself of the +safety of a certain dark-eyed girl. + + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +PETER B. KYNE'S NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR +When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish blood in his +veins--there's a tale that Kyne can tell! And "the girl" is also very +much in evidence. + +KINDRED OF THE DUST +Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lumber king, falls in love +with "Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a charming girl who has been ostracized +by her townsfolk. + +THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS +The fight of the Cardigans, father and son, to hold the Valley of the +Giants against treachery. The reader finishes with a sense of having +lived with big men and women in a big country. + +CAPPY RICKS +The story of old Cappy Ricks and of Matt Peasley, the boy he tried to +break because he knew the acid test was good for his soul. + +WEBSTER: MAN'S MAN +In a little Jim Crow Republic in Central America, a man and a woman, +hailing from the "States," met up with a revolution and for a while +adventures and excitement came so thick and fast that their love affair +had to wait for a lull in the game. + +CAPTAIN SCRAGGS +This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscallion sea-faring +men--a Captain Scraggs, owner of the green vegetable freighter Maggie, +Gibney the mate and McGuffney the engineer. + +THE LONG CHANCE +A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked +desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst +man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +JACKSON GREGORY'S NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list. + + +DAUGHTER OF THE SUN +A tale of Aztec treasure--of American adventurers, who seek it--of +Zoraida, who hides it. + +TIMBER-WOLF +This is a story of action and of the wide open, dominated always by the +heroic figure of Timber-Wolf. + +THE EVERLASTING WHISPER +The story of a strong man's struggle against savage nature and humanity, +and of a beautiful girl's regeneration from a spoiled child of wealth +into a courageous strong-willed woman. + +DESERT VALLEY +A college professor sets out with his daughter to find gold. They meet a +rancher who loses his heart, and becomes involved in a feud. + +MAN TO MAN +How Steve won his game and the girl he loved, is a story filled with +breathless situations. + +THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN +Dr. Virginia Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a night journey +into the strongholds of a lawless band. + +JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH +Judith Sanford part owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is being robbed +by her foreman. With the help of Bud Lee, she checkmates Trevor's scheme. + +THE SHORT CUT +Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a quarrel. Financial +complications, a horse-race and beautiful Wanda, make up a thrilling +romance. + +THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER +A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice's Ranch much to her +chagrin. There is "another man" who complicates matters. + +SIX FEET FOUR +Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 and suspicion fastens upon Buck +Thornton, but she soon realizes he is not guilty. + +WOLF BREED +No Luck Drennan, a woman hater and sharp of tongue, finds a match in +Ygerne whose clever fencing wins the admiration and love of the "Lone +Wolf." + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +ZANE GREY'S NOVELS + + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +TO THE LAST MAN +THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER +THE MAN OF THE FOREST +THE DESERT OF WHEAT +THE U. P. TRAIL +WILDFIRE +THE BORDER LEGION +THE RAINBOW TRAIL +THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT +RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE +THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS +THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN +THE LONE STAR RANGER +DESERT GOLD +BETTY ZANE + + * * * * * + +LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS + +The life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen Cody Wetmore, with +Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey. + + +ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS +KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE +THE YOUNG LION HUNTER +THE YOUNG FORESTER +THE YOUNG PITCHER +THE SHORT STOP +THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + +JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S STORIES OF ADVENTURE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + + +THE COUNTRY BEYOND +THE FLAMING FOREST +THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN +THE RIVER'S END +THE GOLDEN SNARE +NOMADS OF THE NORTH +KAZAN +BAREE, SON OF KAZAN +THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM +THE DANGER TRAIL +THE HUNTED WOMAN +THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH +THE GRIZZLY KING +ISOBEL +THE WOLF HUNTERS +THE GOLD HUNTERS +THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE +BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY + + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Anne, by Temple Bailey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS ANNE *** + +***** This file should be named 23246.txt or 23246.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/4/23246/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net and the booksmiths +at http://www.eBookForge.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |